Neighborhood Solidarity Research Articles

Impact of a regulatory target and external factors on the waste efficiency of Italian municipalities.

Due to increasing consumption and urbanisation, urban waste management and recycling are a primary concern in Italy. Italian waste collection underwent significant reform with the introduction of a sorted collection target of 65% of total collected waste in Legislative Decree No. 152/2006. In this article, we analyse the effect of this regulatory target on the efficiency of waste collection in 275 Italian municipalities in the years 2016-2019. We estimate the coefficients of the cost efficiencies of the sorted and unsorted waste without assuming functional forms for the efficient frontier or the distribution of efficiency. Our findings suggest that municipalities that met the 65% sorted waste target demonstrated higher efficiency as costs increased, whereas those that failed to meet the target demonstrated higher inefficiency as costs increased. Strong effects emerged for population and urban economic development on the success of waste collection, whereas only marginal effects were observed for population density and city size. To improve the situation of municipalities that are not meeting the 65% target, we propose several policy measures, including 'neighbourhood solidarity'.

‘SOSpesa’: Service Design Leveraging Neighborhood Solidarity Networks to Tackle Food Poverty, Food Surplus, and Sustainability of Local Commerce

This paper illustrates a project to redesign a charitable initiative against food poverty into an innovative solution called "SOSpesa", implemented in a neighborhood of the city of Milan named NoLo - North of Loreto. The paper outlines approach, methodology and strategy to move from an activist initiative to a service with more than charitable purposes and outlines the new service configuration in its opportunities and limitations as emerged from the pilot project. It focuses on strategies to harness a network of neighborhood actors to achieve a goal of solidarity, combating food waste and supporting local shops. Based on the assumption that the local context is a strength of the service, the project activated a wide range of actors, from volunteers to third sector organizations and businesses, under the coordination of a team of researchers, to experiment with different service configurations in search of overall sustainability. Finally, the paper discusses design strategies for scaling up grassroots social innovation through replicability, not to distort its spirit and bottom-up engagement.

A Politics of Care from the Margins of Chile's Social Uprising

This essay addresses the Chilean social uprising of 2019 through the experiences of Marta and Juan, two residents of the peripheries of Santiago, who became involved in this event despite having no previous experience of participation in social and political organizations. It explores this event's strength in triggering contentious actions on the urban margins, and repression by the police-criminal apparatus of the state. Delving into the ethical and biographical dispositions facilitating this couple's politicization during the course of the revolt, it argues that the critical force of this event lies precisely in the entry of unexpected—even unwanted—actors into the political space. Through a biographical narrative approach, it details the shift of its protagonists. By way of subjectivation, this shift unfolds in them a critical attitude embodied in public interventions demanding equality and social justice and in acts of community and neighborhood solidarity. The case sheds light on a rarely explored dimension of social revolts: the way certain actors collectively experience these critical events through a politics of care, bringing the polis into the domestic space, and from such politicization of the oikos, opens an unusual way of challenging the police order of their world.

Orientation towards the common good in cities: The role of individual urban mobility behavior

Orientation towards the common good is considered as a building block of social cohesion and has been shown to benefit both social communities and their residents. Mobility behavior (e.g. cycling) is associated with many positive psychological variables, but little is known about its relationship with the orientation towards the common good. This study examined the relationships between mobility behavior and four facets of orientation towards the common good: political participation, social participation in organizations, neighborhood solidarity, and neighborly helpfulness. Using a longitudinal multilevel analysis, annual surveys between 2014 and 2019 of a representative sample of the German general population (GESIS PANEL, N = 410) were analyzed. Cycling rather than driving was positively associated with orientation towards the common good in all models. Cycling was the only variable that was a significant positive predictor for all four facets of orientation towards the common good after controlling for possibly confounding variables (homeownership, personal income, education, sex). This research demonstrated that mobility behavior is associated with the orientation towards the common good. These findings are significant for policy and planning because the benefits of cycling over driving are more profound and sustainable than previously thought.

