Browsing by Subject "ethnography"
Now showing items 1-2 of 2
-
(2021)This master’s thesis is an ethnographic study about everyday urban encounters and social interaction. It explores how residents in the suburban housing estate of Kontula in East Helsinki negotiate social and cultural difference in their everyday lives. The study focuses on the semi-public spaces of the local shopping centre and examines residents’ capacity to live with difference. The study contributes to a multi-vocal and historically informed understanding of the processes that shape the social landscapes of a socially mixed and multi-ethnic neighbourhood. The study is based on fieldwork carried out in two phases between August 2019 and February 2020. The study applies anthropological methods of participant observation and qualitative interviews. The eleven research participants are adults between the ages of 30 and 71 who live in the neighbourhood and have extensive personal experience of the shopping centre. Although the interviews were a crucial aspect of the meaning-making process, the study relies primarily on participant observation in constructing an interpretation and analysis of social interaction at an intimate scale. In order to contextualise everyday encounters at the shopping centre, this thesis assesses how Kontula, as a stigmatised territory in the urban margins, encapsulates a complex interplay between moral claims of a “good” and “bad” neighbourhood. While some residents confirm negative stereotypes about the shopping centre and bring attention to local social problems and issues of unsafety, others downplay these problems and instead emphasise how tolerant and sociable the shopping centre is. Observations of stigmatised territories reveal how the participation of marginalised individuals and ethnic minorities at the shopping centre challenges the processes and discourses that constitute them as objects of fear and nuisance. The concepts of conviviality and cosmopolitan canopies are used to analyse local social interactions. The analysis suggests that the capacity to live with difference is enabled by ordinary meeting places, such as pubs and cafés, where residents come into regular social contact and engage with diverse individuals and groups. While the maintenance of ethnic boundaries remains salient in the way residents negotiate the social landscapes, these ordinary spaces of encounter situationally reconfigure categories of “us” and “them” and thus expand local meanings of who belongs. The analysis concludes that the contested meanings of belonging and the everyday negotiation of difference are attributes of an open multi-ethnic society coming to terms with difference and change. The analysis suggests that an equal right to participate and interact in shared urban spaces, rather than community consensus, is the hallmark of a society’s capacity to live with difference.
-
(2021)This master’s thesis explores spatial and aesthetic experiences and placemaking in two public spaces in Malmi and Malminkartano in Helsinki. It focuses on two case studies through ethnographic fieldwork in order to evaluate the added value of placemaking in the urban planning practices of the City of Helsinki from the citizens’ perspective. The case studies shed light on the possibilities and risks of placemaking, especially in the context of Helsinki neighbourhoods that are subject to densification and suburban regeneration projects. This research was commissioned by the Strategic Urban Planning Department of the Urban Environment Division of the City of Helsinki. This thesis explores three research questions. It aims to understand how the observed placemaking projects affected the spatial and aesthetic experiences in the public spaces in question. It also examines what kind of attitudes arose among informants regarding public space, placemaking, densification and urban planning in the context of the studied neighbourhoods. Lastly, it assesses the potential of placemaking to improve the spatial and aesthetic experience of public spaces in neighbourhoods undergoing suburban regeneration projects. The theoretical framework of this research utilises theories and viewpoints of human geography and philosophy of urban aesthetics. Building on the study of place and space, it employs the concepts of spatial and aesthetic experience to examine sensory perceptions in public spaces. Additionally, it continues the culture and tradition of qualitative urban planning research. The data was gathered through ethnographic fieldwork during the span of the studied placemaking projects between July and October 2021. The fieldwork entailed participant observation, informal interviews and conversations with informants and autoethnographic observations of sensory, spatial and aesthetic experiences in public space. In addition to the ethnographic data, placemaking theory was utilised to formulate the analyses and results. Based on the data, the observed placemaking case studies had a moderate effect on the spatial and aesthetic experiences in the public spaces in question. However, they raised valuable discussions about local viewpoints and provided important place-based knowledge for urban planners. The ethnographic process revealed both accepting and antagonistic narratives within the local communities regarding densification and the urban planning practices of the City of Helsinki. The latter attitudes did not, however, seem to negatively affect the informants’ conceptions of the studied projects or placemaking generally. Instead, place-driven attempts at making public spaces greener, livelier and more engaging were almost unanimously accepted and welcomed. Consequently, placemaking is proposed here as a viable method to develop and improve the experience of public spaces among citizens in neighbourhoods undergoing suburban regeneration projects. Based on the gathered data and theoretical reasoning, this thesis argues that placemaking is an urban development approach, method and philosophy that can create added value to conventional urban planning practices in Helsinki. Placemaking can improve the experience of public space by vitalising its experiential and sensory qualities, and thus complement technocratic urban planning and construction processes. Placemaking can provide planners with place-based knowledge about local conditions and aspirations that is useful for long-term planning goals. Placemaking can be utilised as a participation method that gives citizens more agency and shows faster impact than other means of participation, further empowering them to reclaim public spaces for communal uses. Placemaking can make public spaces safer and more pluralistic by broadening their usership and increasing vulnerable groups’ presence. By engaging in community-driven placemaking, the City of Helsinki can improve its public spaces in multiple ways and develop its current participatory and urban design practices in alignment with its strategic goals of enhancing the quality of life for its citizens.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2