Ephemeral Socialities: Social Navigation among young Danes (original) (raw)
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The purpose of this article is to study adolescents’ attitudes to rural living in relation to a dominant urban ethos.The question is raised whether processes of urbanization and individualization have left ‘place’ with a less important frame of reference than before. Are young people from the provinces nowdrawn towards the same values as city youth? If this is true, it is consistent with sociological theories about central developmental traits of our time,but in opposition to common assumptions among Norwegian researchers concerning special characteristics of growing up in local communities, especially in north Norway. The empirical analyses demonstrate that groups of pupils relate to these questions along different dimensions. District pupils have a more negative outlook on where they live and on settling there than do city pupils. Irrespective of geographical background, youth express similar preferences in relation to their home place. This leads to a discussion about the diminishing significance of place for the orientations of the modern individual. Even though local attachment and local identity may still be valid concepts, many young people today express values and preferences that are attached to urban settings, which indicates the existence of what I call an urban ethos.
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Based on the preliminary results of an ongoing research project focused on the social and cultural practices of young people in physical and virtual public spaces across four urban areas in Switzerland, this article explores the everyday spatial behavior of youth who hang out in Zurich’s public spaces. It highlights how everyday activities provide these young people with a means of coming to terms with the inclusive and exclusive potential of the urban public spaces they appropriate and how, in turn, they adopt spatial practices that can prove more or less inclusive. Some of these practices may be provocative or even subversive; and whereas others are more discreet (sometimes involving unconscious behavior or passing unnoticed), we argue that they are no less political. The subtle ways in which young people progressively take their place in the city could best be described as “micropolitical.”
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Contemporary adolescent trajectories appear to lead towards phenomena of transience and “dispersal”, constant movement and flow, which are difficult to relate to significant places of identity and belonging. Teenagers’ use of educational places, both formal and informal, across the urban territory, is characterized by a metropolitan “nomadism” that expresses the need for continuous movement and short time-frames. Groups are no longer fixed in one place or reliant on local recognition but display fluid modes of belonging and identification. The paths followed by the adolescents of the early twenty-first century are similar to the social networking model. Groups develop around attractive features “emerging” from the territory, which serve as focal points for the production of “fleeting” experiences, characterized by events-based forms of entertainment that are temporary and transitory in nature. This leads us to interpret the specific ways in which adolescents move through the territo...
« Teenagers in the Contemporary City : Hypermodern Times, Spaces and Practices
Space–Time Design of the Public City,, 2013
This chapter aims to examine teenagers' practices in public space, the modes of appropriation that stigmatise certain types of places and worry parents and adults, particularly in the evening and at night. It is based for the most part on a study conducted for the French Union of Holiday Centres (UFCV) on 'teenagers' times and spaces of sociability' and on a more detailed survey conducted in the outskirt area of Besanc on, in Eastern France. Our study highlights the importance of a spatial and temporal approach to youth, at the level of living areas, so as to allow for the co-construction, locally and with the youth, their parents and residents, of projects and policies adapted to their needs. The chapter emphasises the necessity of transcending preconceived ideas about teenagers, to acknowledge and respect their temporalities, in order to be able to conceive a city and public spaces that are more accessible and welcoming, places where they can express themselves and places where they can hide: ordered times and places but also places and times for freedom and adventure. More generally, these populations, whose behaviour is increasingly mobile, fragmented and unstable-caricatures of a hypermodern society-call into question the urban fabric, the duality and diversity of urban times and spaces. Between the 'poly-temporal city' and the 'a` la carte city', the boundaries are increasingly blurred. Résumé. La communication propose d'aborder les pratiques des adolescents dans l'espace public, les modes d'appropriations qui stigmatisent certains espaces et inquiètent les parents et adultes notamment sur les périodes de soirée et la nuit. Elle s'appuie principalement sur une recherche menée pour l'Union Française des centres de vacances (UFCV) sur « les temps et espaces de sociabilité des adolescents » et sur une recherche plus fine dans la périphérie de l'agglomération de Besançon dans l'Est de la France. La communication met en évidence l'importance d'une approche spatio-temporelle de la jeunesse à l'échelle des bassins de vie pour co-construire localement avec eux, leurs parents et les habitants des projets et des politiques adaptés à leurs besoins. Elle insiste sur la nécessité de dépasser les idées reçues sur les adolescents, de connaître et respecter leurs temporalités pour imaginer une ville et des espaces publics plus accessibles et hospitaliers, des endroits où s'exposer et d'autres pour se cacher, des lieux et temps pleins organisés mais aussi des lieux et des temps de liberté et d'aventure. Plus largement, ces populations aux comportements de plus en plus mobiles, fragmentées et instables-caricatures de la société hypermoderne-questionnent la fabrique urbaine, la mixité et la diversité des temps et espaces urbains. Entre la « ville à plusieurs temps » et la « ville à la carte », les frontières sont de plus en plus floues.