Material–temporal registers of belonging: Theorising the interplay between temporality and the built environment

Abstract

This paper explores the interplay of temporality and the built environment in diverging discourses of belonging at Claremont Court, a modernist housing scheme in Edinburgh which was designed in 1958 by Sir Basil Spence, a key figure of post-war architecture. It explores belonging to place as a complex temporal process, in which the individual is connected to the built environment through various material–temporal registers. While existing analyses of belonging demonstrate that it is a fundamentally temporal experience, not enough is known about belonging as a temporal phenomenon. To fill this gap, our analysis reveals how multiple temporalities of the built environment are entwined with residents’ biographies, everyday life and future aspirations, which shape their varied sense of belonging. To conclude, we argue not only for theorising the temporal nature of belonging, but also how the temporality of the built environment shapes people’s sense of belonging. In doing so, we extend the literature on belonging by theorising the relationship between temporality and the built environment with the help of the concept of material–temporal registers.

Nostalgic neighborhood belongings: Theorizing the interrelationship among nostalgias, belongings and neighborhood changes

“…This article contributes to the conceptualization of the spatio-temporal nature of belonging. I dialogue with works developed by May and her colleagues in this field (Lewis & May, 2020;May, 2017;May & Muir, 2015) that argue for the role of temporal registers in constructing belonging to place. In this work, I build upon this literature by theorizing the material dimension of nostalgic belongings and their interrelationships among nostalgias, belongings, and social and physical environmental changes.…”

“…In the case of Clarement Court (Edinburgh, Scotland), for example, Lewis and May (2020) addressed this issue by exploring the various ways in which the residents understand the past, present, and future of the building, and how these temporalities informed their sense of belonging to place. They proposed three material-temporal registers of belonging, associated with different temporal reasonings linked to the built environment: an 'elastic temporal' reasoning, based on a sense of belonging nostalgic for a lost sense of community, and materialized in changes to the built and social environment in the present; a 'constricted temporal' reasoning, with a belonging rooted in the present and critical of the political and social commitments of the community in the face of a deteriorating environment; and a 'complex temporal' reasoning, characterized by a future-oriented belonging based on a nostalgic desire for the original past building.…”

Ritual narratives of infrastructure ceremonies: Time, demands, and relations in modern Chinese history

“…Objects are temporal in this socially constructed sense. 30 The narratives in infrastructure rituals focus on this social constructionist perspective, transitioning or amplifying the technical aspect of time towards a broader national context. This (dis)connecting and projecting of macro-time is reflected in two subcategories: infrastructure as 'boundary marker & junction of national history', and infrastructure as the 'reflection of evolution of ritual customs'.…”

The reflection of Newman's defensible space theory on Turkey's neighbourhoods: typomorphological analysis of safe-space within an analytical framework

“…Culture-led settlement trust fosters a strong sense of belonging and supports internal unity (He et al, 2019). In that sense, Lewis and May (2020) use the notion of the sense of belonging not always to build in the present but to include a diversity of temporal horizons as memories of the past and hopes for the future. The multidimensional nature of belonging to a place requires recognising the interaction of not only personal biography and shared temporal frameworks but also material culture (Lewis and May, 2020).…”