Socio-spatial Processes Research Articles

Overtourism, place alienation and the right to the city: insights from the historic centre of Seville, Spain

Increasing international travel flows across the planet have drawn attention to socio-spatial justice concerning the impact of tourism and transnational gentrification in cities. We suggest that the growth of tourists and lifestyle migrants can potentially shrink or even deprive a social right to the city. The early work of philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre, particularly The Right to the City (1968), offer valuable elements to understand the potential alienation of local residents from the city centre in the context of a tourism-led urban economy. Several questions arise in this context that are explored here: What injustices arise through the socio-spatial processes and transformation of social spaces due to rapid tourism growth and overtourism? What contribution does Lefebvre’s theoretical work make to current studies on overtourism overall? We examine these questions through a case study in Seville, Andalusia (Spain). It illustrates how its residents lose the right to everyday life in the historic centre and become alienated from their local spaces. Mechanisms of commodification and gentrification contribute to socio-spatial injustices and also make the city “inauthentic” for visitors and residents. In this sense, the right to live and enjoy the city are lost to both groups.

Turismo, producción inmobiliaria y procesos espaciales: la difusión del modelo turístico español hacia Brasil

In recent decades, a tourist model based on the construction of residential complexes close to the coast has been implemented on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, with homes generally acquired by citizens of other European countries. This process has generated a vigorous real estate market (1995-2007) and various socio-spatial phenomena, such as gentrification, segregation, homogenization or fragmentation of the urbanized space, in a model that has been exported to various places, such as the American continent. The objective of the present investigation is to analyze the diffusion of the Spanish tourist model towards Brazil, specifically its presence in Polo Costa das Dunas, in the State of Rio Grande do Norte. This transmission is mainly due to the European capital construction companies that invest in the aforementioned territory. The most relevant conclusion is the dissemination and transfer of the urban socio-spatial processes that characterize the Spanish residential tourism model.

Práticas espaciais e consumo: dinâmicas de redefinição em cidades médias policêntricas

Analisamos redefinições de práticas espaciais de consumo nas cidades médias de Marília, Presidente Prudente e São Carlos, que têm atraído investimentos relativos ao comércio e aos serviços. As redefinições estão submetidas a transformações na acumulação do capital, com novas escalas de atuação, e na sociedade, com novo papel adquirido pelo consumo, repercutindo e tendo como condição a complexificação da estrutura urbana e de processos socioespaciais. Contudo, a análise das práticas espaciais de consumo é indicativa da combinação de processos ligados às longas temporalidades e das escolhas cotidianas baseadas em elementos diversos, como o poder aquisitivo, a adoção de inovações em bens e serviços e espaços de consumo e os produtos a serem adquiridos.

Examining the policy mix for broadband deployment in Wales: The role of informal coordination in the last mile

This paper examines the challenges of deploying broadband policies at the local level. It is a topic that has received significant attention in urban and rural areas, with uneven access to broadband identified as an important issue by policy makers and researchers alike. While the broadband and regional development literature has highlighted the complexity of regional deployment, with reference to geographical metaphors such as the last mile, it has tended to downplay the underlying policy processes as actors seek to manage the deployment process over time and space. Drawing on the concept of the policy mix, the paper examines how actors seek to manage complexity between policy objectives. It does so by drawing on an in-depth case-study of broadband policy in Wales – 2012 to 2017, and shows deployment to be a contested process in the last mile, characterised by interaction between policy objectives in a range of policy areas including planning and highways. It is argued that coordination of these tensions represents a complex socio-spatial process in which local actors (government, households, businesses and broadband providers) engage in a negotiated process to find place-based, bespoke solutions to deployment problems.

Space in transformation: Public versus private climate change adaptation in peripheral coastal tourism areas—Case studies from Quebec, Canada

AbstractClimate change makes the tourism industry vulnerable, as many of its resources will be heavily impacted by its effects. Coastal destinations are likely to be the most affected by rising sea levels and extreme weather events, calling for a sociospatial analysis of the dynamics of peripheral coastal tourism communities. Using a production of space framework, we describe how tourism space is produced and (re)produced in two Canadian communities located along the St. Lawrence River estuary: Tadoussac and Notre‐Dame‐du‐Portage. A case study methodology including observation, semistructured interviews, and discourses analysis is applied to deconstruct the sociospatial process of climate change adaptation. The main findings stress the importance of discourse and land tenure strategies used by different stakeholders. Managers of publicly owned land tend to make environmental strategies (green infrastructure) central to their adaptation strategies, whereas private land owners tend to use man‐made interventions (grey infrastructure) and closing space strategies to protect and enhance their land values in response to the increasing threat and evidence of climate change impacts. The results call for further research that takes the social processes of value creation embedded in land tenure and land markets into account.

