Living together in the super-diverse city: mapping vernacular geographies and urban relational space

在过去的二十年里，由于伦敦在“经济基础、空间组织和社会结构”方面的重大转变，伦敦已成为一个“全球城市”（Sassen, 2001:4）。在我进行博士研究的伦敦哈林盖区，超过70%的年轻人来自少数民族背景，使用100多种语言。Steven Vertovec（2007）提出了“超级多样性”这个概念，以认识到这种特殊的多样性以及向城市地区迁移的不可预测的、流动的和复杂的形式。因此，对社会身份、场所营造、凝聚力和归属感的关注在伦敦和许多其他世界城市变得至关重要。对许多人来说，差异已被视为一个需要解决的问题，然而，在日常生活多元文化的地方，差异似乎在很大程度上得到了庆祝。正如Paul Gilroy （2004:xi）所说，“同居和互动的过程……使多元文化成为英国城市社会生活的一个普通特征。因此，对我们来说至关重要的是要问和理解：在这些超级多样化的社区中，差异对我们的日常生活和地理环境真正意味着什么？这些同居和互动的过程是如何塑造和产生城市场所的？本研究以这些问题为出发点。它认为，空间是我们生活展开的关键舞台，对空间的分析使我们能够理解当代共存的政治。该研究聚焦于芬斯伯里公园的超级多样化社区，研究了多元文化的地方如何塑造人们，反之亦然，芬斯伯里公园是如何由许多日常经历和“乡土地理”组成的，当地的地方实践。通过进一步的研究和出版，这个项目将让更多的观众了解这种共存是如何在日常生活中生活的，以及这种共存的不同含义。我将通过发展超多样性、差异和欢宴的概念，解决城市变化中涉及的社会关系的关键问题，为现有的学术和辩论做出贡献。通过奖学金中包括的学术出版物和会议演讲，我正在超越对多元文化主义概念的赞扬或拒绝的停滞不前的辩论，通过增加一个批判性和细致入微的观点，开辟了新的探索途径。我将创新的视觉和地图方法结合起来，展示空间和地点的地理知识在理解我们共同生活的复杂方式中的相关性。该奖学金将采用不同的策略将我的发现发表，并使结果易于获取。例如，通过与庄园住宅发展信托基金（MHDT）的知识交流计划，这是一个以社区为基础的居民领导的慈善机构，提供全面的社区发展。这将涉及一个共同设计的研究活动，以开发研究结果，探索如何通过地点体验和再生背景下的共享遭遇来构成“社区”和“欢乐”的形式。我将重点关注通过举办利益相关者研讨会和撰写利益相关者报告，使结果与当地非政府组织和政府相关，并对政策和社区项目产生切实影响。在获得奖学金期间，我将完成对开普敦大学的海外访问，以制定新的研究计划，确保这项研究可以在新的背景下建立起来。我想在南非开展我的研究，研究多样性的复杂性如何在种族隔离后的城市中体现出来。这次访问将通过为非洲城市中心的城市人文中心的规划做出贡献来增加我的研究网络，并将为我自己的职业轨迹做出贡献，确保研究能够继续对未来产生影响。

In the past two decades, London has become a 'global city' due to substantial transformations in its 'economic base, spatial organisation and social structure' (Sassen, 2001:4). In the London Borough of Haringey, where my doctoral research took place, over 70% of young people are from ethnic minority backgrounds and over 100 languages are spoken. Super-diversity has been introduced as a concept by Steven Vertovec (2007) to recognise this exceptional diversity and the unpredictable, mobile and complex forms of migration to urban areas. Consequently, concerns of social identity, place-making, cohesion and belonging have become crucial in London and many other world cities. Difference has for many come to be viewed as a problem needing to be resolved and yet, in places where everyday multiculture is lived, it seems to be largely celebrated. As Paul Gilroy (2004:xi) has argued 'processes of cohabitation and interaction...have made multiculture an ordinary feature of social life in Britain's urban areas'.Therefore, it is crucially important for us to ask and understand: what does difference really mean for our everyday lives and geographies in these super-diverse neighbourhoods? And how do these processes of cohabitation and interaction shape and produce urban places?This research takes these questions as a starting point. It argues that space is crucially the arena in which our lives unfold, and an analysis of place enables an understanding of the politics of contemporary co-existence. Focused on the super-diverse neighbourhood of Finsbury Park, the research investigates how multicultural places shape people and vice versa, how Finsbury Park is made up of many everyday experiences and 'vernacular geographies', the local practices of place-making.Through further research and publishing, this fellowship will make accessible to a range of audiences how this coexistence is lived in everyday places and the different implications of this. I will contribute to existing scholarship and debate by developing concepts of superdiversity, difference and conviviality, addressing key questions of the social relations implicated within urban change. Through the academic publications and conference presentations included in the fellowship, I am moving beyond stalled debates that either celebrate or reject notions of multiculturalism by adding a critical and nuanced view that opens up new avenues of inquiry. I combine innovative visual and mapping methodological approaches to demonstrate the relevance of geographical knowledge of space and place in understanding the complex ways we live together with difference. This fellowship will adopt different strategies to put my findings into publications and make the results accessible. E.G. through a Knowledge Exchange programme with Manor House Development Trust (MHDT), a community-based resident led charity that provides holistic community development. This will involve a co-designed research activity to develop findings that explore how forms of 'community' and 'conviviality' are constituted through experiences of place and shared encounters in contexts of regeneration. I will focus on making the results relevant to local NGOs and government and can have a tangible impact on policies and community-based projects through a running a Stakeholder Workshop and writing a Stakeholder Report. During the fellowship I will complete an overseas visit to University of Cape Town to develop new research proposals that will ensure this research can be built upon in new contexts. I would like to develop my research in South Africa, to investigate how the complexity of diversity manifests in the post-apartheid city. This visit will increase my research networks through contributing to the programming of the Urban Humanities Hub of the Africa Centre for Cities and will contribute to my own career trajectory ensuring the research can continue to have an impact into the future.