Socio-spatial Interactions Research Articles

The construction of Chineseness in the Chinatowns of the Hague and Amsterdam.

Since the late 1990s, the symbolic economy was coined to describe the economy based on cultural production and consumption. Chinatowns are a typical representation of this new consumption-based economy in which symbols play an important role. The existence of a Chinatown has helped metropolises to label themselves as global and diverse cities but Chinatowns do not always meet the gazers’ expectations on its cultural and aesthetic features. Moreover, they rework the concept of Chineseness to achieve the goal of city officials’ ideas of an ‘ideal’ Chinatown. This article deconstructs the intangible and ambiguous aspects around the concept of Chineseness through a geosemiotic lens. By analysing the linguistic landscape and paying additional attention to socio-spatial interactions around signs, this research makes a contribution to the field of Chinatown studies. Moreover, as a comparative empirical study of the Chinatowns of Amsterdam and The Hague, it also contributes to insights into multilingual Chinatowns in a field that is dominated by Chinese and English only. This helps to reveal the functioning and hierarchy of languages and the additional complexity of multiculturalism.

Embedded resilience in the built stock. Lessons from socio-spatial interpretation. The case of CanFugarolas (Mataro-Barcelona)

ABSTRACT The concept of resilience remains vague as it pertains to the buildings’ scale and the architectural dimension, particularly when dealing with the recovery and reuse of former industrial premises. This study advocates for socio-ecological (bounding-forward) resilience and the use of Panarchy heuristics to analyze the embedded resilience of building stock. This research is based on a case study of CanFugarolas, in Mataró (Barcelona), a former workshop converted into a socio-cultural centre. Here, the building becomes a repository for latent urban dynamism, where spatial transformation is the mechanism by which embedded resilience is released in the form of social dynamism. Adaptive spatial capability (potential) translates into social dynamism (performance) because of socio-spatial interactions. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the spatial and social parallel evolution of the case study reveals that (i) a strong correlation exists between spatial transformation and social participation; (ii) spatio-functional tactics and spatial adaptive capabilities are social and formal complementary mechanisms for spatial appropriation during social progression; (iii) spatial diversification and hierarchization are evidence of spatial specialization, resulting from said socio-spatial interactions. Eventually, (iv) indications of thresholds appear in the form of spatial over-fragmentation and hyper-specialization, denoting spatial exhaustion and embedded resilience limitations.

Socio-spatial interactions of a cluster-house concept apartment in mehr als wohnen project in Zurich, Switzerland

This article explores the socio-spatial interactions of a micro-community in a cluster-house concept apartment. The apartment has been designed for retreat and co-living by mehr als wohnen housing cooperative in Zurich, Switzerland. The methodology of investigation is a qualitative case study, through which housing narratives of three residents as representatives of this communal household are analyzed. In addition, on-site visits and observations, document analyses, and desktop studies are conducted. The originality of the research is in its approach of examining a micro-society through the residential community's authentic stories, which are in the context of normal times and the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the social bonds of the studied cluster cohousing community are significantly maintained through the intermediate zones of the cluster-house arrangement. This socio-spatial interaction has activated the potentials of social innovation and housing resilience in an urban context. The research also highlights points of conflicts and insights for future cluster-concept apartment developments.

Environment related practices for emergency response to infectious disease outbreak on cruise ships

Issue/problemCOVID-19 pandemic halted cruise operations globally. This project explored strategies and measures that could be adopted internationally for mitigating a disease outbreak on-board of a cruise ship by bringing evidence-based recommendations for an emergency response against current COVID-19 outbreak and future infectious threats.Description of the problemResearch took place in October 2020-March 2021. Methods comprised of: a) consultation sessions with five international experts on public health, epidemiology, tourism and cruise management, b) both systematic and narrative literature reviews. Present guidance analysed why cruise ships promote an opportunistic environment for infectious outbreaks, along with a strategy for reducing the risks among passengers and crew.ResultsResults were organised under four main themes: a) advice on surface interactions and virus viability; b) prevention and control measures; c) suggestions on short and long term responses; d) advice on thermal and ventilation conditions and how they affect virus transmission. The guidance was very similar to other built environment contexts, ignoring the particularities of sociospatial interactions in cruise ships. Moreover, there was limited provision for the wellbeing and mental health during the outbreak.LessonsThis project summarised recommendations for the preparedness of cruise ships during a pandemic from ports, off-board and on-board measures to repatriation. Demonstrated the importance of spatial characteristics in the preparedness of a ship. Pointed the effect pandemic can have upon crew and passengers. This needs to be taken into account when operations restart. Cruise experience would have to change due to covid-19, especially when social activity on board has to be restricted. The importance of future studies focusing on how this change will impact cruise industry arose, including crew hygiene, safety and supporting mental health during outbreaks.Key messages Multi-disciplinary approach on providing a set of recommendations for emergency response to infectious disease outbreak on cruise ships including environmental preparedness.Actions should include also the mental health of crew and passengers on copying with stress during infectious outbreaks.

