Catalysing design principles through the dreaming of sustainable subtropical cityscapes : the collaborative construction of new place identities

This paper addresses the question of how to open up pathways and build capacity to facilitate the movement towards sustainable sub-tropical cities. The focus is on outlining a collaborative planning and co-design process that can help catalyse the emergence of sustainable place-habitats and so re-weave and colour anew the tapestry of our sub-tropical cities. Cities are portrayed as self-organising complex adaptive system phenomena, being constantly re-shaped by local and global social-political, environmental, cultural and economic forces as well as planning regimes. While constructing a sustainable city is at essence a design process incorporating new sustainable practices and legislation to reinforce their use, these steps are necessary but not sufficient. Sustainable sub-tropical city-making could be re-thought as a dreaming-re-storying process. This paper explores a new co-design process, which can channel collaborative efforts around re-inventing sustainable place-habitats across the cityscape. A further outcome of this co-design process is the alignment of the emergent design principles and planning actions that can trigger the re-storying of a new sustainable sub-tropical city. Besides a new co-design process, we also advocate the building of sub-tropical city learning networks to facilitate the cross-fertilization for Dreaming sustainable sub-tropical cities.

People and place in the new frontier: an examination of Han and Uyghur ethnic identities

This thesis demonstrates how Han and Uyghur ethnic identities are constructed in urban Xinjiang, how they have evolved over time and how both identities gain their meaning largely from a process of interaction with the ‘other’. It shows that the boundaries that exist between Uyghur and Han hugely influence the identity content of both. Based on over 120 interviews carried out over 3 years, it brings a clear analytical framework and conceptual clarity to the questions of how ethnic identities are constructed and maintained in Xinjiang

Place, teenagers and urban identities: Growing up in the revanchist city

The recreational lives of teenagers in Ireland has been the subject of much debate in recent years. The subject has received much attention from academics, particularly in the UK and the US. In Ireland there is a dearth of research on, and a poor understanding of teenagers recreational lives. Additionally much of the research from the UK and the US to date has been focused on teenagers’ use of the street for recreation, arguing that teenagers are increasingly pushed out of public space. The research frequently emphasises teenagers’ resistance against adult hegemony. This thesis explores the recreational geographies of teenagers living in two socially and economically distinct neighbourhoods in Cork. It seeks to fill in gaps in knowledge of teenagers recreational lives in Ireland and contribute to geographical wisdom on teenagers’ geographies. Using a mixed method approach and a variety of thinking tools this research shows that teenagers living in Cork are growing up in a revanchist society. The thesis demonstrates how teenagers’ recreational practices are currently being configured in Irish society, unfolding strategies of dominance and affection which construct and regulate the recreational lives of teenagers. The effects of revanchism on teenagers’ experiences of outdoor space for recreation are also pursued. Furthermore the socio-spatial contingencies of teenagers’ recreational lives and revanchism are probed throughout the thesis, but in greater depth in the final chapters. The work also addresses an under-researched aspect of young people’s recreational - relationships with pets. Lastly, the subject of teenagers’ right to urban space is critically analysed.

Exploring the micro-politics of place: lifestyle migrants, collective identities and modes of belonging

Taking up Hopkins and Dixon’s (2006) call to attend to the micro-politics of everyday constructions of space and place, which necessarily involves psychological concepts such as identity, belonging and attachment, this paper aims to show how a critical socio-cognitive approach to discourse analysis is an effective means of unpacking the ways in which versions of place are (re)produced and negotiated through discursive practices, and in particular the ways in which ‘legitimate’ collective identities are constructed in relation to place. I focus on the contemporary social phenomenon of lifestyle migration. Within Europe, this typically involves relatively affluent northern Europeans moving to destinations in southern Europe that are strongly linked to tourism. Although lifestyle migrants are generally viewed by their hosts as ‘desirable’ migrants due to their perceived economic and socio-cultural capital, their integration into destination communities is often minimal. The question arises as to how these migrants construct modes of belonging in relation to their adopted home-place and how they relate to the other social groups with whom they share it. Using texts from a variety of sources, including in-depth interviews with British migrants in Portugal, I explore not only how migrants position themselves (and others) discursively in relation to places, but also how they are already positioned by discursive practices in the public sphere. I also examine to what extent the construction of a ‘legitimate’ mode of belonging involves the construction of intergroup cooperation within that place.

