Listening

In this paper we reflect on the kind of listening that happens in research whilst taking part in a keep fit group and getting sweaty, that pushes us to ask an interviewee 'Are you alright?' and haunts us when the project is over. This is the kind of listening that weaves through, around and beyond what is immediately heard, including the unspoken, the articulateness of objects and the listening that comes through participating. The paper stems from a project concerned with how people live, experience and manage cultural diversity and ethnic difference in their everyday lives in urban England. Divided into two sections, the first part introduces our methods that included participant observation, interviews and repeat in-depth discussion group meetings. The second reflects on our experiences of listening whilst doing, explores feelings that mediate listening and considers the time involved in listening

Pregnancy and birth in Hackney and the City of London How to make the maternity services work for you in City and Hackney Health District

SIGLELD:84/07307(Pregnancy) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Sex, crime and the city: municipal law and the regulation of sexual entertainment

Striptease venues have been the subject of considerable public debate following the emergence of highly visible ‘lap dancing’ clubs in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Accused of promoting forms of criminality and nuisance, the state and the law has nonetheless stopped short of banning such venues in England and Wales, with Section 27 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009 allowing for regulation through locally devolved systems of licensing. This article accordingly analyses the licensing of sexual entertainment venues (SEVs) enacted at the local level and demonstrates how the deployment of these local powers is capable of removing such businesses from select cities simply on the basis that they are ‘out of place’. Given this is a form of spatial regulation against which there is little legal recourse, the article highlights the particular role played by municipal law in the regulation of sexuality, stressing the growing importance of environmental, planning and licensing law – as opposed to criminal law – as a means of regulating sexual conduct

Place-keeping in action: Evaluating the capacity of green space partnerships in England

Residents and communities have long been interested in managing their local green spaces. As local authority budgets become increasingly restricted, communities are under pressure to take an active role in green space management in partnerships with the public, and where applicable, private sector. Support for such partnerships has been made manifest at the highest level of government through the UK's 2011 Localism Act. However, there is little research exploring the validity of expectations that community groups can take on such responsibility. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by assessing to what extent groups have the capacity within cross-sector partnerships for sustained green space 'place-keeping', or long-term responsive management. This paper reports on data collected about nine cross-sector partnerships in Sheffield, Hackney, and Stockton-on-Tees. Taking a qualitative research approach, this paper applies a framework for partnership capacity based on interrelated factors, including capital, commitment, skill base, motivation, communication and political influence. The findings show that partnership capacity goes beyond these themes; it can be influenced by the political and historical legacy of a given place and the specific nature and context of place-keeping tasks. While findings show that partnerships work positively in practice, there are a number of barriers to community groups managing green spaces independently of local authorities, occurring at different scales including individual, group, partnership and the wider context. Without sustained resources and ongoing public sector support, the effectiveness of place-keeping partnerships is called into question