The importance of ‘place’ – An exploration with 16-18 year old students

Blog Authors: Liza Griffin and Kamna Patel

The place in question is Kilburn in northwest London, and it’s a place that means a great deal to both of us. At different moments in our lives, Kilburn has been a place that we have called ‘home’. The ways in which we both interact with Kilburn are strongly influenced by the kinds of shops, restaurants, entertainment venues and bars found there, the desirability and affordability of property, and rents which enable our network of friends and relatives to live in and around Kilburn, and the density of transport linkages that allow easy movement in, out and through the area. In all these influences we experience processes of globalisation and urbanisation at work. This idea was first discussed by geographer, Doreen Massey in her seminal paper on ‘a global sense of place’ (1991). This paper countered dominant narratives of globalisation which were around at the time, explaining that globalisation was not some disembodied juggernaut homogenising space as it spread across the globe, but a process actively made in real places and often via the agency of ‘local’ people in urban regions. Massey’s frame of reference in this important work was the Kilburn High Road.

Kilburn, thought of as a place created by and simultaneously creating globalisation and urbanisation, contextualises and informs our relationship to place. Reflecting on this spurred us to think about how the processes of globalisation and urbanisation that create contemporary Kilburn are understood through other sets of eyes and how place is made through other bodies. Looking at literature on place-making and urban transformation in London we can see really thoughtful class-based and even race-based analyses (e.g. Butler and Hamnett, 2011), but what struck us was a consistently overlooked demographic: young people. We wanted to understand how young people in Kilburn made sense of the globalising and urbanising processes that were going on around them.

On March 17-18 we held a two day workshop with 20 A-level students from St. Augustine’s High School, Kilburn; the workshop was titled ‘Exploring Urbanisation and Globalisation in Place: A study of Kilburn’ supported by UCL’s widening participation scheme. Over the two sessions we worked with the students to examine these related concepts not only as abstract ideas, but also as very real processes that affect and help to create places. We looked at how Kilburn has become urbanised over time and how it not only reflects globalisation, but also helps to reproduce it. We encouraged the students to think about how they are not simply the passive consumers of ‘global culture’ but how they are active participants in the time-space compression of the globe through their activity on social media or in sending remunerations to relatives abroad. We explored how global commodities for sale on the Kilburn High Road were packaged to appeal to local idiosyncrasies. We examined the ways that local and global are enmeshed at the city scale. And we asked the students to reflect upon the divergent interpretations of these important words, global and local, which feature in their A Level textbooks, asking what purpose difference definitions might serve and for whom.

At the end of the workshop students were asked to identify and evaluate urbanisation and globalisation in relation to their locale: that is, amidst lively discussion, students explained that they discerned the effects of globalisation in their own school: the ethnic make-up of classmates had changed dramatically over their years there, reflecting changes to residential demographics in the area and affecting friendship groups. Residential spaces were also dramatically changing with the construction of new estates targeting middle income earners lured by the appeal of living in zone 2 London. St. Augustine’s student Eden Steenkamp thoughtfully reflected upon how Kilburn’s growing appeal has increased land prices in the region and that this “was a worry”.

Eden’s thoughtful assessment of London’s property market is matched by her reflection on how contemporary processes of urbanisation and gentrification in Kilburn affect everyday life and behaviour. She writes, “If people look different, then they are treated differently… For instance you either eat in a boutique café to show how sophisticated you are or at one of the many Chicken Cottages, like the average Londoner”. Eden sees herself as an “average Londoner” and through her eyes and body we are afforded an insight into how she understands and makes sense of Kilburn and her relationship to that place. And through her engagement in the workshop she was able to connect up some of the academic narratives of uneven development we discussed in class with examples of real injustice she saw around her.

For us, the themes of place and positionality underlie the workshop. It was insightful to explore the perspectives of these young people on how they make meaning and create place, and to contrast those views with our own relationships to that same place. It raises a broader and interesting question that carries through to our own research: does place matter in research? That is, what does it mean if researchers are personally vested in a place that is also the subject of their research? And does it matter if they are not? Can we meaningfully conduct nuanced social science in places that we do not have some lived experience of? Sadly we do not have answers, but through our engagement with these bright and brilliant young people we have a deeper understanding of the importance of the question.

The workshop was organised and run by Kamna Patel, Co-director of the MSc Development Administration and Planning, and Liza Griffin, Co-director of the MSc Environment and Sustainable Development at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL.

• Butler, T. and Hamnett, C (2011) Ethnicity, Class and Aspiration: Understanding London’s New East End, Bristol: Policy Press
• Massey, D (1991) A Global Sense of Place. Marxism Today 38.