The Mobile Woman: Getting Around during the 1630 Plague in Bologna

Legal proclamations show that during the 1630 plague outbreak in Bologna, Italy, women were required to remain quarantined in their homes for the duration of the epidemic while men remained mobile. However, primary texts and visual sources demonstrate that despite these legal restrictions, women remained active players in the fight against the plague by circumventing regulations. Significantly, women played a key role in sustaining the Bolognese economy, in particular by travelling to work in the silk industry. Moreover, while male doctors enjoyed special dispensations to avoid visiting the sick directly, female nurses left their homes to care for the daily needs of patients in the lazzaretto, the plague hospital. Artworks and primary texts depict a mobile woman. They show women from the poorest of backgrounds who were compelled to move through the city’s public spaces, remaining active in the street life of the plagued city. For instance, along with unlicensed women healers and nuns, prostitutes commonly volunteered for service in the plague hospitals. This required a brief shift in the social status of these women as they moved from their brothels to the pestilent walls of the lazzaretto. This paper will address the contribution that these resilient women made to maintaining the family economy and the significant positions women held in administering care, which have been overlooked in the scholarship. It will argue that by performing these essential activities, Bolognese women enjoyed an increase in physical but also social mobility, albeit short-lived.

The Digital Urban Experience of a Lost City Using Mixed Methods to Depict the Historical Street Life of Edo/Tokyo

This paper digitally reconstructs street life in Edo (present-day Tokyo), the largest lost city of the pre-modern world. The ephemeral character of the Edo makes the historic urban experience extremely difficult to capture. We argue that the hypothetical digital reconstructions should incorporate evidence on human agency and spatial properties for a holistic simulation of historic street life. We develop a 3D hypothetical reconstruction based on multi-layered historical evidence to unlock the lost character of the Edo streets. It reveals the streets of Edo, including the rhythms of everyday life and the impact of the material culture.

Street life and pedestrian activities in smart cities: opportunities and challenges for computational urban science

Ongoing efforts among cities to reinvigorate streets have encouraged innovations in using smart data to understand pedestrian activities. Empowered by advanced algorithms and computation power, data from smartphone applications, GPS devices, video cameras, and other forms of sensors can help better understand and promote street life and pedestrian activities. Through adopting a pedestrian-oriented and place-based approach, this paper reviews the major environmental components, pedestrian behavior, and sources of smart data in advancing this field of computational urban science. Responding to the identified research gap, a case study that hybridizes different smart data to understand pedestrian jaywalking as a reflection of urban spaces that need further improvement is presented. Finally, some major research challenges and directions are also highlighted.

A life lived on the corner

<p>This thesis explores the everyday life of Brother, a well-known street dweller and local identity, who lives everyday life on a busy street corner in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brother’s way of doing ‘being ordinary’ attracts strong public curiosity, media interest, and monitoring by informal and formal social control mechanisms, including medical intervention. This research provides a comprehensive account of what can happen to those at the margins who dare, or are impelled, to do things differently. My research is inspired by the longstanding tradition of street corner sociology, and grounded within the sociology of everyday life orientation. My street ethnography involved participant observation over a three-and-a-half year period. In that time, I observed Brother and other street people, capturing the depth and nuanced complexities of a life lived in the open. Central to this thesis is an examination of the ways in which wider social structures and institutions bear upon the local micro-setting, in particular how classification processes act to ‘make, remake, and unmake’ people. Three core concepts of space, body, and social interaction are explored to examine, through the situatedness of everyday talk and social action, how social meanings are locally produced and understood. I argue that by developing spatial, bodily, and interactional methods, Brother has established organisational and social capacities, and lines of conduct, that are firmly founded in autonomous actions. Through his rejection of ascribed ‘homeless’ membership and his clear embracement of a street lifestyle, Brother’s street life is shown to subvert and trouble normative understandings, while engendering and maintaining a lived sense of home in the city he calls his whare [house]. My research contributes an Aotearoa New Zealand perspective to the international sociological street corner landscape, and provides a Wellington perspective to the emerging domestic literature on street life. More broadly, my study aims to stimulate critical sociological reflection regarding different modes of being and belonging in the world and how we, as a society, respond to this.</p>

A life lived on the corner

<p>This thesis explores the everyday life of Brother, a well-known street dweller and local identity, who lives everyday life on a busy street corner in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. Brother’s way of doing ‘being ordinary’ attracts strong public curiosity, media interest, and monitoring by informal and formal social control mechanisms, including medical intervention. This research provides a comprehensive account of what can happen to those at the margins who dare, or are impelled, to do things differently. My research is inspired by the longstanding tradition of street corner sociology, and grounded within the sociology of everyday life orientation. My street ethnography involved participant observation over a three-and-a-half year period. In that time, I observed Brother and other street people, capturing the depth and nuanced complexities of a life lived in the open. Central to this thesis is an examination of the ways in which wider social structures and institutions bear upon the local micro-setting, in particular how classification processes act to ‘make, remake, and unmake’ people. Three core concepts of space, body, and social interaction are explored to examine, through the situatedness of everyday talk and social action, how social meanings are locally produced and understood. I argue that by developing spatial, bodily, and interactional methods, Brother has established organisational and social capacities, and lines of conduct, that are firmly founded in autonomous actions. Through his rejection of ascribed ‘homeless’ membership and his clear embracement of a street lifestyle, Brother’s street life is shown to subvert and trouble normative understandings, while engendering and maintaining a lived sense of home in the city he calls his whare [house]. My research contributes an Aotearoa New Zealand perspective to the international sociological street corner landscape, and provides a Wellington perspective to the emerging domestic literature on street life. More broadly, my study aims to stimulate critical sociological reflection regarding different modes of being and belonging in the world and how we, as a society, respond to this.</p>

Voices from the Street: What Homeless Youth Think We Need to Know

While social scientists have attempted to become informed about the needs and realities of marginalized youth, rarely do they include their voices in these discussions. Yet, research suggests that listening to young people results in the development of more successful programming. The authors examined 30 years of youth writing to understand what program participants think they need. Focusing on youth experiencing homelessness narratives regarding “leaving the street,” the article identifies three themes to guide government officials and program staff in program improvement: (1) the process of becoming ready to leave street life, (2) the factors that cause setbacks to occur, and (3) the recognition of young people’s need for independence and concerns that impact program effectiveness. Finally, using their words, we present suggestions for policy changes perceived to be most beneficial.