8: cultural turn, habitus Flashcards
Ferdinand Tönnies
Gemeinschaft/community
Rural
Small scale
Personal and informal
Simple, low division of labor
Strong family and kin relations
Relatively limited social change
Life-long relations
Less tolerance to deviance
Gesellschaft/society
Urban
Large scale
Impersonal and formal/ contractual
Complex, differentiated economic roles
Weak family and kin relations
Very evident social change
Fleeting relations (with strangers)
Greater tolerance to deviance
Wirth, ‘Urbanism as a way of live’ (1938)
The need of a sociological definition of the city: a relatively large, dense, and permanent settlement of socially heterogeneous individuals
3 factors shape urban life:
1. Size
2. Density
3. differentiation
Impact of these factors on urban life
1. Size
Communication through indirect medium and individual interests effective through representation Result: reserved, indifferent, blasé
2. Density
Close living together of people who have no emotional ties
Result: competition, friction, irritation
- Heterogeneity
No lasting relationships or stable support networks. Result: loneliness, isolation, mental illness
Urban life causes deviant behavior
Individual behavior is governed by a ‘struggle of existence’ and this struggle impacts urban space:
Human ecologists study:
- Process of competition between individuals and groups: spatial differentiation of populations, and land use
- Physical features of ‘natural areas’ (unplanned, result from social processes) and their inhabitants : ghettos.
- Social behavior, such as criminality, prostitution, street gang culture, etc.
Concentric zone model of Burgess
Chicago school has been the most influential approach in Urban Studies, but also criticized:
1. The natural areas became associated with the concept of Lebensraum
“living space” physical geography as a factor that influences human activities in developing into a society.
Too much focus on (economic) competition as the basis of social organization.
3. Concentric zone model of Burgess based on the North American cities.
4. Exclusion of cultural and personal factors in explaining residential behavior. Residential patterns also the result of social values.
Social network analysis approach People are involved in different social relationships, some of which are interconnected:
-Family and friends Neighbors
-Work
-Clubs and organization
Network analysis and human geography Growth of network analysis approaches in social urban geography:
1. Relational network analysis ( “Relational turn”): focus on the nature of relationships between people and institutions.
Behaviour of city dwellers can only be understood by looking at interactions and linkages.
2. Positional network analysis: focus on quantitative analysis of the overall structure of networks.
Measuring the number and frequency of contacts people have with networks and within networks > social cohesion
Problems with network analysis
1. How to measure the impact of networks and connections within networks?
- Too much focus on the overall structure, and not on the significance of linkages and what sort of social exchange is being transacted within them.
- Spatial dimension is often missing: no clear link between urban spaces and networks of city dwellers.
Jane Jacobs
* Against low-density suburbs, because of the lack of social diversity and social interaction.
Promoting high-density cities and social diversity in urban neighborhoods
* Response to city planning (‘slum clearance’)
.
Herbert Gans (1961):
Cohesive social networks do exist in urban
neighborhoods (urban villages) ‘community saved’
Characteristics:
* A sense of community
* Feeling of solidarity
* Strong local network of kinship
* Localized patterns of employment, shopping, leisure
Immobility (personal, occupational and residential) is an
important factor in social cohesion and ‘community spirit’:
* Residential immobility results in greater intensity of interaction between community members.
* People have shared and repeated experience
* Functional interdependence (mutual support)
However, immobility also causes tension and conflict:
* Shortage of space
*Conflict of values arising from ethnic and cultural backgrounds
* Frictions between ‘problem families’ in area of ‘respectable families’
Are suburban neighborhoods social cohesive?
* Lewis Mumford (1941): “a collective attempt to lead a private life”
- Herbert Gans (1967):
1. Suburban local networks do have social cohesion
2. In suburban neighborhoods people choose to participate in subgroups = ‘community transformed’
Neighborhood:
Areas containing people of broadly similar demographic, economic and social characteristics, though not necessarily significant as basis for social cohesion.
Community:
A degree of social coherence on the basis of interdependence, which produces a uniformity (in custom, taste, modes of thought and speech).
Structuration (Giddens 1979): everyday social practices are structured across space and time.
* People act and make their own choices
* Structural context determines opportunities and
limitations
* People are all members of social systems: networks, organizations, social classes
Giddens: it’s the everyday interplay of structure and agency of actors
Important approach within human geography, but:
1. How to disclose the balance between agency of people and the structures that determine their behavior?
2. Too much focus on repetition of acts, in stead of unforeseen acts
3. What is the role of the unconscious?
4. Neglect of culture, gender and ethnicity (too much focus on economic institutions/systems)
Since the 1980s increasing focus on culture and representation of social relationships.
Bourdieu (1984), concept of habitus:
1. The ways individuals and groups perceive the world around them
2. The ways individuals and groups represent themselves: habits,
skills, styles and taste
- Individuals and groups sustain habitus through
symbolic capital: goods, services, clothing, language that reflect the taste and distinction of a person
Cultural turn in human geography
