What place is a border?

Last Wednesday, Dr. Vincent Pijnenburg, succesfully defended his PhD thesis, about collaborative borderscaping in the Dutch-German borderland. In his thesis he focuses on cross-border spatial planning practices, In relation to Placemaking, one of the issues at stake here, is that it is exactly the relation with the ‘other’ which creates the incentive for active Placemaking. Placemaking within an existing administrative realm, with the usual rather homogeneous normative targets, procedures and conditions, is a rather boring activity (think also of the PhD thesis of Anke Strüver from 2004 about the ‘Stories of the Boring Border’), with boring results. However, the heterogeneity of the border landscape and of the different administrative systems meeting each other at the border create an active and innovative setting for Placemaking for cross-border planning and maybe even for spatial planning as such. It is at the borders, where also the core is made. Placemaking is almost by definition a bordering activity, irrespective of the place where it takes place. It is in these situations where we meet the eye from elsewhere and as such learn about ourselves and about our ‘system’ of spatial planning. In these interactive settings borders are not just shaped but also changed and transgressed. Vincent specifically elaborated and experimented extensively with interactive Design Ateliers for this borderscaping, providing a taste for more…

Next to this innovative aspect, his thesis is also a very comprehensive overview of everything relevant written about border-studies, cross-border cooperation, and cross-border spatial planning, and as such a seminal piece of work.

03.04.201904.04.2019

Placemaking in Rome

On our annual trip to an interesting city, with our group of three ‘Placemaking experts’ enjoying live geography…, we visited Rome this year — the city where I once lived for a bit more than a year –, to get an impression of newest developments of ‘overtourism’ and ‘urban development’, but of course also to get a real ‘feeling’ of the city and of the typical Roman atmosphere, as expressed by a real Italian coffee, unbeatable in quality, speed in processing, and… in price.

Interesting enough all the highlights of Rome are nowadays highly securitised, because of terrorist threats. So if you go to a church to participate in the holy mess, you might need to pass heavily armed security personnel and have your day-packs checked. This is supposed to provide a feeling of safety, a rather ambivalent feeling in such a setting, and a topic for further research on Placemaking as our colleague Prof. Ben Anderson in his article on ‘Boredom, excitement and other security affects‘ from 2015 expresses. At the same time visitors do not seem to bother and except and undergo it as if it is everyday normality. However a personal experience I had many years ago in Münster, Germany proves that there are different normalities. Münster is a city of cyclists, like also many Dutch cities, but if you then experience that you can actually easily leave your rent-a-bike with a very cheap lock overnight in public space without it being stolen, you notice that that is total other kind of normality, which really provides you with a rather different feeling of trustful relaxation, something you would not be able to experience in a Dutch city. So there are many different affective states of ‘normality’, which shows that there is still a ‘place to win’.

While exploring Rome, we also visited the Museo nationale delle arti del XXI secolo. A fascinating place in itself, at a former manufacturing site, with an exhibition which Placemakers should not miss, with the title ‘The Street. Where the World is Made:
The street as a place of sharing and innovation, the principal laboratory for artists, architects and creatives‘. For placemaking experts, maybe not totally new, but the way it was put in artistic forms, really gave a fascinating impression of how this everyday Worldmaking, sounds, looks, feels and smells.

A final observation we once again made, is that notwithstanding Italy’s many new migrants, and its current populist right wing politics, the everyday life in the city seems multi-culturally very relaxed. At every corner there is a church, and you wonder how the Romans can upkeep this huge cultural heritage of more than 900 churches, and you would expect that they could easily rationalise and reduce the number of churches, to be able to serve the Roman population. On the other hand this large number and diversity of religious assemblage places, also seems to accommodate the great multiplicity of different communities. If you spontaneously walk into a church, it could very well be that the celebration is held in French, Arab, Greek, English, or in whatever language. As one of the first ‘world-cities’ in our world (Rome was the largest of the ancient cities. Historians estimate that the population of Rome may have reached up to 1 million people at its peak in the Roman empire). As such it of course also has a long tradition as a very diverse multi-cultural and cosmopolitan city. Indeed all roads led to Rome, and diversity was and is the lifeline of the city, and maybe of every city.

