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Spatial Justice Matters – Designing and Running Urban Community Gardens for Older People’s Wellbeing’

By Marissa Lam, on 9 March 2022

Research has highlighted the importance of accessible community gardens in providing a space to protect and enhance older people’s wellbeing as they age. This is particularly pertinent in the context of UK’s ageing population as it is juxtaposed with other public spaces become increasingly exclusive, to the exclusion of older people. Through adopting a spatial justice perspective, it is discerned that whilst many community gardens across the UK are ostensibly open for everyone to enjoy, not everyone can equally access these coveted spaces. In particular, older people may face barriers to participation through accessibility issues such as spatial designs deficiencies that fail to address people with disabilities, which may be associated with ageing. By actively identifying who can access these spaces and in what ways different user groups can participate, community gardens can continue to move towards making these green spaces easily accessible to all social demographics to improve wellbeing.

 

Project Focus and Description of Fellowship

Through a dissertation fellowship with Marina Chang Chair of Calthorpe Community Garden (‘Calthorpe’) and my supervisor Liza Griffin, I examined the ‘Diversity and Inclusion of Community Gardens for the Wellbeing and Participation of Older People’. A case study of Calthorpe enabled me to explore the particular opportunities and barriers to diversity and inclusion that may impact upon older people’s wellbeing and participation in community gardens using a spatial justice lens. Situated within the Kings Cross ward in the London Borough of Camden, Calthorpe is a suitable site to study as it is easily accessible via public transport and has users both from the local community and those who travel in specifically to use this space. Furthermore, as acceptance and inclusiveness form part of Calthorpe’s values, this is a seemly site to explore how diversity and inclusion may impact older people’s wellbeing.

 

Community Gardens

A community garden is a piece of land gardened by people individually or collectively. In the UK, community gardens are likely to have a duality of functions, such as providing open spaces whilst also offering plots for interested parties. Personally, when I think of ‘community gardens’, connotations of ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ spring to mind as notions of ‘community’ and ‘gardens’ often instil tranquillity and evoke a sense of belongingness. However, exploring the diversity and inclusion of community gardens for the wellbeing and participation of older people through a spatial justice lens highlights unequal access to these green spaces.  Employing a spatial justice lens allows us to scrutinise the different factors that may increase inclusion or inequalities within the space of community gardens and how to move towards achieving greater justice.

 

Spatial Justice

Whilst the theory of spatial justice is complex and multifaceted, simply put, it links the notions of social justice and space. Centrally, spatial justice encompasses the equal and equitable distribution of, and the ability to use, socially valued resources within a space (Soja, 2009:1). Adopting a spatial justice lens reveals the nuances of spatial injustice within a space. Within the context of community gardens, spatial justice considers the elements necessary to investigate hitherto overlooked barriers towards (re)producing a diverse and inclusive community garden for everyone as it comprises and considers both ‘real’ and ‘imagined’ space equally. It examines who can access different spaces within community gardens and how individuals can participate meaningfully in such spaces. For instance, the spatial design may not be inclusive for everyone, impeding the diversity of users as some cannot access the space. By way of illustration, despite aiming to be universally inclusive, Calthorpe remains inaccessible to certain older people, preventing them from enjoying the green spaces that community gardens offer. Whilst Calthorpe’s ‘wild garden’ provides gardening opportunities to improve wellbeing, it is hidden away. The secretive element makes this space attractive to children, but for older people, the paths to reach the ‘wild garden’ may present difficulties to exercising their right to use this space. Consequently, some less physically mobile people may feel excluded as the paths and gardening plots are not designed to enable wheelchair access. Additionally, whilst clear signage is desirable for all users, they are particularly useful for those with impaired sight. As Calthorpe’s existing signage is small and not always easily visible, this may reduce the engagement of visually impaired older users as they may not be able to navigate the space independently.

 

What can Community Gardens learn from taking a Spatial Justice Perspective to their Governance?

