Category Archives: Social

Geography, Social, Writing

Digging up the dead

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Ironically, this is the third reference to anonymity in a row, although in an entirely different context: “rescuing these soldiers from anonymity.”

I refer to a BBC Radio 4 – Crossing Continents podcast on the volunteers making extraordinary efforts to find the bodies of Russian soldiers fallen during the second World War.

The story touched me both for the emotional aspect as well as the psychogeographical element: there is a strong psychological and historical element regarding where these men fell, how they were “incorporated” into the landscape (i.e., overgrown, intertwined with trees, planted over, lost [actively] in the forest), and how their simple historical reality is reflected in their physical presence in the landscape (literally).

Social, Technology, Writing

Anonymity

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Once again the crossing of several topics from different podcasts: always a good sign that a subject is somehow indicative of a general mood or trend. In this case, two separate BBC Radio 4 – Analysis podcasts (broadcast on 3 Feb and 17 Feb) covering aspects of the current wave of social movements and social voice falling under the broad labels “anonymous” or “anarcho-populism.”

In addition to the psychological facets of the desire or need for anonymity, and apart from the major trends of rebellion against establishment and blending of social media with a rather introspective desire to forcefully express oneself and ones wishes, the key topics covered touch on justice and certainty, as well as vulnerability and openness. In terms of justice, as one of the interviewees points out, the rule of law has always been based on the fact that a case is tried in the open, that there is no anonymity: exactly the opposite of what is done when documents are leaked or truths/conspiracies are aired in the media by unknown persons. One factor here is certainty, in the sense that a heightened degree of certainty often hardens people in their views and leads them to take matters into their own hands (something undoubtedly made easier by our modern connectedness).

In both cases, the arguments seem to revolve around the relative embededness within society of the two concepts. Overall, it appears to be a sign of degree. After all, a small number of anarchists or anonymous do-gooders is no bad thing: but what happens when more and more people fall into this category? Are these not movements which, paradoxically, are unsustainable once a larger fraction of the population claim to be adherents?

Social

The Sharing Economy

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I have to admit that I am taken by the idea of sharing, especially in the context of win-win situations that can benefit multiple parties.
I was thus a little perplexed during the course of a thought-provoking BBC Radio 4 Bottom Line podcast on sharing and the “sharing economy” (although the examples described are actually probably closer to “renting” than “sharing”).

It was the idea that people are changing and no longer want to own or possess things, instead moving towards a society where renting and sharing are commonplace, that left me feeling slightly off-balance. I can see that there is a trend in this direction: after all, a system whereby I could try something out for a price (e.g., a new gadget) before deciding to buy it myself is something I would certainly consider. I might even think about sharing or exchanging a house for a short period of time, if the view is nice, especially as an alternative to a possibly soulless hotel somewhere. I can also fully appreciate sharing as a kind of antidote to the consumer society. If I buy 20 oranges for my family because they come in a pack of 20, but usually only get through 18 in a week, why would I not share (or perhaps barter?) the remaining two oranges to someone whose appetite doesn’t demand more, especially in these austere times?

What I can’t quite square in my mind is that someone still needs to own the thing that is being shared. Ownership and possession are, in my mind, instinctive concepts: I agree with the moderator here, but perhaps that just reveals something about my age. It seems to me that sharing comes into its own when there is some doubt in the mind about whether one wants to possess something, whether the investment (both instant and possibly future, when considering buying a house, for example) are just too large to warrant making a decision about commitment. The housing metaphor is an apt one, I think: where are the boundaries exactly between sharing, bartering, and renting? Perhaps it relates to value, perhaps to security: but commitment (or the lack of wanting to commit) is implicit in all of them, whether physical or emotional, and in this sense sharing is indeed perhaps a sign of our times.

City, Geography, Social, Uncategorized

Community and geography

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Inspired by a Start the Week podcast from December 2013, I made myself a note before Christmas to spend some time thinking about the lively discussion, which was loosely centered on the idea of an “old-fashioned” community based on geography, and whether this can really be re-created in the current modern world, with its variety of different connections and reasons for connections. As a counter-point, the idea was raised to what extent a community arises from the existence of a common purpose as opposed to simply a physical geography. This is probably especially interesting if the common purpose exists in the face of adversity, and raises a multitude of additional tangential questions:

  • How does one define a community?
  • Who defines a community? Those within it or those from without?
  • Do communities form in physical locales, or do individuals/groups move to a specific locale with the creation of a community in mind?

