Presence In Public Space Research Articles

The role of autonomous mobility in public space on fear of crime among adolescents

Despite their pivotal role in public discourse and research on fear of crime, knowledge on fear of crime among young people remains limited, as they are mostly seen as (primary) causes of fear. In this study, the impact of the frequency of autonomous presence (thus without formal adult supervision) in public space on fear of crime in a representative sample of 14- to 19-year-old Flemish (Belgian) adolescents is investigated. In contrast with traditional research, and using Goffman's concept of ‘novelty’ in the explanation of fear arousal, we interpret differences in routine behaviours as a cause, and not merely as a consequence of fear of crime, as in most traditional research. Both regression analysis and structural equation modelling are used to determine the effect of autonomous presence on fear of crime and the factors which influence the extent of autonomous presence in public space. More specifically, the potential impact of neighbourhood, parental and peer related variables are studied. The results suggest that a more frequent presence in public space is related to a lower fear of crime and that several variables not only influence fear of crime directly, but equally indirectly, through their impact on the extent of autonomous presence in public space.

“Neoliberalism, Class, Gender and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Politics in Poland”

While the growth of visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) political struggles in Poland, and illiberal neo-populist reactions to the queer presence in public space and the public sphere since 2004 has spawned much academic debate, there has been less critical discussion of LGBTQ politics in relation to class and neoliberalism. This article seeks to make two key contributions to understandings of the relationships between gender, sexuality and political economy. The first is recognition of the tensions and contradictions inherent within practices of neoliberalisation. It is suggested that neoliberalism can be both generative and hostile towards LGBTQ politics. Processes of neoliberalisation produce queer winners and losers, and it is suggested that if sexually progressive alternatives to neoliberalism are to be developed, they need to recognise the tensions and contradictions inherent within processes of neoliberalism. In so doing, the class dimensions of neoliberal sexualities need to be made visible and examined critically. Secondly, it is argued that discussions of classed sexualities are often framed within specific national contexts, and thereby fail to recognise the transnational dimensions of classed sexualities. Discussions of the sexual politics of neoliberalism are often grounded in Anglo-American contexts and sometimes fail to recognise how neoliberal sexualities are framed outside of the West. These two key objectives are addressed by an examination of the economic and class dimensions of contemporary LGBTQ political struggles in Poland—specifically the organisation of marches for equality and tolerance within Polish cities since 2001.

Modes of Attentiveness: Reading for Difference in Geographies of Homelessness

AbstractHegemonic accounts of urban homelessness, focusing on attempts to restrict homeless people's presence in public space, stress the punitive nature of current homelessness policy. In contrast, in this paper we explore the “messy middle ground” of the UK homeless services system. Examining Stacey Murphy's (2009) (Antipode 41(2):305–325) arguments regarding a shift to a “post‐revanchist” era in San Francisco, we chart the apparent similarities between developments in San Francisco and changes to the management of street homelessness bought in to effect by the New Labour government in the UK, and assess the extent to which such developments might be read as holding in tension more obviously punitive and supportive trends usually viewed as necessarily oppositional. In the final part of the paper we present a re‐reading of recent changes to the management of street homelessness in the UK through a postsecular lens. We suggest that this lens provides the possibility for a much more optimistic reading of homeless services and of the grammars of homelessness and urban (in)justice more broadly, and make the case for an alternative mode of academic attentiveness open to sometimes subtle and smaller‐scale yet nonetheless important examples of different ways of understanding and doing.

Rhythms of the Night: Spatiotemporal Inequalities in the Nighttime Economy

The authors seek to extend the literature on inequalities and exclusion in the nighttime economy through a rhythmic analysis of visitor presence in public space in nightlife districts in the city centres of the Dutch cities of Groningen, Utrecht, and Rotterdam. Substantial inequalities in visitor presence, based on race/ethnicity and gender, are demonstrated. In the cities considered, racial/ethnic inequalities vary more in spatial terms, and gender inequalities fluctuate more heavily over the course of the night. Overall, however, the findings support the argument that exclusion from the nighttime economy needs to be understood in temporal—ecological terms. Multiple drivers, or pacemakers, of rhythmic inequalities rooted in race/ethnicity and gender are identified, including opening hours and revellers' collective habits. For advocates of greater diversity among nighttime-economy participants, the analysis suggests that neither a more varied supply of nightlife premises, nor more surveillance and policing, are straightforward solutions: a strong orientation of premises toward university students and urban professionals may promote gender-based inclusion, but deters nonwhite revellers, and more police on the street may empower women to move through a nightlife district unaccompanied yet reduce the inclination to do so among racial/ethnic minorities

From Civility to Self-Defense: Modern Advice to Women on the Privileges and Dangers of Public Space