27.02.201927.02.2019

Gentrification in the Fashion Quarter in Arnhem

Recently we finished a research project, applying an assemblage approach to the process of gentrification in the Fashion Quarter (Klarendal) in Arnhem. Of course gentrification has been investigated already for more than thirty years, and there is a large body of knowledge about it. In the literature one usually finds two different competing perspectives on gentrification. One which assumes that the driving force behind gentrification is mainly economic speculation, resulting in rising living costs and displacement of original inhabitants. One could say that that is the “it’s the economy stupid” hypothesis. On the other hand we have the scholars who support the hypothesis that gentrification is mainly the effect of a cultural development, making these places attractive for a specific class of people such as hipsters, Yups, and creative class people. That could be denoted as the “it is the culture stupid” hypothesis. More research of the same kind would probably only reproduce these positions and not contribute much new. In our opinion, however, reality is a bit more complex, and especially if one wants to lead the process of gentrification into a more sustainable and just direction, we need to know more about these complexities. Therefore we chose an assemblage approach and tried to get rid of the usual blinkers of the traditional gentrification research. The research showed to be revealing, and also suggests, that gentrification policies, need to take a much more experimental trial and error approach, working in small steps on the ‘configuration’ of all the different elements and relations contributing to the process, in stead of the often reductionist and simplistic ‘if-you-do-this-than-that-will-happen’-approach.

Recently a series of popularising articles (in Dutch), authored by the researchers of our project, about gentrification in the Fashion Quarter in Arnhem have appeared in the glossy journal ‘geografie’ published by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society (KNAG).

28.01.201927.02.2019

20th Anniversary of the Nijmegen Centre of Border Research

On the 28th of January 2019, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Nijmegen Centre of Border Research (NCBR). When I arrived in Nijmegen in Nov. 1998, the NCBR was just founded. With the Dutch-German border so close by, it seemed to be natural niche for the research of our Department. However this research also touches the core of geographical research in general, since geographers are generally interested in the diversity and differences in our world, but there where we talk about differences we implicitly are also talking about borders and about making differences or bordering. So geography and the the topic of borders go hand in hand. And the theorising about borders and bordering is also applicable to many other fields of research in geography. The Nijmegen Centre of Border Research has always taken this broad interpretation of borders and bordering seriously, and in contrast to other Border Research institutes, the NCBR is known to not just studying the national border so close by, but to study any form of borders and bordering, at all different scales, and worldwide. We are looking at cultural borders, ethnic borders, religious borders, economic borders, language borders, natural borders, political and administrative borders, etc. etc. Given this almost natural niche for this kind of research, when I arrived in Nijmegen and took over the geography chair, it was an easy strategic decision to develop this as a spear head of our research, and now, after 20 years, all scholars involved can look back on the last twenty years with proud.

On the history of NCBR

To deepen the theme of borders and bordering theoretically and empirically in a broader and institutional context, the Nijmegen Centre for Border Research was established in 1998. By now, NCBR has established itself as an internationally recognised expertise centre on borders, migration, cross-border cooperation and post-colonalism.

Right from the start our aim has always been – very much in line with the focus of our research: the crossing of borders – to be an expertise group, an informal and voluntary assemblage of individual researchers rather than an hierarchical and formal institution. The goal was and is not the existence of NCBR itself but the border crossing work that we do.

Over time, the members of NCBR have significantly contributed to the co-creation of an international field that did not exist before, the field of border studies. How and why we as human beings border and de-border has proven to be a great geographical lens through which we can study and understand societal developments and tensions around issues like migration, place-making, colonialism, identity, conflicts, cross-border cooperation and globalisation. Many publications have been written, editorships and funds have been acquired using NCBR as an affiliation. And many interesting and congenial international researchers have been attracted to join NCBR as a guest researcher, have become associated members of NCBR and/or member of the NCBR discussion list making NCBR, thereby turning NCBR gradually into a ‘glocal’ network, rather than a local coalition alone. By now, NCBR is affiliated to various international border research associations and journals (e.g. Association of Borderlands Scholars, Journal of Borderlands Studies (JBS), African Border Research Network (ABORNE), Border Regions in Transition).

