Drawing mobile shared spaces

Murray, Lesley; Robertson, Susan

doi:10.4324/9781315560113-17

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Many of the early visual sociological projects photographed their subjects in close proximity, denying them their wider context. Photographic enquiry in utopia as method, as argued by urban scholars including Lefebvre (1991), demands zooming out as well as zooming in (Murray and Robertson 2017). Whyte's (1980Whyte's ( , 1988 photographic investigations of New York did just this, using different methods to study street space at different scales and from different angles to capture a fuller narrative that encompasses wider 'possibilities'.…”

Section: Imagining Utopian Method: Light and Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Illuminating urban street (u)topias

Murray

Robertson

2019

Mobilities

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A utopian vision of the city is often bright, well-lit, and conversely darkness and night are more often associated with dystopia. This paper uses an ethnographic study of night-time in a busy street space in the middle of a south coast UK city in order to demonstrate the application of 'utopia as method' (Levitas 2013), or rather utopia as mobile method in understanding justice and injustice in urban space. In doing so, we suggest the possibilities of urban mobile space, arguing that 'utopia as method' originates in Lefebvre's (1991) work on the possibilities that arise from the seemingly impossible imaginings of urban transformation. We use what are considered to be distinct approaches to photography: 'ethnographic' and 'expressive' in demonstrating this. Photography tells a story of the lighting of the space in illuminating the street in particular ways and making visible aspects that otherwise may go unnoticed. We draw from the boundaries, of photography (and therefore light), of method, and of urban space, looking to the 'territorial edges' (Sennett 2006) for Lefebvre's possibilities.

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Section: Imagining Utopian Method: Light and Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%