A Generic Process Model for Sociocultural Data Collection and Decision Making in Facility Programming

This is the third paper in a trilogy of papers that started with developing the philosophical and theoretical foundations for the study of sociospatial interactions. In the second paper, we created a guiding framework for facilities programming information collection and decision making. In this paper, we use that guiding framework and develop a process model for the programming process. Our methodology involves systems theory, activity theory, and task analysis. We present a generic model of the data collection process in facilities programming. This model delineates process steps, their sequence, and their content. The intent of this model is to provide structure and content suggestions for developing project-specific facilities programing research designs for information collection, processing, and programmatic decision-making. It is a plan for action, articulated and explicated so that professional programmers can use it as a template for organizing their work. This process model is tentative and general, intended as a guide for creating customized process designs for each programming project, considering the specifics of the building type and the programming situation.

Culture as a Colonial Hub: My reflections as a ‘Coloured’ [Woman] in PostApartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT Africa is often overwhelmed with narratives that seek to devalue its location and its contribution to knowledge because of the reproduction of colonial knowledges. Consequently, the geopolitics of South Africa has created an awareness of the way that power spaces have impacted the identity formation of subjugated persons. This paper uses autoethnography to explore the author’s legal racial classification as a ‘Colored’ [woman] in postApartheid South Africa. In addition, the author decided to bracket the word [woman] as symbolic of how colonialism and Apartheid were enacted to silence and disregard the gender of ‘Colored’ [women]. The author focuses on how her geographical location and culture have impacted on the negative stereotypes and perceptions surrounding her as a ‘Colored’ [woman]. The author’s experiences are interpreted through decolonial feminism to illustrate how socio-spatial relations and ideas of culture have been saturated with colonial and Apartheid knowledges. The author references these spaces as colonial hubs to emphasize how the colonial and Apartheid epistemes are currently entrenched in her socio-spatial interactions. These oppressive epistemes are additionally responsible for colonizing the gender of ‘Colored’ [women] in South Africa. Moreover, the author draws attention to these colonial hubs to advance the call to decolonize such spaces.

The impact of COVID-19 on daily lives of transnational people based on smartphone data: Estonians in Finland

ABSTRACT Global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic affect both the functioning of our societies and the daily lives of people. Yet the impact of the crisis and its mitigation measures have exerted disproportionate influence on different population groups. In March – May 2020, COVID-19 mitigation measures such as closures of national borders affected transnational people who cross borders frequently for work, shopping, services, family reasons and socialising. We have examined the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the daily lives of transnational Estonians residing in Finland, based on a unique longitudinal smartphone tracking survey. Findings show that besides a drastic but expected decrease in transnationals’ spatial mobility, the pandemic has especially affected their cross-border mobility patterns to and time spent in Estonia. Interestingly, during the lockdown, some transnationals decided to stay not in their primary home in Finland, but in Estonia. Mobile phone communication activity followed moderately the downward trend of spatial mobility, but the crisis changed the division of communication partners by country: Finnish contacts diminished, whereas Estonian partners remained active. We reflect on our findings for future research and discuss the applicability of the smartphone tracking approach for capturing the socio-spatial interactions of transnational people.

"They don't know who they have in here": Sense of community in budget hotels.

The purpose of this study was to understand older residents descriptions of socio-spatial guest interactions and sense of community in budget hotels. Due to financial vulnerability, some people move into budget hotels when other housing options are unavailable. Little is known about how older residents perceive other hotel guests who frequent the commercial establishment and how a mix of various consumer interactions can potentially influence health. Theoretically framing this inquiry with sense of community constructs, we conducted a secondary data analysis of 20 interviews with residents aged 50 and older. Through thematic analysis strategies, we identified temporal and socio-spatial interactions of hotel guests, then discussed sense of community based on these insider/outsider relationships. We conclude with research, policy, and practice implications of our findings.