Spatial (in)justice manifests in various ways and for community gardens, there are some ‘easy fixes’ that can help them move towards achieving spatial justice. Through a spatial justice perspective, practical steps that community gardens can adopt include looking at how the benefits and burdens in society may impact diversity and inclusion and therefore have ramifications on users’ wellbeing and participation in these spaces. Taking a spatial justice approach to the unjust and uneven development of community gardens can both reveal how people’s experiences of the space can impact wellbeing, and consider the less tangible aspects of the spatial experience. Diversity and inclusion in community gardens manifest both tangibly, whether there are physical barriers to participating, but also intangibly, through the feeling of belonging. To demonstrate, a survey found that a ‘community feeling’ is fostered at Calthorpe. This survey also spotlighted a group of Latin American women who explained how gardening at Calthorpe provided them the opportunity to become more independent, learn to use London’s buses and expand their social circles. Additionally, the sense of belonging cultivated extends further than the Latin American group. A broader community appeal exists as most of the ‘family allotments’ at Calthorpe belong to local residents of various nationalities. Survey respondents expressed ‘feeling at home’ at Calthorpe and having a ‘strong sense of ownership’, cultivating good spatial justice and wellbeing.

 

A spatial justice framework can provide insights for community gardens when designing or planning their space, whether it be to increase the diversity of people able to access the space or to diversify the voices of those partaking in decision-making processes. By understanding how space relates to justice, community gardens can scrutinise the different facets that produce the space: for example, evaluating how spatial design, physical accessibility and cultural factors impacts the wellbeing and participation of people in community gardens.

 

Practical learning taken from this research on Calthorpe highlights the many ways in which a community garden can facilitate the (re)production of a diverse and inclusive space. By placing diversity and inclusion at the heart of its core values, Calthorpe emphasises the importance of providing a welcoming environment for all users by opening the space to everyone irrespective of background to enjoy its diversity and benefits. It also provides an office where people can ask questions. What’s more, the abundant greenery and benches throughout Calthorpe’s space fosters a tranquil environment for older users in particular. Community gardens can also enhance the engagement of visually impaired users by providing them with the ability to manoeuvre through the space autonomously. As aforementioned, having large and visible signage is also essential.

 

Offering opportunities for users to garden or participate in activities independently can increase both the diversity of users and increase their feeling of inclusion through fostering strong social bonds. Calthorpe offers numerous age-specific activities, such as ‘walking football for ages 55+’ and ‘meditation for ages 60+’. Such activities can encourage wellbeing and participation through the creation of an environment that allows older people to carry out a range of activities adapted to their specific requirements.

 

Moreover, requisites to establishing a community garden that feels welcoming includes both the construction of a positive culture and ensuring that the different spaces within and across it are physically accessible. Whilst a community garden may in theory be open for all, certain areas may remain inaccessible for some socio-demographic groups. For example, narrow and uneven paths without handrails may reduce navigability for those with reduced mobility, presenting difficulties for them to exercise their right to use the space.

 

Nonetheless, there are simple design modifications that can improve access. For instance, adapting spaces by raising container beds enables less physically mobile users to participate as fully as possible in gardening. Community gardens that foster environments where people can work with others can create a sense of belonging as collective gardening is said to build social capital and enhance community cohesiveness, thereby improving wellbeing overall. Research has highlighted that a sense of belonging can also be cultivated through the inclusion of users in the decision-making process. Whilst Calthorpe currently does not have a formal systematic procedure to facilitate the inclusion of users and for community groups to raise issues or voice relevant concerns, implementing procedures such as an anonymous suggestions box may enable participation and provide opportunities to include previously overlooked voices.

 

Nevertheless, extrinsic forces that should be considered in an analysis of spatial justice include the distributive injustices at play in the wider geographic area where a community garden is situated. For example, the monetisation of community gardens in the UK can negatively impact on their diversity and inclusion. As an illustration, Calthorpe is unable to extend their opening hours due to funding constraints from the local council, restricting access to this socially valued space. Whilst this may impede spatial justice, community gardens may be creative in finding solutions. For instance, community gardens could potentially capitalise on the surrounding population, drawing on volunteers to oversee the organisation and running of activities. By actively engaging with local communities, community gardens may be able to overcome some of the many constraints they face.

