Luke A Dickens | Kings College London (original) (raw)
My PhD by Luke A Dickens
"This research is concerned with the geographies of a post-graffiti movement in London today. The... more "This research is concerned with the geographies of a post-graffiti movement in London today. The idea stems from recent cultural texts, which claim to identify ‘new directions in graffiti art’ that relate to, but differ from, the familiar hip-hop model of graffiti ‘writing’ as developed in New York City. Poised as a subculture between art and commerce, an emergent post-graffiti movement is examined here through two thematic strands. The first considers how these new directions in graffiti art might comment on the place of art in the contemporary city; while the second asks how and in what ways we might understand this emerging scene as a creative industry. This research employs a multi-methodological, case study based approach able to foreground the everyday practices and experiences of those involved in the production of this new movement, alongside the production, circulation and display of their cultural texts in a variety of spatial settings. Working broadly within an ethnographic frame, and drawing primarily on interview, photographic and other visual materials, research was conducted through two key institutional case studies in London - The Outside Institute, Westminster, and Pictures on Walls, Hackney.
"
Peer-reviewed Journals by Luke A Dickens
Recent work in human geography has articulated the principles of an emerging 'participatory ethic... more Recent work in human geography has articulated the principles of an emerging 'participatory ethics'. Yet despite sustained critical examination of the participatory conditions under which geographical knowledge is produced, far less attention has addressed how a participatory ethics might unsettle the conventional ways such knowledge continues to be received, circulated, exchanged and mediated. As such, the uptake of visual methods in participatory research praxis has drawn a range of criticism for assuming visual outputs 'tell their own stories' and that publics might be straightforwardly engage with them. In response, this paper develops an argument for adopting an ethical stance that takes a more situated, processual account of the ways participants themselves might convene their own forms of public engagement, and manage their own conditions of becoming visible through the research process. To do so the concept of an ethics of recognition is developed, drawing attention to the inter-and intra-subjective relations that shape the public research encounter, and signalling ways that participants might navigate such conditions in pursuit of their intuitive desire to give an account of themselves to others. This ethical stance is then used to rethink questions of visibility and publicness through the conditions of reception, mediation and exchange that took place during the efforts of a London-based participatory research project to 'go public'. Drawing in particular on the experiences of one of the project participants, we suggest how a processual and contingent understanding of public engagement informed by such an ethics of recognition might be anticipated, approached and enacted.
This article argues against the assumption that agency and reflexivity disappear in an age of ‘al... more This article argues against the assumption that agency and reflexivity disappear in an age of ‘algorithmic power’ (Lash 2007). Following the suggestions of Beer (2009), it proposes that, far from disappearing, new forms of agency and reflexivity around the embedding in everyday practice of not only algorithms but also analytics more broadly are emerging, as social actors continue to pursue their social ends but mediated through digital interfaces: this is the consequence of many social actors now needing their digital presence, regardless of whether they want this, to be measured and counted. The article proposes ‘social analytics’ as a new topic for sociology: the sociological study of social actors’ uses of analytics not for the sake of measurement itself (or to make profit from measurement) but in order to fulfil better their social ends through an enhancement of their digital presence. The article places social analytics in the context of earlier debates about categorization, algorithmic power, and self-presentation online, and describes in detail a case study with a UK community organization which generated the social analytics approach. The article concludes with reflections on the implications of this approach for further sociological fieldwork in a digital world.
Sociological Review, Feb 2015
Among the most deep-seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced ... more Among the most deep-seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced forgetting. Technology critics and sociologists of memory alike argue that daily exposure to overwhelming flows of information is undermining our ability to connect and synthesise past and present. Acknowledging the salience of these concerns our approach seeks to understand the contemporary conditions of collective memory practice in relation to processes of digitisation. We do so by developing an analysis of how digital technologies (image and audio capture, storage, editing, reproduction, distribution and exhibition) have become embedded in wider memory practices of storytelling and commemoration in a community setting: the Salford Lads Club, an organization in the north of England in continuous operation since 1903. The diverse memory practices prompted by the one hundredth anniversary of the Club’s annual camp provide a context in which to explore the transformations of access, interpretation and use, that occur when the archives of civic organisations are digitised. Returning to Halbwach’s (1992) seminal insight that all collective memory requires a material social framework, we argue, contrary to prevailing characterizations of digitisation, that under specific conditions, digital resources facilitate new forms of materialization that contribute to sustaining a civic organisation’s intergenerational continuity.