My particular interest, as might be expected, relates to the psychogeography aspect of this discussion. Psychogeography is also tied to community, but in two different ways. On the one hand, it is tied to community as most of the memories linked to its geography happen in the community, in a shared area that is familiar. On the other hand, however, one of the key points of psychogeography as it has been studied, described, and formulated was to move into the unfamiliar, explore the areas outside the community, or perhaps to better describe it: outside the known community. This generates in my mind an image not just of overlapping communities, but stacks of communities, where sub-groups exist within larger entities, and individuals are defined (and define themselves) as belonging to different circles based on their personality, belief, or other subjective or objective criteria.

An idea for a story that came to mind (related to the additional discourse on the disappearance of the traditional high street) was of a person walking down such a high street, with the narrative focussed on the sensory experience: sights, smells, the overall experience of what made the high street a special place and often a/the central location of a community.

Just in time to save me the effort, a recent Thinking Allowed podcast about the multicultural smells of an East End market in London brought this back again. This kind of sensory description can be used to link different cultures with different locations, different times, and the many layers and waves of immigration and assimilation into big urban centers such as London. And at the core are people such as “Ali the assimilationist hero” who by understanding his customers (from many different backgrounds) is able to stitch together a pathwork of sensory and cultural triggers that not only satisfy each customer individually but make up the rich tapestry of which each individual is a part.

City, Geography, Social

Metropolitan revolution and new regionalism

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An interesting Analysis podcast highlighted a current topic that chimes with several other articles I have recently collected and with the pervasive economic climate and news rhythm of the day.
The underlying idea is that economic power and growth in the near future (given the economic climate) is likely to come from loose, growing urban conglomerations; the sooner power is devolved top these new “city states” the better.
These are generally loose networks which work across party political lines, and unite people with many different backgrounds around a common, local or regional interest. The thinking goes that these are the people most immersed in the life and growth of the city in question, and hence are likely to be able to promote the necessary competition and their place in the global marketplace more efficiently than any centralised planner.
Is this really going back to how things were in the 19th Century, e.g., in Britain where Whitehall was more concerned with running the empire while cities were left to their own devices, and hence run by an “urban elite” of merchants, industrialists, intellectuals, etc.? The drive to centralisation apparently stems to a large part from the origins of the social state, where some form of re-distribution leads to the need for strong central government. On the other hand, the example in Germany, which is (compared to the UK) much more of a network of medium-sized cities, rather than a sprawling centralised metropolis like London or Paris, would suggest that regionalism is alive and well, and as in the USA a model for city-focused clusters that not only nucleate economic centers but also social ones.
City, Geography, Social

City states

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Having lived in and around London for many years, and now finding myself in a place with an odd mix of urban and provincial character, a number of questions have arisen as I read more on pyschogeography, geography, behaviour, and city/country social aspects in general:
  1. Can one comment on cities and the city environment if one doesn’t live in a city?
  2. How is the city perceived by someone living outside the city? (suburbs, short train ride, long train ride away? increasing distance from the center of gravity?)
  3. How is the country perceived by someone living in the city?
  4. What is easier in the country, and why?
  5. What is more difficult in the country, and why?
A quote in a recent Financial Times article put a small part of this in a nice context:
“…cities are at the apex of human endeavour. High-density cities are creative, thrilling and less environmentally destructive than sprawling car-based suburbs typical of America. Cities are passports from poverty. They attract poor people, rather than creating them. They are where humans are at their most artistically and technologically creative.”
Perhaps here the meaning could be interpreted broadly, “poor” not in the financial sense but more along the lines of how someone would say of someone else: “that poor man.”
Social, Technology

Big data (2)

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In this Analysis podcast, several themes come up relating to media and big data, data, privacy, secrets, and who controls and distributes each of these (government, media, individuals).

The interesting comment is that in the 20th Century framework, ideas, philosophies, and causes were promoted by groups which nucleated around an idea (political parties, unions, etc.) and derived their main strength from “strength in numbers” and could thus influence policy or decision-making generally. Today, things appear to have become more granular: it is possible for an individual to make waves without the backing of a party, and ideology has thus reached a much higher level of granularity than before, highly dependent on the individual.

The government has reason to fear the individual, just as the individual has reason to fear the state.