 

References:

Soja, E.W. (2009). The city and spatial justice. Justice spatiale/Spatial justice1(1), pp.1-5.

Celebrating International Day of Persons with Disabilities in Sierra Leone and Indonesia

By Ignacia Ossul Vermehren, on 3 December 2020

By Ignacia Ossul Vermehren (DPU), Nina Asterina (Kota Kita) and Hawanatu Bangura (SLURC)

Abu on the football pitch at Thompson Bay (Sierra Leone). Photo Credit: Angus Stewart

The 3rd of December is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. We reflect on this year’s theme “Building Back Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World” through DPU’s research “AT2030: Community led solutions” in informal settlements Sierra Leone and Indonesia.

While we know that 15% of the world’s population lives with a disability, there is no global data specifically on informal settlements. After conducting the rATA WHO survey last year, we found that 26% of people surveyed across four informal settlements in Indonesia and Sierra Leone experienced at least ‘some difficulty’ in seeing, walking, hearing, remembering and/or communicating. One third lacked the assistive products they needed. Despite being a major issue, disability tends to be overlooked in urban and development research.


The impact of COVID-19 on disabled people in informal settlements

 Between April and August this year, we conducted a research on the impact of COVID-19 on older people and disabled residents in Sierra Leone and Indonesia. Distinct effects emerged, including loss of livelihoods, reduced educational opportunities, unequal access to government support, limited social life and poorer access to information. Moreover, COVID-19 recovery narratives emphasising the importance of ‘healthy bodies’ have exacerbated these difficulties and increased stigma towards disabled people (see video with stories from Indonesia here).

However, the research also highlighted how community-based organisations in the global South are stepping in to provide support, whether through life-saving resources, accessible information, new spaces for disabled people’s participation, or innovative collaborations in the city. As has been the case across the world, the pandemic has brought into focus the experiences of those more vulnerable members of the community.

Making disability visible in communities

 While research in informal settlements has tended to overlook or co-opt the voices of disabled people, making disability more ‘visible’ has its tensions. A first step that challenges rather than reinforces stigma has been to engage with the specific lived experiences and priorities of disabled residents.

 An important output of Phase 1 of the research has shown that the methods, implemented through grassroots organisations with a participatory approach in the communities, can facilitate an emerging collective and positive identity around ‘disability’. Many participants who did not initially want to refer to themselves as disabled, started to see disability as a more positive, political, group identity.  Providing spaces for disabled residents to participate in the wider decision-making process of low-income communities, can further foster solidarity between disabled and non-disabled members of the community.

The leadership of the Federation of the Urban and Rural Poor (FEDURP) have themselves felt influenced in the way they approach disabled residents. As FEDURP’s country head said in a speech during last year’s Celebration of International Day of Persons with Disabilities: “We knew that disability was a big issue, but we hadn’t engaged with it, neither including disability in the discussion nor working with disabled residents specially. FEDURP is now committed to working with people with disabilities.”

Coming together to foster a political identity around disability

Mural Painting in Pelambuan (Indonesia). Photo credit: Kaki Kota

International Day of Persons with Disabilities has become an important event in giving visibility to disability in the two communities in Sierra Leone. This year, Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, FEDURP and Dr. Abdulaya Dumbaya (a disability activist and Head of the Springer Trust Fund) will be reflecting on how COVID has affected disabled people, discussing disability rights and sharing stories of resilience in the communities.

In Pelambuan, a low-income neighbourhood in Banjarmasin, Indonesia, the celebrations this year led by NGO Kota Kita will be marked with the painting of a mural on the theme of “Community participation towards an inclusive neighbourhood (kampung)”. The mural aims to translate community voices and aspirations — particularly those with disabilities — and build collective identity through an inclusive approach.

As a physically impaired male participant in Pelambuan said, “I am really happy to participate in this mural project. I like the idea of turning our aspirations into images on the wall. I hope this activity can inspire other neighbourhoods to strengthen their community participation.”

