Intermediary Space Research Articles

Through Immigrant Lens: A Reflection on Pierre Boudier’s Concept of Habitus Clivé through Photography

This article explores the creative practice of immigrant photography, specifically examining the artistic work of immigrants who have chosen Australia as their place of settlement. Analysing their photographic works, the article reflects on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus clivé, which develops the notion of a fractured or divided self. This division arises when individuals confront conflicting social contexts, resulting in internal tension or dissonance within their sense of identity. In the context of migration, habitus clivé can manifest in various ways, such as tensions or conflicts between cultural traditions and new cultural contexts. Furthermore, migration can involve adaptation and adjustment in which individuals may selectively incorporate elements of the new culture into their existing habitus while maintaining aspects of cultural identity associated withtheir country of origin. These processes of negotiation and hybridisation can further contribute to the development of habitus clivé. For Bourdieu, these internal contradictions within one’s social identity are not static but evolve through ongoing social interactions. By closely examining immigrant photographers, the article highlights the visual narratives that emerge, illustrating how photography can transcend physical boundaries, creating an intermediary space between dislocation and settlement. This space becomes a potent mechanism for fostering a sense of belonging that extends beyond geographic boundaries. Interestingly, this sense is not secured to a specific geographic location but, rather, encompasses broader, internalised, notion of place. These changes align with the concept of habitus clivé as individuals navigate the complexities of migration and settlement. As a medium, photography enables individuals to inhabit this interim space of familiarity, enabling embodiment and facilitating connection with a sense of place that transcends traditional notions of belonging. The article discusses how photography can empower immigrant narratives, supporting a sense of belonging while capturing the diverse experiences of individuals navigating the challenges of immigration and settlement.

Community governance during the Shanghai COVID-19 lockdown I: the roles and actions of residents’ committees

ABSTRACT Residents’ committees (RCs) are crucial in China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy. They were at the frontline of combating the pandemic yet received wide criticism, drawing controversies to their roles and actions as grassroots organizations or extensions of state control. To further understand RCs in China’s community governance, this research conceptualizes RCs as street-level bureaucrats (SLBs), capable of exercising discretion and policy entrepreneurship, and argues that RCs are the “intermediary space” between the state and society. Questionnaire surveys and structured interviews were used to examine RCs’ roles and their discretion and policy entrepreneurship during the city-wide lockdown in Shanghai, China, in the Spring of 2022. Results suggest that RC staff, volunteers, and residents tend to perceive RCs’ roles differently. Although RC staff might have considered themselves government representatives, they also reported the need to address residents’ needs when implementing policies. At the same time, they actively used discretion, mobilized volunteers, established temporary systems, and helped with residents’ spontaneous group actions, all without directly violating epidemic policies. These insights suggest new ways to understand the nuances of China’s community governance.

Nothing Changed, Nothing Gained? Emotional Responses towards European Integration in the Memoirs of Polish Farmers

Accession to the European Union (EU) aroused diverse emotions in public debate among citizens, but the everyday experience of being an EU member is much more difficult to narrate than by relating to two contrasting views for and against European integration. The situation becomes more complicated if we analyse the emotional responses of Polish farmers, for whom joining the EU has been one more change in the last two centuries: the fall of feudalism, the agricultural reform after the Second World War, and the post-1989 political transformation. We aim to analyse personal narratives while observing how feelings about the EU have become embedded in everyday life experience narratives and how they are expressed and managed in a socio-cultural context. The presence of contradictory views was expected, as was the appearance of a combination of emotions and indifference, and, finally, the use of emotions as resistance. Based on the analysis of 55 memoirs from 1918 to 2018, we have determined the possible types of the integration experience; firstly, Poland’s accession to the EU meant change and was associated mainly with positive emotions, secondly, with negative emotions, thirdly, it meant change, and was associated with ambiguous emotions; and lastly, it did not mean a change. We noted not only the contrasting positions e.g. hope and fear but also the mixture of emotions and various paths of resistance that included demonstrating the inadequacy of the master narrative to personal experience or neutralising it but also filling the intermediary space between two opposite views and finding a way out from this opposition to the higher level of division and thus narrating non-change. It is the sense of personal dignity and permanence that negates the perception of accession as a change.