‘Our courage has grown’: a grounded theory study of enablers and barriers to community action to address violence against women in urban India

Transforming communities into supportive environments for women facing risks of violence requires community members to play an active role in addressing violence against women (VAW). We did a grounded theory...

Diagnosis of the peasant family farming system and its contribution to the food security of a peasant family in the San Antonio de Atenas village, Florencia, Caquetá

This paper reflects on the potential of agricultural practices that employ peasant family farming to satisfy inherent needs to enjoy a healthy, vital and prosperous life in the face of problems such as climate change, inequity, inaccessibility, poor food, among others. An investigation was carried out with a peasant family that develops agricultural activities on their rural property with the objective of identifying the contribution of peasant family agriculture to their food security. The study was carried out in the department of Caquetá, in the municipality of Florencia, Orteguaza district, San Antonio de Atenas village, La Cabaña plot, with the Farfán Muños family. For this, a qualitative interview was carried out in which the productive history, the agricultural activities that they carry out and the practices used were known; A characterization of their productive activities was carried out, emphasizing the forms of production, the benefits of good practices to produce and their accessibility to food. The results obtained show that the agricultural activities carried out by the Farfán peasant family contribute and benefit their food security and provide economic satisfaction. It was known that they have affordable access to food, most of it of good quality produced by themselves organically and have food stability in any period to satisfy their nutritional needs, it was possible to evidence the ties of family union, neighborhood solidarity and future projection.

Between the Material and the Social. Neighborhood Relations of Older People “Inside” the Infrastructure Deficit

. The article analyzes neighborhood relations in the villages of the Leningrad region. The material was interviews with older people about the peculiarities of rural everyday life and about neighborhood interactions in the context of the infrastructure deficit characteristic of the villages where the study was conducted. Based on the theoretical work of H. Plesner and A. Gelena, the author argues that neighborhood relations can be considered as an important social resource for the older, which is able to adjust and make more comfortable material resources in villages. The adaptability of material and social resources makes it possible to understand the specifics of the meanings of neighborhood relations that are formed in villages, and how aging can be represented based on the key and basic needs of older people. Empirical material was collected in two villages of the Leningrad region. In the landscape caused by the infrastructure deficit, the usual neighborhood solidarity did not work, but such a landscape itself was part of a new solidarity associated with special interactions in which neighborhood relations create the tunability of material resources and are aimed at reciprocal exchange and neighborly assistance and minimizing the problems of infrastructure deficit.

Fragmenting Urban Movements

How do political parties shape urban movements in developing countries? This paper examines struggles for urban inclusion in two informal settlements within Johannesburg: Thembelihle and Motsoaledi. I argue that the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), fragmented and weakened these movements through four mechanisms: place-specific governance, electoral encouragement, co-optation, and fostering loyalty. Both responding to and prompting these mechanisms, activists in the two areas pursued divergent politics. Whereas activists in Thembelihle emphasized working-class solidarity and citywide opposition to the ANC, activists in Motsoaledi emphasized neighborhood solidarity and presented a narrower challenge to the ANC. Residents in both areas secured material concessions, but they failed to produce a unified and citywide movement. The two examples underscore the difficulty of building movements for urban inclusion when a single political party dominates civil society.

The role of neighborhood social capital on health and health inequality in rural and urban China

Given the “community lost” vs. “community saved” debate on how neighborhood solidarity changes with urbanization, we compared the rural-urban difference in the association of individuals' neighborhood social capital with health and the interaction effect between neighborhood social capital and income-poverty on health in China, where huge rural-urban disparities existed. Participants were 5014 Chinese adults (≥ 18 years) (rural: 2034; urban: 2980) from the 2012 cross-sectional Chinese General Social Survey. Health outcome was a factor score constructed by three items. Neighborhood social capital was divided into structural (neighborhood network size, frequency of socializing with neighbors, voting in neighborhood committee election, and participation in neighborhood voluntary activities) and cognitive (perceived neighborhood social cohesion) dimensions. Multivariable linear regression models showed positive associations between perceived neighborhood social cohesion and health in rural (β = 0.08, 95% CI: 0.03,0.14) and urban (β = 0.09, 95% CI: 0.05,0.12) areas. Only in rural but not urban areas was a neighborhood network of 10 or more persons (ref.: none) associated with better health (β = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.05,0.46). Interaction analysis showed that only in rural but not urban areas, with the increase of neighborhood network size, the health gap between the income-poor and the non-income-poor decreased generally. Our study suggested that cohesive neighborhoods benefit both rural and urban residents' health. Health interventions to improve neighborhood social cohesion should be designed to cope with the challenge of urbanization. Policymakers should avoid damaging neighborhood social capital when implementing other public policies, especially in rural areas where neighborhood network seems to matter more for health.