Through making disability more visible, and engaging with tensions that may arise, the research has been able to create space for disabled people to take a shaping role in the community. Recognizing days such as this is an important step in continuing to do so.

 

The action research project “AT2030 Community Led Solutions” is led by DPU’s Julian Walker as part Global Disability Innovation Hub’s programme and funded by UK Aid.

Urbanisation, smart cities and the future of energy

By ucfuvca, on 20 September 2016

The Seminar on EU-India Cooperation on Sustainable Urbanization took place in Pune, on the 15-16th September 2016 in a cooperative and multi-disciplinary atmosphere. The workshop was organized by the Global Relations Forum from Pune and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Academic Foundation and it was supported by the European Union’s Delegation to India and Bhutan. During the two days, delegates discussed what is smart in the territorial and demographic transformations associated with urbanization in India.

‘Smart’ is a multidimensional promise for better services, better environments, more educated people. The discussions suggested that, in many ways, smart is nothing else than a variation on the preoccupations about the shortcomings of the city in the twenty-first century: Eco cities, sustainability, future proof cities… are all labels that indicate a will to improve the livability of our cities. They all have something in common: an interest on the simultaneous possibility of technological and social transformations. Yet, focusing on characterizing the city as smart, low carbon, green, or ecological may distract from actually thinking through practical solutions to address the challenges of urban life.

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In my talk I focused on two questions which I think are, specifically, useful to understand the urban energy transition in India. The first question is: why does energy matter to city dwellers? It is a way to also ask: what is the lived experience of energy in each city? The second question is: what kind of interventions can bring about an energy transition?

With regards to the first question, my insights draw from my project ‘Mapping Urban Energy Landscapes’, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council, which aims to understand from a comparative perspective how energy is embedded in everyday existence. The first insight from this project is that social and material relations with energy in any given city are unique. They belong to its city as they depend on the local culture, on the specific history of infrastructure development, and, given the political character of energy, on the way in which energy politics are played at the local level.

For example, some of the case studies I have been comparing have been Hong Kong, Bangalore and Maputo. Of the three cases, Hong Kong is the only one which has a homogeneous energy landscape, based upon traditional models of fossil fuel electrification. In contrast, Mozambique’s population relies mostly on charcoal and other biomass fuels, with electricity covering only 8% of the total energy consumed. The energy landscape of Bangalore is characterized by its diversity. All manners of energy sources and means of provision coexist in the city. Energy needs are as unequal as unequal is the society of Bangalore. Generally, the intermittency of energy services characterizes the energy landscape. In conclusion, each of these cities has to be looked at independently, in relation to different problems. In Bangalore, we know that increasing the availability of electricity alone, for example, is not improving the reliability of the system, let alone facilitating energy access to the urban poor. We need context-tailored solutions, in which attention is paid to the specific factors that shape the provision and use of energy in every city.

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My second question is thus, where are the possibilities for action: not just what to do about global energy challenges, but also who should do it and how. Past research on global climate change action included the review hundreds of climate change innovations, concluding that experimentation is a key means to create positive action all over the world, Europe, India, you name it.

This means appreciating the value of localized, context-specific, scale-appropriate alternatives which respond directly to the needs of urban dwellers. Here, I am particularly interested on what is the role of planning? In Bangalore, for example, there is an urgent need to understand the interactions between the system of urban planning and that of delivering energy services, as they both operate in a completely uncoordinated manner. Planning has a big role to play, not necessarily in a spatial sense, but rather, as a means to facilitate partnership building and build up collaborative institutions. Planning is a key instrument whereby local needs can be met by bridging different forms of knowledge, bringing together top-down and bottom-up approaches, and, ultimately, making possible strategies for co- designing livable cities.

 

Further reading:

A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities by Vanesa Castán Broto and Harriet Bulkeley


Vanesa Castán Broto is a senior lecturer and co-director of MSc Environment and Sustainable Development at the DPU. Her work spans a range of issues in developing cities, including disaster preparedness, climate change adaptation and energy supply.