Urbanização extensiva, produção energética e justiça espacial em cidades pequenas gaúchas e catarinenses

A urbanização, como processo socioespacial que, ao mesmo tempo, produz cidades e um modo de vida, tem-se ampliado continuamente desde a primeira revolução industrial. Muito do seu desenvolvimento e de sua ampliação estão relacionados à intensidade de geração de energia nos países, especialmente a elétrica. No Brasil, essa geração se dá, sobretudo, por meio de usinas hidrelétricas, situadas em cursos hídricos muitas vezes fora das grandes aglomerações metropolitanas. Propomos, neste artigo, debater as contradições que existem nas cidades pequenas frente à expansão da geração de energia elétrica, problematizando noções como desenvolvimento e justiça espacial. Nosso recorte analítico recai sobre duas usinas, Barra Grande e Itá, e particularmente nas quatro cidades pequenas que estão em suas adjacências: Anita Garibaldi e Itá em Santa Catarina; Pinhal da Serra e Aratiba no Rio Grande do Sul. A pesquisa apoiou-se em trabalhos de campo realizados nessas usinas e cidades, onde colhemos registros fotográficos e depoimentos de citadinos. Concluímos com observações acerca das disparidades nas quatro cidades trazidas pela implantação das usinas hidrelétricas, demarcando desafios a serem enfrentados.
 
 Abstract
 
 EXTENDED URBANISATION, ENERGY PRODUCTION AND SPATIAL JUSTICE IN SMALL CITIES OF RIO GRANDE DO SUL AND SANTA CATARINA
 
 Urbanisation is a socio-spatial process that produces cities and a way of life. It has been spreading continuously since the first industrial revolution. Much of the urban development and growth is related to the intensity of energy production in countries worldwide, especially electric energy. In Brazil, the energy is mostly produced by hydroelectric plants, most of them located in rivers outside great metropolitan areas. In this paper, we aim to discuss the existing contradictions in small cities in view of the expansion of energy production in order to problematize notions such as development and spatial justice. Our analytical focus relies on two hydroelectric plants, Barra Grande and Itá, and particularly four small cities located nearby: Anita Garibaldi and Itá in Santa Catarina state; Pinhal da Serra and Aratiba in Rio Grande do Sul state. The research was based on fieldworks conducted in these cities and hydroelectric plants where we collected photographic records and citizens’ testimonies. We conclude by observing disparities in the fours mentioned cities brought up by the implementation of the hydroelectric plants and we highlight as well the challenges to be faced.

Special Section Introduction: “Peripheral Visions: Security By, and For, Whom?”

ABSTRACT In this introduction to the special issue on “Peripheral Visions: Security by, and for, whom?”, we summarise the core themes of the special issue and outline our relational approach to peripheralisation research in security studies. We explain how and why the papers that form part of the special issue address the power geometries that result from, and contour, uneven landscapes of resilience and (in)security. Taking our cue from current scholarship that conceptualises peripheralisation and polarisation as relational socio-spatial processes, we examine how constructions of centrality and peripheralisation unfold in, and underpin, security politics. We argue that processes of peripheralisation underlie security politics in ways that make peripheralised subjects and places simultaneously central to the production and maintenance of uneven geometries of power. Adding further insights to debates on the power geometries of security, papers in the special issue explore how securitisation builds on, remoulds and (re)produces the peripheralisation of certain people and places (including their discursive construction as peripheral), how peripheralisation relates to uneven productions of (in)security, and how those whose security is most placed at risk through processes of peripheralisation qua securitisation rework dominant logics and policies in their security visions and practices. Our focus is, on the one hand, on the relations through which peripheralised actors, spaces and materialities become central to sustaining privileged securities and, on the other hand, on the everyday practices of securitisation through which risks and precarities are tackled and contested by those peripheralised.

