HAN_F_01 Cohesion in and through Neighbourhoods: Neighbourhood Studies and Regional Panel North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony

Objective /Question 

Taking into account regional similarities and differences, how does social cohesion develop in neighbourly interaction spaces? This research question is analysed by the cooperation project in Bielefeld and Hannover in a regional comparative way. It considers social cohesion as a dependent variable whose constitutional conditions must be recorded in spatial and social contexts. On the basis of participation in the regional panel, the disciplinary perspectives of social geography, social psychology, and sociology will be combined in a complementary way in order to investigate social cohesion by means of individual attitudes and behaviour in interaction with spatial structures.

The increasing diversification of residents in neighbourhoods (e.g. in terms of ethnicity, milieu, age, gender, residential status, religious or sexual orientation, etc.) gives rise to potentially conflictual interactions. In the dynamics and complexity of actor-space constellations, an investigation at the neighbourhood level as a city-regional comparison is necessary for understanding the interrelationships and consequences of constructive (e.g. cooperation and help behaviour) or destructive cohesion (e.g. discrimination, inhuman attitudes, or violence). Of particular interest here are social relationships and practices of cohesion such as friendships, social networks, and associations, which can provide the framework for neighbourly interaction and thus provide information about the cohesion lived and felt. As these aspects vary from region to region, the comparison of the framework conditions and results of cohesion is of great importance.

Thematic Reference to Social Cohesion

Social cohesion is spatially differentiated. The project looks at different scale levels of regional comparison, which refer to the neighbourhoods in Bielefeld and Hannover, in order to be able to make statements about (un)specific opportunity structures. The cooperation project therefore focuses on interactions – as moments of social togetherness or antagonism – in the spatial context of regionally differentiated neighbourhoods. Due to their differential composition of residents, intersectionalities, and spatial opportunity structures, specific cohesive constellations develop in the respective neighbourhoods, the composition and structure of which must be investigated.

Social cohesion is a multidimensional, gradual phenomenon and therefore has a cohesive effect in and on neighbourhoods, and thus also regionally, to different degrees. For example, degrees of social cohesion can differ in the attitudes and behaviour of residents depending on sociospatial conditions.

The thesis is that interactions in space that take place between individuals and groups in a neighbourhood lead to different forms of social cohesion. For this reason, non-material cohesion (cognitive and affective aspects as well as values) and (inter)subjective experienced cohesion (behaviour and traces of behaviour) as well as relational facets of cohesion (social relations between residents) must be spatially analysed in their mutual conditionality.