ACME: an International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 2015
THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2015
Building on the principles of the digital storytelling movement, this article asks whether the na... more Building on the principles of the digital storytelling movement, this article asks whether the narrative exchange within the ‘storycircles’ of storymakers created in face-to-face workshops can be further replicated by drawing on digital infrastructure in specific ways. It addresses this question by reporting on the successes and limitations of a five-stream project of funded action research with partners in north-west England that explored the contribution of digital infrastructure to processes of narrative exchange and the wider processes of mutual recognition that flow from narrative exchange. Three main dimensions of a digital storycircle are explored: multiplications, spatializations (or the building of narratives around sets of individual narratives), and habits of mutual recognition. Limitations relate to the factors of time, and levels of digital development and basic digital access.
Citizenship Studies, 2014
This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging... more This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.
Journalism Studies, 2014
This article examines the emergence of new, inter-local spaces of news production and consumption... more This article examines the emergence of new, inter-local spaces of news production and consumption, drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with community reporters trained by a community reporter organisation based in the north of England. Practices of news production and content generation are focused on people's own communities and they are underpinned by an ethos of production, which is grounded in a critical consumption of news and collective processes of skill acquisition. Through an analysis of motivations and practices, we account for the values that sustain community reporter communities and discuss how such practices, while emerging from the place of local community, also extend across wider communities of interest. It is suggested that an evolving practice of skill sharing and mutual recognition could potentially stimulate the regrowth of democratic values.
Emotion, Space and Society, 2013
Given the prominence of rap music and its influence in debates about the moral status of young pe... more Given the prominence of rap music and its influence in debates about the moral status of young people, this paper seeks to highlight young people’s own lyrical practices and interpretations of the genre. Evidence gathered by the National Foundation for Youth Music has found that such lyrical modes of music making can serve as a vital means of self-expression, particularly for those children and young people who otherwise lack confidence, self-esteem and cultural validation. This paper centres on a detailed case study of a community music project called Ustudios, which drew on peer-mentoring practices to develop and record rap lyrics with local young people who were identified as experiencing a range of challenging circumstances while residing on two adjacent council estates on the outskirts of Brighton, England. By tracing the lyrical practices of a group of young participants, this paper establishes a clear sense of their potential to explore their own voice, both as means to enhance their emotional expression and development, and as a way of supporting their participation as active members within their community. Taken alongside wider evidence, this case develops an emerging thesis on the political significance of voice, listening and recognition for reframing understandings of the emotional geographies of young people.
Please contact me if you would like me to forward a zipped folder of the recorded music cited here.
City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy and Action, 2010
When graffiti writing was transferred onto canvas for sale during the Manhattan art boom of the 1... more When graffiti writing was transferred onto canvas for sale during the Manhattan art boom of the 1980s, it was widely felt to have ‘sold out’ to the exploitative interests of the art establishment and become a ‘post‐graffiti’ art movement. In contrast, recent British street art demonstrates the capacity to be both more critical and complicit in the influential spheres of art and commerce. Yet, despite growing recognition of these ‘new directions in graffiti art’, there remains little critical attention to how such post‐graffiti aesthetic practices are mobilized, not simply by the heroic tactics of the lone male street artist, but by a significant body of cultural intermediaries, institutions and firms. Established in 2002 by the notorious street artist, Banksy, and his agent, the photographer Steve Lazarides, Pictures on Walls Ltd (POW) was a company that in many ways stood at the cutting edge of these developments. As such, it serves as a rich case study of the ways street art can be understood as a sophisticated form of creative industry. Specifically, as a key way of buying into the street art scene, the limited edition POW screen print is used here to exemplify a cultural economy that is both rooted in the contemporary city, and poised at an intersection between the urban and the virtual. Following the printing, pricing and collecting of such products, this research traces street art from its production in the fashionable art district of Hoxton, east London, and into the everyday lives of a passionate group of Internet collectors and fans.