Behavioral Link Analytics on Heterogeneous Human Interaction Networks

For designing and modeling Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in the area of human-machine interaction, suitable approaches for user modeling are important in order to both capture user characteristics. Using multimodal data, this can be performed from various perspectives. Specifically, for modeling user interactions in human interaction networks, appropriate approaches for capturing those interactions, as well as to analyze them in order to extract meaningful patterns are important. Specifically, for modeling user behavior for the respective AI systems, we can make use of diverse heterogeneous data sources. This paper investigates face-to-face as well as socio-spatial interaction networks for modeling user interactions from three perspectives: We analyze preferences and perceptions of human social interactions in relation to the interactions observed using wearable sensors, i. e., face-to-face as well as socio-spatial interactions fo the respective actors. For that, we investigate the correspondence of according networks, in order to identify conformance, exceptions, and anomalies. The analysis is performed on a real-world dataset capturing networks of proximity interactions coupled with self-report questionnaires about preferences and perception of those interactions. The different networks, and according perspectives then provide different options for user modeling and integration into AI systems modeling such user behavior.

Restricted Spatiality and the Inflation of Digital Space, an Urban Perspective

This article aims to explore whether or not digital space assumes the role of the spatial urban grid when movement of people is restricted under quarantine. The era of Web 2.0 and the increasingly easy access to mobile devices and the internet has created alternative virtual space for urban socio-spatial interactions. The article addresses these concepts in three parts. First, it adapts a theoretical framework that can address the emerging digital public and spatial restrictions. Second, it explores the possible inflation of digital space. Third, it questions the possibility of transfer of spatiality into virtual space. The finding shows significant inflation of digital space after quarantine, but no significant spatial characteristic can be identified among those interactions. The study emphasizes the importance of adapting existing theories for evolving urban challenges.

An Examination of Urban Vertical Gated Communities of Nagpur, India

This paper explores a new type of housing in India and resulting urban dynamics in Nagpur, a Grade A city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The accelerating urban growth rate led to a dynamic housing market to accommodate the on-going migration. A new housing typology can be identified as clusters of residential towers, developed as gated communities and marketed as first-class neighbourhoods for emerging higher income groups. This research is a timely effort to address the occurring challenges of future urban patterns produced by this housing typology in India. Various urban qualities are needed to foster sustainable urbanism. Housing patterns have a major impact on how urban environments work efficiently, how they accommodate different user groups and how city images, perceptions and thus lifestyles are affected. The paper investigates these new urban sites in relation to their socio-spatial interactions and the resulting production of urban qualities to foster a new understanding of this particular housing typology and its impact on urbanism in India. Analysing through the lens of three major urban qualities of urban efficiency, diversity and identity the study identifies the complex socio-spatial dynamics fostered by vertical gated communities in Nagpur city. The paper concludes with an outlook on the distinctive roles of architects and urban designers to develop synergies between this urban typology and its surroundings

For ‘common struggles of migrants and locals’. Migrant activism and squatting in Athens

ABSTRACT This article analysis the socio-political form of the migrant squats, and the socio-spatial interactions they foster and generate. Drawing on empirical research, it focuses on the Athenian context where, since September 2015, political groups belonging to the anti-authoritarian and Left-libertarian movement, occupied some empty buildings to host migrants in transit through the country. From a political perspective, the squats are interpreted here as strategies of struggle to gain access to the space of the city and they also constitute instances of migrant activism and resistance to the European border regime. Moreover, migrant occupations represent practices and sites for contesting citizenship, intended as a category of political status; as such, they exceed the limits of this category and move beyond the boundaries of the nation-state, originating practices of citizenship ‘from below’, while at the same time they produce subjectivities that choose to ‘opt out’ of citizenship as a legal status. This article is situated within the contextualisation of space and autonomy. Migrant squats are looked at from the angle of the ‘gaze of autonomy’, since they are aimed both at contesting citizenship as an exclusionary feature, and at revindicating the activists’ (both migrants and non) presence in the space of city.

