Meeting places of the Univer-city: On serendipitous encounters in a growing university area

New article in Social Sciences & Humanities Open, written together with Fredrik Torisson.

Abstract: In this paper we investigate the ways in which a university, taking on the scale of a city of its own, affords meetings for researchers and teachers between disciplines. How does the continuous transformation and expansion of the university's physical environment affect the everyday lives and serendipitous encounters of the researchers active within it? The aim of the paper is to develop a conceptualization to facilitate discussions and analyses of urban transformations and its relation to serendipitous and informal meetings in urban areas. The paper takes Lund University as a case and uses different methods, such as time-geographical notations and Perec-inspired observations studies, to develop five different aspects that allow us to take measure of urban configurations and their potential for serendipitous meetings and encounters.

The Neighbourhood in Pieces: The Fragmentation of Local Public Space in a Swedish Housing Area

New article written together with Johan Wirdelöv in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

In this article, we investigate the transformation of local public spaces in the ethnically and socially diverse housing area Norra Fäladen during 1970–2015. After being built, the area soon faced stigmatization and became known as a problem area. This was followed by a series of investments in local public spaces aiming for a stronger appropriation of the neighbourhood by its inhabitants. The production of a ‘neighbourhood spirit’ has, however, slowly deteriorated over the last two decades. Through the introduction of new areas, with large single‐family houses on the one hand, and a densification of the existing housing stock on the other, the inhabitants’ dependence on the existing (but now decreasing) public spaces within the area has been polarized. Local public spaces are also being increasingly relocated from central parts of the neighbourhood to the peripheries or outside the area. In this article, we investigate how this quite slow, yet steady, transformation has affected the local public spaces and the everyday life of the area.

Fäladstorget. Photo taken on 13 December 2012 from the Church tower. In the background we see the school with the local library. The high‐rise building on the left is an addition from 2011 (photo by Albin Brönmark, reproduced by permission of Bilder i Syd)

Neighbourhood events and the visibilisation of everyday life: The cases of Turro (Milan) and Norra Fäladen (Lund)

This article, written together with Sebastiano Citroni, is published ahead-of-print in European Urban and Regional Studies.

Abstract

While scholars agree on the reasons behind the current proliferation of urban, small-scale, pre-organised events, the implication of these events for public life is more controversial, and involves polarised debates between enthusiasts and critics. This paper develops an international comparison between one city district in Milan (Italy) and one in Lund (Sweden), in order to explore how the variety of events that took place there between 2013 and 2015 possibly affected the local and on-going everyday public life. In both cases, the observed events aimed to de-stigmatise the broader urban districts in which they were staged, as well as to enhance a vibrant urban life in relatively disadvantaged areas. In the study, we identify three different ways in which these events make the public character of everyday life visible, and even redefine patterns of urban civility. The main argument deriving from our comparative ethnography is that the salience of events in the everyday life that they supposedly disrupt can be analytically addressed by developing a pragmatist approach to public space, discussing it in terms of territorial complexity.

At the Neighbourhood festival 'Fäladskalaset', Lund, 2016.