Regulating roles of the use of the balanced scorecard in shaping corporate identities

The literature on corporate identity management suggests that managing corporate identity is a strategically complex task embracing the shaping of a range of dimensions of organisational life. The performance measurement literature and its applications likewise now also emphasise organisational ability to incorporate various dimensions considering both financial and non-financial performance measures when assessing success. The inclusion of these soft non-financial measures challenges organisations to quantify intangible aspects of performance such as corporate identity, transforming unmeasurables into measurables. This paper explores the regulatory roles of the use of the balanced scorecard in shaping key dimensions of corporate identities in a public sector shared service provider in Australia. This case study employs qualitative interviews of senior managers and employees, secondary data and participant observation. The findings suggest that the use of the balanced scorecard has potential to support identity construction, as an organisational symbol, a communication tool of vision, and as strategy, through creating conversations that self-regulate behaviour. The development of an integrated performance measurement system, the balanced scorecard, becomes an expression of a desired corporate identity, and the performance measures and continuous process provide the resource for interpreting actual corporate identities. Through this process of understanding and mobilising the interaction, it may be possible to create a less obtrusive and more subtle way to control “what an organisation is”. This case study also suggests that the theoretical and practical fusion of the disciplinary knowledge around corporate identities and performance measurement systems could make a contribution to understanding and shaping corporate identities.

Revealing common attributes of organizational identities using performance measurement systems

Identity is unique, multiple and dynamic. This paper explores common attributes of organisational identities, and examines the role of performance management systems (PMSs) on revealing identity attributes. One of the influential PMSs, the balanced scorecard, is used to illustrate the arguments. A case study of a public-sector organisation suggests that PMSs now place a value on the intangible aspects of organisational life as well as the financial, periodically revealing distinctiveness, relativity, visibility, fluidity and manageability of public-sector identities that sustain their viability. This paper contributes to a multi-disciplinary approach and its practical application, demonstrating an alternative pathway to identity-making using PMSs.

‘We don’t leave our identities at the city limits’ : Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in urban localities

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who live in cities and towns are often thought of as ‘less Indigenous’ than those who live ‘in the bush’, as though they were ‘fake’ Aboriginal people — while ‘real’ Aboriginal people live ‘on communities’ and ‘real’ Torres Strait Islander people live ‘on islands’. Yet more than 70 percent of Australia’s Indigenous peoples live in urban locations (ABS 2007), and urban living is just as much part of a reality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as living in remote discrete communities. This paper examines the contradictions and struggles that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people experience when living in urban environments. It looks at the symbols of place and space on display in the Australian cities of Melbourne and Brisbane to demonstrate how prevailing social, political and economic values are displayed. Symbols of place and space are never neutral, and this paper argues that they can either marginalise and oppress urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, or demonstrate that they are included and engaged.

Literacy, place-based pedagogies and social justice

Our long-term program of research has considered the relationships between teachers’ work and identities, literacy pedagogies and schooling, particularly in high-poverty communities. Over the past decade, we have worked with teachers to consciously explore with them the possible productive synergies between critical literacy and place-based pedagogies, and the affordances of multimodal and digital literacies for students’ engagement with the places where they live and learn. These studies have been undertaken with teachers working and living in various locales—from the urban fringe to inner suburban areas undergoing urban renewal, to rural and regional communities where poverty and the politics of place bring certain distinctive opportunities and constraints to bear on pedagogy for social justice. There is now wider recognition that “social justice” may need rethinking to foreground the nonhuman world and the relation between people and politics of places, people, and environments in terms of “eco-social justice” (Green 2010; Gruenewald 2003b) or spatial justice (Soja 2011). In this chapter, we explore place as a site of knowing and as an object of study as developed through the Special Forever project by teachers in schools located in the Murray-Darling Basin bioregion. Putting the environment at the center of the literacy curriculum inevitably draws teachers into the politics of place and raises questions concerning what is worth preserving and what should be transformed. We consider how the politics of place both constrains and opens up possibilities for pedagogy for eco-social justice and review the pedagogical work that one teacher, Hannah, undertook with her upper primary class.

A Cult Film by Proxy: Space is the Place and the Sun Ra Mythos

Sexton, J. (2006). A Cult Film by Proxy: Space is the Place and the Sun Ra Mythos. New Review of Film and Television Studies. 4(3), pp.197-215. RAE2008

Desegregation and Place Restructuring in the New Belfast

A sustained reduction in unemployment, economic growth and house price increase have reflected Belfast’s post-conflict renaissance just as readily as the global recession has exposed the fragility of construction-led growth. Rates of segregation had stabilised and new consumption spaces and élite developments further reflected the city’s engagement with globalisation and economic liberalisation. This paper explores the spatial impact of these processes, not least as gentrification has created new layers of residential segregation in a city already preoccupied with high rates of ethno-religious territoriality. A case study of south Belfast connects these shifts to the production of new mixed-religion neighbourhoods. These have the capacity to reduce the relevance of traditional binary identities, but at the same time reproduce new forms of segregation centred on tenure and class. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications for policy and practice, not least as the recession opens new spaces to present alternatives to the market logic.

To avoid embarrassment, poetry should keep itself to itself”: an autoethnographic exploration of the place of poetry in adult literacy teacher education

This paper explores the reasons for the author’s reluctance to bring examples of her own poetry into her practice as teacher educator on a program for adult literacy tutors. The paper begins with the author’s poem, “The Place of Poetry”, which is used as a tool for reflection on the author’s assumptions about her identities as poet and as educator. The paper ends with poems written by the author’s students, which demonstrate that the use of poetry in education has the potential to facilitate transformative learning.