Important themes in the present research include:

Cosmopolitanism, Globalisation and Europeanisation
Migration, Mobilities and Refugees
Citizenship and hos(ti)pitality
Nationalism and Transnationalism
Practices of Bordering, Ordering and Othering
Perceptions and Representations of Borders
Labour Market (im)mobility across Borders
Borderscapes, Euregional and Cross-border Networks
Anti-and Post-Colonialism

31.12.201827.02.2019

The Culture of Spatial Planning

Spatial Planning is often thought of as a technical, highly regulated and institutionalised activity. However, one can also conceive spatial planning as a much more cultural activity. In solving spatial problems and in developing spatial plans, one often needs to bridge the different, partly culturally determined, interests of stakeholders. At the same time also policy regulations and institutionalised procedures usually leave a lot of space for interpretation and for different ways of dealing with the issues at stake. Therefore, one can distinguish many different, personal, local, regional or national styles and cultures of doing spatial planning. Looking spatial planning as a cultural activity might very well contribute to more effective ways of doing spatial planning. For a number of years, I participated in a working group of the Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (ARL) addressing the ‘Cultures of Spatial Planning’.

However, many Spatial Planning scholars are traditionally rather reluctant to take this more cultural perspective. Only under circumstances in which the hitherto ways of doing become less effective anymore, one is willing to look for new culturally informed forms of spatial policy making. Demographic shrinkage in times of austerity are circumstances, which make traditional forms of spatial policy less effective.

A former PhD students of mine, Dr. Marlies Meijer, focused her research on spatial planning under these new circumstances, and investigated what she called ‘more informal’ ways of doing spatial planning. Of course informal ways of policy making, are well known from many countries in the global South, where it sometimes is the only way of getting things done and problems solved under the condition of more or less failing states and failing governance. Traditionally these were practices which some spatial planners in Western countries, such as the Netherlands – as the traditional ‘best practice’ country with respect to spatial planning – looked down at. One might say that this is almost a kind of post-colonial reflex. Under these new circumstances, however, this could radically change. All of the sudden, one could also turn it around, and ask one self, what we in the Netherlands can learn from these informal practices. It is revealing to reflect on this change of perspective, but of course it is also not that black or white, and there are many nuances in between.

In a recently published article, Marlies Meijer and myself address the role of informality in Dutch planning practices.

Click on the abstract to view the full text version.

15.12.201815.12.2018

What the hell are exemplary hermeneutic didactics?

Geography is a broad discipline. Everything in this world has its own spatiality. Geography as THE discipline, which studies the spatiality of these phenomena deals with almost everything you could think of. Geography is also often described as an integrative discipline bringing together what is otherwise often studied in isolation. But then, as a small, though very fine, geography department, how do you teach geography within the limitations of a regular bachelor or master programme? That seems to be a sheer impossibility and thus in sharp contrast to the comprehensive ambitions of our discipline. One just cannot address everything, and certainly not if one also seeks to provide in depth knowledge of it. Time to do so would never be sufficient, and also the expertise of the team of our extremely competent lecturers would be totally overstretched.

How to be selective without being reductive?

For this I coined the term ‘exemplary hermeneutic‘ didactics. This is not a totally new idea, but firmly founded in constructivist and critical thinking learning strategies, going back to the philosophy of John Dewey (Richardson, 2003). It is this same constructivist didactical approach, which also forms the basis of Problem Based Learning (Allen, Donham & Bernhardt, 2011) and the Aalborg didactical model (Barge, 2010). Without going in all the details of these approaches, in short, the exemplary hermeneutical method, focusses on developing the constructive meta-skill, with which students can independently explore new fields of knowledge. This is not done by traditional transfer of existing knowledge on all possible topics but by guiding students in experiencing, analysing and critically assessing an exemplary topic, in a number hermeneutical interpretative steps. It thus does not matter which topics are selected to learn how to construct knowledge about and insights in specific (sub)fields of geography. Maybe the student in their later professional life will never be confronted with the same issue again, and will be confronted with totally different problems, but when they have the analytical skills to disclose these new topics and deepen their knowledge about them.