Virtual and Factual Space Mutualism in Society 5.0: Spatial Architecture Studies

In the era of Society 5.0, research on architecture has considered the combination of factual and virtual space as the primary focus. The aim is to find principles of spatial design that can accommodate productive communities’ social and economic development. However, the relationship between the combination of virtual space and factual space in the context of designing a dimensioned space based on activity is a question that needs to be reviewed. In this study, the tool used to answer the question is the concept of needs put forward by Abraham Maslow, which will be collaborated with the idea of spatial orientation through architectural phenomena proposed by David Seamon; the research method used is a qualitative method to reveal the needs of productive society. An exploratory approach is used in collecting data by observing productive community activities from factual spaces outside the workspace and residence. In addition, research also dives into virtual space or the transition from a single activity to a dual activity through observation and analysis. The results showed the need for mutualism as an intermediary space for a productive society between factual and virtual spaces. Thus, this study highlights the importance of understanding the relationship between factual and virtual space in designing spaces that can accommodate the needs of productive societies in the era of Society 5.0. The mutualism space that becomes an intermediary space can help create an environment supporting productive communities’ social and economic development.

A Library-Like Volume

The present review aims to present a volume published is 2022, the completion of a project launched nearly three decades earlier: The Dictionary of the 20th Century Central-European Novel (Iasi, Polirom Publishing, 755p.), compiled from 255 novel reading notes, coordinated by Adriana Bebeti, who is also the author of the extensive introductory study, which could have formed a book in itself. The members of the ‘Third Europe’ foundation (name which refers to an intermediary space between the East and the West, based on intersections and the recognition of constancies), literary researchers in Timisoara, as well as prominent figures of the national and international academic world participated in creating the dictionary. Central Europe appears as a cultural space with a chequered history, an unsettled world ruled by instability and devoid of security, but enriched by multiculturalism and multilingualism. The Dictionary of the 20th Century Central-European Novel may be regarded as a natural sequel to the anthology volumes in the ‘Third Europe’ series, coordinated bv Adriana Babeți and Cornel Ungureanu: Central Europe. Neuroses, Dilemmas, Utopias (1997) and Central Europe. Memory, Paradise, Apocalypse (1998). By its scientific rigour and compelling style, the dictionary proves to be not only a useful working tool for academics, researchers and students, but also a possible handbook for any student of literature.

How scientists become experts-or don't: Social organization of research and engagement in scientific advice in a toxicology laboratory.

Certain fields of research are deeply shaped by their proximity with policy-makers and administrations. The so-called 'regulatory sciences' and their corresponding expert communities emerge from this intermediary space between science and policy. Social studies of expertise and scientific experts show, however, that modes of engagement with policy-making vary greatly from one scientist to another. Two scientists that are part of the same research group or laboratory may engage the policy realm differently. How then does the social organization of research influence scientists' participation in scientific advice and the production of regulatory sciences? The paper looks at toxicology, a field in which knowledge production is centrally motivated by risk assessment, but one that has also seen the emergence of different knowledge-making motives, including advancement of fundamental knowledge and frontier research. A toxicology laboratory may thus harbor a diversity of moral economies of scientific advice. The paper argues that scientists' engagements with policy, through scientific advice and regulatory risk assessment, create organizational tensions and force changes to the standard, team-based social organization of research work.

Photographing to advance, the use of photography in psychotherapy

The practice of the clinical psychologist in child psychiatry can be a perilous task. His balance, as precarious as it may be, lies in listening to and observing the patient, but also in the use of precious tools of which therapeutic mediations are a part. They allow to experiment a sensory-motor anchorage and bring a multidimensional vision necessary to the comprehension of the subject and his suffering. By creating an intermediary space between the I and the You, the outside and the inside, they determine a place where the psychotherapeutic work can take place.

Optimization of underground open intermediary space comfort in TOD complexes: A case study of Chongqing, China.

Rapid urbanization drives social development, but at the same time brings sustainable development Rapid urbanization drives social development, but at the same time brings sustainable development advantages of expanding underground space and relieving urban traffic congestion. High quality TOD complexes with natural elements in the intermediary space have been considered as one of the important means to address sustainable urban development. Nevertheless, intermediary spaces in TOD complexes face various challenges, such as significant contradictory factors in their physical environment spaces. This study classifies the underground open intermediary space into four types according to the characteristics of TOD complexes. And for these four types'Cthe physical environment-generated by various influencing factors of planar geometric, three-dimensional geometric, and detailed construction elements-is simulated using a numerical simulation method based on a static Taguchi experiment. The results demonstrate that space shape is a primary influencing factor for luminous and thermal environments; the window-atrium ratio (W/A ratio) and hole-atrium ratio (H/A ratio) comprise contradictory factors between the luminous and thermal environments of these spaces; profile inclination angle and sunken plaza height are primary impact factors for the acoustic environment; and skylight type has minimal influence on the physical environment. On average, their luminous and acoustic environment comfort can be improved by 200%; whereas, their thermal environment comfort can be improved by 21% and the potential for optimizing it in their shallow space (underground space depth ≤ 10 m) is relatively low. Subsequently, the necessity of comfort optimization as the passive optimization design of underground open intermediary spaces' physical environment in TOD complexes in the future is discussed. Finally, the feasible path and prospect of how to improve the livability and comfort of the spatial physical environment of TOD complexes are discussed and prospected.

