Open Collections

Accessing outdoor public space on campus

University of British Columbia. Campus and Community Planning

Considerable academic work, specifically within the humanities, has sought to explore the role of place and place-making in the construction of individual and group meaning. Some of geography’s key contemporary contributions to the study of place have emphasized its processual, open, material, power-laden, and relational qualities. While the degree to which individuals control their movement, connection to, and position within the network of power in place remains contested across the field of place-theory, it has become consensus that human interactional processes are principal contributors to the creation of meaning and affect in place. Opening up understandings of place to include this material existence of bodies, and the lived/affective experiences that accompany them, allow for a more grounded interpretation of place. For the purpose of this study, I want to draw attention to the impact of accessibility and its role in the use of outdoor space; a seminal and foundational site through which opportunities for sense of place can be realized, and as influential in enabling place-making processes. Though notions of access to both space and place are readily explored in text, accounts often emphasize access, or lack there of, in relation to the ableness of bodies; to social, racial, and class mobility. I hope to extend some of these discussions of power relations while emphasizing access in the context of student-institutional relations, and the influence of access in mediating relationships between these bodies. Consequently, this study is primarily concerned with the ways in which various student-led groups/organizations at the University of British Columbia (UBC) access, experience, and thus negotiate outdoor, public space on the Vancouver campus. A complimentary aim of the study is to explore how varying group practices reveal the impact of accessibility on the promotion of place-making and the construction of student community and wellbeing. These considerations and nuanced intersections between place, access, and community are particularly significant because, “to feel connected to place is to experience a sense of belonging in place that itself generates resources of immense value in the promotion of health and wellbeing” (Duff, 2010, p. 893). This suggests a direct stake for universities (in general) to invest in understandings of place and place-making, particularly from the students’ perspective. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Text

University of British Columbia. GEOG 448; UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0224471

Arts, Faculty of; Geography, Department of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/