Applied to the design of a curriculum or a course this implies that in a first step we try to provide a general overview of all the elements, streams of thought, theories, approaches, methods or empirical fields which could be relevant without going in details. In the following steps, we select one specific example, and in a number of hermeneutical steps, students are challenged to deepen the knowledge and understanding of that specific example. The focus on the analytical meta-skills allows students to deal with other topics themselves and allows to leave certain topics out of the curriculum. In this way setting up a high quality geography curriculum becomes feasible without attempting, the impossible, namely to be fully comprehensive. It allows to have the courage to leave gaps…

See further also my general vision on teaching.

References and further reading

Aktan, S. & Serpil, H. (2018) Didactic in Continental European pedagogy: An analysis of its origins and problems. Uluslararası Eğitim Programları ve Öğretim Dergisi. Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 111-134.

Allen, D. E., Donham, R.S. & Bernhardt, S.A. (2011) Problem-Based Learning. New Directions for Teachings and Learning. Vol. 2011, No. 128, pp. 21-29.

Barge, S. (2010) Principles of problem and project based learning: The Aalborg model. Aalborg University, Aalborg.

Dewey, J. (2004) Democracy and Education. An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Aakar Books, Delhi. But see also: http://www.hf.uni-koeln.de/dewey/30534

Reich, K. (2012) Konstruktivistische Didaktik: Das Lehr- und Studienbuch mit Online-Methodenpool. Belz, Weinheim.

Richardson, V. (2003) Constructivist Pedagogy. Teachers College Record. Vol. 105, No. 9, pp. 1626-1640.

15.12.201815.12.2018

Familiarity with the cross border ‘other’

Even in a seemingly borderless world, differences do not disappear. To cross a border needs more than just getting rid of the physical and institutional barriers at the border. It requires that one is interested in what is offered or what is to be found at the other side of the border, or that there is a real need for that what is available at the other side of the border. Especially in cases where borders have a long tradition, people often seem to have accommodated themselves in these situations, and have no intrinsic needs or interests in exploring the opportunities at the other side of the border, when borders get easier to cross. This dis-interest is sometimes also denoted as a threshold of indifference. Only when this threshold is surpassed cross-border interaction will substantially increase. Of course this subjective threshold can differ from person to person. The one’s with a low threshold will probably also be among the cross-border pioneers, when barriers at the border are torn down. Through their presence and through their cross-border interactions, also for others, as an unintended consequence, the situation slowly but surely changes, and they become more familiar with the border and the cross-border opportunities, and at a certain moment they also surpass that threshold of indifference.

Dr. Bianca Szytniewski, successfully defended her PhD-thesis on Dec. 7, 2018, on exactly this topic, focusing on cross-border shopping behaviour.

On the back cover of her book it says: ‘Borderlands can be perceived as sites for encounters with both differences and similarities. When crossing a state border, we move from one state to another, come across different people and cultures, hear different languages, notice different characteristics of our surroundings and submerge in otherness. At the same time we might find out that locals in restaurants or shops speak our language or sell known brands and goods. Our border experiences, local narratives and regional histories colour our perceptions of a borderland and enable us to give meaning to the differences and similarities we encounter. Some of these may be known and expected, but many others can be new and unfamiliar. According to various scholars not only familiarity but also unfamiliarity can encourage cross-border practices. Unfamiliarity resulting from differences in, for instance, culture, landscape or facilities between the two sides of a state border can trigger interest and curiosity, and consequently lead to cross-border mobility. This dissertation further unravels this notion of familiarity and unfamiliarity in relation to encounters with differences and similarities in European borderlands, by offering theoretical reflections on familiarity and unfamiliarity, and examining cross-border mobility, shopping practices in particular, in the Dutch-German, German-Polish and Polish-Ukrainian borderland.’ If you are interested in reading more, click here.

