Suchergebnisse

Practice, Spatiality and Embodied Emotions: An Outline of a Geography of Practice
The paper outlines an approach to social analysis/human geography taking off from a social ontology of practice. This means a focus of attention to embodied or practical knowledges and their formation in people's everyday lives, to the world of experiences and emotions, and to the infinitude of encounters through which we make the world and are made by it in turn. The paper proceeds in three parts. First, considering the way in which subjectivity and identity are created in and through practices sets the ground. The two following sections are extensions from that discussing "embodiment and spatiality" and "affectivity and emotion" respectively. The purpose is threefold; to develop the sensuous character of practice, to consider the spatialities involved in that character, and to discuss possible developments including power and the social differentiation of bodies. The paper is concluded by a short discussion of the geographies following from the suggested account.

This article reviews and discusses recent literature on affect by highlighting two central problems: the problem of distinction and the problem of transmission. To deal with these problems, we argue, literature within geography has turned from affect to affective atmospheres to emphasize the spatial and material aspects of affect. Yet in so doing, such literature has largely omitted the role of practices, which has simultaneously been studied in both other strands of geography and other social sciences. Simultaneously, little attention has been paid to the affective aspects of practices. This article seeks to combine the perspectives from these diverse fields. We argue for a need to understand the affective as engrained in the practices of attuning atmospheres. In this way, affect is not a noun with a clear ontological status; it only takes such status through verbal or adjectival forms as qualities of materialities connected to bodily practices of affecting and being affected. This necessitates that the lived body become an entry point for exploring how individuals actively are attuned and attune themselves and others through atmospheres.

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre.

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre.

The article explores everyday hospitality and politics through inclusive forms of integration initiatives in everyday life and urban communities in Denmark and Norway. It investigates how local initiatives and creative social strategies by local actors can empower and include refugees and immigrants in local communities. This article is based on participant observations of urban communities in Denmark and Norway working to welcome refugees and create new cross-cultural meeting places. We argue that people mobilize and take action when faced with emergency, and that the many welcome initiatives organized around theatre, food, dance and music can rework difference. The cases relate to the discussion of hospitality, the production of meaningful meeting places in a local context and the embodied encounters promoted by these activities. This article discusses everyday hospitality and politics in light of the transition in the Nordic welfare states, which has made the debate around inclusion of refugees and immigrants in local communities and the welfare state centre.

This paper is part of a wider research project on Paradoxical Spaces: Encountering the Other in Public Space that explores how cultural difference is practiced and negotiated in different public spaces in Copenhagen. The present case focus on encounters at two urban festivals: Kulturhavn (Cultural Harbur) and Smag Verden (Taste the World)—both multicultural and both initiated by the Municipality of Copenhagen. The festivals are seen as sites for ongoing dialogue and negotiation of identity and belonging. The celebration, performances, and pleasure of festivals can empower the body, break down social and cultural distance, and for a moment suspend everyday life. They are related to laughter and freedom, but can also be exclusive, alienating, and a vehicle of the inserting of the hegemonic order. The aim of the paper is to discover how the festivals work as social and material mediators of cross-cultural encounters—how they give rise to different modes of encounters and how they balance between liberation and similarities. They are both organized by the municipality of Copenhagen, who invite voluntary organizations and cultural associations every year to participate in organizing the two festivals. They both cover a broad range of cultural activities such as dance, music, food, sport, and theatre, and they share the vision of celebrating the cultural diversity of the city. We chose these two festivals in order to explore variations in the way the festivals are experienced and encountered; the focus of the analysis is on how festivals with many similarities in location and formal conditions can give rise to rather different modes of encounters. The aim of the paper is to explore how the festivals work as social and material mediators of cross-cultural encounters. How do the two festivals give rise to different modes of encounters? How do they balance between liberation and domination in a differential way? Drawing on empirical material obtained through participant observation and framed by theoretical conceptualization of cross-cultural encounters, multicultural festivals, and aesthetic politics, the paper explores embodied encounters at the two festivals. It focuses on the role of the festivals as social and material mediators of encounters and negotiation of identities. The paper concludes on the paradoxical character of the festivals, involving antagonistic embodiments of performance, pleasure, and politics.