Perception and (re)framing of Urban Environments: A Methodological Reflection toward Sentient Research

Abstract

Through senses, emotional and cognitive processes (i.e., perception, attention, learning, memory and language) individuals comprehend, make sense and are able to provide representations of the world and of the various spaces where social life takes place in. The main aim of this paper is to reflect critically on visual methodologies exploring how and to what extent they can (potentially) enhance not only the inspectionability of the empirical base of data but also the “degrees of reflexivity” of all those who are, directly and indirectly, involved in the research process, along all its phases, e.g., researchers, citizens, stakeholders, planners and policy-makers, etc. A secondary aim is to reflect on the possibilities visual methods provide us for a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the urban landscapes and of the perception of phenomena and processes occurring in, shaped by and peculiar to these spaces.

In order to look at visual methodologies critically and to connect the above-mentioned objectives to “real” contexts of applications, I will re-examine two specific case studies made in the city of Milan, each of which addresses the issue of urban sustainability perception, and how this intertwines with city planning and design. Moreover, they share a common phenomenological framework and were completed some years ago.

Notes

Comment made by a student commuting daily to the Polytechnic of Milan [Male, 25 years old, living in a town 75 km from Milan; GR1_Int07_B, Jan. 2010].

For Martinotti [1993], the factors that contributed to the evolution of the metropolis also allowed different “urban populations” to emerge, i.e., aggregates of individuals who temporarily share everyday practices and create peculiar space-time patterns (i.e., inhabitants, commuters, city-users, downtown businessmen), and he adds that the increased mobility of people, combined with greater income and leisure, allowed the differentiation of a third population: the “city users,” people going to city centers to use private and public services temporarily.

The results of this research have already been presented [Anzoise and Mutti 2012], therefore here I will discuss mainly the methodology and the interplay of projective and “intentional” techniques with more conventional ones.

There is no space to cover such a complex issue adequately, but the percentage of green coverage in relation to city area and/or population size is one of the most common indicators of urban sustainability. For a broader review, see Shen and colleagues [2011], but also reports and studies that inform urban sustainability policy design all over the world [Habitat, European Commission, etc.].

Milan is often viewed as a grey, hectic and unsustainable city with very little greenery. All through the second half of the 20th century the image of one of the largest metropoles in Italy has been dominated by a negative imaginary, shaped by the consequences of its industrial past. Nonetheless, with the deindustrialization process (started in the 1980s) and the slow decline of traditional manufacturing, Milan had also to re-orient its economy toward tertiary specialization, launch new policies addressing socioeconomic development, and regenerate many urban and industrial spaces left unused.

Unfortunately there’s no space here to discuss in detail the results and include also the outcomes at the University of Madrid. Suffice it here to say that different factors were crucial: e.g., the international environment and some features of campus, the fact that it lies outside the city and bordering a regional park brought out (and isolated more clearly) the relevance of certain variables such as the cultural diversity and spatial location of these institutions in the conceptualization and understanding of sustainability and in the performance of the practices and actions carried out there.

That of green areas is indeed one of the most critical “visual dimensions” of sustainability that emerged in the focus groups and in the respondent-generated images.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Valentina Anzoise

VALENTINA ANZOISE is an urban sociologist at the European Centre for Living Technology, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her research focuses on urban/rural transformations, landscape and environment perception, and visual and collaborative research methods; and she has also been working on city attractiveness and sustainability, Knowledge Society dynamics and innovation policies. Since 2014 she has been President of the International Sociological Association’s Visual Sociology Working Group (WG03), and is currently Young Researcher within the EuropeAid project MEDIUM: New pathways for sustainable urban development in China’s medium-sized cities (mediumcities-china.org).