Cultural Geographies, 2008
This article is about the intersections between contemporary forms of urban inscription, art and ... more This article is about the intersections between contemporary forms of urban inscription, art and the city, as they come to be configured through an emergent `post-graffiti' aesthetic practice. Exemplary of this movement is the self-proclaimed `art terrorist', Banksy, who has earned a reputation recently for his audacious interventions into some of the most significant art institutions in the western world, as well as for his politically charged stencil and sculptural work in the everyday spaces of the city. Focusing on the artist's Peckham Rock, a fragment of concrete that he surreptitiously stuck to the walls of the British Museum in May 2005, this article uses the methodological device of `the journey' in an attempt to place the connections and disconnections between a series of elite and institutional spaces, social relations and mediascapes through which `the rock' passes as its `life' as an artwork unfolds. Existing research, including that by geographers, has examined graffiti in terms of urban identity politics, territoriality and transgression. While such work has generated important insights into the nature of particular kinds of urbanism, it is often limited to a focus on graffiti `writing', a subcultural model of urban inscription originating in New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s. In contrast, this article explores a more recent style of inscribing the city, as set out in a series of art publications and conferences, and unpacks what such a model might indicate regarding contemporary urban processes and experiences.
Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 2008
No abstract. "This paper includes a video documentary 'Drawn, Scribbled, Scrawled, Scratched' (2... more No abstract.
"This paper includes a video documentary 'Drawn, Scribbled, Scrawled, Scratched' (2003), by Philip Marshall & Toby Whitehouseruntime (13:56)—note: this is a large file and may take a moment to load"
Book Chapters by Luke A Dickens
THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Vanderbeck, R. and Worth, ... more THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Vanderbeck, R. and Worth, N. (Eds.) Intergenerational Geographies: Spaces, Identities, Relationships and Encounters, London: Routledge
THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Mills, S. and Kraftl, P. (... more THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Mills, S. and Kraftl, P. (Eds.) Informal Education and Children's Everyday Lives: Geographies, Histories and Practices, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Journal Contribution by Luke A Dickens
![Research paper thumbnail of Shutters: City A-Z [edited interview with street artist, Eine]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/33969049/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy and Action
Book Reviews by Luke A Dickens
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie/ Journal of Economic and Social Geography, 2013
Cultural Capitals: Revaluing the Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces, Louise C. Johnson. Ashgate: Farnham... more Cultural Capitals: Revaluing the Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces, Louise C. Johnson. Ashgate: Farnham, England, 2009, 282 pages. ISBN: 978-0-7546-4977-9. £60.00 (hardback)
Cities: the International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 2008
contributions that examine histories of site thinking. Redfield discusses the influence of site f... more contributions that examine histories of site thinking. Redfield discusses the influence of site from physical, typological and cultural approaches; Hess focuses on neighbourhoods or suburbia as an extension of a site. Marcuse goes one step further in placing a site within the even broader geographical approach to public action. In his view a site is a study area, or an area of concern both defined and bounded by legal jurisdiction, topography, the physical ecosystem, the present (and/or predicted) users, interest groups and stakeholders, the level of intensity, the socially accepted, the available data, and the preconception and/or ambition of the urban planner or architect. This places a site within its physical concern, but also relates to historical, planning, market, and democratic concerns. The paper by Kahn is on defining and representing urban sites. It does so by focusing on five concepts for urban site thinking: mobile ground, site reach, site construction, unbounded sites and urban constellation. Finally, the contribution by Burns is on high-performance sites, referring to the dynamic or changing status of site in design and construction of buildings.
Reports by Luke A Dickens
"This research is concerned with the geographies of a post-graffiti movement in London today. The... more "This research is concerned with the geographies of a post-graffiti movement in London today. The idea stems from recent cultural texts, which claim to identify ‘new directions in graffiti art’ that relate to, but differ from, the familiar hip-hop model of graffiti ‘writing’ as developed in New York City. Poised as a subculture between art and commerce, an emergent post-graffiti movement is examined here through two thematic strands. The first considers how these new directions in graffiti art might comment on the place of art in the contemporary city; while the second asks how and in what ways we might understand this emerging scene as a creative industry. This research employs a multi-methodological, case study based approach able to foreground the everyday practices and experiences of those involved in the production of this new movement, alongside the production, circulation and display of their cultural texts in a variety of spatial settings. Working broadly within an ethnographic frame, and drawing primarily on interview, photographic and other visual materials, research was conducted through two key institutional case studies in London - The Outside Institute, Westminster, and Pictures on Walls, Hackney.