18.10.201827.02.2019

The geography of spheres

Human Geography is the discipline focusing on the relationship between Human Being and the Environment. Theorising about this relationship has developed in waves, in which sometimes the side of the human being was emphasised, or the side of the environment was emphasised. A well known example of the latter was the period in which Environmental Determinism was en vogue. Later we shifted to a period in which the freedom of deliberate human decision making en social constructionism was fashionable. A next step was the conceptualisation of social constructions of space and place, not as deliberate actions, but rather as unintended consequences of our collective actions as exemplified in discursive structures. These ways of thinking were, of course, closely related to the societal and political situation at those times and in those places where these theories originated. Currently we experience another shift, back to emphasising more the role of the human being, especially also the non-discursive aspects of human experience of space and place. More attention is given to the material circumstances and to the embodiment of our experiences. People interact with their environment not only in a conscious and deliberate way, but also based on embodied feeling and emotions. The interaction with the environment resembles a ‘dance’ with the things and people around us. The situation in which we act, has many different meaningful dimensions, and is, therefore, better grasped by the concept of ‘Sphere’. To understand the diversity on our globe, is to understand the ‘geography of spheres’. However, spheres are of course not closed bubbles but partly overlapping and in direct relation with each other, and therefore there is also a ‘politics of spheres‘. Peter Sloterdijk addresses this when he conceptualises the current world of bubbles as ‘Foam’. In my recently published article in Geographica Helvetica I introduce but also criticise his rather reactionary view on these bubbly spheres.

Click on the abstract to see full text.

11.10.201811.10.2018

Cross-Border Innovation ‘Places’

Today Dr. Jos van den Broek successfully defended his PhD thesis on Cross Border Innovation Spaces. In his PhD research he focused on the how successful Cross Border Innovation Spaces are very dependent on institutionalisations and institutional entrepreneurs, to sustain them. The dynamics of this institutionalisation needs to be seen as an evolutionary process, which is not necessarily one-directional. This PhD thesis contributes to the better understanding of these processes and of what is really taking place in this respect in cross-border regions.

To speak of cross-border innovation spaces, is, however, to a certain degree already re-producing the border as a barrier, and less as an opportunity for innovative practices, and therefore only partly does justice to the role of the border for regional innovations, as suggested by some of the opponents at this public defence.

Innovative spaces, or, given the main topic of this web-blog, probably it would be better to speak of innovative places, in general seem to thrive in (hyper)diverse milieu’s. The diversity, creates tensions, uncertainties, risks, and challenges but also seems to stimulate, inspire, and create unexpected combinations, and sparks new ideas, and offers possibilities for the impossible. These differences are thus always burdensome, sometimes even obstructive (the border as barrier) and need continuous investments and efforts, but the innovative opportunities these diversities offer are constitutive for any kind of innovation process. So probably it would be useful to re-conceptualise the border not just as barrier but also as opportunity. This would also imply a totally new look at the fuzziness of these places. Fuzziness as a resource and as something to celebrate. Jos van den Broek, with his main focus institutionalisation, speaks e.g. of ‘fuzzy governance spaces’ as a precondition for successful cross-border innovation processes.

The PhD thesis of Jos van den Broek, inspires us to these kinds of thought experiments on ‘cross-border placemaking’. A worthwhile reading…

09.10.201817.10.2018

Collegial Leadership as Placemaking

Universities are organisations which are not easy to run and manage. Most employees are highly educated professionals, and as such often self-confident intellectuals with their own independent visions and ideas and not necessarily diligent and willing employees happy to follow any directives of their superiors. They are not easily managed or steered. Leadership in these kind of settings can not easily be characterised. Of course knowledge in the ‘knowledge industry’ of a university this specialised knowledge is a crucial asset for leadership, but also experience with different kinds of settings and situations in which knowledge is created are of equally great importance. Seniority expressed in this kind of knowledge and experience, often in a very specific specialised field, therefore is an important resource, and often the main criteria for appointing professors. At the same time especially full professors as chair holders are supposed to also have the scope and overview over the broader disciplinary and inter-disciplinary field, as well as the ability to think outside of the box based on experiences with doing ‘science’ in very different organisational situations and settings. These are essential qualification for leadership in knowledge oriented organisations. So even when we would seek to create a flat organisation, we need to accept that we are dealing with a situation where there is a kind of natural hierarchy with respect to the professional background and experience. On the other hand in this situation also an autocratic authoritarian leadership will always fail. There is no-one able to have the competence to overview it all and know it best. So hierarchy is somehow naturally given within specific professional fields, but respectful collegial team work between peers in different disciplinary fields is needed.