The Actator Found as First Micronaut, from "Auto de la Pasión" to Cervantine Metatheater

This essay examines the “actator,” who is found in early modern Spanish theatre to be the original example of the micronaut. First, the definition of the actator will be explored, in both directions, from spectator to actator and from actor to actator, with additional information about the channel of communication between actor and spectator, and the intermediary space thereby formed, with attention paid to the glass, or fourth, wall. Second, a detailed analysis of the multiple examples of the actator in Alonso del Campo’s medieval play Auto de la Pasión will be given, studying both actors and spectators through the examination of the deployment of the dramatic devices, such as the monologue, in all of its sub-categories and functions. Research findings by Carmen Torroja Menéndez, María Rivas Palá, Hans-Jürgen Diller, and Cynthia Bourgeault will be referenced. Then, a cursory examination of the renaissance-baroque metatheatre of Miguel de Cervantes, specifically in the entremés «El retablo de las maravillas» and the comedia Pedro de Urdemalas, will offer additional examples of the early actator, including the most ambitious of all, Pedro de Urdemalas himself. Here, the investigative work by Thomas Austin O’Connor and Jean Canavaggio will be included. Finally, all of this is expected to substantiate and prove that the first micronaut is actually the actator, as found in early modern theatre of Spain.

Citizenship Practices of Chinese Students on an Australian Campus: a Case Study

This paper explores the citizenship practices of a group of Chinese international students through their engagement with a language club at a university located in Melbourne, Australia. By considering the practices associated with their mutual engagement in this club, the paper scrutinises how these students creatively carve out space to practise citizenships in ways that are meaningful in their lives. The results show that the club was constructed by its members as an intermediary space for Chinese international students to maintain connection with their own ethnic community and to engage with students from different language and cultural backgrounds. Through their engagement with this club, they practise a form of citizenship which is a hybrid of neoliberal citizenship, Chinese citizenship, and global citizenship. These citizenship practices are illustrative of the efforts made by international students to create conditions for citizenship practice, and they show the students’ capacity to mobilise cultural capital for practising meaningful citizenship and experiencing belonging in the host society. These citizenship practices have implications for higher education institutions and host societies to construct favourable conditions for international students’ citizenship practices and belonging.

Transitions in planning: transformative policy visions of the circular economy and blue bioeconomy meet planning practice

ABSTRACT Ongoing sustainability challenges create pressure on planning practices and institutional arrangements. Transformative policy visions, such as the circular economy and bioeconomy, create promises for designing and planning sustainable pathways in society. Moreover, research agendas on sustainability transitions, such as transition management, are developing toolkits and attempting to shift planning practice by applying evidence-based policy-making processes. In this paper, we ask what happens when sustainability visions are exposed to planning practices, and vice versa, by developing an analytical framework to discuss processes of territorialization and mobilization. We draw lessons from two contextually differing case studies in Finland; on the evaluation of spatial planning processes for the circular economy and a strategic planning intervention for the blue bioeconomy. The disparate cases show that the planning process act as a bidirectional intermediary space, refining both the general transition visions and established planning practices.

패턴랭귀지를 적용한 콜라텍 공간의 특성 분석

The purpose of this study is to analyze and visualize thespatial characteristics of Collatechs, social leisure space for the elderly. For this, the network of pattern language was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The study was conducted through a series of literature reviews, interviews, and network analysis using Ghepi. First, the Collatech cases were decomposed and reconstructed into small units called patterns. Patterns selected from the 253 original patterns suggested by Alexander were used or transformed, and new patterns were added. Next, a pattern language network diagram was constructed. Finally, the spatial characteristics of the Collatechs were analyzed by a thorough examination of the networks. The results of the network analysis are as follows. According to the betweenness centrality analysis of 47 patterns (13 original patterns, 14 transformed patterns, and 20 added patterns), ‘Stage(255)’, ‘Paths And Goals(120)’, ‘Sequence Of Sitting Spaces(142)’, ‘Space Arrangement Considering Privacy(127)’ showed high betweenness centrality values meaning the main patterns within the network of pattern language. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of the network analysis, we are able to describe the spatial and functional characteristics of Collatechs from four perspectives: stage, the discussion on the characteristics of the Collatech space is as follows. The stage of Collatech (i) is not only a “dance space”, but also serves as a space for rest by seats arranged along the wall of the stage (ii) serves as intermediary space by being connected to the waiting room or store directly. (iii) makes the elderly on the stage feel like they are in a short corridor through such furniture and space arrangement.

