Socio-spatial Contexts Research Articles

Estudiantes universitarios y su importancia en los cambios barriales: ¿hacia nuevos modelos de gentrificación en espacios periféricos?

Este artículo analiza e interpreta los cambios producidos en el barrio de Agüita de la Perdiz (Concepción - Chile), como consecuencia de la llegada de estudiantes universitarios al mismo. Pese a que los estudios anglosajones han puesto de manifiesto en los últimos años la importancia de los llamados procesos de studentification como detonantes de transformaciones físicas, sociales, económicas y culturales en los barrios, asimilándolos en ocasiones a manifestaciones globales de un fenómeno de gentrificación, apenas existen estudios desde otros contextos socioespaciales. A partir de estas premisas, el presente trabajo analiza e interpreta estos aspectos mediante una metodología que combina el uso de datos cuantitativos y cualitativos, obteniendo unos resultados que ratifican la existencia de algunas transformaciones que también se dan en otros casos de estudio, junto con otras particulares, explicables por la propia singularidad del barrio e identificables con el carácter socialmente periférico y el propio origen informal del caso analizado.

New cultures of care? The spatio-temporal modalities of home-based smart eldercare technologies in Singapore

ABSTRACT Increasingly, technology-enabled strategies of eldercare are being developed and deployed to minimize the socio-economic costs of ageing. As part of this shift, home-based ‘smart’ technologies have been embraced as a way of enabling ageing-in-place. Smart technologies flatten space and time, and can increase the reach of caregivers. In this sense, they foreground the emergence of new cultures of care. Through an empirical focus on the triallists of smart eldercare technologies living in a public housing estate in Singapore, this paper considers the ways in which new cultures of care are being formed and negotiated in response to the encroachment of smart technologies into pre-existing practices of caregiving. Specifically, it explores how the potential value of smart technologies can be undermined by the politics of responsiveness, and the dialectic of remoteness and proximity. To conclude, we highlight the need for understandings of smart eldercare technologies to be better situated within the varied socio-spatial contexts to which they are applied.

How do parking practices structure urban territorial communities?

Abstract In this article we analyse the socio-spatial contexts and consequences of the practice of car parking in housing estates. Fredrik Barth’s idea of socially constructed boundaries and the theory of social practice form the theoretical basis of our analysis. The empirical material comes from research conducted in 2016 and 2017 in three Polish cities. We analyse the practice of parking in terms of the specific aspect of mobility that is ‘mooring’. The research shows that parking practices influence the structuring of territorial communities in housing estates on two levels: everyday activities, norms and rules, as well as social differences and boundaries in the space occupied by the housing estate.

Parents and Peers: Parental Neighbourhood- and School-Level Variation in Individual Neighbourhood Outcomes Later in Life

There is a link between the socio-economic outcomes of parents and their children over the life course. Intergenerational transmissions were repeatedly shown for socioeconomic characteristics and (dis)advantage, but recently also for residential neighbourhood status. Previous research from the Netherlands, Sweden, and the US shows that children from disadvantaged parental neighbourhoods experience long-term exposure to similar neighbourhoods as adults. However, there are multiple parallel socio-spatial contexts besides the residential space to which individuals are exposed on a daily basis, such as households, schools, and places of work and leisure, which may also influence their outcomes. For children and adolescents, the school environment may be especially important. This study contributes to the literature by examining the joint influence of the parental background, the parental neighbourhood, and a compositional measure of the school environment, on the neighbourhood trajectories of Dutch adolescents after leaving the parental home. We use longitudinal register data from the Netherlands to study a complete cohort of school-going home-leavers, who were followed from 1999 to 2012. We fit cross-classified multilevel models, in order to split up the variance components of schools and parental residential neighbourhoods over time. We find that poverty concentration in the parental neighbourhood plays an important role in determining their children’s residential outcomes later in life. Some variation in individual neighbourhood outcomes at the level of the secondary school remains unexplained.

