Rachel Pain

Place, social relations and the fear of crime: a review

This article reviews the literature on fear of crime of interest to the geographical and environmental disciplines. After discussing definitional and methodological issues, the article focuses on accounts which link fear with the physical environment, and then on fear, social identity and exclusion. It considers the significance of one area of recent research that attempts to link place and social relations through developing local ethnographies of fear. The review concludes with some suggestions for building upon this work, and highlights the relevance of the geographical themes discussed to current policy debates.

Reflections on participatory research

Participatory research approaches are increasingly popular with geographers in developed as well as developing countries, as critical qualitative methodologies which at their best work with participants to effect change. This paper adds to recent debates over the methodologies, practices, philosophical and political issues involved. Drawing on a project on young people, exclusion and crime victimization in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, we discuss the limitations of participatory diagramming and illustrate some of the social and political barriers to meaningful participation in, and action from, this type of research.

Contact Zones: Participation, Materiality, and the Messiness of Interaction

Recent debates around urban encounter, integration cosmopolitanism, and renewed engagement with contact theory have raised questions about the spaces of interaction that may enable meaningful encounters between different social groups. Reflecting on a participatory art project with young people of African and British heritage in northeast England, we argue that discussion and practice around participatory action research, including the deployment of contact zones as theory and method, can cast some light on what fosters transformative spaces. Through analysis of two different approaches to community art used in the project, we show how elements of each enabled and disabled meaningful interaction between young people. We draw attention to the materiality of art (the tools) within participatory practices (the doing of it) in contributing to a space where interactions might take place, emphasising a complex interplay across/between actors, materials, and space that frames encounters as emergent, transitory, fragile, and yet hopeful. We examine the potential of a focus on the material in thinking beyond moments of encounter to how transformative social relations may be ‘scaled up’ before considering the implications for research and policy.

Social geography: on action- orientated research

The four years since Kitchin and Hubbard’s Area editorial on the possibilities for critical action geographies have seen a number of commentaries and conference sessions where ideas, encouragement and examples of action-orientated geographies have been aired. This review and the two that follow aim to draw attention to this growing body of research within social geography. Nonetheless, as I discuss in this first review, this presents some difficulties in delimiting, finding and evaluating relevant work. I begin by considering wider recent debates about social geography, and especially its relationships with cultural geography, before suggesting that action-orientated research is one area where distinctively social geographies are thriving. The review then maps out the diverse modes of research which fall into this category.

Using Self and Peer Assessment to Improve Students’ Essay Writing: a Case Study from Geography

SUMMARY This paper reports on a project aiming to improve students’ essay writing performance on a first year geography course. The intention was that through self and peer assessment as well as tutor assessment of essays, students would learn about assessment criteria and ways of meeting these. Students were prepared for this role in a preparatory workshop in which they helped to generate criteria, and self and peer assessment were carefully supervised and regulated. The success of the project is evaluated based upon analysis of marks, student feedback and the opinion of the staff who led the project. Self and peer marks were considered less reliable than tutor marks, perhaps because of the subjective nature of this type of assessment and the relative inexperience of the students, but this risk is considered to be outweighed by the benefits to student learning.

Participatory Action Research

Participatory action research (PAR) is a rapidly growing approach in human geography. PAR has diverse origins in different parts of the world over the last 70 years and it takes many forms depending on the particular context and issues involved. Broadly speaking, it is research by, with, and for people affected by a particular problem, which takes places in collaboration with academic researchers. It seeks to democratize knowledge production and foster opportunities for empowerment by those involved. Within human geography, it offers a politically engaged means of exploring materialities, emotionalities, and aspects of nonrepresentational experience to inform progressive change. Participatory approaches are not without their critics who argue that these can verge on the tyrannical, reproducing the inequalities they seek to overcome. Yet, PAR has exciting synergies with feminist, post-structural, and postcolonial geographies. These enable engagements with both productive and negative effects of power through attention to language, representation, and subjectivity. The ongoing development and experimentation with a range of participatory methods and techniques continue to inspire new understandings and possibilities for action-oriented research within and beyond the academy.

Everyday terrorism Connecting domestic violence and global terrorism

This paper remaps the geographies of terrorism. Everyday terrorism (domestic violence) and global terrorism are related attempts to exert political control through fear. Geographical research on violence neatly reflects the disproportionate recognition and resourcing that global terrorism receives from the state. The paper explores the parallels, shared foundations and direct points of connection between everyday and global terrorisms. It does so across four interrelated themes: multiscalar politics and securities, fear and trauma, public recognition and recovery, and the inequitable nature of counter-terrorisms. It concludes with implications for addressing terrorisms and for future research.

Difference and the Negotiation of ‘Old Age’

In this paper we contribute to recent discussions of ageing and ageism in human geography. Findings are presented from a qualitative study of older people which explored the association of old-age identities with different spaces. By focusing in particular on leisure spaces, some of the ways in which the identities and spaces available to older people are constructed by class, ability, and gender are highlighted. These sites have different meanings and associations, reflecting positive as well as negative discourses of ‘old age’, allowing some individuals to negotiate ‘old age’ through maintaining distinct and separate leisure activities and spaces.

Youth, age and the representation of fear

In working against media representations of the young as a mindless and violent cabal this paper focuses on young people as victims of harassment and fear. While this reality has been recognised for some time it is clear that the victimhood of young people remains largely absent from public debates. As such it is argued that a process of felon setting against youth reflects the more common positioning of youth by society and the state as feared, out of control, and in need of regulation. The aim of this paper is to illustrate how the production and regulation of young peoples space is central to the persistence of this paradox, and reinforced by the continued emphasis on young people as offenders in the policy arena. The paper also draws out the geographies of risk for young people, arguing that dualisms and distinctions between victim/offender, feared/fearful, public/private, and safe/dangerous spaces need to be dismantled, if the complex and multiple position of young people in relation to fear of crime is to be acknowledged and addressed.

Whither Women's Fear? Perceptions of Sexual Violence in Public and Private Space

This paper assesses explanations for womens fear of sexual violence. Many existing analyses share a common theoretical basis, but certain conflicts arise in the empirical evidence. These concern a number of paradoxes between fear and violence, in terms of their extent, their nature and in particular their spatial situation. A research project on womens fear of crime in Edinburgh aimed to improve understanding of these. Evidence from the questionnaire survey showed a further mismatch between womens common sense knowledge about general risks and their perceptions of personal risk. Many women know that the usual location of violence is private space, yet only fear attack in public places. Data from qualitative interviews suggest that this contradiction is preserved by the tendency to distance violence from the self, a process which is central to the management of danger and consequent lifestyle adaptation.