Evolução socioespacial do município de Itapoá- SC

O presente artigo teve por objetivo contextualizar, caracterizar, descrever e compreender, o processo de transformação socioespacial, recente, do município de Itapoá. Realizou-se uma revisão literária do processo histórico da região e em seguida do município; ao finalizar a leitura, partiu-se para um trabalho de campo estruturado com perguntas priorizando informações da comunidade pretérita, para um público de 30 moradores mais antigos que contribuíram com esta história. Posteriormente, estes registros orais serviram notadamente para identificar o inicio do povoamento, ao mesmo sendo representadas em temáticas que hoje o meio técnico informacional auxilia para melhor entender como iniciou o processo de povoamento do território de Itapoá, as mudanças ao longo do tempo e como está configurada no espaço; e identificar os impactos causados com vinda do grande empreendimento portuário, e quais as transformações ocorridas no município, e como o espaço vem se organizando.

(Re-)producing bioassemblages: positionalities of regional bioeconomy development in Finland

ABSTRACTBioeconomy is a new political and economic buzzword that frames many proposed pathways to sustainable regional development in Europe, particularly in rural, biomass rich areas. Dissected by research into various strands, visions, shades of “green” and presented by bioeconomy stakeholders through regional examples and self-promoting bio-clusters, the socio-spatial processes of regional assemblages are often ignored in these accounts. Based on a prominent Finnish example, this case study employs the concept of bioassemblage to display the socio-spatial positionalities of regional bioeconomy development in the places of materialisation. Furthermore, it ties the spatial (re-)production of bioassemblages to their role as bioeconomy policy translation loops and consequently provides insights into the processes of bioeconomy policy mobility, translation and mutation. Examining the positionalities in a bioassemblage presents a complex and frequently shifting local environment accompanied by unequal power topologies and means of territorialisation. Shallow policy narratives create problematic mismatches between the “best-practices” employed by policy makers and regional bioeconomy materialisation in the places themselves. While the study makes no assumption on the sustained future of bioeconomy development, it shows that current processes enable the externalisation of risks at industrial sites, restrict wider participation and discredit the important role of institutional actors in development.

Seeking the causes of urban ruination: An empirical research in four Portuguese cities

Urban ruination is an understudied feature in the life of cities. This article discusses its causes. Based on the study of four shrinking Portuguese cities (Lisbon, Barreiro, Guimaraes and Vizela), and using Multiple Linear Regression Analysis as the statistical method, the structure of relationships among ruins, economic change, demographic change, social geography and the characteristics of buildings are discussed. Although the study concludes that ruination is a highly contingent phenomenon, the results show that of all the structural factors, demographic ageing and the obsolescence of buildings (poor housing conditions) are the key causes of ruination in the four cities under study. Links between ruination and socio-spatial processes have also been identified.

Megaproyectos de Infraestructura

Esta investigación revisa tres casos de estudio donde el Estado ha enfrentado conflictos con individuos y sociedad civil por la construcción de megaproyectos, elaborado en el marco para el evento de Habitat III en Quito (2016). El megaproyecto es un proceso socio-espacial en el que se manifiestan múltiples racionalidades que entienden y se apropian de la obra. El Estado como un ente tecnocrático, entendido como el promotor de estas obras, tiende a apropiarse del discurso modernizador donde no se reconocen los conflictos sociales. El rol del Estado incurre en una contradicción al tener la responsabilidad de salvaguardar los derechos de sus ciudadanos y al mismo tiempo defender el megaproyecto. En los tres casos analizados se presenta al Estado como un promotor del mega-proyecto, como un garante de los derechos de ciudadanos, y como el ente que legalmente institucionaliza las pretensiones de opositores al proyecto.

Understanding urban gentrification through machine learning

Recent developments in the field of machine learning offer new ways of modelling complex socio-spatial processes, allowing us to make predictions about how and where they might manifest in the future. Drawing on earlier empirical and theoretical attempts to understand gentrification and urban change, this paper shows it is possible to analyse existing patterns and processes of neighbourhood change to identify areas likely to experience change in the future. This is evidenced through an analysis of socio-economic transition in London neighbourhoods (based on 2001 and 2011 Census variables) which is used to predict those areas most likely to demonstrate ‘uplift’ or ‘decline’ by 2021. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of such modelling for the understanding of gentrification processes, noting that if qualitative work on gentrification and neighbourhood change is to offer more than a rigorous post-mortem then intensive, qualitative case studies must be confronted with – and complemented by – predictions stemming from other, more extensive approaches. As a demonstration of the capabilities of machine learning, this paper underlines the continuing value of quantitative approaches in understanding complex urban processes such as gentrification.