Authoritarian neoliberalism: trajectories of knowledge production and praxis

ABSTRACTThis introduction to the special issue takes as its point of departure three centres of gravity that have shaped the study of neoliberalism but have also established barriers to further progress in these debates. By promoting an intersectional materialist research agenda which challenges extant ideational, modernist and empiricist tendencies in scholarship on neoliberalism, the essay contextualizes the special issue articles by outlining and clarifying key aspects of our understanding of authoritarian neoliberalism. In particular, we reflect on themes related to conceptualization and periodization, which are of importance for both this special issue but also for broader questions of knowledge production and praxis. Through doing so, we argue that there are two distinct yet connected trajectories within the research agenda on authoritarian neoliberalism: one which focuses on the intertwinement of authoritarian statisms and neoliberal reforms; and another which traces various lineages of transformation of key societal sites in capitalism (e.g. states, households, workplaces, urban spaces). Recognition of this spectrum of authoritarian neoliberal practices is important as it helps us uncover how inequalities of power are produced and reproduced in capitalist societies, and pushes us to consider more fully how other worlds can be made possible. Nevertheless, it is affirmed that we must remain open to what an emancipatory society might look like, and what struggles would be most appropriate, in and across various socio-spatial contexts.

Socio-spatial differences and business formalization – The case of Nepalese women entrepreneurs

The aim of this paper is to explain women’s transitions to the formal economy by exploring the diverse socio-spatial contexts of their entrepreneurial activities. We problematize the focus of most formalization literature on both the regulatory aspects of formalization choices (and the respective policies) and on the motivations of women, and in turn provide a more nuanced account that appreciates the gendered nature of entrepreneurial activities and spaces. Empirically, we draw on a qualitative study of 90 women engaged in entrepreneurial activities in three contrasting regions in Nepal – Kathmandu, Pokhara and Biratnagar. Our findings support a dynamic view of formalization that considers it as a process sensitive to the interactions within women’s unique socio-spatial contexts. More specifically, we explore how differences in levels of urbanization, social cohesion, as well as politicization, explain some of the variation we observe in formalization choices. We contribute towards discussions of the contextual embeddedness of women’s entrepreneurial activities and, most importantly the need to incorporate spatiality more fully into these accounts. As such, our study provides support for more relational accounts of formalization. A number of important implications for policy are proposed.

Lost in Transition? Directions for an Economic Geography of Urban Sustainability Transitions

Socio-technical transitions towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption are receiving increasing attention in the academic world and also from political and economic decision-makers. There is increasing demand for resource-efficient technologies and institutional innovations, particularly at the city level. However, it is widely unclear how processes of change evolve and develop and how they are embedded in different socio-spatial contexts. While numerous scholars have contributed to the vibrant research field around sustainability transitions, the geographical expertise largely has been ignored. The lack of knowledge about the role of spatial contexts, learning processes, and the co-evolution of technological, economical, and socio-political processes has been prominently addressed. Bridging approaches from Transition Studies and perspectives of Economic Geography, the paper presents conceptual ideas for an evolutionary and relational understanding of urban sustainability transitions. The paper introduces new perspectives on sustainability transitions towards a better understanding of socio-spatial contexts.

Digital Participatory Platforms for Co-Production in Urban Development

A renewed interest has appeared in citizen co-production of public services due to financial pressure on governments. While social media are considered an important facilitator, many digital participatory platforms (DPPs) have been developed to facilitate co-production between citizens and governments in the context of urban development. Previous studies have delivered a fragmented overview of DPPs in a few socio-spatial contexts and failed to take stock of the rise of DPPs. This article aims to provide a more comprehensive picture of the availability and functionalities of DPPs. Through a systematic review, 113 active DPPs have been identified, analysed, and classified within a citizen-government relationship typology. Almost a quarter of these DPPs demonstrate a realistic potential for online and offline co-production between governments and citizens. The article critically analyses the characteristics of these DPPs and explores their real-world applications in urban development. The article concludes with directions for further research.

