Recente studies gebruiken een sterk variërende terminologie voor het benoemen van de opbrengsten van interventies met buurtverhalenwebsites. Onze literatuurstudie ordent deze terminologie tot drie meer eenduidige analyseniveaus, die naadloos aansluiten op het empowerment model: concepten op microniveau voor individuele opbrengsten, op mesoniveau voor groepsvoordelen en op macroniveau voor versterking van de gemeenschap. Op het macroniveau onderscheiden we drie concepten: collectief geheugen, cultureel burgerschap en gemeenschapskracht. Met betrekking tot alle niveaus zijn de beweringen in de huidige literatuur voornamelijk gebaseerd op offline data en bevatten zelden een analyse van online participatie. Deze eenzijdigheid wordt veroorzaakt door de focus op institutionele interventies, die vaak onbedoeld online participatie verhinderen. Desondanks, presenteert de literatuur het open en online karakter van buurtverhalenwebsites als de drijvende kracht voor empowerment, in het bijzonder op het meso- en macroniveau. Om de bestaande kennis op het gebied van buurtverhalenwebsites uit te breiden stellen we onderzoek voor dat de daadwerkelijke samenstelling van dit veld in kaart brengt en meer autonome initiatieven bestudeert.
In urban planning, 3D modeling and virtual reality (VR) provide new means for involving citizens in the planning process. For municipal government, it is essential to know how effective these means are, to justify investments. In this study, we present a case of using VR in a municipal process of civic participation concerning the redesign of a public park. The process included codesign activities and involved citizens in decision-making through a ballot, using 3D-rendered versions of competing designs. In codesign, 3D-modeling tools were instrumental in empowering citizens to negotiate design decisions, to discuss the quality of designs with experts, and to collectively take decisions. This paper demonstrates that, in a ballot on competing designs with 1302 citizens, VR headsets proved to be equally effective compared to other display technologies in informing citizens during decision making. The results of an additional, controlled experiment indicate that VR headsets provide higher engagement and more vivid memories than viewing the designs on non-immersive displays. By integrating research into a municipal process, we contribute evidence of cognitive and engagement effects of using 3D modeling and immersive VR technologies to empower citizens in participatory urban planning. The case described in the paper concerns a public park; a similar approach could be applied to the design of public installations including media architecture.
Short abstract:With our case study ‘Researching the City: Mapping Imaginaries’ of Amsterdam Zuidoost, we explore grass-root, collaborative knowledge practices through mixed methods of counter-mapping that fosters critical emancipatory awareness and affective engagement with areas in the urban semi-periphery.Long abstract:Urban transformations often result in ‘affective displacement’ and have consequences for the health and well-being of residents (Butcher & Dickens, 2016; Brummet and Reed, 2019). Displacement is a form of violence, that includes processes of ‘cultural appropriation’ (Elliott-Cooper et al., 2020) and its impacts need to be better ‘documented and resisted’ (ibid). Responding to this call, with our case study of ‘Researching the City: Mapping Imaginaries’ of Amsterdam Southeast (Zuidoost), we turned to medium specific, embodied, non-representational (Thrift, 2008) counter-mapping to better engage (in terms of cultural sensitivity and inclusivity) with the urban ‘semi-periphery’ (Blagojevic, 2009).We used digital methods (Rogers, 2013) to explore how Amsterdam Southeast is ‘seen’ through search engine results (stakeholders networks). We intervened in the mapping with local expert knowledge of activists, artists, and researchers. We also used affect as an intervention and collaboratively collected sensory data (recording with images, sounds, videos) with students and local communities. In this process we created a counter-archive, bringing to the forefront imaginaries, senses, emotions, and memories -- a repository of local affective knowledge.Our case study shows that "counter-mapping" can be a meditative and reflective practice that fosters critical and emancipatory awareness in students, partners, and local communities. It opens space for reimagining and productive affective engagement with areas in the urban periphery. It also enables various themes of consideration: ‘body as an archive’, and archiving 'imaginaries' practices such as performance, memory, and digital objects.
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