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Saturday, August 4, 2012: 2:45 PM
Faculty of Economics, TBA
Oral Presentation
Multicultural cities are constellations of processes and activities of very diverse cultural origins, and are thus sites of mixing and hybridity. Public spaces are interspersed with locations that have the potential of creating ambivalence in human encounters with them. This ambivalence could be present in ‘festival marketplaces’, where capital colonizes historic places, or in navigating the boundaries of urban zones. In this paper I explore the atmospheric dimension of these quotidian encounters with the fabric of built environment through the lens of Foucault’s notion of heterotopia. This notion is used to characterize those locations in the city that upset the homogeneity of the spatial fabric and challenge people in terms of their possible meanings. I focus on the elusive, indeterminate character of the city, its ‘feel’, which, as Boehme notes, humans are perfectly capable of ordinarily recognizing in their daily lives, despite its indeterminate ontological status.
From the standpoint of biosemiotics, I discuss the psychic mechanisms involved in the emergence of meaning of places, and the role of personal culture and experience of the person in navigating the ambivalent possibilities involved in the particular encounter with places. I draw on a study of walking in the inner city neighborhood (Main South, Worcester, MA), focusing particularly on how people navigate the diffuse spatial boundary of ‘the university campus’, and how they make sense of the ‘Buddhist meditation temple’ situated in the neighborhood. I underscore the dynamic, developmental character of the emergence of these meanings, and discuss its possible trajectories in terms of how people draw on their experience and, in Ingold’s terms, their skills of dwelling in the environment, in their encounters. I discuss how this perspective translates into an understanding of public space and spatial justice as emergent out of dynamic, locally assembled encounters of cities and their inhabitants.
From the standpoint of biosemiotics, I discuss the psychic mechanisms involved in the emergence of meaning of places, and the role of personal culture and experience of the person in navigating the ambivalent possibilities involved in the particular encounter with places. I draw on a study of walking in the inner city neighborhood (Main South, Worcester, MA), focusing particularly on how people navigate the diffuse spatial boundary of ‘the university campus’, and how they make sense of the ‘Buddhist meditation temple’ situated in the neighborhood. I underscore the dynamic, developmental character of the emergence of these meanings, and discuss its possible trajectories in terms of how people draw on their experience and, in Ingold’s terms, their skills of dwelling in the environment, in their encounters. I discuss how this perspective translates into an understanding of public space and spatial justice as emergent out of dynamic, locally assembled encounters of cities and their inhabitants.