Social space: Loflands view

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Social space Loflands view

• Works at the Micro-level
• Her query How in large multiethnic city, with
  many strangers, peoples that dont know and dont
  understand each others cultures maintain trust.
  How to keep fear at bay?
• From two traditions i) gemeinschaft and
  gesellshaft , ii) Goffmans version of
  interactionism

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• Toennies gemeinschaft and gesellshaft
• small homogenious society
• Advantages familiarity, trust.
• Gesellschaft Gesellschaft a society in which
  presence of strangers, heterogeneity of members,
  interests are diverse conflict is expected,
  formal social control
• The advantage of gesellschaft Achievement of
  individuality and autonomy in a Gesellschaft.

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• Bretons question is similar
• how do people convert a strange place to one
  that looks familiar to them? How do they convert
  the Gemeinschaft to a Gesellschaft?
• In Lofland's terms public - private dichotomy
• how do we live in the public space? How do we
  create order? How can we develop trust? How can
  we develop community based social trust?

4

• Her work is linked to recent changes in the
  proportions of public and private space in North
  American cities The decrease of the public and
  privatization of social functions. increase in
  private shopping malls, theme parks, urban
  redevelopment projects
• - activities traditionally associated with public
  space transferred to private spaces
• - over-regulation of public space.

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• In looking at how people use space, Lofland
  spends a lot of time exploring how people treat
  territory. She notes how people fight against
  acting in a public manner that does not give them
  a persona, instead people act privately even in
  public spaces.
• Unlike Driedger, she sees peoples identities as
  multiple and shifting attachments, depending on
  the context.

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Legal Definitions of Space

• Public Space universal access
• all activity within confines of the law is
  permitted
• Private space access regulated by the owner
• informal social control in home space
• private policing in commercial space

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Goffmans micro-level sociology.

• We put on public guise, a front stage behavior
  and acted the proper way to meet others
  expectations of the right kind of identity. Is
  ethnicity imposed by outsiders?
• Our surroundings shape formation of our identities

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Types of territories after Goffman

• 1. Public space individuals have freedom of
  access, but not necessarily of action.
• 2. Home space individuals have a sense of
  freedom and autonomy in it.
• 3. Interactional place mobile, defined by a
  particular activity.
• 4. Body space of and around the body.

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Loflands main issues

• The Work people do to make their space
  meaningful
• Stranger Definition Any person who is
  personally unknown to the actor of reference, but
  visually available to him. We need to order
  strangers.

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Forms of knowledge of people and places.

• We order the environment by categorizing them.
  There are three forms of knowing
• simple knowing
• complex knowing
• Personal knowing

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Locational transformation

• We change the setting so that we feel
  comfortable, even if the setting is public, we
  privatize it
• Lofland mainly talks about how we take over the
  setting (patrons/customers, etc)
• It is also done by props, clothing, symbols.

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• Coding Schemes restricted versus universal.
• Reading the language given off by actions or
  indications
• Acquiring Skills
• Learning where to go

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Kensington Market

• Think of example of transforming a location, you
  have done or seen? An example of ethnic
  transformation?

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Summary of Lofland, applications

• i) moving from small town, where numbers limited,
  sheer biophysical limitation on humans recognize
  all, may be 4000
• ii) and as population increases, differentiation
  more complex, structural limitations to knowing
  appear.
• iii) Temporal limitations also appear large
  settlements include new arrivals

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Doing Research on this topic

• What to look for How would you use Driedger?
  Looking for traits
• How would you use Breton Looking for a mass of
  institutions and services for the group
• Elic Chans study of Cantonese-Mandarin church

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• Assumptions to maintain self esteem, need to
  protect the self. how one defines a given
  situation or object is crucial to how one acts.
• i) The space is arranged to give off meanings,
• ii) There are rules for coding, or defining
• iii) accompanying behavioral repertoires
  appropriate to coded object
• iv) enough information about object ot be able to
  activate the coding rules using all sensory
  apparatus.

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Doing Research on this topic

• She talks about space in terms of us working on
  it.
• Order our images and encounters
• We deal with it in terms of processing
  information.
• How do weknow what our environment means? who
  is in our environment?Is the territory ethnically
  familiar?

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• How do people define or localize places?
• We can do this by exploring what makes the
  environment appear how it is supposed to be?
• Loflands method Lofland did her work by lots of
  interviews and participant observation,
  developing categories from her observations.
  Taking notes, asking people how they used space.

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• Look for how people transform bricks and mortar
  to be an ethnic neighborhood? How do you
  transform a city neighborhood into one with
  meaning for ethnicity. What makes Neighborhoods
  ethnic?
• Alternatively, How do people they escape a niche
  if they want to avoid ethnic categorization?

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Ethnic businesses in neighborhood

• How to observe ethnic businesses?
• Describe composition of ethnic businesses
  mixture of products, customers, salespeople
• Example Phans studies of Kensington market

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• How do weknow what our environment means,
  Lofland talks about who is in our environment, so
  that we know how to handle the encounter? How do
  we feel safe?
• Loflands method Lofland did her work by lots
  of interviews and participant observation,
  developing categories from her observations.
  Taking notes, asking people how they used space.

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The marketing of environments

• Developing a theme
• Is the ethnic theme real or created?
  Disneyland, Kensington Market
• Gottdiener notes the staged presence of the
  community. Marketing comes in and the community
  becomes more like a stage to sell a particular
  theme.

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• Chiu Luks article Subethnicity and Identity
  Socio-Cultural Interpretations of Chinese
  Business Titles in Toronto
• theme of subethnicity in the study of subgroups
  of ethnic Chinese in Toronto their identities.
  Hong Kong, Taiwanese, mainland Chinese
  businesses getting clientele

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In Your Home

• The meaning of Possessions
• people value goods to make visible and stable the
  categories of culture. Goods do not simply reveal
  social relations, they are also participants in
  social relations.
• People no longer surrounded by other people, but
  by objects

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• There is a range of categories of object
  meanings
• collective meaning
• personal meaning