Digital urbanisms : Exploring the spectacular, ordinary and contested facets of the media city

Peer reviewe

Textually Produced Landscape Spectacles? : A Debordian Reading of Finnish Namescapes and English Soccerscapes

In this article, a critical attempt is made to read the language of contemporary urban boosterism – its eulogistic adjectives and slogans, escapist evocations in nomenclature, nostalgic narratives, etc. – through the lens of The Society of the Spectacle (1995, orig. 1967), Guy Debord’s controversial theoretico-political manifesto. Through discussion of empirical examples, the authors shed light on different types of in-situ landscape texts in Finnish and English cities. In the former national context, culturally escapist and non-native names given to leisurescapes and technoscapes have mushroomed over the last quarter century. While this process represents a semi-hegemonic rather than hegemonic trend, many developers’ reliance on the “independent” representational power of language has substantially reshaped naming practices in the non-Anglophone country. The analysis of different types of promotional texts at England’s major soccerscapes evinces the co-presence of nostalgic evocations of local history amidst the hypercommodification of space. Arguably, the culturally self-sufficient, tradition-aware representational strategies in current English football stem from pressure from fans, the country’s status as the cradle of modern football, and a privileged possibility to promote the game’s “native” meanings via a globally-spoken language. Finally, this article addresses the pros and cons of using the spectacle theoretical framework to analyse critically language-based urban boosterism and branding under the current conditions of neoliberal urbanism

PURAISTAAN KIELTÄ 5 Ahdistava poikkitieteellisyys?

Jani Vuolteenaho on jälkiteollista kaupunkikehitystä, paikkamarkkinointia ja nimeämisen politiikkaa tutkiva maantieteilijä Helsingin yliopiston tutkijakollegiumissa

Vallan haastamisen neljä vuosisataa New Yorkissa (Four centuries of contesting power in New York City)

Arvioitu teos: Neil Smith & Don Mitchell (toim.):Revolting New York. How 400 Years of Riot, Rebellion, Uprising and Revolution Shaped a City. The University of Georgia Press, Athens. (348 s.)Non peer reviewe

Unohdetun maakysymyksen paluu (The return of the repressed land question)

Non peer reviewe

A slightly slummier area? : Negotiations of place-bound identities through social spatializations and unofficial toponyms

In the article, spatializations (discourses of ideal or stereotyped spaces) are conceptualized as powerful discourses of the surrounding society, providing resources for place‐bound identity construction in interaction. We combine a sociolinguistic analysis with Bakhtinian dialogism to understand how such “third” voices in dialogue empower and pluralize self‐ and other‐positionings embedded in the evocations of unofficial place names. Empirically, the focus is on toponyms that divide the socially mixed Vuosaari suburb in Helsinki into “older” and “newer” territories. The results show that when the stereotypes of “good” and “bad” neighbourhoods or other spatializations interpenetrate the uses of “Old” and “New Vuosaari,” they open room for the (re‐)voicing of the meanings of these toponyms for highly differentiated social ends. With the Bakhtinian framework bridging between socio‐spatial theory and sociolinguistics, the article develops a spatially sensitized approach to analyse the entanglements of the micro‐level contexts of interaction with the macro‐level discourses of meaning‐giving.Peer reviewe

Urbaanit yleisöt propagandan ja brändäyksen palveluksessa: Berliinin olympialaiset 1936 ja Saksan jalkapallon MM-kisat 2006 keskitettyinä (media)spektaakkeleina

Artikkelissa vertailemme Berliinin olympialaisia (1936) ja Saksan jalkapallon MM-kisoja (2006) Guy Debordin ajatuksia soveltaen keskitetyn (media) spektaakkelin erilaisina ja eri aikakausiin sijoittuvina muotoina. Lähestymme ensin mainittua propagandan, jälkimmäistä brändin käsitteen avulla. Tarkastelemme ihmisten toimintaa kaupunkitilassa urheiluspektaakkelien tuottamiseen kytkeytyvien poliittisten ja taloudellisten valtaintressien kautta. Kohdistamme huomiomme erityisesti propaganda- ja brändikoneistojen tapoihin suostutella kaupungeissa liikkuvia ihmisiä odotetun yleisöyden ja esiintyjyyden ideaalirooleihin suunnitelmallisesti organisoidun ja tunteisiin vetoavan urbaanin ympäristön tuottamisen avulla. Esimerkkitapauksemme ovat historiallisesti merkittäviä hetkiä kehityksessä, jossa joukkoviestintä on ohjannut urheilutapahtumien organisointia, esillepanoa ja niihin liittyvää ihmisten tilallista ja affektiivista (joukko)liikuttamista. Argumenttimme perustuvat tutkimuskirjallisuuteen, dokumentaarisiin elokuviin ja havaintoihin Saksan jalkapallon MM-kisojen kisakaupungeista

Reflections on the variations and spatialities of (un)welcome - commentary to Gill

In this reflection, we seek to develop some of Professor Gill's inspiring ideas on the notion of (un) welcome further. We do this, in particular, by problematizing his largely dualistic conception of the emotionally-invested, inter-personal forms of welcome contra a bureaucratic tendency to abstract welcome, to hollow it out emotionally. We argue that if applied too rigidly, this dichotomy can be unwieldy for making sense of the actual socio-spatial and emotional dynamics of (un) welcome. To elaborate this criticism, we expand on the notion of welcome from three interrelated perspectives. First, we argue that besides the opposite poles of people who welcome refugees, and forces that attempt to exclude them, great many actors convey more ambiguous and contextually varying attitudes to (un) welcoming immigrants. In the light of Lefebvre's conceptual triad of social space, we next point out that Gill's conceptualization pays inadequate heed to the practiced and societally recompensing aspects of everyday spatiality and welcoming. Finally, we take a cue from Gill's suggestion to analyze welcome from the emotional geographies perspective, and reflect on exclusionary and inclusionary socio-spatial processes related to refugees' emotions (lived space) and coping tactics (practiced space)