Place‐framing against automobility in Montreal

Abstract

In this paper, we examine the dynamic processes of place‐framing through struggles against automobility in Montreal, bringing place discourses in dialogue with mobilities scholarship. We explicitly consider the dynamics of place‐frames' development and emergence from the myriad of different meanings of activists engaged in a mobilisation, in interaction with the hegemonic transportation discourse. We analyse the mobilisation for car traffic‐calming in Montreal through three dynamic moments of place‐framing: naming and blaming (voicing a certain experience of place), claiming solutions in space and practising the desired place. Each moment consists of a discursive struggle through which selective meanings are being given to place in relation to mobility. In Montreal, these moments were crucially associated with new network connections: (1) a coalition around the association of car traffic with vulnerability, (2) the targeting of local regulators for traffic‐calmed places when dismissed by auto‐oriented space regulators and (3) performing a community of practice for walking and cycling in neighbourhoods, with tensions between the utopian local way of life and regional flows. This study demonstrates the relational linkages of mobility and place. Place‐frames are not immutably linked to existing landscapes and experiences, but are shaped through nodal and network articulations that emphasise communities of practice in (imagined and desired) place(s) of everyday movement.

Thinking temporally when thinking relationally: Temporality in relational place-making

“…It is a process that involves (relatively) individually conceptualized and experienced place-bundles being drawn together and selectively expressed through place-frames towards social and political ends, which results in a "strategic sharing of place" (Pierce et al, 2011, 60). Place-frames, as discursive and rhetorical constructions, narrate places, either the material experiences or the imaginaries of them, for collective-action (Martin, 2003;Van Neste and Martin, 2017). Thus, a place-frame rarely expresses one single placebundle or meaning, but consists of elements of multiple bundles that are selected through social and political negotiations among people with shared or similar goals (Pierce et al, 2011;2016;Van Neste and Martin, 2017).…”

“…Place-frames, as discursive and rhetorical constructions, narrate places, either the material experiences or the imaginaries of them, for collective-action (Martin, 2003;Van Neste and Martin, 2017). Thus, a place-frame rarely expresses one single placebundle or meaning, but consists of elements of multiple bundles that are selected through social and political negotiations among people with shared or similar goals (Pierce et al, 2011;2016;Van Neste and Martin, 2017). It represents partially any of the place-bundles that are drawn into the place-frame, but itself is also a bundle among many others, albeit one that is constructed with explicitly strategic purpose.…”

“…Place-frames are mobilized by groups of actors in contestations over understandings and claims of places (Martin, 2003;Van Neste and Martin, 2017). These discursive constructions of places may convey actors' goals of place-making -to shape the use of places and/or to assert the right to use places.…”

“…Place and the framing of place are recognized by scholars as helpful points of entry for understanding and analyzing conflicts and the broader socio-spatial processes that such conflicts are part of. These conflicts may be about land use (the right or the way to use places) or about understandings of places (the look, feel, lived experience of places); and they may range from micro-scale locales (a specific site/place) to the scale of nation-building (Davine et al, 2017;Martin, 2003;Pierce et al, 2011;2016;Van Neste and Martin, 2017). Although not all conflicts are at first explicitly concerned with place, it is often found that actors tend to express their concerns or claims through narratives of either the experiences in/of a place or the imagined ideal of a place (Martin, 2003).…”

“…Although not all conflicts are at first explicitly concerned with place, it is often found that actors tend to express their concerns or claims through narratives of either the experiences in/of a place or the imagined ideal of a place (Martin, 2003). These discursive constructions of places -place-frames -are mobilized for collective actions and movements (place-making), within which (groups of) actors form temporary, strategic alliances based on their shared interests in/of a place (Martin, 2003; Van Neste and Martin, 2017). The co-articulation of place-frames and alliances of multiplypositioned actors requires a relational approach towards place-framing/making that explicitly focuses on "the interconnections and co-constituencies among place, networks and politics" (Pierce et al, 2011, 67;Van Neste and Martin, 2017).…”