Urban Monumentality in Roman Britain

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Revell
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Roman Britain ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Use ◽  
The Town ◽  
Final Group ◽  
New System

This chapter investigates the character of the chartered towns in Roman Britain, their mature form in the late second/early third centuries, and the social use of urban space. It explores the activities fostered by the buildings within towns. The forum and the town are shown to be the centre of political organization, enabling the new system of elite magistracies. The religious structures of the towns allowed for varied forms of ritual experience engendered by the relationships between temple and urban layout. The buildings for leisure activities—theatres, amphitheatres, and baths—also formed an essential part of the urban existence. The final group of buildings to be considered are those for living and working in; these were an early part of urban construction and illustrate the continued investment throughout the Roman period. The chapter concludes by considering the nature of variability between the urban centres of the province.

scholarly journals Free or paid: the uses of Roses Citadel (Catalonia)

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-120
Author(s):  
Josep Burch ◽  
Modest Fluvià ◽  
Ricard Rigall ◽  
Albert Saló ◽  
Gabriel Alcalde
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Free Access ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Economic Analyses ◽  
Social Use ◽  
The Town

Purpose The Roses Citadel is a bastioned fortification that has archaeological remains from the Greek, Roman and medieval periods in its interior. Currently, the area inside the Citadel is used for a wide range of activities; some directly related with the heritage item, others associated with its use as a public space for the town. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the economic interest of charging an entrance fee vs the alternative of free access and offers a framework to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach The proposal is to consider the marginal cost of increasing the number of users and to carry out a travel cost analysis. It is vital to take into account the results of specifically economic analyses, but the evaluations of social policies should also be considered, and should have a considerable weight in decision making. Findings It is proposed that free entry would bring about an increase in the number of visitors and users of Roses Citadel. In turn, this increase would lead to a greater social use of this heritage asset, and a chance for the least privileged sectors of society to use the site more. Financial resources for the maintenance of the asset would not be raised through entry fees, but through contributions relating to the increase in the social consideration of the site. Originality/value In the context of a discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of paying an entry fee for heritage assets, the example of Roses Citadel provides several factors for consideration. It shows that payment of an entry fee affects use of the site by society, and particularly by the local community, whereas free access leads to a wide range of opportunities for use.

Ways of looking: the creation and social use of urban guidebooks in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China

Urban History ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
SIYEN FEI
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Urban Communities ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Important Change ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Use ◽  
Apparent Similarity

ABSTRACT:This article explores the intricate relationship between guidebooks and place-making in an early modern Chinese city, Nanjing. Despite all apparent similarity to a modern guidebook, the seventeenth-century guidebook Jinling tuyong (Illustrated Odes on Nanjing) offers no information regarding shopping, dining or lodging; instead, it catalogues all the possible experiences of sites in and around the city. Such a concentrated focus on spatial experiences brings to light an important change in the social role of guidebooks in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century China. As landscape appreciation developed into an important venue for status performance and social networking, the representation of space became an integral element to the construction of urban communities. In the case of Tuyong, its images even supplied a critical source of cultural continuity for Nanjing-neses during transition between the Ming and Qing empires, a finding that sheds a new light on the links between urban space and empire and serves as a useful entry for cross-cultural comparison.

scholarly journals Sustaining the Liveliness of Public Spaces in El Houma through Placemaking

2020 ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Mohamed Yazid Khemri ◽  
Alessandro Melis ◽  
Silvio Caputo
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Urban Sociology ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Social Activities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Spatially Distributed ◽  
Mapping Techniques ◽  
Social Use

This paper takes Algiers as a case study, highlighting the social use of urban spaces in El Houma, in the Algerian capital, as a form of placemaking, a people-centred approach aimed at improving urban spaces within a neighbourhood. El Houma is a word for neighbourhood in North Africa synonymous with Hara and Mahalla in the Middle East. El Houma is not a typical neighbourhood that only houses people, it is a socio-spatial product formed by social relations between residents of the same neighbourhood. It is, therefore, a way of representing urban space though social practices, creating a strong sense of community, a sense of place and social interaction. Based on theories and mapping techniques from urban sociology and urban design, the research applies a methodology of activity mapping, in order to investigate patterns of outdoor social activities in public spaces and their correlation with the physical design of the neighbourhood. The research will measure the liveliness of public spaces exploring how people adapted their lifestyle to the built environment and vice versa. The findings demonstrate how the different social activities are spatially distributed, and their impact on the liveliness of el Houma.

