Exploring Place Attachment and Neighbourhood Effects

A case study of Skärholmen and Vårberg, Sweden

Amatul Sabooh Sara

Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning, 120 HE credits Master’s thesis (30 credits) Spring term January-June 2020 Supervisors: Danielle Drozdzewski and Eva Andersson

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Sara, Amatul Sabooh (2020) Exploring place attachment and neighbourhood effects: A case study of Skärholmen and Vårberg, Sweden Urban and Regional Planning, advanced level, master thesis for master exam in Urban and Regional Planning, 30 ECTS credits Supervisors: Danielle Drozdsewski and Eva Andersson

Language: English Key words: neighbourhood effect, place attachment, social cohesion, collective efficacy, social ties.

Abstract If we take residential neighbourhoods as a space for making social ties and interactions, we can learn a lot about the generated neighbourhood effects on its residents and their subsequent attachments towards neighbourhoods as a place. It is believed that neighbourhoods have an impact on individuals and groups either significant or insignificant. The neighbourhood effect is understood by deeply observing the common trends, norms and similar behaviours, furthermore, by measuring the influence it has on life of its residents. This study intends to explore the relationships between neighbourhood effects and place attachment and is inspired from a bigger project ‘The Neighbourhood Revisited’ (Research programme in Department of Human Geography at Stockholm University, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond 2019-2024) that explores the spatial polarization and social cohesion in contemporary Sweden. The aim of my study is to look at social ties, how it changes over time and what neighbourhood effects we can observe on its residents’ social lives. Neighbourhood effect and place attachment studied together, through the narratives of local residents give many new meanings to both concepts. My focus here is on social aspects of it.

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Acknowledgments I would like to say thank you to all the interview and survey participants who took part in my study. Without their valuable insights, this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to acknowledge the support and compassion from my family, my mother who is the most progressive person I have ever known, my husband Arsllan who encourages me in every step and pushes me to fulfil my dreams regardless of the circumstances, my daughter Irha who is the light of my life and keeps me going no matter what. I would also say thanks to my supervisors at department of Human Geography, Stockholm University, Danielle Drozdzewski and Eva Andersson for many valuable sessions of discussion, feedback, understanding and appreciation throughout this thesis. They put their valuable time and expertise in every stage of this study and supported me throughout the process.

June 2020 Amatul Sabooh Sara

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Table of Contents ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................................. 2 1. INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 4

1.1 BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................ 4 1.2 AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................................ 5 1.3 LIMITS ....................................................................................................................................... 6 1.4 THESIS STRUCTURE .................................................................................................................... 6

2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORY ................................................................................ 7 2.1 DEFINING NEIGHBOURHOODS ..................................................................................................... 7 2.2 NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECT AND SOCIAL TIES .............................................................................. 7 2.3 COLLECTIVE EFFICACY .............................................................................................................. 8 2.4 PLACE ATTACHMENT ................................................................................................................. 9

3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................ 12 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................................................................................... 12

3.1.1 Qualitative and interpretative approach .............................................................................. 12 3.1.2 Selection of case study – Skärholmen and Vårberg neighbourhood ................................... 13

3.2 RESEARCH METHODS ............................................................................................................... 17 3.2.1 Interview process ................................................................................................................ 17 3.2.2 Coding and analysis process ............................................................................................... 19 3.2.3 Survey ................................................................................................................................ 20

3.3 POSITIONALITY ........................................................................................................................ 21 3.4 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...................................................................................................... 22 3.5 STATEMENT OF IMPACT BY COVID-19 ...................................................................................... 23

4. DISCUSSION AND RESULTS (PART I – NEIGHBOURHOOD EFFECT) ......................... 25 4.1 SOCIAL TIES ............................................................................................................................. 25 4.2 SENSE OF SECURITY ................................................................................................................. 27 4.3 COLLECTIVE EFFICACY ............................................................................................................ 29

4.3.1 Discussion and results from survey .................................................................................... 30 4.4 SUMMARY OF RESULTS (I) ........................................................................................................ 32

5. DISCUSSION AND RESULTS (PART II – PLACE ATTACHMENT) ................................. 34 5.1 PLACE ATTACHMENT ............................................................................................................... 34

5.1.1 The street scale ................................................................................................................... 34 5.1.2 The neighbourhood scale .................................................................................................... 36

