Neighbourhoods

Juxtaprose 6

 

‘Rep’ing’ (representing/ defending) a turf has become increasingly common and a significant proportion of reported killings have been linked to ‘postcode wars’. Gary Hewett, of Community Action Team in East London, told the Working Group that ‘so many young people are afraid of travelling across the borough because there’s so many different territories’, and this has been echoed throughout the Working Group’s hearings. For some inner city young people gang-impacted areas are becoming no-go areas. One 17 year old male from London said: ‘There’s certain places in South London where 100 per cent you can say if you’re not from there you’ll get stabbed.’ Dying to belong, CSJ, 2009.

Perhaps most interesting about the cartography of the nobility is the tendency for members of noble factions to map the city according to lines of hatred, an emotional mapping that complements the moral cartography implicit in the vicinity. When members of the two noble factions testified in court about the emotional context of their violent exchanges, they painted an image of the city and its neighbourhoods as polarized by hatred. In their testimony, the defendants in the trial that followed on the heels of the great battle of 1351 created a mental geography that carefully partitioned the city into territories controlled by the Vivaut and the Jerusalem and by their allies. From testimony given at the inquest, it is clear that the invading Jerusalem were thought to have offended the residential space of the Vivaut. Daniel Lord Smail, Imaginary cartographies, 1999.

Previously juxtaprosed.

Juxtaprose 5

'They shout conversations through rooms rather than talking face-to-face, they argue constantly at very anti-social hours (e.g. 3am), they stamp about and slam doors, cupboards etc. Last night my sister came to mine in tears at 12:30am because the chavs had arrived home drunk and proceeded to sing at the top of their voices then have a huge argument. 'Whilst there is clearly a problem with the lifestyles of these people, there seems to be an acoustics problem too. When sitting in my sister's bedroom, you can every single word, perfectly clearly, that the upstair's people are saying, even if they are talking at normal levels. If they have friends round, the noise from their conversation is so high it's unbearable. I have witnessed this myself, it's no exaggeration.' (1).

'It was determined that the noise was coming from a broken fan blade in a basement air conditioning unit that cooled computers that controlled cell phone antennae on the roof of a nearby building. The super of the building said to call the landlord. The landlord said call AT&T. AT&T said lady, we don't have a location within three miles of your address, so it must be Verizon. Verizon said they're our towers but AT&T rents them. AT&T said call AT&T Wireless, separate company. AT&T Wireless said press 1 for a new cell phone press 2 for a new rate plan press 3 to learn more press 4 to repeat the menu and offered no menu options regarding the slow march toward the brink of insanity. My landlord said why don't we just gain access to the basement and turn it off? Their landlord said only the super had the key to the basement. The super's grandson said the super wasn't home.' (2).

Juxtaprose 4

'Lack of social networks among people with intellectual disabilities is perhaps a form of exclusion far more important than scattered cases of direct community opposition.' (1).

'Children played with their brothers, sisters, cousins and friends and with other children in their neighbourhood. The majority of children in the group with learning difficulties stated that they played with their parents or siblings. Only a small number of these children claimed that they played with friends or neighbours. This may suggest that children with learning difficulties encounter some social barriers in their play experiences, as the group we spoke to seemed to spend less of their time playing with peers...' (2).

Juxtaprose 3

'In my father's small council house street in Blantyre, stood a sign saying "This is a social inclusion area". It was resurrected by the council. It was a perfectly normal street, with normal people, a few had bought their council houses, a few hadn't. My father had an active social life (with other residents of other streets where there was no signs stating the status of the street and it's residents) and was therefore far from socially excluded. Having spoken to the neighbours, none of them suffered chronic shyness. Why had the council felt the needed to declare this about his street? Who was socially excluding this street? Why, without the sign, would people assume the street and its residents were socially excluded? It shows that snobbery is often institutionalised, and not just a product of assumptions.' 1 (comment).

'A group at the bottom of a social hierarchy begins to get a special label stigmatizing it. Now that group is recognized everywhere and marked out for discriminatory treatment. Its members can no longer get ordinary employment and must survive through extraordinary measures. They resort more and more to activities outside the pale of normal society and have to survive by doing things which other folks do not need to do. Typically, several members of the pariah community may resort bootlegging or petty theft along with casual and irregular labour in fields and factories. When a society has turned against you, then life must be lived in whatever spaces you can find. As a result, the stereotype of that group as a bunch of criminals and with no respect for the law is reinforced. It becomes a vicious circle, with the use of the stereotype by the mainstream forcing a certain response from the pariah community and that response in turn driving deeper the stereotype into the imagination of the larger society.' 2.

Juxtaprose 2

Vera Brittain relates the story of a Scottish sergeant who had been posted across from a Saxon regiment at Ypres. These two forces had agreed not to aim at each other when they fired. They made a great deal of noise, an outsider would have thought the men were fighting hard, but in practice no one was hit. The battle was reduced to a series of rituals, as with the Greeks and Trojans. Other letters and diaries make mention of this system as well... Another said: 'On the front we were on, the Boche signals when the artillery is going to fire and show us the no. of rounds by holding fingers up.' Robert Graves witnessed letters arriving from the Germans, rolled up in old mortar shells: 'Your little dog has run over to us and we are keeping it safe here.' 1. Geert Mak, In Europe. Vintage, 2008, p115.

five years of peace two years of hell just paid of my morgage built a lovely exstention then the guy above sells his home to to guys to rent out gut the place out put cheap nasty carpet down no underlay to people on the social with kids after goin to the door on numerous ocassions decided to speak to landlord to see if he could put some decent underlay down didnt make any difference asked him if we could have a meeting between us him and his tenents he said no to me but must have phoned them and told them i was still complaining about the noise the adult stood in the middle of the floor and jumped up and down six or seven times with all the power he could muster my wife who is in the early stages of Ms ran to the door and he gave her nothing but abuse spat on her we phoned the police but nothing has changed they still let their ten year old kid run about and stomped on the floor morning noon and night our plant pots in our garden have been smashed on our drive way what next their new tactic is to turn the taps on and off consistantely morning noon and night they also have tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom without any insulation i couldnt even sell my house if anybody came to view it they would walk right out the door they slam door one after the other very ignorant cant be good for the 6mnth year old kid to here all the noise could go on for ever but the noise above my head is driven me mad (2).

Juxtaprose 1

We have a small car park (which is private propert) for residents only with a clear sign stating this at the bottom of the drive. Visitors to residents keep parking in our car park & if a note is left on their windscreen asking them not to park here again they leave rather abusive & threatening notes, all residents know to tell visitors to park elsewhere. Where do we stand legally & what should we do please. (1).

First, we examined whether mole-rats scent-mark their territorial boundaries in response to the location of a neighbouring mole-rat. We found that when an intruder was introduced, the test animal almost always shifted its latrine location to the intruder's side. Then, we used soil plugs saturated with urine plus faeces or with water to determine whether scentmarks influence mole-rat excavation patterns and whether there are differences in mole-rat reaction to a stranger's scent. (2).