From Civility to Self-Defense: Modern Advice to Women on the Privileges and Dangers of Public Space Georgina Hickey (bio) In 1911, etiquette manual author Florence Hall began her chapter on manners in public places by declaring that American women had “the most desirable privilege” to go about the city “safe and unmolested” with “little danger of annoyance,” even in the nation’s largest cities (1911, 355). The urban environment envisioned by Hall and the authors of the hundreds of other advice books published for women in the late nineteenth through early twentieth centuries reflected the middle-class optimism of the Progressive Era. From this perspective the city was being reformed into an orderly, clean, civil, and therefore safe space that would be the leading edge of the United States’ future development (Flanagan 2002; Teaford 1993). Evolving standards of etiquette assisted in this transition by guiding behavior and shaping expectations for the increasingly large and anonymous situations and spaces created by the rampant industrialization and urbanization in the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. These codes of behavior helped to mitigate the uncertainties of public space by creating rules that were meant to be, as Hall advised, “constant, steady, uniform,” widely known, and consistently practiced (1911, ii). And women, according to the educators, ministers, journalists, housewives, and fiction writers who wrote books to advise Americans on all aspects of socially acceptable behavior, were to have a place in this orderly, civil space. Fast-forward to the late 1960s and 1970s, and the advice to women had changed drastically, emphasizing self-defense over manners. In these later decades, authors promised women that the information contained on [End Page 77] their pages could “save your life!” (Conroy 1975, 6). They told women in no uncertain terms that “violent crimes—from purse snatchings and muggings to beatings, rapes, and other brutal assaults—happen every day. And they happen to women” (Krone 1967, cover). The city, as imagined by these authors, was fragmented and disintegrating. Physical danger lurked around every corner, particularly for women who through “ignorance and carelessness” allowed themselves to be victims of “rapists, muggers, molesters or purse-snatchers” (25). What women needed, according to this genre of advice literature produced in the later decades of the twentieth century, was to learn “how to avoid danger—and how to fight back if you can’t” (Conroy 1975, cover). Reflecting an increasingly negative view of urban life in the later twentieth century, the self-defense movement that began in earnest in the 1970s declared itself the answer to women’s fear of/in public space. That such an answer was needed suggests that apprehension and suspicion came to play a far greater role in women’s lives in the later 1900s than they had in the first half of the century. Both the traditional system of manners represented in the etiquette manuals and the self-defense phenomenon acknowledged and accepted women’s presence in public spaces. Both placed much of the responsibility for how women fared in public space on the individual women themselves. Etiquette, however, articulated a significant range of rights and privileges that women could expect to enjoy when out in the world if they followed the rules, whereas most self-defense literature validated and propagated women’s fears. The shift reflects anxieties over women’s rapidly shifting roles in the late twentieth century. But it can also be read as both an indication of the role women played in representing societal conceptions of order and a changing perception of the nature of public space, from one that envisioned public space as something truly shared and at least potentially civil to one that saw it as inherently dangerous and competitive. The decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century saw significant shifts in the size and culture of American cities as new technologies and new populations transformed relatively compact cities into heterogeneous industrial giants. The lives of American women underwent similarly substantial changes, many of which required that women make substantial use of urban public space. The number of women in the paid labor force, for example, rose from 19 percent of all women in 1890 to 23 percent...

Orange Houses and Tape Babies: Temporary and Nebulous Art in Urban Spaces

This essay argues that the disruption of the routine ways we engage with our cities is necessary for democratic activity and public participation. Building on research that examines the relationship between public spaces and democratic action, I explore temporary forms of creative street installation as interrupting the marketing pleas that have become the only authorized forms of visual art in our cities. I argue that tactics in urban spaces that are temporary and provide nebulous meanings are necessary to grab our attention and make us linger. I propose that these forms of engagement act in the same way as people performing or playing in public spaces. I specifically employ Yi-Fu Tuan’s theoretical notions of space and movement and Margaret Kohn’s discussion of the significance of presence in public spaces to examine the creative ways we engage with and experience our cities. I examine two activist/artist projects: Mark Jenkins’ tape installations and Detroit Demolition. My analysis of these two sites demonstrates the importance of citizens engaging in their urban spaces. By creating temporary artwork that is nebulous in meaning, activists/artists are interrupting the routine ways we experience our cities.

A presença do religioso no espaço público: modalidades no Brasil

Toma-se como problema central especificar as formas pelas quais se configuram relações de reconhecimento do religioso pelo Estado no Brasil no quadro definido pelo regime republicano. Em outras palavras, considerando a laicidade por causa dela ou apesar dela , como o Estado foi legitimando a presença do religioso no espaço público. No caso da Igreja Católica, isso ocorreu inicialmente por meio de uma aliança simbólica e material e com a ajuda de um regime jurídico de baixo controle estatal. No caso do espiritismo, ocorreu em meio a uma batalha pela legitimidade de práticas com algum sentido terapêutico. No caso dos cultos afros, envolveu a aceitação de um argumento culturalista. Partindo do delineamento histórico de diferentes modalidades de reconhecimento, busca-se a caracterização do que ocorre atualmente, considerando a presença dos evangélicos no espaço público. De modo geral, trata-se de problematizar a definição de fronteiras no interior do campo religioso e nas relações entre religião, sociedade e Estado no Brasil.

