Skatījums uz apkaimju robežām: Āgenskalna piemērs

Abstract

In this article, attention is focused on how the city’s residents see the boundaries of their residential area, focusing on the Pārdaugava part of the city of Riga and, more specifically, on the Āgenskalns area. At the beginning of the article, it is shown how neighbourhood boundaries are marked in the city planning, but further, using the interviews conducted within the framework of the project “Experience in the city: narratives, memories and heritage of the place” supported by the Latvian Science Council, the attention will be focused directly on the narrative of the residents living in Āgenskalns about the boundaries of this neighbourhood. Several aspects are revealed in people’s stories that determine how the neighbourhood’s boundaries are perceived – important places and objects, and the location of the narrator’s residence in relation to the central objects, as well as the desire to distinguish one’s own neighbourhood from others. At the end of the article, it is concluded that each individual’s point of view on where are the boundaries of neighbourhood, in this case, the borders of Āgenskalns, may be different, but there are also some parts of the neighbourhood whose importance appears in all stories. It was also concluded that the stories of the residents of Āgenskalns show a desire to separate Riga into the right and left banks of the river Daugava emphasising their differences, however, only in some narratives people identify very clearly with the specific neighbourhood.