The First World War and the Latin American transition from coal to petroleum

While it is true that the precise nature of the future energy transition is uncertain, and no standardized transition is expected as such, it is also true that the energy transition phenomenon can only be described as an historical phenomenon. The Latin American early adoption of petroleum as principal energy source during the first quarter of the 20th century challenged the universality of the energy transition observed for the advanced economies and the associated features regarding pace, irreversibility and the sequence within the energy transition. This paper deepens on the analysis of this episode marked by the disruptions created by First World War to show how economic, geographical and political aspects defined the shape and pace of the early switch to oil of the Latin American republics. The aim is to develop a more nuanced understanding of socio-spatial contexts, scale, and the global–local relationships that constitute core elements of socio-technical systems.

Multiscale Measures of Population: Within- and between-City Variation in Exposure to the Sociospatial Context

Appreciating spatial scale is crucial for our understanding of the sociospatial context. Multiscale measures of population have been developed in the segregation and neighborhood effects literatures, which have acknowledged the role of a variety of spatial contexts for individual outcomes and intergroup contacts. Although existing studies dealing with sociospatial inequalities increasingly explore the effects of spatial scale, there has been little systematic evidence on how exposure to sociospatial contexts changes across urban space, both within and between cities. This article presents a multiscale approach to measuring potential exposure to others. Using individual-level register data for the full population of The Netherlands and an exceptionally detailed multiscalar framework of bespoke neighborhoods at 101 spatial scales, we measured the share of non-Western ethnic minorities for three Dutch cities with different urban forms. We created individual and cumulative distance profiles of ethnic exposure, mapped ethnic exposure surfaces, and applied entropy as a measure of scalar variation to compare potential exposure to others in different locations both within and between cities. The multiscale approach can be implemented for examining a variety of social processes, notably segregation and neighborhood effects.

“城市繁荣指数”体系：指标、分析及政策的联结

Abstract This paper argues for a more robust and flexible framework to develop the ‘City Prosperity Index’ (CPI), one which is able to connect indicators and analytical intelligence with the policy needs of urban planners and government strategists. The adoption of a more progressive and balanced agenda of ‘people-centred’ urban prosperity in the UN-Habitat's newly developed CPI has already led to a more holistic approach to integrating productivity, infrastructure, quality of life, equity and social inclusion, and environmental sustainability into a coherent framework. Building on this international agenda, there is still scope to critically revise and improve the conceptual and methodological framework of the CPI, probably in an incremental manner, to make it a more tailored policy instrument that can truly address the different sets of challenges faced by cities in different regions under different socio-spatial contexts to achieve sustainable prosperity.

Neoliberalizing Social Justice in Infrastructure Revitalization Planning: Analyzing Toronto's More Moss Park Project in Its Early Stages

A public consultation process is currently underway to gather ideas on the revitalization of a park and community center in one of Toronto's most economically diverse neighborhoods. This project is a partnership between a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-focused community center, a private philanthropist, and the City of Toronto. In this article, we argue that More Moss Park is illustrative of the neoliberalization of social justice, in which social justice is touted as central to both the end goal of the project and the planning process that will shape it. We focus on three political moves that underwrite the neoliberalization of social justice in the project. The first is the technicalization of social justice as “know-how,” a form of expertise that one of the main partners claims to have gained via its history of working for sexual minority communities and that it claims to be able to offer in other sociospatial contexts. The second is the normalization of an anonymous private donor as a necessary “silent” partner in urban development whose foremost concern is social justice in the form of neighborhood improvements for marginalized communities. The third is the use of crises of neighborhood insecurity and of budget shortfalls as planning problems whose solutions rest on the suspension of normal planning approaches, thus justifying the use of a public–private partnership. These moves illustrate the ways in which social justice has become neoliberalized not only through narrowing its scope but also through using it as ideological armature to mask marginalizations emerging from urban neoliberalism itself.

