RC21 CONFERENCE 2013
Resourceful cities
Berlin (Germany), 29-31 August 2013
Humboldt-University Berlin, Institute for Social Science, Dept. for Urban and Regional Sociology
How much do urban neighbourhoods matter in a networked globalised world?
In the last decades, a vivid debate on the importance of local space and neighbourhoods has taken place in urban studies. On the one hand some scholars were suggesting that ‘the social’ is now disembedded from ‘the local’ and “de-territorialized”, undermining the neighbourhood as a source of social relations (Castells, 1996; Wellman, 1999). On the other hand, other scholars have collected a bulk of empirical evidence showing the persistent importance of locality and neighbourhoods in concrete daily life (Savage and al. 2005; Kennedy, 2010; Butler, 2012; Watt, 2009…). All these studies, from different perspectives, stress the importance of “territorialized” social networks in making the neighbourhood relevant to residents’ daily life. Though systematic empirical research on how social networks and space – in particular neighbourhoods – interact is needed, and even more the attention is needed on the new forms of virtual social networks (social media web 2.0 such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace) and their relation with the physical space.
The session invites papers which are interested in better understanding the following three issues from an empirical viewpoint and using different (rigorous) methodologies:
- How spatial locations –in particular neighbourhoods – influence social networks. People who are located closer together in physical space have a higher probability of forming relationships, but this operates differently according to the different social groups and the different neighbourhoods. Which are the places where proximity relations form (we have already important evidence about schools, what else)? Are some places more significant, and to whom? Papers can focus on tie formation within well-bounded places to much larger scale such as social media provided that the latter have some impacts on the local context (for instance: Facebook pages on local neighbourhoods becoming places to meet other residents, and organize activities or discussions at the neighbourhood level).
- How social networks influence spatial location, in particular neighbourhoods. Social networks are both a motivation and a means for the selection of the places people inhabit, even in a globalized world. This, however, is different according to the different social groups, and probably to the different spaces.
- How social and spatial boundaries interact redefining each other. The question of boundaries both for social networks and spatial location is very important and contested; in both cases boundaries are mobile, in all cases dynamic (time is a key variable). The interaction between social networks and spatial location can bring to redefine the boundaries of the concrete neighbourhoods according to the different social groups, bringing to a subjective (and selective) definition of what the neighbourhood is.
The session aims at including cases from the Global North as well as the South.
Session Organizer
Alberta Andreotti, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milan Bicocca, T: (+39) 02 6448 7579, mob. (+39) 3393696887, fax: (+39) 02 700449128, E alberta.andreotti@unimib.it
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