Zlatanović S. Etnička identifikacija na posleratnom području: Srpska zajednica jugoistočnog Kosova. Beograd: Etnografski institut SANU: Čigoja štampa, 2018. 364 s. (Posebna izdanja; knj. 89)

Sanja Zlatanović’s book Etnička identifikacija na posleratnom području: Srpska zajednica jugoistočnog Kosova (Ethnicity in a Post-War Region: The Serbian Community of Southeast Kosovo) provides a valuable picture of the Serbian community of Kosovsko Pomoravlje (South-East Kosovo around Gnilane) during the first years of international rule in the disputed area. The book is based on field research carried out between 2003 and 2006 both in the area and in Southern Serbia with persons displaced from the area. S. Zlatanović describes the subdivisions between “Kosovo old-dwellers” and “Colonists” (of 1920s and 30s); between Serbs and Serbian Gypsies in Kosovo; and between KosovoSerbs and the population of Central Serbia. She also demonstrates the complexity of the Kosovo Serb perception of their neighbours – Kosovo Croats and Kosovo Albanians. The author reviews both the efficiency and limits of the komšiluk (traditional practice of neighbourhood solidarity), cultural similarities with the Kosovo Albanians, and the role of the Raška-Prizren Diocese of the Serb Orthodox Church and its influence upon the community, e. g., by the overcoming of traditional practices of religious syncretism. This ethnological study will be of use both for ethnologists and social anthropologists of the Balkans, as well as for historians and political scientists. The Kosovo Serb identity, their internal subdivisions, and the cultural stereotypes described by S. Zlatanović will exist as a part of the broader Serbian social texture for the foreseeable future.

The Spatial Politics of Far-right Populism: VOX, Anti-fascism and Neighbourhood Solidarity in Madrid City

This article explores the spatial politics of the Spanish far-right party VOX, deepening discussions around the spaces of xenophobic populism and anti-fascist politics. The paper foregrounds the need of moving beyond the nation-centred, institutional and descriptive approaches that characterise the literature on far-right politics, to focus on the quotidian grounds of far-right mobilisations. Through an analysis of VOX’s politics of hate at the neighbourhood level, I explore the co-constitutive relationship between ‘institutional politics’ and the ‘politics of the street’. Focusing in Hortaleza – a Madrilenian district targeted by VOX’s mobilisation – I analyse the ways the party attempts to exploit situated inequalities linked to the urbanisation of border regimes and how neighbourhood movements are challenging VOX through constructing alternative anti-racist politics of belonging. The paper argues that the centrality of the neighbourhood as the lived space of political socialisation makes it a key scale of articulation of anti-fascist politics and grassroots solidarities.

Community Management and the Demand for ‘Water for All’ in Angola’s Musseques

The Angolan State’s post-war center-piece reconstruction program, to provide the human right to ‘Water to All’, remains incomplete. The majority of Angola’s peri-urban communities still use the informal market to fill the gap. Water selling is the largest sub-sector of Luanda’s extensive informal economy, involving extractors, transporters and retailers. Negotiating for water at the local household level involves significant trading in social capital. Communities in Angola’s musseques have built on neighborhood solidarity to manage the supply of water themselves. The article is drawn from the authors’ experience in practice to examine the complexity of Angola’s informal water economy and local-level innovative responses. The Government has drawn on these lessons and adopted the community management model MoGeCA (the Portuguese language acronym for Model of Community Water Management)to help address the shortfall. The article is written from a practitioner’s point of view, based on more than a decade of experimentation in practice and support from USAID and UNICEF in taking community management to the national scale.

