Miesto studijos: tyrimo taktikos ir pilietinis aktyvumas

Abstract

While the number of bottom-up urban initiatives, which aim to reveal and develop the potential of the public spaces and to ensure the participation of the citizens in decision making processes, is growing, a methodological question of the effective research tools, sensitive for dynamically changing urban relations and micro-contexts, arises. The interdisciplinary field of Urban Studies is in search for the language of description of everyday urban processes, and literature, street photography, movies, soundscape cartography, creative interventions in public spaces provide their own languages of description. The arts-based research becomes one of the tactics of gaining new empirical data by applying art methods to study the urban processes. The understanding of urban space as a practiced place (Certeau) brings us to the idea, that spatial thinking presupposes the active participation of the researcher in everyday urban processes and the revision of the traditional methods of research. This issue of “Co-activity” journal, which is dedicated to the Urban Studies, focuses on the issues of citizens participation in interpreting, adopting and rearranging urban contexts. It brought together an interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, architects, sociologists, curators, specialists in organisational studies and creative communication. The first section is devoted to the questions of discourses of spatial power and citizens participation in decision-making processes. The next section is devoted to the aural and visual cultures in the cities, while the last one focuses on the development of local communities and the neighbourhoods. We are pleased to announce, that this issue starts a series of special Co-activity issues, devoted to Urban Studies.