Thinking about place

Social, Change and Communitiesstarting at the end

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• A client (fictional)– Motivate to change

• A place (Corby)– Major intervention

• A student– Reflexive practitioner

• (Dare I say it?) An epistemology– Social constructivism

Task

Theory

Epistemology

This module is ‘soft’

Whatever is true for space and time, this much is true for place; we are immersed in it and could not do without it. To be at all – to exist in any way – is to be somewhere, and to be somewhere is to be in some kind of place

Edward Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), p. ix

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Space and Place• Often ‘space’ is understood as something hollow or exterior: a container

for place. • In common usage (even by many geographers), ‘spaces’ are transformed

into ‘places’ by naming [claiming] and filling them. In this sense space and place are treated as a duality, even as opposites.

• But this is overly simplistic. • Rather than think of space as hollow or as an absence, we might

understand ‘space’ as a broader and more abstract concept than ‘place’.• Yi Fu Tuan (1974) describes space as ‘movement’ and place as ‘pause’.• Space as possibility, openness, the sublime, the ‘beyond’• Some geographers (e.g., Henri Lefebvre 1974) use ‘space’ where others

might use ‘place’

Space and Place

What begins as undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better and endow it with value… The ideas ‘space’ and ‘place’ require each other for definition. From the security and stability of place we are aware of the openness, freedom, and threat of space, and vice-versa. Furthermore, if we think of space as that which allows movement then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.

Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), p. 6

Sensing place

‘There is no knowing or sensing a place except by being in that place, and to be in place is to be in a position to perceive it.’ Casey, ‘How to get from Space to Place, p. 18

‘How to get from Space to Place in a Fairly Short Stretch ofTime’, in Senses of Place, ed. by Steven Feld & Keith H.Basso (Santa Fe: School of American Research,1996)

Cf your ‘community profiles’ from last year- did you manage to convey ‘place’?

‘Just as there are no places without the bodies that sustain and vivify them, so there are no lived bodies without the places they inhabit and traverse.’

Casey,‘How to get from Space to Place’, p. 25

Senses of Place

You inhabit a spot which before you inhabit it is as indifferent to you as any spot upon the earth, & when, persuaded by some necessity you think to leave it, you leave it not, - it clings to you & with memories of things which in your experience of them gave no such promise, revenges your desertion.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, from The Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley, ed. Frederick L. Jones, 2 Vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), II, p. 6.

So where are you going??What place will you be in (in a few months time)?

Social, change & communities

11

Experiential

Whole Module

• We start with SELF• Then we look at OTHER• Then we look at the intersection of SELF and

OTHER • SELF/OTHER• COMMUNITY and PLACE

Starting with YOU

• Being, working, relating and learning within the context of uncertainty

• Uncertainty as threat• Uncertainty as opportunity• Resilience • “Personal Construct Psychology-inc. ‘we can

challenge certain myths about ourselves.’• Being true to the person not the system

Motivation

• The pressure to change, continuous improvement

• Both as a student and your (future) clients.• Intrinsic v extrinsic motivation• Your role to facilitate the interplay• Ambivalence

Miller and Rollnick {2002} Preparing People for Change.

Self as social- the SELF:OTHER intersection

• Herbert Mead- I/Self: generalised OTHER• Identity work: the effort in maintaining

identity• Constructing, deconstructing,

reconstructing• MANIPULATING identity• Frantz Fanon-race and otherness, white

man in black skin• Edward Said, Orientalism- imagining

geographies

Graffiti – constructing the OTHER

• Our identity informed in relation to OTHERNESS

• NOT ME• Others are ‘constructed’ by

what I don’t like in myself –scapegoat

• How do I ‘construct’ my clients?

• Am I being true to their own identities?

•Graffiti does not make a place worse, it highlights places that have already been neglected•Dialectic of claiming ownership in the context of ownership being abrogated

Who am I, Sam?

• I am not who I think I amI am not who you think I amI am who I think you think that I am

• it's not "You are what you eat," it's "You eat what you think you are."

