Telling digital stories as feminist research and practice: a 2-day workshop with migrant women in London

In this paper we look at Digital Storytelling (DS) as a specifically feminist epistemology within qualitative social research methods. DS is a process allowing research participants to tell their stories in their own words through a guided creative workshop that includes the use of digital technology, participatory approaches and co-production of personal stories. The paper draws on a two-day DS workshop with migrant women which was set up to understand the life stories and work trajectories of volunteers working in the women's community and voluntary sector in London. By outlining this innovative approach, the paper highlights its potential and makes a case for DS as a feminist approach to research while taking into account epistemological, practical and ethical considerations

From a/topia to topia: towards a gendered right to the city for migrant volunteers in London

The paper makes use of an un-orthodox Lefebvrian formulation of the ‘right to the city’ as it adds the gender dimension which was absent from Lefebvre’s work. The lens of ‘gendered right to the city’ (Doderer, 2003; Fenster, 2005; Vacchelli, 2014) is used in order to understand the experiences of volunteers working in the women’s community and voluntary sector in London. We look specifically at the role of migrant organisations both as places of co-option of migrant labour, as places that enable the integration of migrants and make their participation in the urban fabrics possible, and as places that are appropriated by migrant volunteers in London as a means of enacting active citizenship. London’s governance, policy discourses and practices seek to impose a top-down idea of civic participation. In this vision, the role of migrant groups and organisations can only be valued in the context of an active civil society, able to replace the vacuum left by the progressive erosion of the welfare state, leading to a crisis of social reproduction. Lefebvre’s theoretical framework of ‘space appropriation’ serves as a way to explore these questions and we propose a further spatial reading which is specific to a gendered right to the city, i.e. the shift from a/topia (not having a space or being denied access to public spaces broadly conceived) to topia . We speculate on what this newly found space looks like and what is its potential for the subversion of top-down policy discourses on civic participation in the neoliberal city

Space, power and sexuality: transgressive and transformative possibilities at the interstices of spatial boundaries

The themed section consists of articles that explore the relationship between power and space in relation to gender and sexuality by looking at processes of transgression, subversion or expansion of normative spatial practices and narratives. Using a theoretical framework that draws out power and space within a more specific context of feminist and queer literature, the articles explore the possibility to transgress, subvert or expand norms at the interstices of spatial boundaries beyond traditional binaries and hierarchies. Collectively, the articles call for a continued theoretical and methodological focus into the importance of looking at everyday sites of struggles and resistance in the crevasses, the liminal zones of space. The transgression of spatialized norms of sexuality and gender present a transformative potential that should be recognized for its political significance but, we argue, with caution as heteronormative and heteropatriarchal norms too often remain de rigueur in a neoliberal context

Student-centered pedagogy and real-world research: using documents as sources of data in teaching social science skills and methods

This teaching note describes the design and implementation of an activity in a 90-minute teaching session that was developed to introduce a diverse cohort of first year criminology and sociology students to the use of documents as sources of data. This approach was contextualised in real world research through scaffolded, student-centered tasks focused on archival material and a contemporary estate agents’ brochure so as to investigate changes in the suburbs that surround a university in North London, United Kingdom. In order to contribute to the growing discussion on pedagogic dialogical spaces in teaching research methods, we provide empirical evidence of students’ greater engagement via group work and the opportunity to draw on experiential knowledge in analysing sources. Beyond stimulating students’ engagement with research skills and methods, the data also shows the value of our approach in helping students to develop their analytical skills, particularly through a process of comparison and contrast

Immoral geographies and Soho's sex shops: exploring spaces of sexual diversity in London

London's Soho, situated in the urban heart of the city has long been understood as both a cosmopolitan and diverse space where transgression and deviance, particularly in relation to the sex industry and sexual commerce, are constitutive of this area. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, we add to some of the existing debates on sexual spaces in Soho by documenting the changes to the social/sexual landscape of sex shops in this area, and look to geographers interested in the spatial politics of gender and sexuality to understand the importance of this particular place. Looking at two particular sex shops in Soho, we argue that the spatial practices in this very specific part of the city encourage a disruption of traditional hierarchies that often govern gender and sexed practices, and invite women, LGBTQ and kink communities to inhabit more inclusive spaces of sexual citizenship

Sanitising the city: exploring hegemonic gentrification in London's Soho

This article will explore the gentrification of Soho, reflecting on ethnographic research undertaken in the area over the past fifteen months, to argue that the recent social, political, and economic changes in Soho must be understood in relation to private, marketized and globalized neoliberal capitalist forces. We argue that the changes to the area result in a heavily-weighted form of gentrification that works to actively and knowingly sanitize the city, removing 'undesirable' people and venues from the area. As such, we propose to define this process as 'hegemonic gentrification', and distinguish this from other forms of gentrification in order to understand the different processes that underpin these specific changes, and more broadly, it allows us to problematize these changes as regards to the 'right to the city', and to expand current understandings in a way that allows for a more nuanced analysis of urban gentrification and its impacts within neolibreral capitalism

Suburban Verticalisation in London: Regeneration, Intra-urban Inequality, and Social Harm

Vol 3 No 1 (2020): Urban Criminology: Criminology of the UrbanCopyright (c) 2020 Magali Peyrefitte. With the rapid and large-scale expansion of new developments of high-rise flats, London’s outer boroughs are seeing a suburban growth not seen since the 1930s. The objectives of this mass verticalisation are similar to the suburbanisation that occurred in the interwar period in aiming to provide housing to a growing urban population. However, beyond the demographic imperative, other economic, sociocultural, and political processes come into play as they did in the past. Considering spatial, social, and material transformations, the paper is concerned with a combination of factors, actors, structures, and processes in this initial analysis of the new vertical suburbs of London. With this combined perspective, the analysis contributes to critical debates in criminology that are expanding to issues of social harm and social exclusion in the capitalist city. In this paper, I interrogate the fact that an increase of the housing stock only partially addresses the housing crisis in London as the problem of the provision of social housing is becoming increasingly limited under tight budget constraints and a financial structure that relies on and facilitates the involvement of the private sector in the delivery and management of housing. I also question the promises of regeneration solutions through new-build gentrification, which have proved ineffective in other urban contexts and should be examined further in the context of London suburbs, where the scale of construction is unprecedented and exacerbates inequalities that have long been overlooked when the focus has been on inner boroughs and their gentrification

From a/topia to topia: Towards a gendered right to the city for migrant volunteers in London

The paper makes use of an un-orthodox Lefebvrian formulation of the ‘right to the city’ as it adds the gender dimension which was absent from Lefebvre's work. The lens of ‘gendered right to the city’ (Doderer, 2003; Fenster, 2005; Vacchelli, 2014) is used in order to understand the experiences of volunteers working in the women's community and voluntary sector in London. We look specifically at the role of migrant organisations both as places of co-option of migrant labour, as places that enable the integration of migrants and make their participation in the urban fabrics possible, and as places that are appropriated by migrant volunteers in London as a means of enacting active citizenship. London's governance, policy discourses and practices seek to impose a top-down idea of civic participation. In this vision, the role of migrant groups and organisations can only be valued in the context of an active civil society, able to replace the vacuum left by the progressive erosion of the welfare state, leading to a crisis of social reproduction. Lefebvre's theoretical framework of ‘space appropriation’ serves as a way to explore these questions and we propose a further spatial reading which is specific to a gendered right to the city, i.e. the shift from a/topia (not having a space or being denied access to public spaces broadly conceived) to topia. We speculate on what this newly found space looks like and what is its potential for the subversion of top-down policy discourses on civic participation in the neoliberal city