Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MPP (Mapping Practices under Pressure. The Everyday Experience of Socio-Economic Change in Deindustrialising Cities, 1960-2000)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2023-04-30
With this project I aimed to understand how practices of political and social engagement changed under pressure of socio-economic change that hit many deindustrializing Western cities during the 1970s and 1980s. We can easily imagine that commitment and participation faded when individuals lost their jobs, families were confronted with changing occupation patterns, neighborhoods went through demographic shifts and experienced mass migration, industrial plants closed down and cities in fiscal crisis dismantled their social infrastructure. Presumably, the erosion of industrial communities came with disengagement and social polarization, which seem to have preconfigured many current urban problems. However, the actual impact of the socio-economic setback on commitment and participation is not quite clear. In fact, there is also evidence that the challenges of deindustrialization might have strengthened local communities and created new forms of political and social engagement.
In Antwerp, the contestation of environmental risks was one of the key issues of deindustrialization. Thus, I focused on practices through which residents of deindustrializing neighborhoods addressed and tried to mitigate environmental hazards and pollution. This focus ties in with recent scholarship on environmental justice, which has controversially discussed the ability and likelihood of disadvantaged communities to confront hazards and nuisances. In this debate, the relation between social inequalities and environmental justice is widely understood as a socio-spatial issue and many scholars have employed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze this nexus. However, while most researchers have used GIS to show how disadvantaged communities were disproportionally affected by the location of polluting facilities and environmental hazards, I employed this methodology to understand where and how opposition formed around such sites. In this way, I was able to map the emergence of practices of political and social engagement directed against the environmental risks which deindustrializing neighborhoods were exposed to.
In Antwerp, the contestation of environmental risks was one of the key issues of deindustrialization. Thus, I focused on practices through which residents of deindustrializing neighborhoods addressed and tried to mitigate environmental hazards and pollution. This focus ties in with recent scholarship on environmental justice, which has controversially discussed the ability and likelihood of disadvantaged communities to confront hazards and nuisances. In this debate, the relation between social inequalities and environmental justice is widely understood as a socio-spatial issue and many scholars have employed Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to analyze this nexus. However, while most researchers have used GIS to show how disadvantaged communities were disproportionally affected by the location of polluting facilities and environmental hazards, I employed this methodology to understand where and how opposition formed around such sites. In this way, I was able to map the emergence of practices of political and social engagement directed against the environmental risks which deindustrializing neighborhoods were exposed to.
The development of the novel methodological approach to understand how practices of political and social engagement changed under the pressure of deindustrialization was closely integrated with the GIStorical Antwerp project at the University of Antwerp’s Centre for Urban History. In order to analyze the socio-spatial patterns of environmental justice, I collected and mapped data on the objections residents voiced in the context of so called “commodo et incommodo” procedures in Antwerp between 1983-1985. These highly standardized procedures are systematically documented in sources held at the Antwerp City Archives and they offer a comprehensive overview over the opposition against hazards and nuisances on a city-wide basis. This data was correlated with spatial data on social inequality taken from the survey “Kansarmoede in de grootstad Antwerpen”, which was conducted between 1983 and 1987 to find out about the spatial distribution of social deprivation in Antwerp. As a result, I was able to show that “disadvantaged” communities did indeed show a high degree of political and social engagement addressing environmental risks, and that the controversies strengthened local civic practices under the pressure of deindustrialization.
For a more in-depth analysis of a case on the neighborhood level, I turned my attention to one of the most controversial industrial sites in Antwerp, the lead refinery operated by Metallurgie Hoboken-Overpelt (today Umicore) in the district of Hoboken. Located in a deindustrializing part of the city, the plant’s lead emissions posed a serious hazard to the local community which was affected by rising levels of unemployment and destitution. Nonetheless, community organization and political engagement to confront lead pollution persistently grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s. For the analysis of this specific case, I did not only consult the relevant primary sources but also collaborated with the Hoboken history association to reach out to the local community. The main conclusion of this case study is that the ability of “disadvantaged” communities to confront environmental risks is significantly enhanced by the emergence of social networks which bring together residents, experts, and politicians.
I presented main results of the project at the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) Conference 2022 as well as at six workshops and lectures at the University of Antwerp and other universities. Insights from the project also fed into my tasks as a member of the advisory board for the exhibition “Remix Industrial Past: Constructing the Identity of the Minett” (European Capital of Culture Esch2022) at the University of Luxembourg/C2DH. With a presentation at the local history association of Hoboken, I was able to communicate some of the major aspects of the project to the local community. Results are further disseminated through the publication of the data acquired as well as a number of journal articles to be published in the course of 2023/24.
For a more in-depth analysis of a case on the neighborhood level, I turned my attention to one of the most controversial industrial sites in Antwerp, the lead refinery operated by Metallurgie Hoboken-Overpelt (today Umicore) in the district of Hoboken. Located in a deindustrializing part of the city, the plant’s lead emissions posed a serious hazard to the local community which was affected by rising levels of unemployment and destitution. Nonetheless, community organization and political engagement to confront lead pollution persistently grew throughout the 1970s and 1980s. For the analysis of this specific case, I did not only consult the relevant primary sources but also collaborated with the Hoboken history association to reach out to the local community. The main conclusion of this case study is that the ability of “disadvantaged” communities to confront environmental risks is significantly enhanced by the emergence of social networks which bring together residents, experts, and politicians.
I presented main results of the project at the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) Conference 2022 as well as at six workshops and lectures at the University of Antwerp and other universities. Insights from the project also fed into my tasks as a member of the advisory board for the exhibition “Remix Industrial Past: Constructing the Identity of the Minett” (European Capital of Culture Esch2022) at the University of Luxembourg/C2DH. With a presentation at the local history association of Hoboken, I was able to communicate some of the major aspects of the project to the local community. Results are further disseminated through the publication of the data acquired as well as a number of journal articles to be published in the course of 2023/24.
For the future, the project raised a number of questions regarding the possibilities of combining qualitative GIS with concepts of Citizen Science. This is based on the observation that spatial representations can serve as a superb communicative tool and foster engagement in community-based research on urban history. The main challenge is to integrate historical GIS and Citizen Science in a meaningful and feasible way. So far, GIS has been mainly used – and is actually designed – to analyze quantitative data. However, there is still great potential to expand into the realm of qualitative data and “deep mapping”. In my project, I experimented with methods to enrich spatial data with qualitative information on specific places in the past. In a next step, I will draw on these experiences to systematically implement concepts of Citizen Science through the use of GIS.