Abstract
Abstract. The transformations of economic structures as well as of transportation and communication means have altered neighborhood-based interaction in the last decades. Therefore most urban studies argue that local neighborhoods have lost their function as places of sociability and solidarity. But if one looks at the more semipublic local contact sites and therein on a more superficial and fluid interactional level, interactions and ties among local residents do not seem to decrease in the same way as close and intimate ties have exceeded the neighborhood boundaries. This article thus examines the neighborhood-based interactions in one example of an important neighborhood space – a café – that demands different kinds of commitments. Practice theories thereby provide a particularly advantageous set of approaches to examine these rather spontaneous and loose micro-interactions. This is why this article ethnographically analyzes a café, as one of the important social neighborhood spaces. The article elaborates on Theodore Schatzki's (2010) and Elizabeth Shove's (2012) idea of practices as linked entities of material, competence, and meanings, coupled with Erving Goffman's conceptualization of public behavior (1959, 1963) regarding why local businesses represent locational material neighborhood settings for local micro-interactions (as social practices). Furthermore, the article addresses how these interactional practices lead to a sense of belonging and community for their carriers.
Highlights
Practice theories thereby provide a advantageous set of approaches to examine these rather spontaneous and loose micro-interactions
If one looks at the more semipublic local contact sites and therein on a more “superficial” and fluid interactional level, interactions and ties among local residents do not seem to decrease in the same way as close and intimate ties have exceeded the neighborhood boundaries
From an urban studies perspective it is often argued that local neighborhoods as places of sociability and solidarity have become less important for their residents
Summary
The transformation of the labor market as well as transportation and communication structures have altered neighborhood-based interaction over the last decades: professional and leisure activities most often take place outside of places of residence, wherewith most interaction between familiar and strange people is no longer confined to the common neighborhood. From an urban studies perspective it is often argued that local neighborhoods as places of sociability and solidarity have become less important for their residents The third-place concept is mainly used in order to generate first assumptions about the kind of places, their spatial outlay and design, as well as the ethnographic observation of the social practices therein, all of which might jointly generate higher levels of sociability among unknown or “categorically known” (Bahrdt, 1969; Lofland, 1989) people on a neighborhood level In his search for local contact sites, Oldenburg finds that among all local businesses, those establishments that are operated by people who seem to be familiar with almost everyone in the neighborhood host an “atmosphere” (Kazig, 2012) that facilitates social interaction and inclusion. Schatzki (2003) elaborates on the spatial context a bit more than Reckwitz and Shove, making his deliberations helpful for urban studies research Most prominent are his more recent developments of a “site ontology” that include more explicitly the time–space setting of practices, addressing material and immaterial entities and their relation to each other, which constitute the practices’ respective meanings, orders, and arrangements (Everts et al, 2011:324).. This article works with a praxeological approach on a more empirical level – for the ethnographic field work in one selected business, a café and bakery, in an ethnically and socially diverse neighborhood in Berlin
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