5.2 SUMMARY OF RESULTS (II) ...................................................................................................... 37 6. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 38 REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................. 40 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................. 44

I. INTERVIEW GUIDE ......................................................................................................................... 44 II. SURVEY COLLECTIVE EFFICACY ................................................................................................... 45 III. ANONYMITY AGREEMENT ............................................................................................................. 46 IV. SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS .................................................................................................................... 47

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1. Introduction Every neighbourhood is different, some neighbourhoods attract people and some neighbourhoods repel. Some neighbourhoods have residents who are attached towards where they live and they get involved in their local activities, they know local people, they value their sense of community and are socially tied within their neighbourhood. On the contrary, some neighbourhoods have residents who do not know local people or local formal/informal associations, who do not get involved in local affairs/activities, they do not attach themselves towards the area and they view their neighbourhoods just as a place to live and not as a societal and sentimental home. Neighbourhoods are complex and they differ in character, identity and their ways of response towards disorder in society. Local communities often have various mechanisms for fighting and controlling not only crime and violent behaviours but minor social disorders as well (Taylor 1996). It has been widely accepted that informal social control by societies plays a more important role in individuals’ lives than formal institutions. Indeed, Sampson’s (2012) The Great American City and Sampson and Groves’ (1989) Community Structure and Crime represent two studies which used a large number of neighbourhoods for their longitudinal study on the socio-economic character of neighbourhoods and criminal behaviours in Chicago (US). They also explored numerous characteristics of informal social control and its role in fighting crimes. Their scholarship has served as baseline for this study as well, ideas and inspirations are drawn from Sampson along with many others (see literature chapter). Apart from Sampson, numerous other scholars are interested in neighbourhood’s influence on other aspects of people’s lives and individual outcomes because of this, such as educational achievement, employment, delinquency, dropout rates and health (e.g., Luke and Xu 2011, van Ham and Kleinepier 2017). There are very strong relationships between these different as mentioned above features of neighbourhoods. In this thesis, I am interested in exploring these features of place attachment, local social ties and involvement together with neighbourhood collective efficacy and social control towards irrational behaviours and the inter-relationship between these features.

1.1 Background Since the beginning of 20th century, scholars such as Guest and Wierzbicki (1999), Putnam (2000), Chambers (2006) have been talking about the big social science question of ‘decline in community’. This discussion of community discourses goes back to community lost, community saved, and community transformed- discussions among sociologists in the 1900s (Jane Jacobs) and earlier 1800s (F. Tönnies). A large volume of social theoretical literature is dedicated towards this question about the future of geographical communities and neighbourhood societies. Researchers have been arguing that geographically localized communities were once relatively autonomous as social units but there has been a gradual shift towards a network of interdependent communities (Guest and Wierzbicki 1999). There is a growing need to raise the question of socially coherent communities and their informal support systems towards their members in this digitally changing globalised world. As Hawley noted “the tendency is for small territorial units to be absorbed and stripped of their functions by the larger universe of activities” (1971, 210). Bender (1978)

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uses the term gemeinschaft1 to describe character of societies that have thick and highly interconnected social ties among the residents. However, the decline in community reality has led towards gesellschaft2 where societies have a limited number of societal connections, less dense and weaker social ties and less inter-personal relationships which are of rationalized ‘end-means’ nature rather than being sentimental. The rapid globalisation of the world also favours the rise in non-local social ties and thus a lessened dependency on geographically localized activities as compared to the past. Guest and Wierzbicki (1999, 95) use the term ‘liberated community’ to describe nascent communities that have a chance of survival in the future, where ‘local social ties have declined, but nonlocal and non-neighbourhood ties persist or even increase’. The decline in such community connections gives rise to the social disorganisations, criminal behaviour and segregation in general as well. In this thesis, I do not, however seek to address this issue of decline in community to its entirety, but this rather serves as a background and inspiration of the idea behind my study. A very few studies enhance the concept of social ties and neighbourhood attachments with that of neighbourhood effects and study their inter-relationships in contemporary Sweden, hence my study and the parent project that I take my inspiration from (as stated above in Introduction section) is significant in terms of its contributions towards the literature on communities and dichotomy of Swedish neighbourhoods. Most of the academic literature on the decline in community question is based on the case studies of US and the UK (for example, see Sampson 2012). The growing challenges of integration and segregation along with the recent rise in immigrant population in Swedish society (Andersson et al. 2018) calls for more social research focused on the above discussed questions of decline in community formation and also the concept of, as they say in Swedish ‘social sammanhållning’ (term for social cohesion). Therefore, it makes me interested in taking a Swedish case study to explore a few concepts revolving around neighbourhoods and communities.

