Urban change and transformation of sociability

Abstract

The paper deals with changing forms of urban sociability during the 20th century. It is based on dissertation work that aims to analyse practices and spaces of informal interaction in two urban working-class neighborhoods, one in Helsinki, Finland, the other in Bolton, UK. Visiting- practices, courtship and pub-life patterns are looked at in two cross- section periods (Œindustrial‚ late 1930s and Œpostindustrial‚ 1975-1990). The practices have not been chosen to cover the whole field of sociability, but to work as interconnected case studies of wider processes of historical change. They will be dealt with on three overlapping levels. Firstly, Visiting-practices, courtship and pub-life are looked at as practices, structured by sets of tacit and historically changing rules. Secondly, they have acted as basis for certain kinds of social networks. Thirdly, all of these practices have been situated in certain urban spaces and connected to changing material culture that has structured the way people interact. How have the physical and technological settings of sociability changed, and how have social practices been affected by these changes? Based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative sources, the paper aims to assess often repeated assumptions of Œdeteriorating communality‚ and Œsocial fragmentation‚ in urban context as well as to make empirical insights on the transition from industrial to post-industrial cities. Comparative approach is used to set local patterns into wider context.