Urban Narratives Research Articles

Urban Lifewor(l)ds

This article focuses on narrative encounters between people, cities, and stories, and the narrative, material, and futuristic urban plotting. It explores how people engage with narrative heritage, its objects – not just neoliberal wet dreams and dystopias, but also speculative street theatre, participatory utopian fiction, orature, or lyrics – and the practices of co-writing, reading, and listening to ask, beyond Henri Lefebvre, not simply ‘who has the right to the city’, but who can narrate its shared pasts and futures, and how. In the paper, I treat stories and urban architecture as interwoven and co-constitutive modalities of heritage preservation, destruction, repair and futurescaping, drawing attention, after Don Mitchell and Sara Zawde, to the narrative affordances of built landscapes as ‘metaphors to live by’ and to the design-making force of narratives and words. The narrative heritages I center on are, therefore, not simply literary texts but diverse narrative acts, including narrators, different media, spaces, and situated rehearsals of public and collective sci-fi storytelling, writing, and listening for togetherness and less violent futures. The article meanders across several urban narrative situations: ‘Society of the Future’ showcases designed by students after dystopian novels and urbanscapes in Boston; speculative heritage live action role-play (LARP) in the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts, US; ‘wave writing’ experiments in Trondheim/Tråante, Norway; and Søstrene Suse’s Radiokino listening sessions in the footprints of Sámi Elsa Laula Renberg across Scandinavia. It concludes with a reflection on the archives of narrative ‘repair’ and urban otherworldliness as pedagogies of non-necrotic futuring.

Street photography and the flâneur: reflections on Australian city narratives

This original photographic work investigates the intersection of street photography and the concept of the flâneur within an Australian urban context. By transforming cityscapes into visual texts, the study captures urban narratives through the absence and reflection of inhabitants, rather than their direct representation. The photographic work employs window reflections as a key technique, introducing multiple visual dimensions to enrich street scenes and overall narratives. Drawing on Baudelaire's notion of the flâneur and Tomanić-Trivundža's three-stage journey of the flâneur (perambulating observation, critical reflection, and production of communicable texts), this work synthesises street photography with flâneur-like observation. It employs a multi-layered visual approach to city streets, representing a less-explored facet of lens-based practice in Australia. While the use of window reflections and the flâneur in street photography are well-established in European and North American contexts, their application in Australian settings remains less explored. This work aims to contribute to the street photography canon by translating these established techniques to Australian cities, offering insights into unique local urban characteristics. By exploring the interplay between global photographic traditions and local realities, this work seeks to provide a fresh perspective on Australian city life through the flâneur lens and reflective urban surfaces, thus expanding the geographical and cultural scope of this photographic tradition.

Remembering an abandoned city: tracing memories and urban narratives of refugees from famagusta

Sullo sfondo del quadro teorico ricostruito nell'articolo precedente, questo contributo presenta i risultati dello studio empirico sulla città abbandonata di Varosha, nella città di Famagosta (Cipro), osservata attraverso lo sguardo dei rifugiati grecociprioti esiliati durante l'invasione turca del 1974. Utilizzando il metodo delle mappe mentali, attraverso interviste strutturate gli esuli sono stati invitati a disegnare Famagosta ripercorrendo la memoria della loro terra perduta. Le mappe mentali dei rifugiati hanno rivelato profonde intuizioni sulla loro percezione dello spazio e una forte relazione con il luogo. Questo studio arricchisce la nostra comprensione di Famagosta e funge da testimonianza dei legami duraturi tra le comunità esiliate e il loro territorio, sottolineando l'importanza di preservare e comprendere i molteplici strati delle dimensioni spaziali mnemoniche di una città al fine di progettarne un futuro condiviso.