Social Regulation and the Digital Public Space in Cameroon

The concept of public space, which had its letter of nobility with Habermas, is at the center of democratic organization. It defines an intermediary space between civil society and the State. However, we cannot speak about such a space today without taking into account the complexity of the digital reality that characterizes it. The development of digital technology has redefined the physical borders between States as well as the relationship between citizenship and territory. The use of digital media has also transformed the modalities of collective action by making new forms of intersubjectivity possible, and more spontaneous and direct forms of participation have also emerged. Through the digital effect, the transformation of public space into digital public space reflects big problems of impoverishment of living together and collective action in Cameroon. This paper goes through the different modes of regulation, not without defining its role as a framework that would make public space a place based on communicative action and ethics. It also attempts to organize new forms of digital sociability and to rebuild living together. A moral education focused on redefining the bases of the social contract extended to all virtual spheres is presented as a way of reintegrating the fundamental principles of living.

Поетизація буденного у творчості Вільгельма Ґенацино

Increased interest in everyday life and routine explains a new and relevant perception of the creative agenda of contemporary German writer Wilhelm Genazino (1943-2018), known as “poetizing everyday life”. The article, thus, aims to offer a comprehensive view into the poetics of the German novelist to identify ways in which everyday life is poetized, which is an example of linguistic mastery, narrative skill, and philosophical generalization. A close reading method is used to analyze specific scenes from the novels (An Umbrella for One Day, Happiness in Unhappy Times, The Foolishness of Love, If We Were Animals), in which the characters actively practice the “extended gaze”, theoretically validated in W. Genazino’s essay, to reveal a system of special ties important to their inner world behind the routine situations and worn clothes. The writer believes that in such a way, characters experience an epiphany, which provokes further musing about art and the mystery of everyday life. In this connection, it is established that Genazino’s characters manage to avoid the negative influences of society by distancing from it via self-invented aesthetic processes. They are constantly searching for individual vision. It is also noted that the writer focuses on prolonged disappearance scenes, works with time accumulated in objects, and projects distancing from one’s own self to clothes. The extended gaze which the protagonists use to watch their own portrayals helps them overcome identity crisis and generate art, which promises salvation, through simple observance. It is concluded that W. Genazino talks about the aesthetic link between the subject and object perceived as individual “cultural significance”. It enables the protagonists to discard the routine and enter a space outside the limits they have themselves created. Everyday objects and familiar situations have the capacity to stimulate memories and boost creative perception. Their fleeting nature provides for compensatory narration, which means dropping the inessential and petty and is, consequently, perceived as a productive narration. Everyday reality emerges as something that may be perceived as visible existence, which upon some consideration may reveal unique dimensions and gain particular significance based on intermediary space between what is perceived by the eye and the invisible, actualized by the inner vision. Such reflexive vision transcends the limits of things, transforming them and constituting new reality. Such is the underlying principle that the writer used to recreate everyday life in his works.

Living Through the In-Between: T. S Eliot’s Philosophy of Human Existence

This research paper aims to highlight the philosophical perspective of T. S. Eliot on the existence of modern human beings on earth. The recurring meaninglessness and alienation expressed in the poems “The Waste Land” and “The Hollow Man” are discussed based on the context in which the poet correlateswith the reality experienced by the people. The encroachment of modernity of the twentieth-century civilization points to the loss of individual traditions, rootlessness and disorientation. The perpetual enquiries on the binaries are negated through the introduction of the intermediary space of existence. Certain vocabulary used in the poems throws light onto the existence of the poetic subjects in their in-between states referring to the presence of neither/nor situations. The fundamental nature of the reality and existence characterised by Eliot is revealed through the analysis of the poems as an experience of identity crisis amidst the politico-social situations leading to uncertain, anxious and ambiguous states of living. The paper concludes with the discovery of liminality and liminal existence of the poetic subjects that represent the existence of human beings regardless of time and place.

