Lecture 6: Geographies of Difference and Segregation II: Congregation & Internal Cohesion Flashcards
Internal Cohesion
• When people – especially minorities – feel threatened…
they often have a strong demand for internal cohesion. (Knox and Pinch 2010: 172)
They identify four principal functions for the congregation (or clustering) of minority groups.
- Defence
- Mutual Support
- Cultural preservation
- To facilitate ‘Attack’
- Defence
- Most prominent when group discrimination is widespread and intense
- Use of a territorial heartland – to withdraw from the hostility of the wider society.
- Ghetto was first used in Venice by Jewish people
- Defence
Northern Ireland – Fall’s Road
- Working-class protestant and Catholic communities
- Violence caused a ‘retreat’ into the heartlands of each community resulting in a reduction in the level of mixing of the two communities.
- Index o fDissimilarity: increased 68% –> 80% (1969-1977)
- In public housing, index is 92% (Boal, 1996)
Murals and graffiti provide…
A voice for those marginalized from dominant values, as a means of empowerment and social justice
- Mutual Support
Example: ‘Gay communities’
San Francisco – Castro District
- Known as America’s first and best-known gay neighbourhoods, and it is currently its largest.
- Origins can be traced back to the Second World War. Gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces were often released from military service in San Francisco
- By 1973, Harvey Milk began political involvement as a gay activist.
‘Other’ communities: Creation of ‘Gay spaces’ (Gill Valentine)
Crucial point – all spaces in cities are constructed in a sexualised manner
Norms of behaviour become embedded & normalised in every place
e.g. The ‘City’ in London vs Soho area of London/ Brighton
e. g. The ‘City’ in London – highly masculine heterosexual space.
e. g. Soho area of London – Britain’s ‘Pink Capital’; Brighton – gay commercial scene.
Murals and graffiti can sustain or create solidarity within communities under siege
Debates re Gay Communities
• Formation of ‘gay enclaves’ have arguably helped to maintain the notion of gay lifestyles as separate, different, or even deviant.
• Possible to see similar processes happening in shaping & policing these communities?
• Gay communities = urban space?
– Greateranonymityandtoleranceofalternativelifestyles
• What about in rural space?
- Cultural preservation
Harlem district of New York.
Harlem Renaissance - a flowering of African- American literature and art in the 1920s.
Writers and artists, many of whom lived in Harlem, began to produce a wide variety of fine and highly original works dealing with African-American life.
To ‘fit in’ often involves performance of certain roles (Valentine, 2001).
– E.g. Muslim women, Asian communities in cities
• Often has duties and obligations.
• Often ‘members’ feel under constant surveillance to ensure that they behave in an appropriate way.
- To facilitate ‘Attack’
• Spaces of Resistance • Usually peaceful and legitimate – E.g. Christianshavn, Copenhagen – E.g. Freemans Wood, Lancaster • Online Communities
Transgression and the crucial ‘where’ of graffiti and murals (1992, Cresswell)
Murals and graffiti may transgress public space, particularly if they seem ‘out of place’ with dominant values (Cresswell’s argument)
Colonies
Where the perceived social distance between the minority group and the mainstream population is relatively small
Enclaves
Where internal cohesion is the more dominant of the forces, the resultant residential clusters may be termed enclaves