How friendships and networks matter for urban economic development

By Naji P Makarem, on 23 June 2016

Why do some cities perform so much better than others? According to new research from, Naji P. Makarem, it’s not just down to their resources – both human and physical – but also how people and organisations interact and work together. In studying social relations in business communities, he finds that while San Francisco’s diverse and connected social structure has allowed the Bay Area to withstand new economic challenges, Los Angeles’ comparable regional network has not been able to maintain its connectivity, which has led to relatively poorer economic outcomes for the city. 

 

“If I’ve learned anything in the last seven years, it’s that ideas live

less in the minds of individuals than in the interaction of communities”

(Fred Turner, 2006-p.VII)

 

Economists attribute economic performance – growth in output, employment and wages – to initial factor endowments, such as educated workers, patented inventions, lucrative industries, good infrastructure, property rights and excellent public services. This makes sense to the extent that cities with higher levels of these factors are undoubtedly better equipped to grow their economies and incomes. But if we stop to think how these factor endowments produce economic growth and respond to technological, market and political shocks, challenges and opportunities, the picture becomes more complex, dynamic and social.

 

A closer look reveals the diversity of individual and organisational actors in economic development processes. Such a sociological perspective focusses on individuals and their ideas, knowledge, cultures, world views, interactions and social relations; firms and their practices, strategies, cultures, structures, technologies, capabilities, networks and social responsibility; financial institutions and their lending practices and risk strategies; formal institutions and their laws, regulations, policies, public services, bureaucracy, infrastructure investments, incentives and power relations; and civic organisations such as charities, community-benefit organizations, private foundations, unions and business associations.

 

A dynamic perspective reveals how individuals and organisations interact to combine and re-combine ideas, knowledge, capabilities, assets and resources into novel combinations in pursuit of lucrative opportunities. Such interaction and re-combination in response to market challenges and opportunities is enabled and constrained by two intrinsically-linked aspects of institutions: The social networks in which actors are embedded, and their formal and informal ‘rules of the game’. Entrepreneurship and investments in a region emerge from this interaction and re-combination in the face of challenges and opportunities, steering urban industrial structures down specific industrial pathways, with its consequent impact on employment, wages and public revenues.

 

In a new study, I focus on one of these two institutional aspects of urban economies: The structure of social relations in high-end business communities. The economic sociology literature investigates how entrepreneurial and innovative contexts are associated with more connected, diverse and central social structures. While this has been researched using network analysis techniques at the scale of sub-regional industrial clusters, entrepreneurial communities and small cities, it has never been tested at the scale of large metropolitan regions.

 

To fill this gap in the literature, directorate research was used as a proxy for the social structure of the business community in two large metropolitan regions, the Bay Area and Southern California, whose per capita incomes diverged significantly between 1980 and 2010 (Table 1). This case selection within the State of California to a great extent controls for differences in formal government institutions, broad-stroke cultural and linguistic attributes, climate and geographic location, infrastructure, amenities and distance from the technological frontier.

 

Table 1 – Per Capita Incomes in the LA and Bay Area CMSAs, 1980 and 2010

Picture1

Source: Author’s calculations using BRR data.

My analysis reveals that both networks were almost identical and highly connected back in 1982. Figure 1 below shows that the largest component (a fully connected network of nodes, whereby each node is linked to at least one other node) in both networks included over 50 percent of the 70 sampled firms.

 

Figure 1 – LA and SF networks of board interlocks, 1980.

Source: Author’s calculations using UCINET and NET-Draw.

Source: Author’s calculations using UCINET and NET-Draw.

 

Over the subsequent three decades of economic divergence however, their network structures also diverged. While the Bay Area’s maintained and even increased its level of connectivity, the LA region’s network fragmented by 2010, with a mere 20 percent of firms in its largest component (Figure 2).

 

Figure 2 – Percentage of sampled firms in largest component, by year, LA Vs SF

Source: Author‘s calculation, number of interlocked firms in each network‘s largest component as a percentage of all firms in the sample.

Source: Author‘s calculation, number of interlocked firms in each network‘s largest component as a percentage of all firms in the sample.