"
Recent work in human geography has articulated the principles of an emerging 'participatory ethic... more Recent work in human geography has articulated the principles of an emerging 'participatory ethics'. Yet despite sustained critical examination of the participatory conditions under which geographical knowledge is produced, far less attention has addressed how a participatory ethics might unsettle the conventional ways such knowledge continues to be received, circulated, exchanged and mediated. As such, the uptake of visual methods in participatory research praxis has drawn a range of criticism for assuming visual outputs 'tell their own stories' and that publics might be straightforwardly engage with them. In response, this paper develops an argument for adopting an ethical stance that takes a more situated, processual account of the ways participants themselves might convene their own forms of public engagement, and manage their own conditions of becoming visible through the research process. To do so the concept of an ethics of recognition is developed, drawing attention to the inter-and intra-subjective relations that shape the public research encounter, and signalling ways that participants might navigate such conditions in pursuit of their intuitive desire to give an account of themselves to others. This ethical stance is then used to rethink questions of visibility and publicness through the conditions of reception, mediation and exchange that took place during the efforts of a London-based participatory research project to 'go public'. Drawing in particular on the experiences of one of the project participants, we suggest how a processual and contingent understanding of public engagement informed by such an ethics of recognition might be anticipated, approached and enacted.
This article argues against the assumption that agency and reflexivity disappear in an age of ‘al... more This article argues against the assumption that agency and reflexivity disappear in an age of ‘algorithmic power’ (Lash 2007). Following the suggestions of Beer (2009), it proposes that, far from disappearing, new forms of agency and reflexivity around the embedding in everyday practice of not only algorithms but also analytics more broadly are emerging, as social actors continue to pursue their social ends but mediated through digital interfaces: this is the consequence of many social actors now needing their digital presence, regardless of whether they want this, to be measured and counted. The article proposes ‘social analytics’ as a new topic for sociology: the sociological study of social actors’ uses of analytics not for the sake of measurement itself (or to make profit from measurement) but in order to fulfil better their social ends through an enhancement of their digital presence. The article places social analytics in the context of earlier debates about categorization, algorithmic power, and self-presentation online, and describes in detail a case study with a UK community organization which generated the social analytics approach. The article concludes with reflections on the implications of this approach for further sociological fieldwork in a digital world.
Sociological Review, Feb 2015
Among the most deep-seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced ... more Among the most deep-seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced forgetting. Technology critics and sociologists of memory alike argue that daily exposure to overwhelming flows of information is undermining our ability to connect and synthesise past and present. Acknowledging the salience of these concerns our approach seeks to understand the contemporary conditions of collective memory practice in relation to processes of digitisation. We do so by developing an analysis of how digital technologies (image and audio capture, storage, editing, reproduction, distribution and exhibition) have become embedded in wider memory practices of storytelling and commemoration in a community setting: the Salford Lads Club, an organization in the north of England in continuous operation since 1903. The diverse memory practices prompted by the one hundredth anniversary of the Club’s annual camp provide a context in which to explore the transformations of access, interpretation and use, that occur when the archives of civic organisations are digitised. Returning to Halbwach’s (1992) seminal insight that all collective memory requires a material social framework, we argue, contrary to prevailing characterizations of digitisation, that under specific conditions, digital resources facilitate new forms of materialization that contribute to sustaining a civic organisation’s intergenerational continuity.
ACME: an International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 2015
THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION
International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2015
Building on the principles of the digital storytelling movement, this article asks whether the na... more Building on the principles of the digital storytelling movement, this article asks whether the narrative exchange within the ‘storycircles’ of storymakers created in face-to-face workshops can be further replicated by drawing on digital infrastructure in specific ways. It addresses this question by reporting on the successes and limitations of a five-stream project of funded action research with partners in north-west England that explored the contribution of digital infrastructure to processes of narrative exchange and the wider processes of mutual recognition that flow from narrative exchange. Three main dimensions of a digital storycircle are explored: multiplications, spatializations (or the building of narratives around sets of individual narratives), and habits of mutual recognition. Limitations relate to the factors of time, and levels of digital development and basic digital access.
Citizenship Studies, 2014
This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging... more This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.
Journalism Studies, 2014
This article examines the emergence of new, inter-local spaces of news production and consumption... more This article examines the emergence of new, inter-local spaces of news production and consumption, drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with community reporters trained by a community reporter organisation based in the north of England. Practices of news production and content generation are focused on people's own communities and they are underpinned by an ethos of production, which is grounded in a critical consumption of news and collective processes of skill acquisition. Through an analysis of motivations and practices, we account for the values that sustain community reporter communities and discuss how such practices, while emerging from the place of local community, also extend across wider communities of interest. It is suggested that an evolving practice of skill sharing and mutual recognition could potentially stimulate the regrowth of democratic values.