Mediterranean Urbanization 800-600 BC

2005 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
Urban Settlements ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mediterranean ◽  
The Town

Urban life as we know it in the Mediterranean began in the early Iron Age: settlements of great size and internal diversity appear in the archaeological record. This collection of essays offers a systematic discussion of the beginnings of urbanization across the Mediterranean, from Cyprus, through Greece and Italy, to France and Spain. Scholars in the field look critically at what is meant by urbanization, and analyse the social processes that lead to the development of social complexity and the growth of towns. The introduction to the book focuses on the history of the archaeology of urbanization and argues that proper understanding of the phenomenon demands loose and flexible criteria for what is termed a ‘town’. The following eight chapters examine the development of individual settlements and patterns of urban settlement in Cyprus, Greece, Etruria, Latium, southern Italy, Sardinia, southern France, and Spain. These chapters not only provide a general review of current knowledge of urban settlements of this period, but also raise significant issues of urbanization and the economy, urbanization and political organization, and of the degree of regionalism and diversity to be found within individual towns. The three analytical chapters which conclude this collection look more broadly at the town as a cultural phenomenon that has to be related to wider cultural trends, as an economic phenomenon that has to be related to changes in the Mediterranean economy, and as a dynamic phenomenon, not merely a point on the map.

Working-Class Privatism: An Historical Case Study of Bedminster, Bristol

1989 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
A Franklin
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Historical Data ◽  
Friendship Networks ◽  
Historical Case Study ◽  
Historical Case ◽  
Home Based ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Use

Against those who have recently argued that the working class in England and Wales have increasingly retreated into the private sphere of the home, historical data are presented from Bedminster, Bristol where the opposite appears to have occurred. In Bedminster at least, the early part of the 20th century was characterised by restricted sociability, small networks, and a highly privatised, family-centred, home-based life-style. It is shown how the arrival of new industries and labour processes, together with the new leisure industries and necessary or preferred housing moves outside crowded natal localities created a local working class with new social expectations and the social skills to achieve them. In addition to the new leisure centres of workers' lives, the home was thus opened up to more elaborate forms of social use by the friendship networks of men, women, ‘couples’, and children.

scholarly journals A sociology of the Covid-19 pandemic: A commentary and research agenda for sociologists

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 726-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R Ward
Keyword(s):  
Social Theory ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Jean Paul ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Shed Light

During the early part of 2020, there has been an abundance of critically important research on Covid-19 from medical, epidemiological and virological disciplines. There is now an urgent need for sociologists to engage theoretically and empirically on the social impact of issues related to Covid-19. As we have moved further into 2020, governments around the world have imposed different types of restrictions on social life, in order to quell the spread of Covid-19 and ‘flatten the curve’. These have included imposing various degrees of social isolation and restrictions on things like social gatherings, travel, sport and leisure activities, and going to work/school/university. This commentary explores the ways in which different branches of social theory can shed light on the implications of Covid-19 restrictions for social life ‘as we know it’. The broad fields of social theory in the commentary cover concepts such as risk, trust, fear, uncertainty and happiness. The process of developing the social theory driven research agenda contained within this commentary took a rather unusual route – it started by re-reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s ideas on existentialism, which led to me painting a visual sociology of Covid-19 (an image of my painting is provided), and ultimately to this piece.

scholarly journals Forming a new Relationship of City-Dwellers to Health

2020 ◽  
pp. 444-465
Author(s):  
Lamara L. Mehrishvili ◽  
◽  
Nina A. Тkacheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level ◽  
Favorable Conditions ◽  
Relationship Of

