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Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from a public housing area in Copenhagen, this article explores how dwelling, spatiality, materiality, sociality, and the senses interplay and inform different qualities of neighbor relations. Starting from the individual home space and moving to the space of the stair-case shared with other residents who live next door, below, or above, the article argues that neighbor relations constitute a practical embodied experience of the neighborhood. The article describes the condition of dwelling related to home as bestowing a certain embodied dimension to neighborhood relations. Furthermore, the article illustrates near-dwelling, or living near, as one distinctive context for neighbor relations, which involve material and sensorial aspects of neighboring. The article concludes that spatiality and materiality may condition yet not determine the nature of social relations among neighbors.

I løbet af de sidste to årtier har diskurser om »ghettoisering« og »parallelsamfund« vundet politisk terræn i Danmark. Diskurserne afspejler, hvordan forskellige politikområder som by og bolig, indvandring og integration i tiltagende grad har krydset hinanden siden integrationslovgivningens tilblivelse. Med udgangspunkt i en analyse af dokumenter fra regeringen og Københavns Kommune fra 1995-2018 udforsker denne artikel, hvordan nationale og lokale problemrepræsentationer af sociale boligområder udvikler sig over tid, og hvordan det stigende fokus på integration af etniske minoriteter er sammenvævet med skiftende positive eller negative visioner for urban diversitet. Artiklen viser, at der sker i en forandring i problemrepræsentationer af sociale boligområder fra noget, der vedrører generelle sociale og strukturelle vilkår, til noget, der forklares og ansvarliggøres ved »ikke-vestlige indvandrer og efterkommere«, som dermed racialiseres for at legitimere rumlige forandringer. På trods af skiftende politiske regeringer forekommer en vis progression i måden, hvorpå ghettodiskursen foldes ud og effektueres. Undervejs sker en tilnærmelse mellem nationale og lokale politikområders problemrepræsentationer, bl.a. i forhold til vurderinger af former for forskellighed som »blanding« af boliger, der involverer salg og innovation, som ses som samfundsgavnlige, og etnisk forskellighed, som ses som en trussel for den sociale sammenhængskraft.

This article deals with the politicised notions of trust and social cohesion in urban spaces through a focus on practices of everyday relations in a mixed neighbourhood. Quantitative studies maintain that ethnically diverse neighbourhoods lack in trust and solidarity. However, the very meaning and effect of concepts such as `diversity`, `contact` and `trust´ are often unclear. This article challenges both the politicised assumptions and methodological basis for statements on trust as a condition for coexistence. Drawing on fieldwork in a multi-ethnic social housing estate in Copenhagen, this article explores residents´ understandings of diversity, contact and trust. The article argues that trust and strong ties may not be the prerequisite for coexistence in neighbourhoods, where the micro-politics of everyday contacts predominate.

Many scholars have turned to neighboring, or neighbor interactions and practices, as an open-ended process rather than a finished ideal. In doing so, they have disrupted the romanticization of the neighborhood as a community-driven and stable space. Through this lens, the proximity of dwelling is seen just as a possibility for social contact rather than a crucial characteristic of neighbor relations. Amid the rapid transformations in contemporary urban environments, neighbor relations as spatial practices are shaped and mediated by multiple forces. Based on five research cases from Brazil, Denmark, Finland, and Russia, this Special Issue, "Materialities and Senses of Neighboring," explores how neighbor relations are shaped by material and sensory practices in the context of urban housing and localities. This editorial introduction to this Special Issue of Space and Culture highlights the main points of how the foregrounding of material and sensory aspects contributes to the studies of neighbor relations. It then shows how the cross-cutting themes of shared materiality, housing geometry, sensoriality, and imaginaries interplay in the contributors' articles to develop the overarching idea of the collection.