Urban development by dispossession: planetary urbanization and primitive accumulation

Structural changes in capitalism over the last four decades have facilitated the emergence of globalized sociospatial processes such as urbanization. Meanwhile, the scale of uneven sociospatial development has also been dramatically accentuated. We explore these issues by conceptualizing contemporary urbanization as a “planetary” process, but we also add mediating concepts to study changes on the ground. We illustrate how linkages between dispossession and urbanization can be discerned in countries of both the global North and South. We also show that the oft-made claims to overall efficiency gains from urbanization are a myth. Capitalist urbanization has two dialectically interrelated dimensions: “development” and “dispossession,” and this process cannot be adequately grasped to be an outcome of rural–urban migration leading to efficiency gains.

A PRAÇA MORENA BELA NA CIDADE DE SERRINHA-BA: UMA REFLEXÃO A PARTIR DA PAISAGEM URBANA

A paisagem, o horizonte que nos é apresentado cuja visão consegue abarcar, faz parte do nosso cotidiano. Descrever a paisagem é insuficiente e faz-se necessário revelar as suas entrelinhas. Sendo a praça um espaço público, mais especificamente das praças, temos, pois, o In loco da ação coletiva, das inúmeras subjetividades, funcionalidades e seu papel no cenário urbano da cidade. Eis a Praça Morena Bela da cidade de Serrinha, objeto de estudo deste trabalho vista sob o olhar revelador da paisagem – categoria de análise da Geografia. Este trabalho revisou a literatura acerca de paisagem e praça com a finalidade de estudar os processos sócioespaciais que resultaram na atual configuração da Praça Morena Bela, atualizando novas impressões e aprofundando uma leitura para além do que a visão pode apresentar. Dessa forma, pode-se inferir que sua paisagem é heterogênea em cores e sensações; dinâmica por ser composta de formas naturais e artificiais, imbricadas de inúmeras temporalidades e funções, resultante de inúmeros eventos e modificações por meio da técnica estando em constante modificação.

Reflections on the variations and spatialities of (un)welcome – commentary to Gill

In this reflection, we seek to develop some of Professor Gill’s inspiring ideas on the notion of (un)welcome further. We do this, in particular, by problematizing his largely dualistic conception of the emotionally-invested, inter-personal forms of welcome contra a bureaucratic tendency to abstract welcome, to hollow it out emotionally. We argue that if applied too rigidly, this dichotomy can be unwieldy for making sense of the actual socio-spatial and emotional dynamics of (un)welcome. To elaborate this criticism, we expand on the notion of welcome from three interrelated perspectives. First, we argue that besides the opposite poles of people who welcome refugees, and forces that attempt to exclude them, great many actors convey more ambiguous and contextually varying attitudes to (un)welcoming immigrants. In the light of Lefebvre’s conceptual triad of social space, we next point out that Gill’s conceptualization pays inadequate heed to the practiced and societally recompensing aspects of everyday spatiality and welcoming. Finally, we take a cue from Gill’s suggestion to analyze welcome from the emotional geographies perspective, and reflect on exclusionary and inclusionary socio-spatial processes related to refugees’ emotions (lived space) and coping tactics (practiced space).

The Making of White Water Citizens in Australia and the Western United States: Racialization as a Transnational Project of Irrigation Governance

This article examines the role of settler irrigation systems and water governance in establishing and reinforcing tenacious imperial geographies of whiteness. Through an analysis of the lives and work of two powerful men who made foundational contributions to establishing irrigation economies and water governance systems in Australia and the Western United States, we investigate the racialized sociospatial processes that bound whiteness to water. Alfred Deakin (1856–1919) and Elwood Mead (1858–1936) were men of science, technology, and politics who actively circulated in and shaped transnational flows of knowledge about whiteness and racial hierarchies. As Deakin and Mead vigorously promoted particular social and political systems associated with irrigation, steering water flows toward uses regarded as modern and productive according to taken-for-granted norms, they imagined, naturalized, and privileged a white water citizenry. In the process, they contributed to the dispossession and displacement of Indigenous peoples as well as marginalizing Other water users, most notably Asian migrants. These men's hydro-imaginaries, which were endorsed and enacted by their respective governments, served to motivate a form of state protection of family farms, inculcate civic self-reliance and local organization, and establish the white water citizen, a baseline against which others were expected to conform. By examining the making of white water citizens, we hope to contribute to Indigenous geographies and studies of racialization in rural places, as well as the effects of irrigation in settler nations.

