AoIR Abstract

Author(s): Clifford Tatum

Title: Vancouver Chinatown: An exploration of spatiality online and offline

*** The overarching purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which notions of spatiality operate in the multicultural environment of Vancouver’s Chinatown and as a means to characterize cyberspace as a distinct space by comparison to physical space. I use multiple methods in a cross-disciplinary inquiry to explore socially constructed boundaries in both online and offline environments. Vancouver’s Chinatown, like many Chinatowns around the world, maintains a distinct “Chinese-ness” in architecture, commercial presence, and ambiance. Additionally, Chinatowns in North America share a common history of immigration, exclusion, and complex negotiation of spatial boundaries within their respective host cities. Thus, Chinatown presents a unique opportunity to study both cultural negotiation of boundaries and more specific to this paper a comparison of these socially constructed boundaries with those represented on the various websites dedicated, in this case, to Vancouver Chinatown. Theorists have contemplated spatiality for millennia, primarily in terms of physicality. More recent theoretical discourse manifests in various notions of non-physical space. Often this non-physical space is conceptualized as a third space, neither physical nor imaginary. Foucault’s “heterotopias” or “other spaces” for example are defined as a socially constructed spaces at the convergence of words and things or “les mots et les chose” (1971). This view of other spaces is particularly relevant to Foucault in the discursive construction of knowledge (1984) where “other” refers to both a non-physicality and that which is different. And further that heterotopias emerge in the distinct differences in knowledge (1984, preface xix – xxii). Saco (2002) equates Foucault’s “otherness” in heterotopias as “a kind of in-between space of contradiction, of contestation: a space that mimics or simulates lived spaces, but that in so doing, calls those spaces we live in into question (p14). With this distinction I foreground a notion of boundary negotiation in both physical and cyber spaces as discursively co-produced by virtue of conflicting priorities and power dynamics. Cyberspace both provides a space for discursive construction of other spaces and results in other space by virtue of the tension between conflicting notions of truth. Linked to another vain of literature scholars recognize the power of discursive knowledge creation in the development and perpetuation of dominant ideologies and what is accepted as “truth” (see Said, 1978, Chomsky, 2001 and McLuhan, 1989). And further that the use of media technologies is complicit in this arrangement (see McLuhan, 1989 and Wilkin, 2001 for example). Thus, I use the intersection of spatiality and cyberspace theory as a critical lens from which to analyze the ways in which cyber spatiality and geographic platiality contribute to the negotiation of physically bounded space and liminally bounded notions of space. To get at current negotiations of physical boundaries I use a combination of urban planning data gathering methods. As a participant observer in Vancouver’s Chinatown revitalization plan I incorporate activity planning (Hamdi & Goethert, 1997), and interviews as a way to reveal relationships of interdependence, conflict, and power differential in the negotiations of boundaries, as well as environmental behavior observation (Zeisel, 1984) and cognitive mapping (Canter, 1977) as a way to understand socially constructed perceptions of these same boundaries. I then overlay a mapping of these negotiated and somewhat contentious boundaries with a similar mapping of spatial boundaries as conceived on relevant Chinatown websites. In this case I use recent innovations in web sphere analysis (Schneider & Foot, forthcoming—a & b) whereby I incorporate traditional network analysis with a mostly static bounding strategy. By participating in and observing the ongoing revitalization efforts currently underway in Vancouver’s Chinatown I gain a unique understanding of their complex and multi-layered negotiation of boundaries. And from this vantage point am able to draw comparisons between online and offline constructions of spatiality and ultimately I provide a sketch of cyberspatiality as distinct from physical space. References: Canter, D. (1977). Thepsychology of Place. London: The Archtechtual Press, chapter 4, pp. 49-78 Chomsky, N. (2001). 9-11. New York: Seven Stories Press. Foucault, M. (1974). The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. London,: Tavistock Publications. Foucault, M., & Rabinow, P. (1984). The Foucault reader. New York: Pantheon Books. Hamdi, N. & Goethert, R. (1997) Action Planning for Cities. Special Interest Group in Urban Settlements (SIGUS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA McLuhan, M., & Powers, B. R. (1989). The global village : transformations in world life and media in the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press. Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Saco, D. (2002). Cybering democracy : public space and the Internet. Minneapolis ; London: University of Minnesota Press. Schneider, Steve & Kirsten Foot, (forthcoming-a) "The Web as an Object of Study," forthcoming in New Media and Society. Schneider, S. M. and Foot, K. A. (Forthcoming-b) "Web Sphere Analysis: An Approach to Studying Online Action," In Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet (Ed, Hine, C.) Berg, Oxford. Zeisel, J (1984) Inquiry by Design: Tools for Emvironment-Behaivor Research. New York: Cambridge University Press

