Maarten Loopmans

Social Mix and Passive Revolution. A Neo-Gramscian Analysis of the Social Mix Rhetoric in Flanders, Belgium

Belgiums housing policy has always been instrumental in the pillarisation process. As a consequence, two competing historical models have existed: first, a model promoted by the socialist pillar based on social rental housing in urban settings; second, the model put forward by the hegemonic Catholic party, emphasising the promotion of homeownership of single-family dwellings in rural settings. When this second, anti-urban model, became the main housing model for the masses in the post-war period, its spatial layout was one of sprawl and disinvestment in urban neighbourhoods. However, from the 1970s onwards, various actors have contested this policy. In response, policy makers have turned to a discourse of inner-city social mix. However, this discourse was barely translated into practice and did not affect the hegemonic model. Following Gramsci, this paper analyses how social mix has primarily served as an instrument for passive revolution, by deviating and disempowering counter-hegemonic attacks on the leading model of suburban homeownership.

Public space, public art and public pedagogy

a Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Division of Geography, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200E, Heverlee (Leuven), 3001, Belgium b Education, Culture and Society Research Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Andreas Vesaliusstraat, Leuven, 3000, Belgium Full reference: Nick Schuermans, Maarten P.J. Loopmans & Joke Vandenabeele (2012): Public space, public art and public pedagogy, Social & Cultural Geography, 13:7, 675-682

Photography, public pedagogy and the politics of place-making in post-industrial areas

This paper discusses the way in which public photographic depictions of places and place-based communities contribute to the construction of local identity and community building. Being public and visualised statements about what a place and the people living there are and what they are not, photographs incite public debate about place and community. The paper discusses two interventions, one in Ghent, Belgium, involving professional photographers from outside the neighbourhood, and one in Bonnybridge, Scotland, involving amateur photography by local residents. Both are attempts by community workers to encourage citizens to discuss alternative realities of themselves, their neighbours and their neighbourhood. Starting from theories of place-making and public pedagogy, we reveal how both nonetheless exemplify very different strategies to democratise community-building processes.

Putting flesh to the bone: looking for solidarity in diversity, here and now

ABSTRACT In many Western European countries, concern rises that both formal mechanisms of redistribution and informal acts of charity, reciprocity and support are challenged by ethnic and cultural diversity. Against such gloomy perspectives, this paper draws on insights from sociology, geography, pedagogy and political science to argue that four traditional sources of solidarity (interdependence, shared norms and values, struggle and encounter) remain relevant, but require a rethinking of their spatial and temporal framing to capture todays intricate engagements of solidarity. More specifically, we draw on theories from the aforementioned disciplines to claim that our understanding of solidarities grounded in the spatial boundedness of territorial states and the intergenerational continuity of supposedly culturally homogeneous nations should be complemented and enriched with an in-depth knowledge of solidarities developing in an entirely different spatio-temporal register, namely that of the everyday places and practices in which people engage across ethnic and cultural boundaries.

Threatened or Empowered? The Impact of Neighborhood Context on Community Involvement in Antwerp, Belgium

Using a citywide register of community involvement, this article tests two competing theories for explaining active citizenship through neighborhood context: one that emphasizes the opportunities available in the neighborhood, whether at the level of the individual, the social environment, or the physical environment, and one that explains how active citizenship can be regarded as a reaction to threats in the neighborhood. The present analysis suggests that both effects apply but in separate parts of the city. The analysis reveals a spatial dichotomy: In the nineteenth-century inner city, participation is more problem-related, whereas in the periphery, participation is explained by opportunities available. Simultaneously, the results warn against overemphasizing the neighborhood context as a determinant for participation.

Neoliberal Urban Movements?: A Geography of Conflict and Mobilisation over Urban Renaissance in Antwerp, Belgium

This chapter maps new forms of contentious mobilisation around neoliberal urban policies in Antwerp, Belgium. Neoliberal urban policies are confronted with the uneasy task to match local competitiveness with collective provision and social cohesion. The upgrading of the built environment offers the opportunity to integrate both aspirations, but simultaneously provides people with a concrete focus for mobilisation. Building on Urban Social Movement theory, we identify 5 types of urban mobilisation, each with its own geography linked to particular types of urban development projects. Although our analysis reveals how neoliberal urban development projects spur strong grassroots reactions, these remain fragmented and do not form part of a broad-based urban movement worthy of the name. Neoliberal urban development projects appear too divisive for the local populace to provide a basis for broad based collective mobilisation.