Subcultural enterprises, brand value, and limits to financialized growth: The rise and fall of corporate surfing brands

Geographical political economy increasingly scrutinises the socio-spatial contexts for brands and branding. Less understood is the influence of subcultures – neo-tribal groups sharing passions, a leisure pursuit or practice - on enterprise formation and the pathways through which brands emerge, trading on perceived authenticity. Subcultural contexts, we argue, unleash distinctive trajectories of enterprise formation, reputation-building, value-creation, global expansion and accumulation, and ultimately destruction. Here we focus on how particular subcultural values – of authenticity, competition, risk-taking, and active participation in ‘scenes’ – interact with capitalist growth dynamics, and where over time and space such intersections bring brands unstuck. Using the case of surfing subculture and collapse of corporate surf enterprises (Quiksilver, Billabong), we theorise subcultural brand value creation and its interaction with financialized expansion, culminating in destructive contradictions. Subcultural enterprises with ‘authentic’, ‘back-of-the van’ origins convert subcultural values of credibility, localism, risk-taking, and scene participation into brand value. Trading on place-origins and subcultural authenticity, enterprises expanded in two phases. First by widening distribution using specialist ‘surf’ retailers, and second by offshoring production, public floating, and debt-financing brand acquisitions and massive retail expansion. Dictates of shareholders and investment banks spurred market saturation, and high-volume/low-quality goods. Surfing’s cherished insouciance gave way to unhinged expansionism and unmanageable debt. The subcultural authenticity that spawned brand popularity was undermined, amplifying financial risk. Disenchanted consumers who once co-created successful brands also co-destroyed them. As subcultural brands proliferate, geographical political economy must be attentive to subcultures as spawning-grounds for enterprises with accompanying limits to market growth, (dis)connections, and values.

Spatial Characteristics of Twitter Users—Toward the Understanding of Geosocial Media Production

Social media is a rich source of spatial data but it has also many flaws and well-known limitations, especially in regard to representation and representativeness, since very little is known about the demographics of the user population. At the same time, the use of locational services, is in fact, dependent on those characteristics. We address this gap in knowledge by exploring divides between Twitter users, based on the spatial and temporal distribution of the content they produce. We chose five cities and data from 2015 to represent different socio-spatial contexts. Users were classified according to spatial and non-spatial measures: home range estimation; standard distance; nearest neighbor index, and; proposed localness index. There are distinct groups of geosocial media producers, which suggests that such datasets cannot be treated as uniform representations. We found a positive correlation between spatial behavior and posting activity. It is suggested that there are universal patterns of behavior that are conditioned by software services—the example of Foucauldian “technologies of self”. They can also represent the dominance of the most prolific users over the whole data stream. Results are discussed in the context of the importance and role of user location in social media.

Parents and Peers: Parental Neighbourhood- and School-Level Variation in Individual Neighbourhood Outcomes Over Time

There is a link between the socio-economic outcomes of parents and their children over the life course. Intergenerational transmissions were repeatedly shown for socioeconomic characteristics and (dis)advantage, but recently also for residential neighbourhood status. Previous research from the Netherlands, Sweden, and the US shows that children from disadvantaged parental neighbourhoods experience long-term exposure to similar neighbourhoods as adults. However, there are multiple parallel socio-spatial contexts besides the residential space to which individuals are exposed on a daily basis, such as households, schools, and places of work and leisure, which may also influence their outcomes. For children and adolescents, the school environment may be especially important. This study contributes to the literature by examining the joint influence of the parental background, the parental neighbourhood, and a compositional measure of the school environment, on the neighbourhood trajectories of Dutch adolescents after leaving the parental home. We use longitudinal register data from the Netherlands to study a complete cohort of school-going home-leavers, who were followed from 1999 to 2012. We fit cross-classified multilevel models, in order to split up the variance components of schools and parental residential neighbourhoods over time. We find that poverty concentration in the parental neighbourhood plays an important role in determining their children's residential outcomes later in life. Some variation in individual neighbourhood outcomes at the level of the secondary school remains unexplained.

When intersectionality met childhood studies: the dilemmas of a travelling concept

Childhood studies/geographies have a longstanding interest in questions around multiple social inequalities and identities in diverse socio-spatial contexts, but have not yet seriously considered the politics of intersectionality. Importing intersectionality into childhood studies is neither a straightforward nor an unproblematic process. We suggest that the question that childhood studies/geographies scholars must confront is how intersectionality can be used in this interdisciplinary field in ways which recognise and take seriously the intellectual history and labour of Black women and preserve the integrity of intersectionality’s radical praxis of emancipatory knowledge production and collective action for social justice. This article examines how intersectionality and its emancipatory politics might be preserved, strengthened and enhanced when it is operationalised in a context of childhood studies/geographies.

