Street-level ethnography
Guerrilla Wars in Everyday Public Spaces:Reflections and Inspirations for Designers (pdf)
Kin Wai Michael SiuIn recent years, many governments have tended to take a rational and development-oriented approach to planning, designing and managing city spaces. Some sociologists, however, have started to criticize this approach, and have begun to advocate instead the importance of taking into consideration the everyday lives of ordinary people. These sociologists offer us a new perspective for examining how “city users” are tactically living in their cities. This perspective may not be accepted by all, and may have quite a lot of practical limitations; nevertheless, it at least offers today’s designers as well as policymakers and other professionals some reflections and inspirations for further exploration and discussion. Through a theoretical review of how theorists and sociologists see city space and its order from different perspectives, and through empirical longitudinal studies done on three Hong Kong market streets, this article attempts to ascertain whether the inhabitants of a city—city users—are “tactical practitioners.” The article then explores the role of city users and their interactions with the spaces in which they are living, and offers advice to designers who aim for more people-environment fit designs.
From International Journal of Design Volume 1(1) April 2007
The article’s not quite as exciting as I had hoped, given my current interest in publics and non-network models of mobility, but it’s still really nice to see a focus on ethnographic fieldwork and theories of everyday life. As much as I love keeping up with Jan Chipchase’s work, I often wish he’d take a stand on some of his observations, and give readers/viewers a clearer sense of what he actually makes of these things. In any case, I have to go back now to De Certeau and read up on ‘vision’ or ’sight’ as “a triumph of place over time.” It might help explain my persistent uneasiness with futurism and locative technology foresight…
April 16th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Hi, I am curious to know more about De Certeau on ‘vision’ or ’sight’ as “a triumph of place over time.” I am a student in the space and culture reading group but am currently in Buenos Aires, my uncle has just done a series of paintings which incur a crisis of vision, or sight, in that the colours vibrate so strongly that you cannot bear looking. I was thinking this might be some neo-surrealist attempt to present the impossible but am also struck by the focus on the act of looking. cheers!