Exclusion and inclusion in the suburb: The centripetal and centrifugal forces of locality and place.

Place: Sosialantropologisk institutt, UiO

Project leader: Thomas Hylland Eriksen

Seven senior researchers, four postdoctors, two Ph. D. candidate and five MA students from six academic disciplines (social anthropology, media studies, education, theology, history and consumption research) collaborate in this interdisciplinary project, which aims to study a locality in Grorud Valley (eastern Oslo), using qualitative methods in order to identify and analyse conditions for cohesion and sustainability (and, by implication, non-local forms of identification). Methods include ethnographic f ieldwork (participant observation), qualitative interviews and archival studies, plus some surveys. The theoretical framework is defined by network theory, mobility theory, urban studies and current theories of social identification. The component project s will focus on (i) the residential environment, (ii) mobility and immobility, (iii) public spaces and meeting-places, (iv) school mobility and school change, (v) the role of local media, (vi) electronic communication and transnational media, (vii) cultur al hybridity and mixing, (viii) narratives of the past and social memory, (ix) religion. The sub-projects are complementary and relate to the overarching research questions, which are: - Which are the social and cultural processes that contribute to inte gration and sustainability in the suburb, and how are they embedded institutionally?Which are the processes encouraging non-local forms of belonging (ranging from virtual communities to national/ethnic loyalties and transnational ties), and how do they a rticulate with locality-enhancing processes?-How do different social arenas and fields of discourse (ranging from sport and school to consumption and kinship) relate to each other with respect to "the production of locality"?-In what ways are local iden tifications confronted with nonlocal ones, through e.g. work mobility, transnational ties and commitments, ethnic or religious loyalties?

Funding: The Norwegian Research Council

Duration: 2009-2013