The Sidewalk as a Contested Space: Women’s Negotiation of Socio-Spatial Processes of Exclusion in Public Urban Space in Saudi Arabia; The Case of Al Tahlia Street

ABSTRACTRiyadh is one of the most gender-segregated cities in the world. However, as gender segregation is less enforced on sidewalks, it provides an optimal case study for a space where women and men may be co-present. Thus, this paper aims to increase the understanding of the relationship between sociocultural norms and spatial programming regarding spatio-temporal inclusion or exclusion in public urban spaces. The results show that women’s use and access to sidewalks are influenced by gender norms, religious values, gendered regulations, and generic spatial programming. For instance, regulations limit the use of outdoor seating to men only, thus sidewalks adjacent to, e.g., cafes function as mono-gender spaces dominated by men. However, young women negotiate spatially bounded gender norms through their presence, behaviour, and dress. Although sidewalks are conceived as men’s space, women account for nearly half of the users, but their use often goes unnoticed as women self-regulate their spatio-temporal and visible presence. The study presents six types of women’s spatio-temporal behaviours with varying degrees of visible and invisible users. Ultimately, this paper argues that planning for inclusive sidewalks cannot be addressed solely through the ‘universal’ characterization of space; it should also be supplemented by context-specific knowledge regarding the socio-spatial needs.

‘Making space’ in Cairo: Expatriate movements and spatial practices

This paper examines what it means to be an ‘expatriate’ in Cairo through the lens of movement and space-making. Inquiring into a set of migrant (im)mobilities, spatial practices, relations, and imaginations, it argues that as a ‘spatialised’ identity category ‘expatriate’ narrates and enacts migratory privileges linked to wider hierarchies of social difference. It contributes to a growing literature examining the social and political dimensions of ‘expatriate’ migration and further engages scholarship thinking space and movement in relational and socio-historical terms. Rather than denoting an easily distinguishable group of migrants, ‘expatriate’ emerged as a contingent and ambiguous category of practice. As such, ‘expatriate’ stands in a productive relationship with privileged movement and socio-spatial processes. Like other migrants, respondents skillfully navigated the global differences in wealth, power and status they were presented with. Yet, unlike many other migrants, they did so from a privileged position within the global power-geometries of international migration. Migrants’ personal geographies were further shaped by how bodies were racialised and gendered in entangled, intersecting and sometimes counter-intuitive ways. This diversity and complexity of ‘expatriate’ geographies highlights the necessity of intersectional and situated analyses of privilege.

(Dis)Embodied Disclosure in Higher Education: A Co-Constructed Narrative

In this paper we use co-constructed autoethnographic methods to explore the tensions that animate the meaning of “disclosure” in university and college environments. Drawing insight from our embodied experiences as graduate students and university/college course instructors, our collaborative counter-narratives examine the ordinary ways that disclosure is made meaningful and material as a relationship and a form of embodied labour. Our dialogue illustrates the layered nature of disclosure—for example, self-disclosing as a disabled student in order to access academic spaces but not self-disclosing to teach as an instructor. Katie uses phenomenological disability studies to analyze disclosure at the intersection of disability and pregnancy as body-mediated moments (Draper, 2002). Nancy uses Hochschild’s (1983) notion of “emotional labour” to explore how socio-spatial processes of disclosure can be an embodied form of “extra work” (e.g., managing perceptions of stigmatized identities).

(Dis)Embodied Disclosure in Higher Education: A Co-Constructed Narrative

In this paper we use co-constructed autoethnographic methods to explore the tensions that animate the meaning of “disclosure” in university and college environments. Drawing insight from our embodied experiences as graduate students and university/college course instructors, our collaborative counter-narratives examine the ordinary ways that disclosure is made meaningful and material as a relationship and a form of embodied labour. Our dialogue illustrates the layered nature of disclosure—for example, self-disclosing as a disabled student in order to access academic spaces but not self-disclosing to teach as an instructor. Katie uses phenomenological disability studies to analyze disclosure at the intersection of disability and pregnancy as body-mediated moments (Draper, 2002). Nancy uses Hochschild’s (1983) notion of “emotional labour” to explore how socio-spatial processes of disclosure can be an embodied form of “extra work” (e.g., managing perceptions of stigmatized identities).