Los temporales de nieve de 1888 en Asturias: respuesta social e institucional

Los temporales de nieve de 1888 generaron un daño sin precedentes en la historia reciente de Asturias. Esta investigación, basada en el análisis de fuentes históricas, indaga en la reacción de los grupos humanos que se vieron afectados, examinando tanto la respuesta ofrecida por las instituciones como las estrategias de adaptación y manejo del riesgo por parte de quienes habitaban en las áreas más damnificadas. Los resultados evidencian la mala gestión de la crisis por parte de las autoridades, que centraron sus esfuerzos en aliviar la situación de incomunicación con el exterior de la región y ofrecieron ayudas económicas insuficientes. En las áreas de montaña, sin embargo, rasgos como la cultura del trabajo comunal y la solidaridad vecinal evidenciaron su utilidad desde el punto de vista organizacional, mostrándose como el mecanismo paliativo más eficiente, única respuesta inmediata ante el desastre, capaz de llegar a la totalidad del territorio afectado.

Urban And Sick And Rural: Psychiatric Disturbances Affect Children In Areas With Especially Low Neighborhood Solidarity

Urban And Sick And Rural: Psychiatric Disturbances Affect Children In Areas With Especially Low Neighborhood Solidarity

Caring communes and locally responsible communities. Model approaches to securing successful aging and care in the neighborhood

This article reports on two projects both concerned with how to initiate and support independent and satisfying aging in community settings and how to promote social participation in neighborhood solidarity in the future. The community plays an important role in this context, supporting independent living, social connectedness and individual well-being in old age. Against the background of demographic and social changes and the related social challenges, the pilot projects focused on the problems of how the process of aging, which from an individual perspective can be seen as a life period with declining mobility and reduced options for action, can be influenced in a positive way. The article describes the key experiences in the context of the two pilot projects entitled "VEGA-locally responsible communities and individual well-being in old age" and "Care mix in locally responsible communities". It focuses on the process results and identifies potential barriers to the implementation of the projects. In addition, this article also emphasizes the opportunities and advantages of social networking in local communities. Based on the action research approach, neighborhood-specific results and need-based concepts have been developed, which have led to various subproject pathways for implementation. Among other results it was important that social networking and supportive neighborhood structures could be established, which are important conditions for sustainable anchoring in the residential quarter. Another important result was the fact that the communities as well as the different generations in the residential quarter were sensitized and activated for the topic "aging and well-being with social connectedness in local communities".

Safety and Solidarity After the Boston Marathon Bombing: A Comparison of Three Diverse Boston Neighborhoods

This article investigates the effect of the Boston Marathon Bombing on city residents— how the tragic incident changed, or did not change, how Bostonians live in and feel about their community and neighborhoods. Unlike prior research that began weeks or months after a terrorist attack and used retrospective reports, this study spans the focal event. An address‐based sample of residents from three neighborhoods, distinct in racial and economic makeup was surveyed by mail using a three‐contact protocol. About two‐thirds of respondents answered a survey of neighborhood sentiments, and health and well‐being in the days before the bombing (N = 581) and slightly over a third answered the survey after the bombing (N = 313).Assessments of safety, city and neighborhood satisfaction and solidarity, mental health, and other key measures vary greatly between the three neighborhoods, which are diverse in racial and economic composition, but also vary in proximity to the bomb site. Net of neighborhood differences, the bombing had a strong negative effect on neighborhood cohesion and reduced use of public transit. Strong interactions are also found between timing of survey completion (pre and post bombing) and neighborhood for assessments of neighborhood solidarity.

