Wednesday, 07 May 2008

Milkmen: the official mention

Here's what my sister-in-law told me. She was watching BBC Breakfast this morning when the milkman called, so she went to the door to say she didn't want another pint, too much already, but I can't stop and chat cos my brother-in-law's on the telly talking about neighbourliness...

Naturally most milkmen are interested in the topic, and this one is no exception - keeps an eye on folk to make sure everything's ok - so in he comes to watch for the few minutes that I'm on, in a somewhat shapeless conversation with Wayne Hemingway following one of David Sillito's short film pieces. Then apparently just a quick question - 'does he mention milkmen in his book then?'

If you're curious about the answer, one good way to find out would be to go to this page and be enticed.

The neighbours who never speak / David Sillito 7 May 2008.

7 May 2008 13:46:38 | Neighbourhood relations

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Trust and key-holding David Sillito has some pieces on BBC Breakfast tv this week, beginning today in a couple of localities where I've done interviews myself, Pembroke Street in Devonport, and Bolton Woods in Shipley. And if you want to find out more detail on some of the stories David's picked up - and the detail on the research he commissioned which suggested that 36% of respondents would not trust any of their neighbours with a spare set of house keys - perhaps you'd like to come along and hear him speak at this book launch. The question about key-holding was posed hypothetically. In some research I carried out in Manchester a few years ago, reported here, we asked the direct questions: 'Do you hold a spare key for any of your neighbours? And do any of your neighbours hold your key?' We found that in the 65-74 age band some 49% had keys held by neighbours, and 43% held keys for at least one neighbour, but the other age groups were significantly lower. The size of our sample left some of our stats a bit shakey, whereas the BBC survey had 1000 respondents and shows little variation across regions (England and Wales) or age groups. Are we a nation of strangers? / David Sillito 6 May 2008
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Researching social relations in urban environments Yesterday to Manchester for a workshop on reseaching social relations in urban environments, I got to hear three nicely judged and matched presentations about how people relate to their neighbourhoods and how the notion of neighbourhood is constructed. If you go to the link above you can follow through to some of the work discussed. While the meeting was mainly about methods, it's interesting to think about two points that came across from the research that was described - From Mags Adams ('Sensory Urbanism: sensewalking as a methodological device') and Andrew Clarke ('Understanding community through mobile interviews and participatory mapping') I learn that people do not separate the physical environment from the social when they speak about their neighbourhoods. (Well, I could have told you that, but it's good to have the research to back it up). Meanwhile from Roger Burrows (talking about 'Life in Coded Spaces?') I learned, if I have this right, that there are externally applied systems (geodemograohic systems) that are not simply objective, but in some way invasive and distort the social while describing it. (So a bit like humans really). Fascinating stuff, I left wanting more.

Kevin Harris

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