The absence of the social actor in considerations of the landscapes of regeneration in ‘global cities’.

Smith, Rob 2006. The absence of the social actor in considerations of the landscapes of regeneration in ‘global cities’. [Working Paper]. School of Social Sciences Working Papers Series, vol. 87. Cardiff: Cardiff University.

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Abstract

In recent times a great deal of research has been carried out on ‘regeneration’, largely from a policy analysis perspective. There is a noticeable shortage of empirical qualitative research, which has attempted to employ sociological concepts to examine the social organisation and subjective experience of these regenerated spaces. There is a common failure to locate the social actor within these carefully constructed urban landscapes both within sociology and wider planning discourse. This failure is most apparent in existing audit technologies surrounding the measuring of the success of regeneration projects which fail to conceptualise these spaces as interactional contexts which profoundly shape the contours of contemporary urban subjectivities. Using data gathered in Cardiff Bay, I will outline how utilising an innovative methodology incorporating a range of qualitative techniques, including visual research, is potentially capable of examining the way in which the various discursive fields that meet and are embodied in these urban spaces impact upon issues such as inclusion and exclusion, social control and organisation and how these life-worlds are interpreted and negotiated by those who appropriate them. Furthermore, based upon the notion that global discourses of urban design, planning, production and consumption are incorporated in to these life-worlds, it will be argued that this approach is capable of examining the complex interactions between the global and the local at their interface. This approach promises to yield theoretical and practical implications, beyond the immediate subject area, for urban sociology, city planning and the understanding of contemporary global complexities.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Publisher:	Cardiff University
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	11 Nov 2016 09:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/78161

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