Architecture and Anthropology. Working in between Concepts

Architecture and anthropology have become more and more intertwined, making place to what I call an anthropo-architecture – an architecture centred on its social outcomes, an architecture that understands and creatively interprets sociological and anthropological inquiries to a level that exceeds a basic multidisciplinary approach. This article puts together related fundamental concepts in architecture and anthropology (like spatial vs. social relations, boundary vs. limits etc.), underlying their distinct role but also their intersection and, what is most important, (new) overlapping concepts that can’t be considered to pertain to one discipline or another, but to both regarded together – as an antropo-architecture. The new concepts (or new meanings given to fundamental concepts) as results of this research speak of: an architecture that accommodates the ever-changing social needs; of socio-spatial interactions as interactions fostered by design; of the boundary as a dynamic relation between spaces and - more than that – between their social components; of the in-between as the most socially, emotionally, experiential and transformative contemporary space through the creativity and the performances it facilitates; of antropo-architecture as an equilibrium between architectural perception and anthropological field research. This research wishes to emphasize the contemporary need for an antropo-architectural approach and it provides a conceptual frame for reading, understanding and interpreting the built space and its use. It takes a look into various theories in search of shared/related/new overlapping concepts and it investigates their role through examples and research-by-design proposals coordinated by the author. Such approaches lead to a better understanding of the urban space and of the ways in which it is being used, as well as of social realities and issues. They invite users, spectators, viewers to question, to imagine, to interact, intervene, propose and not only use space and everything in it. Anthropo-architectural interventions foster the active engagement of its users, it embraces and it encourages its users to embrace diversity (of background, of opinion, of experience etc.) and ideas of multiplicity (of identities, realities etc.) through creative appropriation and interpretation of the built environment.

There’s no place like home? African American women in the residence halls of a predominantly white Midwestern University

ABSTRACTDespite an increase in scholarship exploring the challenges African American women face in the classrooms of predominantly White institutions, there is surprisingly little research on the experiences of these women as they navigate the social spaces of PWIs. I address this shortcoming by investigating how African American women navigate socio-spatial interactions in residence halls. I use qualitative evidence from interviews with academically successful African American women at a Midwestern PWI. While I find that African American women do not have an aversion to developing friendships with White students, racial and gender tensions motivate African American women to self-segregate. Because they are marginalized both inside and outside the classroom, African American women develop socio-spatial practices that insulate them from White students in the dorms.

Urban Segregation and Socio-Spatial Interactions: A Configurational Approach

Urban segregation is an inherent feature of cities and becomes a problem when excluding or hindering certain groups from accessing services, activities and spaces. In Brazil, segregation by social class is dominant in the structure of cities and public policies rarely address urban configuration as part of the segregation problem. This work addresses segregation with a shift in emphasis from traditional housing segregation to segregation as the restraint of socio-spatial interactions, thus including other facets of the phenomenon that have not yet been properly explored and seeking new spatially relevant metrics. This paper aims to present a methodology of segregation analysis based on configurational models and develop an empirical application in a Brazilian city. Representing the probabilities of interaction between different socio-economic groups in public spaces, a configurational model was used, addressing retail-residence spatial relationship. The attributes of population size, household income and number of retail establishments were considered. The results allowed identifying the probabilistic residence-retail trajectories for high and low income groups, providing a first measure of spatial segregation. The conclusions seek to highlight the importance of configurational approaches for segregation studies, as well as to show potentialities and limits of this methodology.

The Architectural Object as a Sociospatial System

Abstract Concerns with the social inadequacy of architecture and the movement towards user-centred design call for new perspectives and architectural visions that can help alleviate usability problems and make buildings more user-friendly and accommodating in supporting user operations. Accordingly, this study proposes the concept of the sociospatial system. This conceptualization is based on premises of the systems approach and a social science interpretation of the problem. We provide a foundation for relating spatial-material objects and sociocultural phenomena, for homogenizing different discipline perspectives, and for developing relational descriptions of the systems components. This allows the built environment to be represented in terms of the sociocultural organism that it accommodates. The elastic concept of the sociospatial system described herein can be used as a holistic framework for the study of sociospatial interactions; including facilities programming and design, where this way of thinking can facilitate a holistic interpretation of a wide array of considerations.