Madness and Crime: Anguish Zone of Crazy Seven by Roberto Arlt

This analysis focuses on Augusto Remo Erdosain, who is the main character of Crazy Seven and The flamethrowers. The introduction offers an approach to the literary artifice of Roberto Arlt from the zone of anguish. Here, 3 main axes are mentioned to understand the significance of the novel: (a) Urban daily life, where a hybrid language, a bureaucratic shield, a capitalist morality and a peculiar aesthetic are integrated; (b) the petty-bourgeoisie, is identified through cowardice, pathos and hypocrisy; (c) Marginality, all the reflectors point to this narrative niche because that is where the vanguard of the novel lies. The paradox of continuous humiliation refers to the adverse conditions from which the characters intend to emerge victorious, but end up facing circumstances of greater collapse. The second part of the article characterizes crime as a trivialized procedure, since Erdosain concludes: to kill someone, rob a bank or detonate a bomb, it is enough to become a courageous beast. The third phase constitutes the most provocative proposal of Roberto Arlt: madness as a piece of artistic exhibition. Consequently, Roberto Arlt not only transcribed the sensations, emotions and singularities of a gloomy city, his work ended up setting the themes of urban narrative.

Interrogating narratives of urban change: disinvestment and development in two neighborhoods in Baltimore, MD

ABSTRACT Popular press and academic narratives of neighborhood change frequently conflate the experiences of different non-white populations in working-class and poor areas, presenting them as detrimental to urban development and at risk of displacement and eviction. Such narratives provide justification for uneven disinvestment and overlook the variegated ways in which urban development strategies can be exploitative. Mislabeling urban change as gentrification and grouping multiple racial/ethnic groups can lead to inappropriate policy and misaligned forms of intervention. Building on arguments within Black geographies and critical urban studies, we seek to disentangle how Black and Latine/x populations are differently positioned in urban narratives of dis/investment. Combining archival analysis with data from the US Census, we analyze two formerly redlined neighborhoods in Baltimore whose development trajectories significantly diverged. We demonstrate that inequality is not simply due to the continued effects of historical redlining, but instead part of ongoing rounds of uneven dis/investment. We expose how racial capitalism exploits racial difference between non-white groups to extract profits. By focusing on specific neighborhoods, we enrich research interrogating how racial and ethnic hierarchies relationally shape urban change, making visible the necessity of spatially-specific contingent analyses.

New Local History projects in the unofficial history of the city: The case of St. Petersburg

The problem of interpreting local history is relevant to St. Petersburg, as to many other major historical cities. This article examines phenomena united by the concepts of local (spatial) myth and urban narrative, which go beyond official discourse. Alternative images of the city, based on its concealed places of interest contrast with one of the most widespread representations of St. Petersburg – its association with the heritage of imperial culture. The selection of memorable places and stories shifts from recognizable city landmarks to other objects that reveal the history and image of particular St. Petersburg sites, people’s daily lives and peripheral issues of urban life. This approach to the exploration of urban space, a phenomenon called New Local History, is presented and explained in the article as the rediscovery of the historical potential of the city. The examples given in the article also show the possible role of New Local History in encouraging residents to develop an interest in their own history, in the problems of modernity and in participating in socially significant projects. Trends in interaction with urban space and memory practices that offer alternative interpretations of the past have been identified in various socio-cultural initiatives. In the context of Russian memory politics, this approach often becomes oppositional.

Inheritance and Recreation: The Transformation of Literary Paradigms in Fan Hua’s Shanghai Urban Narrative

The developmental history of literature revolves around a continuous process of retrospection and breakthroughs regarding literary context through “inheritance” and “recreation.” Since the May Fourth Movement, new literature has flowed and transformed between established literary paradigms. Shanghai’s urban narrative, as one of the most vibrant literary contexts, exemplifies a creative stance that is both traditional and pioneering, which is reflected in its century-long literary evolution. This paper aims to select the representative Shanghai urban narrative text of the twenty-first century, Fan Hua, to explore the transformation of literary “paradigm” in contemporary literature from two dimensions: inheritance and innovation. The representative contemporary text of Shanghai’s urban narrative, Fan Hua, surrounds two key elements, investigating its relationship with ancient texts and new-style novels, showcasing the perseverance and evolution of the literary soul and spirit over time after enduring the vicissitudes of classical paradigms.