 

Figure 3 shows the two networks in 2010, clearly highlighting the connectivity in the Bay Area (SF) and the fragmentation in Southern California (LA).

 

Figure 3 – LA and SF networks of board interlock, 2010

Source: Author’s calculations using UCINET and NET-Draw.

Source: Author’s calculations using UCINET and NET-Draw.

 

Turning to the degree of diversity, the two networks were found to be equally diverse in 1982, however by 2010 while the Bay Area network had maintained its high level of diversity, LA’s had declined substantially, despite having more industries represented in its 2010 network. While the Bay Area’s high-end corporate social structure maintained its high level of connectivity and diversity over the three decades of economic divergence, LA’s became less connected and less diverse.

 

The analysis of centrality of business-civic associations, whose role it is to represent the needs of the business community, is equally revealing. The results on a broadened network (which included the 50 largest Private Foundations in each region) shows the Bay Area Council in the Bay Area to be the most central organization in the network, with an nBetweeness score of 18 percent (i.e. The Bay Area Council lies on 18 percent of the shortest paths between all node pairs in the largest component). This is three times greater than the LA Chamber of Commerce, the most central business-civic organisation in the LA network with an nBetweeness score of 5.86 percent. The Bay Area Council arguably plays the role of an ‘anchor tenant’ within the region’s industrial social structure, connecting business leaders across industrial categories. No comparable business-civic organisation exists in LA.

 

The Bay Area’s connected and diverse social structure withstood the tumultuous challenges brought about by the New Economy, and successfully combined and re-combined its ideas, knowledge, capabilities, assets and resources in response to these challenges and opportunities. It successfully produced new firms and technologies that carved new industrial pathways in IT, biotechnology and supporting services such as venture capital and specialized legal services. The interactions behind such productive recombination were embedded in a connected, diverse and central high-end corporate social structure. LA’s comparable regional network on the other hand was unable to maintain its connectivity and diversity, and failed to productively combine and re-combine regional endowments in the face of a rapidly changing economic reality.

 

While my study sheds light on the network dimension of regional business institutions, our co-authored book investigates perceptions and world views of various public, private and civic actors, revealing further notable differences. Policy makers and business and civic leaders may draw from this research by focusing attention on the social architecture behind their industrial structures. Business-civic associations in particular may play a central role in bringing influential business leaders from across industries to interact and think about their regional economies and their collective challenges and opportunities.

 

This article is based on the paper, ‘Social networks and regional economic development: the Los Angeles and Bay Area metropolitan regions, 1980–2010’ in Environment and Planning C Government and Policy.

Disclaimer: This blog was also posted in USAPP (An LSE Blog)


 

Naji P. Makarem is co-director of the Msc. Urban Economic Development at the Bartlett School’s Development Planning Unit (DPU) at UCL, and a lecturer in Political Economy of Development.

Meeting the Change Maker Painters: Street Messages in Accra, Ghana

By ucfucmt, on 20 April 2016

The first experience of a city is a disorientating introduction of smells, sound, temperature and touch. It is primarily sensorial. Before you can get your bearings, your body reacts, attunes, listens, smells, and looks.

I’ve been fascinated about the use of the wall as a tool for communication and transformation, and while I’ve known from previous visits to Accra that there were messages inscribed on the walls, I had never paid close enough attention to them, the walls passing by in a whir of taxi windows, going from place A to B. This time it would be about following the surfaces, not about the destination but the in between.

Accra’s visual landscape is dominated by signage; Ghanaians express and shape their culture through this, as common as the informal flows that dominate the city. Signs stating ‘Do Not Urinate Here’, ‘Post No Bills’ sit alongside adverts for Indomie, Glo and Juvita. School walls are decorated with children playing and learning. Billboards advertise religious services, skin care and weight loss. In and amongst this, businesses paint the front of their shop with illustrations of their services and products.