Emotion, Space and Society, 2013
Given the prominence of rap music and its influence in debates about the moral status of young pe... more Given the prominence of rap music and its influence in debates about the moral status of young people, this paper seeks to highlight young people’s own lyrical practices and interpretations of the genre. Evidence gathered by the National Foundation for Youth Music has found that such lyrical modes of music making can serve as a vital means of self-expression, particularly for those children and young people who otherwise lack confidence, self-esteem and cultural validation. This paper centres on a detailed case study of a community music project called Ustudios, which drew on peer-mentoring practices to develop and record rap lyrics with local young people who were identified as experiencing a range of challenging circumstances while residing on two adjacent council estates on the outskirts of Brighton, England. By tracing the lyrical practices of a group of young participants, this paper establishes a clear sense of their potential to explore their own voice, both as means to enhance their emotional expression and development, and as a way of supporting their participation as active members within their community. Taken alongside wider evidence, this case develops an emerging thesis on the political significance of voice, listening and recognition for reframing understandings of the emotional geographies of young people.
Please contact me if you would like me to forward a zipped folder of the recorded music cited here.
City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy and Action, 2010
When graffiti writing was transferred onto canvas for sale during the Manhattan art boom of the 1... more When graffiti writing was transferred onto canvas for sale during the Manhattan art boom of the 1980s, it was widely felt to have ‘sold out’ to the exploitative interests of the art establishment and become a ‘post‐graffiti’ art movement. In contrast, recent British street art demonstrates the capacity to be both more critical and complicit in the influential spheres of art and commerce. Yet, despite growing recognition of these ‘new directions in graffiti art’, there remains little critical attention to how such post‐graffiti aesthetic practices are mobilized, not simply by the heroic tactics of the lone male street artist, but by a significant body of cultural intermediaries, institutions and firms. Established in 2002 by the notorious street artist, Banksy, and his agent, the photographer Steve Lazarides, Pictures on Walls Ltd (POW) was a company that in many ways stood at the cutting edge of these developments. As such, it serves as a rich case study of the ways street art can be understood as a sophisticated form of creative industry. Specifically, as a key way of buying into the street art scene, the limited edition POW screen print is used here to exemplify a cultural economy that is both rooted in the contemporary city, and poised at an intersection between the urban and the virtual. Following the printing, pricing and collecting of such products, this research traces street art from its production in the fashionable art district of Hoxton, east London, and into the everyday lives of a passionate group of Internet collectors and fans.
Cultural Geographies, 2008
This article is about the intersections between contemporary forms of urban inscription, art and ... more This article is about the intersections between contemporary forms of urban inscription, art and the city, as they come to be configured through an emergent `post-graffiti' aesthetic practice. Exemplary of this movement is the self-proclaimed `art terrorist', Banksy, who has earned a reputation recently for his audacious interventions into some of the most significant art institutions in the western world, as well as for his politically charged stencil and sculptural work in the everyday spaces of the city. Focusing on the artist's Peckham Rock, a fragment of concrete that he surreptitiously stuck to the walls of the British Museum in May 2005, this article uses the methodological device of `the journey' in an attempt to place the connections and disconnections between a series of elite and institutional spaces, social relations and mediascapes through which `the rock' passes as its `life' as an artwork unfolds. Existing research, including that by geographers, has examined graffiti in terms of urban identity politics, territoriality and transgression. While such work has generated important insights into the nature of particular kinds of urbanism, it is often limited to a focus on graffiti `writing', a subcultural model of urban inscription originating in New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s. In contrast, this article explores a more recent style of inscribing the city, as set out in a series of art publications and conferences, and unpacks what such a model might indicate regarding contemporary urban processes and experiences.
Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, 2008
No abstract. "This paper includes a video documentary 'Drawn, Scribbled, Scrawled, Scratched' (2... more No abstract.