Neither Here Nor There

Over the last four decades, comparative urbanism has flourished, triggered by a desire to identify, compare, contrast, or juxtapose parallel phenomena that happen in multiple sociospatial contexts and likely influence one another. Starting in the 1970s, a number of scholars began touting the need for comparative urban research that opens the eyes to broader urban phenomena that can be compared across municipal boundaries and national borders. Underlying comparative approaches carry the notion that urban imaginaries are “sites of encounters with other cities” mediated through travel, migration and the circulation of images, goods, and ideas. In more recent years, a transnational perspective has gained favor in urban studies, arising in response to criticism that comparative urbanism suffers from a static perception of the urban. Transnational approaches focus on interdependencies, movements, and flows across borders in regions and subregions, the goal being to understand urban settings and experiences, as composed by multiple regional, ethnic or institutional identities and forces. In other words, transnational urban studies wish to take down arbitrary divisions between entities so that both their interconnections as well as collisions become more apparent. There are three interrelated ways that urban humanities go beyond conventional comparative urban studies and contribute to our understanding of the urban. In this essay, the matter is fleshed out through a comparative study of Los Angeles and Mexico City.

Food, feeding and the material everyday geographies of infants: possibilities and potentials

This paper forges an agenda for researching geographies of infants. Scholars have tended to overlook the everyday geographies of very young children. However, outside of geography, infancy is seen as a specifically dynamic period of life, and is subject to sustained research and policy intervention. In particular, early childhood is viewed as a key point in which to intervene to transform enduring, interconnected, societal, educational, and health-based inequalities. Food and feeding are seen as critical both to the health of infants now and of the children and adults they become . However, much policy and research under-theorizes the importance of socio-spatial contexts and the subjectivity/agency of infants. There is, then, an urgent need for geographers to put infants onto the agenda, to inform and challenge these dominant accounts. Researching with infants necessitates not just critiquing modern, liberal notions of an autonomous subject/agent, but developing a new way of understanding subjectivity and agency. Drawing upon Lupton’s (2013) notion of infant–carer interembodiment, I suggest a way forward with reference to the material geographies of infant feeding.

La relevancia de la confianza en conflictos socioambientales por energía en Chile: los casos de "Castilla" e "Hidroaysén"

Modern social dynamics are related to increasing hazards and risks, a situation that is crystalized in socio-environmental conflicts that arise under different socio-spatial contexts, representing the existing tensions among contrasting interests. One of the social dimensions reported in the literature on the governance of risks that generate socio-environmental conflicts is trust, a variable that intervention models have not been able to account for in a satisfactory manner. Based on exploratory research using an integrated design, which included 6 focus groups and 15 semi-structured interviews, we examine the impact of trust on the relationship between social actors and public and private institutions in the conflicts over the proposed thermoelectric (Castilla) and hydroelectric (Hidroaysen) projects in Chile. The results highlight that competence and behavioral consistency (objective variables), along with compassion, integrity, a sense of justice and the compliance with promises (subjective variables) explain the relationships, tensions, conflicts and conflict resolution in the cases analyzed.

Interrogating the city: Comparing locally distinct crisis discourses

There is a long tradition of debate about the crisis of cities or the crisis of local government in public, political and scholarly circles. The diagnosis of ‘the urban crisis’ often implies a homogeneous phenomenon with each city facing similar and unambiguous problems. However, we know little about local practices in constructing a city’s crisis. Taking discourse analysis as a starting point, we propose an interpretive and comparative framework that investigates how ‘the urban crisis’ and ‘the city’ emerge interdependently with specific meanings in different socio-spatial contexts. By comparing the discourses of Frankfurt, Dortmund, Birmingham and Glasgow, we illustrate how in each city the meaning of crisis is constructed differently and how these constructions constitute the collective understanding of the particularities of these cities.