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AoIR 5.0

	*Author(s):* Clifford Tatum
	*Title:* Vancouver Chinatown: An exploration of spatiality online and offline

***	The overarching purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which notions of spatiality operate in the multicultural environment of Vancouver’s Chinatown and as a means to characterize cyberspace as a distinct space by comparison to physical space. I use multiple methods in a cross-disciplinary inquiry to explore socially constructed boundaries in both online and offline environments. Vancouver’s Chinatown, like many Chinatowns around the world, maintains a distinct “Chinese-ness” in architecture, commercial presence, and ambiance. Additionally, Chinatowns in North America share a common history of immigration, exclusion, and complex negotiation of spatial boundaries within their respective host cities. Thus, Chinatown presents a unique opportunity to study both cultural negotiation of boundaries and more specific to this paper a comparison of these socially constructed boundaries with those represented on the various websites dedicated, in this case, to Vancouver Chinatown. Theorists have contemplated spatiality for millennia, primarily in terms of physicality. More recent theoretical discourse manifests in various notions of non-physical space. Often this non-physical space is conceptualized as a third space, neither physical nor imaginary. Foucault’s “heterotopias” or “other spaces” for example are defined as a socially constructed spaces at the convergence of words and things or “les mots et les chose” (1971). This view of other spaces is particularly relevant to Foucault in the discursive construction of knowledge (1984) where “other” refers to both a non-physicality and that which is different. And further that heterotopias emerge in the distinct differences in knowledge (1984, preface xix – xxii). Saco (2002) equates Foucault’s “otherness” in heterotopias as “a kind of in-between space of contradiction, of contestation: a space that mimics or simulates lived spaces, but that in so doing, calls those spaces we live in into question (p14). With this distinction I foreground a notion of boundary negotiation in both physical and cyber spaces as discursively co-produced by virtue of conflicting priorities and power dynamics. Cyberspace both provides a space for discursive construction of other spaces and results in other space by virtue of the tension between conflicting notions of truth. Linked to another vain of literature scholars recognize the power of discursive knowledge creation in the development and perpetuation of dominant ideologies and what is accepted as “truth” (see Said, 1978, Chomsky, 2001 and McLuhan, 1989). And further that the use of media technologies is complicit in this arrangement (see McLuhan, 1989 and Wilkin, 2001 for example). Thus, I use the intersection of spatiality and cyberspace theory as a critical lens from which to analyze the ways in which cyber spatiality and geographic platiality contribute to the negotiation of physically bounded space and liminally bounded notions of space. To get at current negotiations of physical boundaries I use a combination of urban planning data gathering methods. As a participant observer in Vancouver’s Chinatown revitalization plan I incorporate activity planning (Hamdi & Goethert, 1997), and interviews as a way to reveal relationships of interdependence, conflict, and power differential in the negotiations of boundaries, as well as environmental behavior observation (Zeisel, 1984) and cognitive mapping (Canter, 1977) as a way to understand socially constructed perceptions of these same boundaries. I then overlay a mapping of these negotiated and somewhat contentious boundaries with a similar mapping of spatial boundaries as conceived on relevant Chinatown websites. In this case I use recent innovations in web sphere analysis (Schneider & Foot, forthcoming—a & b) whereby I incorporate traditional network analysis with a mostly static bounding strategy. By participating in and observing the ongoing revitalization efforts currently underway in Vancouver’s Chinatown I gain a unique understanding of their complex and multi-layered negotiation of boundaries. And from this vantage point am able to draw comparisons between online and offline constructions of spatiality and ultimately I provide a sketch of cyberspatiality as distinct from physical space. References: Canter, D. (1977). Thepsychology of Place. London: The Archtechtual Press, chapter 4, pp. 49-78 Chomsky, N. (2001). 9-11. New York: Seven Stories Press. Foucault, M. (1974). The order of things: an archaeology of the human sciences. London,: Tavistock Publications. Foucault, M., & Rabinow, P. (1984). The Foucault reader. New York: Pantheon Books. Hamdi, N. & Goethert, R. (1997) Action Planning for Cities. Special Interest Group in Urban Settlements (SIGUS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA McLuhan, M., & Powers, B. R. (1989). The global village : transformations in world life and media in the 21st century. New York: Oxford University Press. Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage. Saco, D. (2002). Cybering democracy : public space and the Internet. Minneapolis ; London: University of Minnesota Press. Schneider, Steve & Kirsten Foot, (forthcoming-a) "The Web as an Object of Study," forthcoming in New Media and Society. Schneider, S. M. and Foot, K. A. (Forthcoming-b) "Web Sphere Analysis: An Approach to Studying Online Action," In Virtual Methods: Issues in Social Research on the Internet (Ed, Hine, C.) Berg, Oxford. Zeisel, J (1984) Inquiry by Design: Tools for Emvironment-Behaivor Research. New York: Cambridge University Press