Given this situation in universities and other organisation in higher education, one often prefers a collegial model of management and leadership. ‘The academic environment seems to be particularly suited to collaborative leadership. The presence of numerous semi-autonomous academic, administrative, and staff structures characterised by relatively highly educated individuals makes the academic particularly susceptible to silo thinking and a lack of a level of communication and interaction across areas necessary for optimal success’ (Mooney, Burns & Chadwick, 2012, p. 144). But what does this entail?

What is collegial leadership?

Bush (2003, p. 65-67) report that collegial models have the following major features (adapted from http://www.opentextbooks.org.hk/ditatopic/17925):

They are strongly normative in orientation. This is not so much leadership because of formal procedures and division of authorities, and much more based on the normative visions, convictions and strategies, and therefore much more ‘content’ and less process and structure based (Webb & Vulliamy, 1996, p. 443). Usually, taking in the competences and experiences of the leader into account, this also implies that the leader takes the initiative and comes with elaborate proposals. Here hierarchy thus pays a role.
Collegial models seem to be particularly appropriate for organisations such as universities that have significant numbers of professional staff. Scientists have an authority of expertise that contrasts with the positional authority associated with formal models. Scientists require a measure of autonomy in the lacture hall and in their research but also need to collaborate to ensure a coherent approach to teaching, learning and researching (Brundrett, 1998, p. 307). Collegial models assume that professionals also have a right to share in the wider decision-making process. Shared decisions are likely to be better informed and are also much more likely to be implemented effectively.
Collegial models assume a common set of values held by members of the organisation. These common values guide the managerial activities of the organisation and are thought to lead to shared educational and research objectives. The common values of professionals form part of the justification for the optimistic assumption that it is always possible to reach agreement about goals and policies. Brundrett (1998, p. 308) goes further in referring to the importance of ‘shared vision’ as a basis for collegial decision-making.
The size of decision-making groups is an important element in collegial management. They have to be sufficiently small to enable everyone to be heard. This may mean that collegiality works better in elementary schools, or in sub-units, than at the institutional level in secondary schools. Meetings of the whole staff may operate collegially in small departments but may be suitable only for information exchange in larger institutions. The collegial model deals with this problem of scale by building-in the assumption that scientists have formal representation within the various decision-making bodies. The democratic element of formal representation rests on the allegiance owed by participants to their constituencies (Bush, 2003, p. 67).
Collegial models assume that decisions are reached by consensus. The belief that there are common values and shared objectives leads to the view that it is both desirable and possible to resolve problems by agreement. The decision-making process may be elongated by the search for compromise but this is regarded as an acceptable price to pay to maintain the aura of shared values and beliefs. The case for consensual decision-making rests in part on the ethical dimension of collegiality. Imposing decisions on staff is considered morally repugnant, and inconsistent with the notion of consent.

One can also have a look at this brief video by Dan Wood on different collegial leadership styles (click on image):

Essential to this collegial idea is that leadership should not just be seem as a vertical relationship, but also as a horizontal leadership relation between equals. In practice this implies that there is a hierarchy in decision making based on differing level of qualifications and competences, but that this vertical leadership is based on persuasion creating sufficient support. At the same time the horizontal leadership is based on respectful acceptance of the specific competences of one’s peers. With respect to decision making this requires a consensus model in which final decisions need to be taken by unanimity, or to put it in other terms, that each of the members of the decision making body have a right to veto the decision. In a working consensus model this will probably be a very rare case. In case of a consensus decision, in a collegial system this decision is also presented as a joint decision, and the decision making body would also be jointly responsible for the implementation of the decision. If no consensus can be reached usually the next higher level of authority would come to a final verdict.

These collegial ideas are, in my personal view, very essential for the kind of Place a university is and for the kind of Culture which characterises our Department as an intellectual breeding ground for great scientific ideas for the future.

Author: Huib Ernste