Persist or Perish. The Dynamics of Irrigated Agriculture in Urbanising Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) is one of the fastest urbanising cities in sub-Saharan Africa, which has implications for its food security. Based on ethnographic research that focused on understanding how day-to-day agricultural practices are configured, we study the responses of farmers to a changing urban environment. We describe urban agriculture as an expression of active city-making; something which is uncommon since the agricultural sector is typically presented as passive and helpless in the face of urban growth. This paper shows that farmers, despite not being accounted for in urban narratives, co-shape what the city looks like and how it functions. By crafting networks of provision based on the informal access to land and water, they offer food, employment, and more for the improvement of their lives and the wider citizenry. In opposition to land pressure and water resource degradation, farmers adapt their agricultural strategies to benefit from what they can access while dealing with the uncertainties of changing realities. Based on our findings which reflect the characteristics of everyday urbanism, we discuss implications for theory and governance. With African cities risking to grow hungry, a better representation of urban farmers and their irrigated agricultural production in urban planning and governance reduces uncertainties and risks, both for farmers and the wider city.

Wokół retrowersji i jakości życia. Dziedzictwo odbudowanego miasta w nowych kontekstach na przykładzie Elbląga

Elbląg is an example of a city in the Western and Northern Territories of Poland that was a German city before World War II, and in 1945, as a result of changes in state borders, became part of Poland. The aim of the article is to present the heritage of Elbląg in contemporary contexts. Treating heritage as a discursive area of social reality, the author shows the main topics of contemporary urban narratives (disputes, demands, discussions) in which heritage is revealed, thus pointing to its dissonances. She also answer questions about social and cultural functions, and about the meaning of the referenced elements of local heritage. One of the main themes and focal points of this heritage is the Old Town, still undergoing reconstruction from wartime destruction using the method of retroversion. This is provoking frequent discussion, and at the same time revealing tensions around the heritage on the axes of essentialism — constructivism, stability — change, and continuity — process. Increasingly, deliberations concerning the Old Town refer to demands related to the quality of life and environmental issues. Thus, green areas are becoming an element of urban heritage. The past and its material traces are an important starting point for discussion, often of a grassroots nature, on the development of the city. This is understood both broadly, in relation to the general vision of the city, and to specific tangible changes in space. Calling Elbląg a “consistently unfinished city,” or “a mock-up city,” touches on the issues of heritage and its social significance in various dimensions and scales of social reality. “Unfinished” therefore concerns not only the constant rebuilding of the city, but also the discussion on the heritage, and more broadly, on the idea of the city.

Connecting art and development: studying the role of city art on bridges in forwarding urban sustainability

ABSTRACT Bridges are important physical structures in a cityscape. With spaces in urban areas, becoming increasingly precious and important, even the bridges and their columns have gained a significant role in voicing city stories. Art on bridges are cultural expressions of urban narratives. The presence of artwork on the bridges also reduces the chances of these sheltered places from becoming hubs for antisocial activities. The study analyses the role of art on three important bridges in Chennai expounding on the communicative city theory. Coming up after infrastructural developments in the city, the artwork on these bridges serves as representatives of urban narratives. They include stories of social equity, environmental awareness and city activities, thereby promoting a positive city identity. The study also denotes the importance of increased community engagement to advance individual and community based participation in creating sustainable cities and diverse city communities.

Social Media Groups in Interaction With Contested Urban Narratives: The Case of Koper/Capodistria, Slovenia

Social media is arguably the most widespread tool for digital communication in Europe and worldwide, which makes it particularly important to investigate how this type of communication tool affects and reflects the processes that shape the urban physical and socio-cultural environment. Its influence on urban realities may be twofold: On one side we can use it as a reflection (or extension) of the processes that occur on the ground; on the other side, the specific ways in which social media operate might influence processes that shape the urban environment. This interaction between the urban and digital spaces is increasingly influencing how collective memory and related heritage discourses are shaped, transformed, and contested. In this article, we present the case of Koper (Italian: Capodistria), the main seaside harbour town of Slovenia, which faced a deep demographic and socio-cultural transformation in the aftermath of the Second World War. Its historic urban core became a deeply contested urban environment, where a hegemonic historical narrative clashed with several subaltern ones. The dissonance between contested narratives has re-emerged in the digital space through a handful of history-oriented Facebook groups in recent years. We analyse how digital tools have influenced the dynamics between the contested narratives and how these refer to specific locations within the town or to its historic urban core as a whole.

