Picturing Urban Green Attachments: Civic Activists Moving between Familiar and Public Engagements in the City. (February 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Blok, Anders; Meilvang, Marie Leth
• Is Part Of: Sociology. Volume 49:Number 1(2015:Feb.)
• Page Start: 19
• Page End: 37
• Publication Date: 2015-02
• Subjects: civic activism -- familiar attachments -- Laurent Thévenot -- pragmatic sociology -- urban ecology; Sociology -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Periodicals; Sociologie -- Périodiques; Sociologie; Electronic journals; 301.05
• DOI: 10.1177/0038038514532038
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0385

Abstract

In this article, we explore the cultural-political tensions and ambiguities of urban ecology, by way of following how activists move and translate between 'familiar' and 'public' engagements in the green city. Empirically, we locate our exploration in and around Nordhavnen (The North Harbor), a large-scale sustainable urban development project in Copenhagen. Invoking Laurent Thévenot's pragmatic sociology of 'regimes of engagement', we sketch a culturally sensitive approach to urban ecological activism, highlighting the critical moral capacities involved in building new forms of 'commonality in the plural' in the city. In particular, we stress the role assumed in such engagements by various image-making practices, as means for activists to express, share and render publicly visible a range of embodied urban attachments. Pragmatic sociology, we conclude, may contribute to a novel understanding of urban politics as inclusive learning processes, more hospitable to a wider diversity of familiar attachments to cities and their ecologies.