Toggle Main Menu Toggle Search

Open Access padlockePrints

Envisioning Migration: Drawing the Infrastructure of Stapleton Road, Bristol

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Robin Finlay

Downloads


Licence

This is the final published version of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, 2015.

For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.


Abstract

This paper is an exploration of the different ways drawing can be practised to understand how migration shapes the infrastructure of the so-called ‘British’ high street. The research emerges from a cross-disciplinary study of migrant economies and spaces on Stapleton Road, a high street in a comparatively deprived and diverse part of Bristol, UK. Our primary aim is to contribute to discussions about the role of drawing as a critical visual practice in social research, highlighting methodological and substantive potentials. The second aim of our paper is to elaborate on the relationships between urban migration, urban marginalization and ‘migrant infrastructure’ (Hall, King and Finlay 2016), and we visualize through four drawings, how power, materiality and place constitute the infrastructure of Stapleton Road. We engage with infrastructure as a lively system of shared resources that situates migrant entrepreneurs in the city, and is configured by an array of migration processes across time and space. We suggest that drawing is an exploratory and critical visual practice, providing us tools to see socio-spatial relationships in temporal and scalar dimensions. To ‘envision’ migration is to encounter and re-present the varied dimensions of street life in relation to the structural production of urban migration, marginalization and diversity.This paper is an exploration of the different ways drawing can be practised to understand how migration shapes the infrastructure of the so-called ‘British’ high street. The research emerges from a cross-disciplinary study of migrant economies and spaces on Stapleton Road, a high street in a comparatively deprived and diverse part of Bristol, UK. Our primary aim is to contribute to discussions about the role of drawing as a critical visual practice in social research, highlighting methodological and substantive potentials. The second aim of our paper is to elaborate on the relationships between urban migration, urban marginalization and ‘migrant infrastructure’ (Hall, King and Finlay 2016), and we visualize through four drawings, how power, materiality and place constitute the infrastructure of Stapleton Road. We engage with infrastructure as a lively system of shared resources that situates migrant entrepreneurs in the city, and is configured by an array of migration processes across time and space. We suggest that drawing is an exploratory and critical visual practice, providing us tools to see socio-spatial relationships in temporal and scalar dimensions. To ‘envision’ migration is to encounter and re-present the varied dimensions of street life in relation to the structural production of urban migration, marginalization and diversity.This paper is an exploration of the different ways drawing can be practised to understand how migration shapes the infrastructure of the so-called ‘British’ high street. The research emerges from a cross-disciplinary study of migrant economies and spaces on Stapleton Road, a high street in a comparatively deprived and diverse part of Bristol, UK. Our primary aim is to contribute to discussions about the role of drawing as a critical visual practice in social research, highlighting methodological and substantive potentials. The second aim of our paper is to elaborate on the relationships between urban migration, urban marginalization and ‘migrant infrastructure’ (Hall, King and Finlay 2016), and we visualize through four drawings, how power, materiality and place constitute the infrastructure of Stapleton Road. We engage with infrastructure as a lively system of shared resources that situates migrant entrepreneurs in the city, and is configured by an array of migration processes across time and space. We suggest that drawing is an exploratory and critical visual practice, providing us tools to see socio-spatial relationships in temporal and scalar dimensions. To ‘envision’ migration is to encounter and re-present the varied dimensions of street life in relation to the structural production of urban migration, marginalization and diversity.This paper is an exploration of the different ways drawing can be practised to understand how migration shapes the infrastructure of the so-called ‘British’ high street. The research emerges from a cross-disciplinary study of migrant economies and spaces on Stapleton Road, a high street in a comparatively deprived and diverse part of Bristol, UK. Our primary aim is to contribute to discussions about the role of drawing as a critical visual practice in social research, highlighting methodological and substantive potentials. The second aim of our paper is to elaborate on the relationships between urban migration, urban marginalization and ‘migrant infrastructure’ (Hall, King and Finlay 2016), and we visualize through four drawings, how power, materiality and place constitute the infrastructure of Stapleton Road. We engage with infrastructure as a lively system of shared resources that situates migrant entrepreneurs in the city, and is configured by an array of migration processes across time and space. We suggest that drawing is an exploratory and critical visual practice, providing us tools to see socio-spatial relationships in temporal and scalar dimensions. To ‘envision’ migration is to encounter and re-present the varied dimensions of street life in relation to the structural production of urban migration, marginalization and diversity.This paper is an exploration of the different ways drawing can be practised to understand how migration shapes the infrastructure of the so-called ‘British’ high street. The research emerges from a cross-disciplinary study of migrant economies and spaces on Stapleton Road, a high street in a comparatively deprived and diverse part of Bristol, UK. Our primary aim is to contribute to discussions about the role of drawing as a critical visual practice in social research, highlighting methodological and substantive potentials. The second aim of our paper is to elaborate on the relationships between urban migration, urban marginalization and ‘migrant infrastructure’ (Hall, King and Finlay 2016), and we visualize through four drawings, how power, materiality and place constitute the infrastructure of Stapleton Road. We engage with infrastructure as a lively system of shared resources that situates migrant entrepreneurs in the city, and is configured by an array of migration processes across time and space. We suggest that drawing is an exploratory and critical visual practice, providing us tools to see socio-spatial relationships in temporal and scalar dimensions. To ‘envision’ migration is to encounter and re-present the varied dimensions of street life in relation to the structural production of urban migration, marginalization and diversity.


Publication metadata

Author(s): Hall S, King J, Finlay R

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: New Diversities

Year: 2015

Volume: 17

Issue: 2

Pages: 59-72

Acceptance date: 10/10/2015

Date deposited: 07/10/2016

ISSN (print): 2199-8108

ISSN (electronic): 2199-8116

Publisher: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity

URL: http://newdiversities.mmg.mpg.de/?page_id=2186


Share