Localizing India’s global smart cities: a multi-scalar analysis of cities yet-to-come

ABSTRACT “Smart Cities” have been positioned as a global digital paradigm addressing challenges in urban service delivery and governance. Recent debates have suggested the possibility of localized forms of smart intervention, however, we argue there is a need to first analyze the entanglement of actors through which urban narratives must pass. A granular examination of three small, “smart” cities within India’s Smart City Mission reveals structures and storylines produced at the intersection of transnational, national and local stakeholders, complicating attempts to unravel the “local” and “global”. State narratives reproduce a “smart” subject as part of “modern”, global, nation-building, demarcating who does and doesn’t belong in cities yet-to-come. Municipalities mediate between transnational narratives and local needs, but localization has become primarily a means to create a distinction within inter-city competition. Therefore, while local activism can function as a node of resistance to Smart City redevelopment, vulnerable city residents remain precariously placed.

도시 구성요소 연구

Asan has grown rapidly as its economic foundation has been established and developed, including natural resources, agricultural expansion, transportation revolution, and industrial development. The dynamics and vitality of a city depend on the elements that make up the city. The preservation and securing of traditional and cultural spaces can maximize the historical and cultural values of the city to establish urban identity, and the creation of road networks and green environments improves the convenience of life and the comfort of the city. The city's creativity and living benefits are irrelevant to housing and intellectual space, and the urban narrative, which has a hidden string of embrace, makes it an attractive city to live in. This study tried to emphasize that in order to understand Asan, which dreams of becoming a world-class city, it is necessary to listen to several changing narratives according to the times. The story of understanding specialized traditional resources and ups and downs as a hot spring tourist destination, changes in cities brought about by global companies such as Hyundai and Samsung, the opening of railways and subways, and the impact of the era of local autonomy were reviewed.

The “Smart City” between Urban Narrative and Empty Signifier: Shaggar in Focus

The objective of this study is to critically analyze the concept of the “Smart City” and its implications within the context of Shaggar. The study aims to explore the relationship between urban narratives and the empty signifiers associated with the “Smart City” concept, with a focus on understanding the underlying tensions and contradictions that arise during the implementation of smart urban initiatives. This study employs a qualitative research approach, utilizing a combination of document analysis, interviews, and observation techniques. Primary and secondary data sources, including official city plans, policy documents, media reports, and expert interviews, are used to gather information and insights. Thematic analysis is employed to identify recurring patterns and themes related to the “Smart City” concept, urban narratives, and empty signifiers in Shaggar. The findings of this study reveal that the “Smart City” concept in Shaggar is shaped by multiple urban narratives, including the discourse of technological progress, sustainability, and efficiency. However, the analysis also highlights the presence of empty signifiers, where the “Smart City” concept often lacks clear definitions, goals, and tangible outcomes. This disconnects between narratives and signifiers create tensions and challenges during the implementation of smart urban initiatives in Shaggar. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that the “Smart City” concept in Shaggar is a complex amalgamation of urban narratives and empty signifiers. The presence of multiple narratives contributes to the allure and promise of the “Smart City” vision, while the lack of clear signifiers results in ambiguity and challenges during implementation. This study underscores the need for critical examination and contextual understanding when envisioning and implementing “Smart City” initiatives. Based on the findings, this study recommends that policymakers, urban planners, and stakeholders in Shaggar and similar contexts should prioritize the development of clear and context-specific definitions, goals, and metrics for “Smart City” initiatives. It is crucial to engage with local communities, incorporate their perspectives, and ensure transparency and accountability in the implementation process. Furthermore, interdisciplinary collaborations and continuous evaluation of projects are essential to address the tensions between narratives and signifiers and to promote more inclusive and sustainable smart urban development in Shaggar and beyond.