Students Studying Student Sexuality: methodological and ethical implications:

This article reports on an experiment engaging Master-level Geography students in real-life research on young peoples sexuality in the context of a research methods module. This experiment was set up with the triple aim of providing students with a more hands-on learning experience of qualitative research methods, stimulating students to reflect on the social production of their own sexualities, and collaborating with young people to conduct research on the sexuality of their peers so as to circumvent the problem of outsiderness that older researchers face. Here, the authors reflect on the methodological, ethical and educational benefits and challenges of the experiment. The students reported to have acquired greater awareness of the social production and structural power of sexual norms in society. They also claimed to have appreciated the opportunity to gain insights into the intricacies of real-life research projects. From a methodological perspective, engaging students as researchers allowed the authors to acquire an insider perspective on young peoples sexuality. This has improved access to research subjects as well as the authors interpretative capacities. However, the students also reported to have struggled with their position as researchers of their own lifeworld, while the dominance of their interest to pass the course sometimes negatively affected the quality of the research. Finally, the students reported ethical issues, as some claimed to feel ‘exploited’ for the benefit of the authors personal research interests, while others struggled with privacy issues in investigating the intimate lives of people close to them.

De-marginalizing youngsters in public space: critical youth workers and local municipalities in the struggle over public space in Belgium

ABSTRACT Young people from lower income groups or with an immigrant background in public space are increasingly problematized in Belgium [Karsten, L., E. Kuiper, and H. Reubsaet. 2001. Van de straat? De relatie tussen jeugd en publieke ruimte verkend [Of the Street? Exploring the Relation between Youth and Public Space]. Assen: Van Gorcum; Rom, M., B. Vanobbergen, E. Coene, and N. Van Ceulebroeck. 2012. “Een reus op lemen voeten: GAS voor minderjarigen [A Giant with Feet of Clay: Municipal Administrative Sanctions for Minors].” In Jeugdwerk en sociale uitsluiting. Handvatten voor emanciperend jeugdbeleid [Youth Work and Social Exclusion. Tools for an Emancipating Youth Policy], edited by F. Coussée en L. Bradt, 61–72. Leuven: Acco.]. Building on the model of [Lavie-Ajayi, M., and M. Krumer-Nevo. 2013. “In a Different Mindset: Critical Youth Work with Marginalized Youth.” Children and Youth Services Review 35: 1698–1704. doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2013.07.010], this paper discusses the variety of ways in which youth workers in five Flemish municipalities engage in strategic relational and narrative work with young people and actors in their institutional environment to develop alternative perspectives on young people in public space. Drawing on qualitative case studies, we identify critical youth workers’ successful and less successful strategies. Our study reveals how the possibilities for critical youth work to develop ‘counter-narratives’ and ‘loosen up’ public spaces in favor of young people [Tani, S. 2015. “Loosening/Tightening Spaces in the Geographies of Hanging Out.” Social & Cultural Geography 16 (2): 125–145. doi:10.1080/14649365.2014.952324], are circumscribed by the particular institutional embeddedness of youth workers, as well as by the depth and dimensionality of conflicts.

Network strategies of passive revolution

if they all could be characterized in the same general way’ (Provan and Kenis, 2008, p.233). J. S. Davies himself gives us a valuable heuristic tool for analyzing the diversity in various forms of network governance from a Gramscian perspective (Davies, 2011, pp. 131–137). The six ideal models identified in his book (flawed hegemony, governance by exclusion, interregnum, counter-hegemony, comprehensive hegemony and post-hegemony) may represent a useful starting point for analyzing the crucial issue of diversity in various forms of governance. Empirical research in this field has enormous challenges ahead: understanding what conditions help or hinder the development of some or the other forms of governance; assessing the chances of developing some or the other models and what are their main characteristics; analyzing in-depth the relationship between the what, the who and the how of this type of cooperative arrangements; and, above all, to explore the extent to which different models of governance significantly perpetuate or transform power relations and social policies. Far from upsetting the theories of network governance, Challenging Governance Theory encourages us to face new and exciting intellectual challenges in the study of this phenomenon. This is not just another book in the endless list of works that explain the transformation to networked governance, but rather represents a turning point in the course that this debate has followed so far.