The high level of urbanization of the country, new approaches to the organization of urban space and new risks, the outlined contradiction between the desire for economic growth of cities and the social expectations of city-dwellers identified a socially significant problem — the formation and maintenance of the health of the population, in general, and the individual, in particular. Due to the development of the urban environment, the increase in the quality of life of the population, especially large cities, the emergence of new social practices and leisure activities, the problem of maintaining health undergoes serious changes in all its components — the goals and forms of their achievement, subjects and boundaries. The importance of urban space in the formation of a new attitude to the health of city-dwellers in a sociological interpretation is seen as creating favorable conditions for involving and maintaining the interaction of all entities interested in increasing the physical activity of the population, carrying out targeted actions to jointly achieve a socially significant result by directly or indirectly uniting individuals into groups varying degrees of stability and formalization to maintain their health.

scholarly journals An Ottoman Register of Venetian Candia

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elias Kolovos
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Spatial Transformation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mediterranean Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Full Study ◽  
Rich Information ◽  
Preliminary Study ◽  
Social Use ◽  
The Town

The paper is a preliminary study of the register Tapu Tahrir 798 located in the Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi) in Istanbul. In 1669 it surveys the newly conquered town of Candia (Crete) in great detail, from quarter to quarter and from building to building. The register provides rich information for the Venetian Candia, since it includes the public buildings of the town that passed to the Ottomans, as well as the names of the previous owners of the town dwellings, who had evacuated the town after its surrender, and the names of the current owners. Thus, this source provides us with the tools to study the spatial transformation of the town during the transition from the Venetian to the Ottoman rule, the settlement patterns of the religious and social groups, and the social use of space. A full study of the register is under way by the author and a team of experts, within a research program of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies, FO.R.T.H. (Mediterranean Cultural Landscapes).

The Anthropological Lens

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Morton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Social Accountability ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Local People ◽  
South Sudanese ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Encounters ◽  
Anthropological Literature ◽  
Insight Into

Sir Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902-1973) is widely considered the most influential British anthropologist of the twentieth century, known to generations of students for his seminal works on South Sudanese ethnography Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (OUP 1937) and The Nuer (OUP 1940). In these works, now classics in the anthropological literature, Evans-Pritchard broke new ground on questions of rationality, social accountability, kinship, social and political organization, and religion, as well as influentially moving the discipline in Britain away from the natural sciences and towards history. Yet despite much discussion about his theoretical contributions to anthropology, no study has yet explored his fieldwork in detail in order to get a better understanding of its historical contexts, local circumstances or the social encounters out of which it emerged. This book then is just such an exploration, of Evans-Pritchard the fieldworker through the lens of his fieldwork photography. Through an engagement with his photographic archive, and by thinking with it alongside his written ethnographies and other unpublished evidence, the book offers a new insight into the way in which Evans-Pritchard’s theoretical contributions to the discipline were shaped by his fieldwork and the numerous local people in Africa with whom he collaborated. By writing history through field photographs we move back towards the fieldwork experiences, exploring the vivid traces, lived realities and local presences at the heart of the social encounter that formed the basis of Evans-Pritchard’s anthropology.

Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Machado
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Late Antiquity ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
The Social ◽  
Traditional Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City

This book analyses the physical, social, and cultural history of Rome in late antiquity. Between AD 270 and 535, the former capital of the Roman empire experienced a series of dramatic transformations in its size, appearance, political standing, and identity, as emperors moved to other cities and the Christian church slowly became its dominating institution. Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome provides a new picture of these developments, focusing on the extraordinary role played by members of the traditional elite, the senatorial aristocracy, in the redefinition of the city, its institutions, and spaces. During this period, Roman senators and their families became increasingly involved in the management of the city and its population, in building works, and in the performance of secular and religious ceremonies and rituals. As this study shows, for approximately three hundred years the houses of the Roman elite competed with imperial palaces and churches in shaping the political map and the social life of the city. Making use of modern theories of urban space, the book considers a vast array of archaeological, literary, and epigraphic documents to show how the former centre of the Mediterranean world was progressively redefined and controlled by its own elite.

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