"This paper includes a video documentary 'Drawn, Scribbled, Scrawled, Scratched' (2003), by Philip Marshall & Toby Whitehouseruntime (13:56)—note: this is a large file and may take a moment to load"
THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Vanderbeck, R. and Worth, ... more THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Vanderbeck, R. and Worth, N. (Eds.) Intergenerational Geographies: Spaces, Identities, Relationships and Encounters, London: Routledge
THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Mills, S. and Kraftl, P. (... more THIS IS AN AUTHORS' PROOF COPY. PLEASE CITE THE DEFINITIVE VERSION: in Mills, S. and Kraftl, P. (Eds.) Informal Education and Children's Everyday Lives: Geographies, Histories and Practices, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie/ Journal of Economic and Social Geography, 2013
Cultural Capitals: Revaluing the Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces, Louise C. Johnson. Ashgate: Farnham... more Cultural Capitals: Revaluing the Arts, Remaking Urban Spaces, Louise C. Johnson. Ashgate: Farnham, England, 2009, 282 pages. ISBN: 978-0-7546-4977-9. £60.00 (hardback)
Cities: the International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 2008
contributions that examine histories of site thinking. Redfield discusses the influence of site f... more contributions that examine histories of site thinking. Redfield discusses the influence of site from physical, typological and cultural approaches; Hess focuses on neighbourhoods or suburbia as an extension of a site. Marcuse goes one step further in placing a site within the even broader geographical approach to public action. In his view a site is a study area, or an area of concern both defined and bounded by legal jurisdiction, topography, the physical ecosystem, the present (and/or predicted) users, interest groups and stakeholders, the level of intensity, the socially accepted, the available data, and the preconception and/or ambition of the urban planner or architect. This places a site within its physical concern, but also relates to historical, planning, market, and democratic concerns. The paper by Kahn is on defining and representing urban sites. It does so by focusing on five concepts for urban site thinking: mobile ground, site reach, site construction, unbounded sites and urban constellation. Finally, the contribution by Burns is on high-performance sites, referring to the dynamic or changing status of site in design and construction of buildings.
"This report centres on a stakeholder analysis of the Creative Apprenticeship and the Future Jobs... more "This report centres on a stakeholder analysis of the Creative Apprenticeship and the Future Jobs Fund schemes. Discussion is based upon five in-depth interviews with Youth Music Action Zone (YMAZ) directors and managers about the key benefits and challenges of their participation in the schemes.
The report also makes a series of recommendations for what Youth Music and wider policy making circles might now consider in light of the research findings. The report will be of use to those implementing (or thinking about implementing) similar employment offers to young people in the music and wider creative sectors."
"Youth Music asks all its funded partners to report on the outcomes of their work. This paper pr... more "Youth Music asks all its funded partners to report on the outcomes of their work. This paper presents evidence from Youth Music funded projects that closed in 2009/2010. Results are presented according to Youth Music’s four strategic priorities: Early Years, Children in Challenging Circumstances, Encouraging Talent and Potential, and Workforce Development.
The analysis reveals important developments in each of these areas and outlines significant impacts on the beneficiaries of Youth Music funding (including children and young people, communities, the music workforce and delivery organisations).
"
Citizenship Studies, Mar 2014
This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging... more This article explores the possibilities for new forms of ‘digital citizenship’ currently emerging through digitally supported processes of narrative exchange. Using Dahlgren's (Dahlgren, P. 2003. “Reconfiguring Civic Culture in the New Media Milieu.” In Media and the Restyling of Politics, edited by J. Corner, and D. Pels, 151–170. London: Sage; Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) circuit of ‘civic culture’ as a model for exploring the interlinking preconditions for new acts of citizenship, we discuss the contrasting outcomes of research at three fieldwork sites in the North of England – educational (a sixth form college), civil society (a community reporters' network) and social (a local club). Each site provided clear evidence of the elements of Dahlgren's circuit (some depending on the intensive use of digital infrastructure, others predating it), but there were also breaks in the circuit that constrained its effectiveness. A crucial factor in each case for building a lasting circuit of civic culture (and an effective base for new forms of digital citizenship) is the role that digital infrastructure can play in extending the scale of interactions beyond the purely local.
Among the most deep-seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced ... more Among the most deep-seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced forgetting. Technology critics and sociologists of memory alike argue that daily exposure to overwhelming flows of information is undermining our ability to connect and synthesize past and present. Acknowledging the salience of these concerns our approach seeks to understand the contemporary conditions of collective memory practice in relation to processes of digitization. We do so by developing an analysis of how digital technologies (image and audio capture, storage, editing, reproduction, distribution and exhibition) have become embedded in wider memory practices of storytelling and commemoration in a community setting: the Salford Lads Club, an organization in the north of England in continuous operation since 1903. The diverse memory practices prompted by the 100th anniversary of the Club's annual camp provide a context in which to explore the transformations of access, interpretation and use, that occur when the archives of civic organizations are digitized. Returning to Halbwachs' (1992) seminal insight that all collective memory requires a material social framework, we argue, contrary to prevailing characterizations of digitization, that under specific conditions, digital resources facilitate new forms of materialization that contribute to sustaining a civic organization's intergenerational continuity.