Figure 1: Signage, Hospital Road

Figure 1: Signage, Hospital Road

 

Hash-Tags

On Accra’s main roads in and around the city, messages become slightly more political, more patriotic. On November 7th 2016, Ghana will have another election, and the surfaces along the streets are covered in posters for party leaders and tags. Ghana is a multi-party system but either the National Democratic Congress or the New Patriotic Party largely dominates it, with any other party finding it difficult to achieve electoral success. However, along these main roads is the repetitive scrawl: #GHANAGOESGREEN #TOTALSUPPORT #NEWREGISTERSTOVOTE or SAVE GHANA. A retort to the current election process and another party, the Convention People’s Party, a socialist political party based on the ideas of the first President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah. After a bit of digging online, I learn that #ghanagoesgreen isn’t based on green party politics, but rather for Ivor Greenstreet, a candidate standing for Presidential Election in 2016.

Figure 2: #GHANAGOESGREEN, Ring Road Central

Figure 2: #GHANAGOESGREEN, Ring Road Central

 

These hash-tags straddle two existences between public space and cyber space, a tactic used by political parties, musicians and other businesses. While many people do have phones, what part of the demographic accesses the Internet? Do these tags predominantly exist online or offline?

 

Murals

I met Larry, who co-founded Nima: Muhinmanchi Art (NMA), a grassroots organisation that provides art workshops to youth, beautifying communities through public art and promoting urban renewal through culture. Larry tells me how he sees mural paintings as an opportunity to transform everyday spaces, empowering local communities and how it’s a powerful tool to changing the perception of Nima. Nima, is a dense, vibrant and ethnically diverse residential area in Accra, made popular by a large market. It is a stigmatized area, external perceptions have created prejudice and cultural barriers to the rest of the city, and as a result, it has become a city within a city – with its own authorities, rules and policing, undergoing its own development, driven and enforced by its inhabitants.

 

Larry is passionate about the power of art as transformative, calling the artists in NMA the Change Maker Painters. I ask him about the mural making process and he explains that it begins with a visibility study, to identify a surface that has the most footfall followed by a conversation with the community; including chiefs, the wall owner and households in the immediate vicinity. He presents what he has noticed about the area or what other people have raised with him – the murals act as a vehicle to talk about issues; child labour, waste, and politics. The murals, are subjects of conversation before, during and after their production, with people stopping to talk and ask questions, and share their own experiences. He tells me about a mural that the NMA did after Accra was devastated by a flood and explosion in 2015 that saw the loss of 150 lives. They decided to paint a mural along Kanda Highway to stress the importance of waste management, one of the main causes found for the flood that had blocked drainage systems. As a result, people clean their drains outside their homes and in their community more frequently than when they are just blocked, creating more preventative methods of avoiding another flood.

 

I meet with Rufai Zakari, an artist, in his studio in Nima, and I ask him why he has made the transition to murals, “Art contributes to positive change. But also introduces something African into the street art scene. My community, which I promised to help with my profession, needs this. I am a child of that community and I use art to change the perception of it, but also to fight for my country and continent”. In March 2015, he set up with other street artists GrafArt GH, a group of young artists from Ghana with the aim of using art to address issues facing the African continent & also to promote Ghanaian art & culture to the rest of the world. Rufai explains that to him, art is a multidimensional tool, to change peoples view of the area, to beautify, but also as a platform for change and awareness raising.

 

Art movements in these contexts are therefore less about the individual, about the money, than they are about the collective, the community, so that everyone grows and learns together. These Change Maker Painters, see themselves occupying two roles, one within their own communities, painting the inner bellies of the walls and communal courtyards to address very localised problems, but also more widely in the streets of Accra, drawing attention to who they are, to changing the perception of their community, to showing Ghanaians and the world their art.

 

Figure 3: Flood & Fire, Kanda Highway

Figure 3: Flood & Fire, Kanda Highway

Accra is a creative and dynamic city, its visual landscape a thick tapestry of politics, social, environmental and economic messages. From the religious billboards that dominate much of the main roads, to the upcoming elections, the hash-tags that flicker past moving vehicles, to the Ghanaian flag which is bold and colourful, to the murals in communities and the art festivals in the streets of Accra more widely. There are therefore many ways in which street messages are communicated to the city and its inhabitants, orchestrated by individuals, communities, businesses, artists and politicians. While their intent and agency may vary, the wall is a space for appropriation, discussion and transformation, and as one artist pointed out to me as, “if there are no walls, we will build the wall, to share our message”.

