Sometimes. . . Sometimes. . . Sometimes. . . Witnessing Urban Placemaking from the Immanence of "the Middle". Issue 1 (February 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Platt, Louise C.; Medway, Dominic
• Is Part Of: Space and culture. Volume 25:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 105
• Page End: 120
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Subjects: Procession -- refrain -- placemaking -- flat ontologies; Human geography -- Periodicals; Spatial behavior -- Periodicals; Space (Architecture) -- Periodicals; Personal space -- Periodicals; Human ecology -- Periodicals; Comportement spatial -- Périodiques; Espace (Architecture) -- Périodiques; Espace personnel -- Périodiques; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1177/1206331219896261
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1552-8308

Abstract

This paper offers a critical analysis of how urban placemaking as a top-down or bottom-up action, involving organizational intervention or facilitation, is typified by problematic angles of approach. Instead, we evidence a flat ontological perspective, entering into urban assemblages to feel the chaotic and ever-changing forces that make places. Specifically, we use the Deleuzoguattarian lens of the refrain to employ a transversal analysis of the placemaking inherent within an urban event—the Manchester and Salford Whit Walks, a Church of England procession that has been iterated for over 200 years. This reveals the importance of always-becoming place, characterized by ongoing repetition with difference, and embodied in the notion of Sometimes. . . Sometimes. . . Sometimes. . .. We conclude that urban placemaking is not something that can be simply started through organizational intervention, or facilitation of community-led approaches, but a process that needs to be engaged with from the middle.