State restructuring and subnational innovation spaces across Chinese prefectures

This paper maps the emergence of ‘subnational innovation spaces’ in China as they result from the interaction between state restructuring and the diffusion of innovative activities. Several countervailing forces have played a part in outlining a number of supra-urban regions that diverge by their own capability to develop and govern innovation-related socio-economic processes. On the one hand, the downscaling of state power enables the local administrative units to plan place-based strategies to embed technological upgrading, such as driving indigenous innovative activities to cluster around industrial and technological parks. On the other hand, this clustering entails reconfiguring socio-spatial interactions, while experiencing new networked connections to be governed. Thus, technological upgrading and state restructuring are intertwined and mutually reinforcing. Following this perspective, the authors have rearranged various data sets at the prefectural level and processed them to disentangle some of the main underlying processes: first, the distribution of innovation-related ‘infrastructures’ across cities; second, the evolution of innovative activities; third, the transition towards a firm-centred Science and Technology system. These factors have been then combined together with neighbourhood relations to outline different subnational innovation spaces. The result is a country-wide map describing how the geography of innovative activities in China exhibits features that are connected to the long-term processes of transition, industrialisation and state restructuring. This picture suggests that the catching up with ‘upgraded development’ in laggard regions could be further promoted identifying ‘up-scaled’ regional hubs to coordinate the development of wider areas.

Will Trespassers Be Prosecuted or Assessed According to Their Merits? A Consilient Interpretation of Territoriality in a Group-Living Carnivore, the European Badger (Meles meles).

Socio-spatial interactions of Carnivores have traditionally been described using the vocabulary of territoriality and aggression, with scent marks interpreted as ‘scent fences’. Here, we investigate the role of olfactory signals in assumed territorial marking of group-living solitary foragers using European badgers Meles meles as a model. We presented anal gland secretions (n = 351) from known individuals to identifiable recipients (n = 187), to assess response-variation according to familiarity (own-group, neighbours, strangers) and spatial context (in-context: at a shared border; out-of-context: at an unshared border/ the main sett). Sniffing and over-marking (with subcaudal gland secretion) responses were strongest to anal gland secretions from strangers, intermediate to neighbouring-group and weakest to own-group members. Secretions from both, strangers and neighbours, were sniffed for longer than were own-group samples, although neighbour-secretion presented out-of-context evoked no greater interest than in-context. On an individual level, responses were further moderated by the relevance of individual-specific donor information encoded in the secretion, as it related to the physiological state of the responder. There was a trend bordering on significance for males to sniff for longer than did females, but without sex-related differences in the frequency of subcaudal over-marking responses, and males over-marked oestrous female secretions more than non-oestrous females. There were no age-class related differences in sniff-duration or in over-marking. Evaluating these results in the context of the Familiarity hypothesis, the Threat-level hypothesis, and the Individual advertisement hypothesis evidences that interpretations of territorial scent-marks depicting rigid and potentially agonistic discrimination between own- and foreign-group conspecifics are overly simplistic. We use our findings to advance conceptual understanding of badger socio-spatial ecology, and the general context of territoriality and group-range dynamics.

Pathways to European identity formation: a tale of two models

This article argues that there are two distinct logics that underlie existing studies on European identification. These are grounded in models of collective identity formation that stress either messages inscribed in discursive processes or practices situated in socio-spatial relations – respectively, the “culturalist” and the “structuralist” models. The first of these models considers identification as a direct outcome of the exposure to content-specific symbols, narratives, and messages; the second, as an emerging property of socio-spatial interactions that are content-free of identity references. The first is logocentric, while the second is democentric and topocentric. This article focuses particularly on the second and less-developed research tradition which explores the effects of cross-national practices. The limits and potential of this model are discussed, setting an agenda for empirical research aiming to better elucidate the causal dynamics of European identity formation and adjudicate between these competing explanations.

Disruptive social capital: (Un)Healthy socio-spatial interactions among Filipino men living with HIV/AIDS

Social capital's popularity is due to its commensurability with community-centered strategies on the one hand, and neoliberalist state retraction on the other. But, as scathing critiques have asserted, expanding trust and reciprocity cannot overcome social inequality and health disparities. This paper addresses these critiques by proposing a disruptive social capital framework. Disruptive social capital highlights the simultaneous advantages and disadvantages embedded in social capital that result in enhanced health, but also illness, injury, or death. An analysis of interviews with 52 Filipino men living with HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles shows the inextricable nature of these (dis)advantages.