Occupying Merzbau – the critic, her words and the work

In the early twentieth century, German artist Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948) constructed the work Merzbau [Merz building] inside his studio in the family residence in Hanover, Germany. The interior developed from a series of Merzsäulen [Merz columns] which eventually grew into a continuous spatial structure along with three of the studio’s four walls. The central floor space was left empty while some elements stretched across the ceiling above. Only three photographs, taken in 1933 by a local photographer, have survived as evidence of the work which was destroyed by allied bombing during World War II. Schwitters had, by then, fled Germany and travelled to Norway where he would start the construction of a new Merz building. The following examines the Hanover Merzbau as a work of art embedded in the fabric of a conventional residential house. It explores how, employing the intermediary space of the artist’s studio, the work unfolded an inhabitable wall space built from scrap material collected from the streets of Hanover. If Schwitters seems to have grounded himself between the interior and exterior of his house through the intricate weaving of a liminal living space, the following addresses this space between the ordinary/familiar and the extraordinary/strange that Merzbau negotiated. It does so for the purpose of framing the work’s attempt at transcending its everyday domestic setting. Radical writing strategies developed by French novelist George Perec (1936-1982) are employed for experimentation with the way that insight into Merzbau is produced. This approach involves detailed descriptions of places and scenes that complicate the extra/ordinary nature of these in pursuit of a space beyond named the ‘infra-ordinary.’ Three positions between the artwork Merzbau, the conventional dwelling house inside which it was built, and the critic evaluating the work, are developed for the purpose of foregrounding the act of writing as a critical and creative spatial practice.

Realness With a Twist1: Gender Creativity in the LGBTQ Ballroom

ABSTRACT Based on semistructured interviews with 20 transgender people of color who are active in the New York City LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning) ballroom-house culture, this qualitative study explores the subjective need for recognition of transgender realness against the demonstrable threat of exposure, rejection, and gendered violence. Applying a Winnicottian lens, the ballroom is understood as an intermediary space where gender creativity is celebrated and the subjective meaning of realness is unchallenged between the internal psyche and external, transphobic culture. Using D. W. Winnicott’s concept of the “right not to communicate for fear of being infinitely exploited,” this article considers the “joy in hiding and the disaster in not being found” for people of trans experience who are sought out and exposed, yet not truly recognized or protected. In clinical work, a focus on detecting transgender realness shows up as impingements—deflected by the patient’s compliant object-relating—on what Winnicott calls the “personal core,” thwarting genuine communication, psychic growth, and “all the sense of real.” Lessons from the ballroom-house community illuminate the hard-earned quest for recognition against the demand to unmark transgender realness for trans and gender-diverse (TGD) people of color who navigate explicit and micro violations, including the historical violence of erasure.

Mapping the Influence: A Nexus Analysis Approach to Addressing Food Access

ABSTRACT One innovative approach toward addressing community-level food access is nexus analysis. This framework suggests that social actions do not happen outside of context, but rather are embedded within unique political, cultural and economic histories. In this paper, I conduct a case study analysis of the South Memphis Farmers Market (SMFM), a community-based, resident-led farmers market located in South Memphis, TN. Drawing on an understanding that neighborhood-level institutions such as farmers markets serve as an intermediary space to examine the nexus of macro-level (e.g., how resources are drawn within a community) and micro-level processes (e.g., how residents determine what food to buy and who to buy it from), this paper traces the success of the SMFM as an illustration of positive local response to the question of “good food” access. Through its history, location and connection to its predominantly Black patrons, the SMFM was able to effectively address structural and cultural barriers as a means of improving food access. Findings from the study may offer insights to the theorization of culture and space in community-based health campaigns.

Discussion: “The Waiting Room as an Extension of the Treatment: Transference and Countertransference across the Consulting and Waiting Rooms”

ABSTRACT Drawing on theoretical contributions of Ogden, Goldberg, Bleger, and others, this discussion looks at how the frame is used and misused in clinical work. Imagining the psychic, conscious and unconscious meaning of the contents of the room, the waiting room and the office space, one sees how psychic material is both hidden and revealed. Using a clinical example, this discussion explores the ways analysands project disavowed and dangerous feelings into the frame, which is a complex intermediary space, neither outside nor inside.

Re-wound: Echo’s (dis)temporality

This article considers the displacement suggested by the film’s title and the pursuit of the past in the unsettled present. The film occupies an intermediary time and space, as implied by the uncomprehending reactions of those left behind, the investigative reconstruction and the delayed breakthrough of trauma.