Neighborhood attributes security and solidarity promote the well‐being of community‐dwelling older people in the Netherlands

To determine whether the neighborhood attributes solidarity and security positively affect the well-being of community-dwelling older people in the Netherlands after accounting for individual characteristics, and to test if a higher level of security in combination with a stronger sense of neighborhood solidarity results in a higher level of well-being. The study sample for the cross-sectional study consisted of 869 out of 2212 (39% response rate) independently-living older adults (aged >70 years) in 92 neighborhoods of Rotterdam. We fitted a hierarchical random-effects model to account for the structure of the study design: 869 older people (level 1) nested in 92 neighborhoods (level 2) in 10 districts (level 3). Neighborhood security and solidarity among neighbors varied significantly among the 10 districts. Univariate analyses showed that education, income, neighborhood security and solidarity within neighborhoods (all P ≤ 0.001) were significantly related to the well-being of community-dwelling older people. Multilevel analyses showed neighborhood security and solidarity within neighborhoods predicted the well-being of community-dwelling older people. Furthermore, a positive interaction effect was found between neighborhood security and solidarity within neighborhoods, and well-being of community-dwelling older people. Neighborhood security and solidarity among neighbors are important for the well-being of community-dwelling older people. Furthermore, neighborhoods with high levels of perceived security in combination with stronger solidarity among neighbors are especially beneficial to the well-being of community-dwelling older people.

The Neighborhood Strikes Back: Community Murals by Youth in Boston's Communities of Color

AbstractCommunity murals in US inner city neighborhoods offer popular, grassroots representations of local identities and their relation to urban space and community culture. They are powerful tools in building neighborhood solidarity across ethnic groups, generations, and defended gang territories. Designed primarily for local consumption, murals circulate dramatic, alternative representations of local identity, heritage and history, contesting attributions of stigma and danger promulgated in mainstream media. In Boston's Dudley Street corridor that crosscuts its Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods, both low‐income communities of color, these themes are evident in the presence of a vibrant series of community murals lining the one‐mile long street. Designed and painted by local youth under the sponsorship of grassroots community‐based organizations, the murals give voice to urban youth's hopes, struggles, and aspirations for their individual and collective futures, from their positions in disadvantaged, multi‐ethnic neighborhoods in a city sharply divided by race and class.

Migrants and Changing Urban Periphery: Social Relations, Cultural Diversity and the Public Space in Istanbul’s New Neighbourhoods

AbstractThis study examines the dynamics of socio‐cultural change in a peripheral neighbourhood in Istanbul, an “edge city” that is ethnically mixed, culturally heterogeneous, socially differentiated and spatially multi‐functional. One major focus in the study is the changing nature of social relations in traditional groups. Though kinship, hemşeri (place of origin) and neighbourhood solidarity is still crucial in the lives of the migrants, participation in these groups becomes more voluntary and the ties among members less obligatory. Secondly, the ethnic and religious groupings in the neighbourhood are not always exclusive, authoritarian and patriarchal communities. What generally appears as rigid communitarian fragmentation is often one of cultural diversity for the residents of the locality. The associational pluralism that exists in the neighbourhood enables people to claim multiple ethnic, religious, political and cultural identities. Thirdly, though they compare unfavourably with their middle class counterparts in the city, the new neighbourhoods provide greater opportunities and more public space for interaction among the members of the locality than for instance, the rural communities. The study also questions the often taken‐for‐granted image of a rigidly polarized city in view of empirical evidence that indicates the multiple and complex economic and political links between the new neighbourhoods and the broader urban society. Finally, isolation from middle class areas in the city does not necessarily lead to the exclusion of the whole peripheral urban population from urban life, urban institutions and urban culture. These become increasingly present in the new neighbourhoods and available for the majority of the residents. The main conclusion is that Istanbul contains a number of such edge cities, which have powerful integrating and urbanizing influences on individuals.

A death in our street

How do neighbours relate to the dying, and what effect does a death have on a neighbourhood? After briefly reviewing related literature, the article explores the concepts of reciprocity and solidarity, using the recent work of Michael Young to highlight limitations in the work of Philip Abrams. The potential of suffering to generate neighbourhood solidarity in an increasingly affluent and private society is considered.