The Urban Mirror in the Makings of Memories

The modern individuals are not passive containers of their memories. Rather, they are subjects who create memories. Memories are mirrors, the very apparatus upon which people identify themselves. Under personal motives or desires, they consciously or unconsciously create their own versions of the past, by subjectively neglecting some essential and stressful “others,” capturing some particular moments, and empowering certain details with special meanings. When modern individuals are petrified by their confusion or loss, they strive to “create” identity for themselves – a solid shelter to provide a strong sense of belonging, which at the same time generates an “othering” process within the dominant discourse. There are many versions of the past within people’s minds, while the ontological “past” is always under the weight of multiple “interpretations.” Literature and films are crucial means in this process of reconstructing “history.” Certain entrenched beliefs are constructed in people’s minds by interior or external forces, powers, and desires. However, those concepts also face challenges of deconstruction every now and then. This paper attempts to explore the process of reconstructing history by creating private and collective memories in modern and contemporary Chinese literature and films centering on the city of Shanghai along with some other urban narratives.

The ‘Smart City’ between urban narrative and empty signifier: Hong Kong in focus

The ‘Smart City’ between urban narrative and empty signifier: Hong Kong in focus

Preface: The Narrative Identity of European Cities in Contemporary Literature

Preface: The Narrative Identity of European Cities in Contemporary Literature

“This killing New York life”: Geographies of Illness in Edith Wharton’s Twilight Sleep (1927)

Abstract This article examines the literary geography of Edith Wharton’s Jazz Age New York in Twilight Sleep. It considers the impact of the urban narrative upon the characters, and how this work can be understood as a spatial event. Sheila Hones describes literary geography as the interdisciplinary nexus between literary studies and geography. Building upon this definition, the author extends the interdisciplinarity of narrative spatiality toward the medical humanities. Edith Wharton’s New York is embodied, possessing its own animus like an automaton, being simultaneously alive and dead, dazzling yet breathless, killing but beautiful. There is a sickness to the city which impacts most of the major characters, either physically or mentally. Using the epigraph as a framework, this article offers an innovative consideration of the relationship between fictional place and mental state, highlighting Edith Wharton’s use of space and place in Twilight Sleep to warn of the danger New York represented to female mental health.

The Homogenization of Urban Climate Action Discourses

Abstract The diversification of actors in global climate governance may entail risks, but it is also linked to enhanced democratic performance and opportunities for innovation. To what extent has this diversification fostered a parallel multiplication of perspectives in urban climate policy? To answer this question, we analyze the evolution of urban narratives based on 463 international policy documents issued between 1946 and 2020. Our analysis shows that, instead of leading to diversification, the proliferation of actors is accompanied by a growing homogenization of urban narratives. Language appears to become progressively uniform across organizations and over time, with approaches emphasizing multi-actor governance, integrated planning, and co-benefits becoming dominant. Three factors explain this homogenization. First, actors with a long history of involvement in international development exert a significant amount of influence. Second, there is a tendency toward language harmonization in international policy. Third, urban climate narratives stabilize through association with broader policy paradigms. In conclusion, the diversification of actors in international climate policy is mediated by processes of narrative alignment, which foreclose possibilities for divergent thinking.

Permanences Against Cultural Amnesia: Reconstructing the Urban Narrative of the Rum Community of Fener, Istanbul

In this article I reconstruct the place narrative of the Rum community (Greeks of Turkey) in Fener, Istanbul through unrest, displacement, and gentrification, and how the urban fabric, everyday life, and encounters transformed through different phases of urban change. Fener was a neighbourhood where cultural groups coexisted with mutual respect. This environment started to deteriorate when societal unrest towards non-Muslims resulted in a city-wide assault in 1955 and a subsequent displacement of many non-Muslims from the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood decayed and later became an attractive spot for gentrifiers because of its multicultural history. This implicated a massive physical change after an unimplemented regeneration project leading to gentrification. I theorize this narrative mainly based on Whitehead’s “permanences,” the stabilities in the physical and non-physical presence of Rums in Fener and Bhabha’s “in-between temporalities” as complements of permanences, defining space-time envelopes that signify both adjustment and resilience, but also amnesia as a result of urban unrest through social and physical change. The Rum urban narrative provides a complex story of challenged community identity; therefore, it necessitates the use of several qualitative research methods: interviews with older residents, historical investigation with documentation, and personal observation. The study results show that the Rum community’s daily practices and placeworlds were lost; however, the community remembers permanences better than in-between temporalities. Linking fragmented narratives by reconstructing them fights cultural amnesia and leads to a better connection with place and past contexts.