Figure 4: Bird, Jamestown

Figure 4: Bird, Jamestown

Many thanks to NMA for opening up their studios and selves to my questions – and personally to Larry, Musah, Rufai and Kamal. I extend also a big thank you to Samoa, for taking me on a tour of Jamestown, exploring the route of Chale Wote. Thank you to Victoria Okoye from African Urbanism, for the contacts, resources & tilapia.


Claire is a DPU MSc Environment & Sustainable Development Alumni. Since graduating in 2012, she continues to research the role of urban street art in re-naturing urban imaginations and experiences. She is a PhD student at the Bartlett School of Architecture exploring street messages in West African urbanism. However, her interests are interdisciplinary; community engagement, urban street art, public interest design, sustainable development, town planning, creative cities, art psychotherapy, mental health, the psychodynamics of public spaces, and their impact on place making in the city. All images taken by Claire Tunnacliffe.

BUDDcamp 2015: Urban Space 2 – Caffaro

By ucfugca, on 25 February 2015

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URBAN SPACE 2: Via Villa Glori and ex Caffaro Adjacent Area

Caffaro in Brescia is synonymous with pollution. The Caffaro plant has been active since the beginning of the 20th century, producing chemical elements including PCB, which has contaminated vast tracts of land causing serious health problems such as a dramatic increase in cancer rates among the residents.

At the end of 2015, the plant will be definitively closed and with its closure the current occupants will stop performing certain procedures that prevent the pollution to reach the groundwater. Certainly, the closure of the plant and the future of the contaminated area will become yet again a highly debated topic in the local media. The group was asked to explore the possibility of redeveloping the site from a social point of view.

The students felt the need to explore how visible the issue of Caffaro is by investigating how much is known about the plant in its neighbourhood, where almost only migrants have settled.

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Spatial Fragmentation

The group writes: “We engaged with the spatial experience of the site, noticing closed green parks, high-walled factory boundaries, unclear pollution warning signs as well as several community activity centres. We got a strong impression of fragmentation and a lack of a singular or coherent identity, spatially or socially. The large presence of migrants from multiple backgrounds, led us to wonder about their perception of Caffaro.

We believe engagement with local communities is essential to create common ground between actors involved. The key point of the interventions is to co-create knowledge of the factory to increase the sense of community by engaging local people in the development agenda.

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Mapping Cultures and Languages

Sri addswe mapped the languages spoken by those who live or work around the factory and we proposed to engage the migrants in co-producting knowledge about Caffaro.”

Rui: “we proposed a map that shows where native speakers willing to share information about the pollution are located.”

Group: “The map is made for visitors, existing residents and also new migrants. In cooperation with LDA, newly arrived refugees can find ambassadors of their language/culture to visit and hear stories about Caffaro. Not only does this allow them to be informed about the pollution from the beginning of their stay, but it also has the benefit of increasing their social network as it connects them with long-term residents that share their language.”

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Having recognised that the existing multiple narratives – amongst which alarmism and denial, indifference and resilience – should be equally represented, a second proposal envisions the creation of ‘community wall paintings’; an activity in which existing residents are asked to decorate the brick walls that enclose Caffaro’s premises.

“Not only will this make the factory (and its story) visible to everyone who visits the area, but it will also bring different local groups and people together in collective activities”.


Giulia Carabelli is the Graduate Teaching Assistant for the MSc BUDD programme. She joined the current MSc students on the BUDDcamp in February. Look out for reflections from the other 2 case studies on the blog tomorrow and Friday.

The BUDDCamp is a 3-day design workshop, part of the MSc Building and Urban Design for Development’s Urban Intervention Studio where students bring together theory and practice by working on the proposal of innovative design strategies for specific urban issues. For the fifth time, the BUDDCamp took place in Brescia (Italy) in collaboration with the Local Democracy Agency (LDA) Zavidovici, an organization working with refugees and asylum seekers in the city.