Finisterra - Revista Portuguesa de Geografia (Jun 2006)
Da experiência geográfica à construção identitária dos lugares: espaço de vida, espaço vivido e violência urbana
Abstract
FROM THE URBAN EXPERIENCE TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE IDENTITY OF PLACE. The materials discussed in this article are part of an exploratory study developed in the context of a PhD research project carried out in the outlying areas of two south European metropolises: Lisbon and Bordeaux. We briefly present the methodology applied, which seeks to uncover and analyse the representations, the urban practices and the identity strategies (the urban experience) of a group of young students from Santo Adrião (in the periphery of the metropolis of Lisbon). The study also investigates the relation between urban experiences and the identity of the places appropriated by them. The exploratory nature of this study is twofold. Firstly it tests the methodological relevance of photo elicitation and a focus group to gather the youths’ urban experiences. Secondly there is the necessity to find conceptual tools adapted to the analysis of their urban experiences, integrating it in the dialectic between socio-spatial identity of the places and the identity of the subjects. Three axes on which to base our reflection emerge from the study results: first, the importance of the imaginary and the symbolic in the dialectic between the urban experience and the effect of place inscribed in the construction of the young persons’ identities; secondly, the existence of a segregated urban life defined by practices; and, finally, the prominent role of urban violence in these young people’s discourses about their urban experiences.