Conquering enclosed public spaces

During the process of modernization, a number of Islamic countries encouraged women to unveil. Among them, only Iran has recently returned to the earlier era of requiring women to veil themselves as the precondition of presence in public spaces. However, this time the difference was that women were already present in almost all public spaces: in universities, administrations, industries, and even in the government. Being marginalized after the revolution, Iranian women have learned how to overcome the obstacle of the veil. To maintain their presence and activity in public, they constantly reinvented new strategies to challenge the existing authority, by claiming, appropriating, and re-inventing new public spaces. Paradoxically, the re-veiling of women and the gender segregation of public spaces helped many traditional women enter public spheres as social actors and to gain power, albeit in silence, in different socio-political and cultural fields. Today, more than ever, Iranian women try to conquer new public spaces/public spheres with their transparent visibility and with a stress on their differences.

Women and physical activity in an urban park: Enrichment and support through an ethic of care

Women's presence in public space is frequently understood within a “separate spheres” framework, but this framework does not fully account for women's presence in public spaces and their experiences there. An ethic of care (In a different voice (1982) Harvard university press; J. Env. Psych. 20 (2000) 103) has been proposed as an alternative framework for understanding both constraints and possibilities for women in public space. An ethic of care also helps to understand women's experiences of leisure, particularly physical activity. I explore themes of relationships and caring in interviews with women who did physical activities in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Women found enrichment and support for both relationships and activities among family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers in the park, which provided feelings of safety and enjoyment. The presence of others and chance meetings in the park also provided emotional social support and more long-term affiliations to support athletic interests such as team sports. This study informs research regarding the influence of the environment on physical activity and supports the assertion that an ethic of care provides a more comprehensive framework for theories of public space. However, other aspects of the environment should also be considered in further discussion of a theoretical framework for women and public space.

Public and Private as Viewed through the Work of the Muhtasib

THE muhtasib (also called ‘amil al-suq and sahib al-suq) was the inspector of public places and behavior in towns in the premodern Middle East and North Africa (and in some communities of Muslims elsewhere).* While the term muhtasib is usually translated as “market inspector,” this official’s actual charge was much broader. Based on the injunction “to command the right and forbid the wrong,” the history of which injunction is told with breathtaking scholarship by Michael Cook (2000), the muhtasib would patrol public spaces and enforce “laws” wherever he saw a violation . The muhtasib therefore gave Islamic law an immediate presence in public space and was an important face of the law in society. The commercial aspects of the muhtasib were useful enough that this position continued to exist under non-Muslim rule, as it did in Spain. Several types of writings are relevant to studying the work of the muhtasib, including theoretical writings on the role, function , and tasks of the muhtasib, and practical manuals to guide the muhtasib in his work in a particular place and time.1 In this essay we use a passage from a work of the first type, a treatise on ethics and law by the great theologian and jurist, Ghazali (d. 1111 A.D.),2 and passages from the practical manual for the muhtasib ascribed to Ibn al-Ukhuwah (d. 1329 A.D.)3 to illustrate the divisions between public and private as they appear in the SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 70, No. 3 (Fall 2003) Public and Private as Viewed through the Work of the Muhtasib ROY MOTTAHEDEH AND KRISTEN STILT work of the muhtasib. These divisions show that the line between public and private was not rigidly fixed but, rather, shifted according to the relations among the people involved in any particular situation. An impermissible intrusion by one person into the private space of another may be permissible if taken by yet another person. Furthermore, what is considered outside the jurisdiction of the muhtasib because it is one person’s private space may not be considered private in relation to another official , such as the police (shurta) or judge.4 Taking this point yet further, this essay shows that relational standing seems the most important key to understanding public and private in Islamic legal thinking.5 The Muhtasib and Public and Private Divisions in Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din Ihya’ ‘Ulum al-Din (The Revivification of the Religious Sciences) is considered the most significant work of Abu Hamid Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Tusi, al-Ghazali, in terms of both its size and substance . Ghazali intended this text to be a guide for Muslims to all important aspects of religious life, emphasizing that the purpose of religious knowledge and obedience is eternal salvation (Encyclopedia of Islam, 1954: “al-Ghazali”). Ghazali meant his book to be a bridge between ethics and law. In the second of the book’s four parts, which covers ‘adat (social customs), Ghazali devoted a lengthy chapter to the order to “command the right and forbid the wrong.” The interesting part of this chapter for our purposes is the definition of the scope of behavior to which this order applies.6 Ghazali stated that the muhtasib’s concern is each wrong that is presently existing, manifest to the muhtasib without spying (tajassus),7 and whose wrongness is known without independent legal reasoning (ijtihad)8 (Ghazali, 1996: 437). According to Ghazali, “wrong” (munkar, literally “forbidden” or “to be forbidden”) includes but is larger than the category of “sin736 SOCIAL RESEARCH ful.” If the muhtasib sees two insane people having sex he should stop them although neither is legally responsible. We might infer that this is in part because the public is a realm of propriety, and in which the muhtasib should discourage the inclination to do wrong. (It might also be argued that the act should be stopped because illegitimate children may result, but Ghazali gives the further instance of a mad man having sex with a large animal.) But Ghazali explicitly says it is not stopped because of the “loathsomeness ” (tafahush) of the “picture of the act” and its being “in front of people”; if the muhtasib came across...