• WHO ARE YOU? If you are to ‘fix’ other people, is your identity(ies) stable?

Community and Me

And my interviewee….

A client- how to change behaviour?

• i.e. ASBO• Options

– criminalisation– fine parents– create a community centre– give him a job/skills

• All external motivators• What about the internal motivation?

Express EmpathySupport Self-EfficacyRoll with ResistanceDevelop Discrepancy

If one client is difficult enough?

• What about entire communities?• What about problem estates?• What about Kingswood in Corby?

– http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_4450000/newsid_4457200/4457238.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&bbcws=1

• Or Shadsworth Estate in Blackburn?– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABp3rCllJjM&f

eature=related

All of social & community work

Is now subject to the wider policy of ‘Sustainable Communities’

Or ‘Big Society’Sustainable communities are places where people want to live and work, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents, are sensitive to their environment, and contribute to a high quality of life.They are safe and inclusive, well planned, built and run, and offer equality of opportunity and good services for all.

Response to a ProblemToo many urban neighborhoods have been blighted by oversized housing projects and centralized redevelopment schemes.

You will visit Corby

Chapter 1 of Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, by Jeff Conklin, Ph.D., Wiley,

October 2006.

Living with complexity

Wicked Problems1. There is no definite formulation of a wicked problem.2. Wicked problems have no stopping rules.3. Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but better or worse.4. There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked

problem.5. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there

is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.

6. Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions, nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the plan.

7. Every wicked problem is essentially unique.8. Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another

[wicked] problem.9. The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous ways. The

choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution.10. [With wicked problems,] the planner has no right to be wrong.

Tame Problems

Chapter 1 of Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems, by Jeff Conklin, Ph.D., Wiley,

October 2006.

BUT, change?

Physical infrastructure is easyCommunity infrastructure is neglected

Exploring the Community Infrastructure

• Community profile- rational• Rich picture- lived experience & gaps• Express Empathy• Support Self-Efficacy• Roll with Resistance• Develop Discrepancy

• Contributes to change for a peaceful, just and sustainable future.•Develops anti-discriminatory analyses that reach from local to global, identifying the ways in which personal stories are political• Builds practical local projects with people in community•Teaches people to question their reality•Forms strategic alliances for collective action, local to global•Remains true to its radical agenda, with social and environmental justice at its heart•Generates theory in action, practical theory based on experience which contributes to a unity of praxis.

Ledwith (2007) reclaiming the radical agenda

Utopian Corby

Or will youvisit THISCorby?

Carnival (Bakhtin)

Multiplicity of Languages Multiplicity of Places

Heteroglossia

Descriptor of Academic Level 6• a systematic understanding of key aspects of their field of study, • including acquisition of coherent and detailed knowledge, at least some of which is at, or

informed by, the forefront of defined aspects of a discipline • an ability to deploy accurately established techniques of analysis and enquiry within a

discipline • conceptual understanding that enables the student: • to devise and sustain arguments, and/or to solve problems, using ideas and techniques, some

of which are at the forefront of a discipline • to describe and comment upon particular aspects of current research, or equivalent advanced

scholarship, in the discipline • an appreciation of the uncertainty, ambiguity and limits of knowledge • the ability to manage their own learning, and • to make use of scholarly reviews and primary sources (for example, refereed research articles

and/or original materials appropriate to the discipline). • critically evaluate arguments, assumptions, abstract concepts and data (that may be

incomplete), to make judgements, and to frame appropriate questions to achieve a solution - or identify a range

• the exercise of initiative and personal responsibility and decision-making in complex and unpredictable contexts

Assessing

• Portfolio of Engagement 25%– Runs from now, and proves your engagement with, and

reflection on the WHOLE module• By Dec 25% Person-centred social change

– A group based exercise with a (fictional) welfare resident of Corby and your attempt to motivate for change

• By May- Case-study report 50%– The groups will be required to investigate a social development

situation (i.e. Corby and sustainable communities) and devise a portfolio of interventions.

– Each group member will then write a detailed report of the processes of investigation, describing their proposed project, providing full justification for it's implementation