1.2 Aim and research questions The purpose of my study is to look at the different social lives of residents in the same neighbourhood with regards to their social interaction, activities and thoughts about their neighbourhood as well as to explore their place attachment practices towards their immediate neighbourhoods. For this purpose, I plan to interview a number of residents in a selected area and try to explore these concepts from their perspectives. Place attachment in many ways can be a precondition in the generation of neighbourhood effects. The aim, hence, is to explore the impact of neighbourhood effects as it relates to place attachment for the lives of various individuals. I also aim to achieve an understanding of the complex concepts of neighbourhood effect and social ties among residents of same neighbourhood in addition to the social cohesion, social control and collective efficacy and eventually add into the existing literature on these concepts. Hence, my research questions will be,

i) To understand the neighbourhood effect produced through people’s social lives, social ties and collective efficacy.

1 Gemeinschaft: originally used by Tönnies 1887 2 Gesellschaft: originally used by Tönnies 1887

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ii) To explore individuals’ place attachment discourses, practices and scales of attachment in their residential neighbourhoods.

iii) To explore the inter-relationships between these above mentioned characteristics of a residential neighbourhood.

1.3 Limits There were three limitations in this thesis on researcher’s part. First is a geographical limit, the focus of research has only been put on one neighbourhood (Skärholmen-Vårberg) in Stockholm region, this can hinder the generalisability of the findings. Second is a language limitation, most of participants of the research are Swedish and they have English as a second language and researcher also has English as a second language which could possibly hinder the proper understanding of meaning in conversations. Third limitation is a temporal one, the scope of the study was limited to the spring period of education, from January to June 2020. There were other external limitations in data collection and writing phases that are mentioned in the section 3.5.

1.4 Thesis structure The structure of this thesis is described as followed: Chapter one introduces the study and details my aim and research questions. In chapter two, the relevant theoretical perspectives and frameworks are presented that are used as background analytical concepts for the analysis. Chapter three gives the detailed research design, methodology, data collection methods, ethical considerations during data collection and analysis, researcher’s positionality and a few reflections over methods at the end. It also explains the impacts of Covid-19 global pandemic on my research process. Chapter four and five contain the results and discussions over results in the light of theoretical frameworks previously identified in chapter two. Results are provided in two different chapters because I have two major parts of the study (neighbourhood effect and place attachment) which are corelated but also have different meanings attached with them. Chapter six concludes the discussions and results with a few concluding reflections by researcher. This chapter also contains discussion over potential future research related to this thesis. At the end, a list of references is attached in the appendix section along with other relevant attachments of interview guide, survey format, anonymity agreement and social media posts used during the whole study.

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2. Literature review and theory This section includes the detailed study of previous literature on the concepts of neighbourhood, neighbourhood effect and ties and place attachment. It further elaborates different theoretical frameworks that are used for discussion and analysis in this thesis, for instance, Social capital theory by Bourdieu & Wacquant (1992), theory of collective efficacy by Sampson (2012) and also place attachment frameworks by various scholars (see, Scannell and Gifford 2010; Lewicka 2010).

2.1 Defining neighbourhoods Most researchers examining spatiality of neighbourhoods will recognise that there is often no one definable ‘neighbourhood’. What is exactly a neighbourhood, it is a question with many answers in many scenarios. More often than not, neighbourhood means completely different things to different people, and it varies at different times, locations and contexts. This raises important conceptual and methodological questions about how to appropriately define a neighbourhood. According to Castree et al. (2013, 13), neighbourhood is:

An urban residential area, generally small enough to be covered easily on foot. It is sometimes assumed that neighbourhoods are also communities defined by social interaction or defined by geographical boundaries such as major roads, parks, or rivers, but this need not be the case. The degree to which inhabitants of a neighbourhood identify with the area or interact with others is an empirical question.

Researchers like Catney et al. (2019) and Corcoran (2002) explore the perceived definitions and mental mapping techniques of residents to draw somewhat flexible definitions of neighbourhoods and their meaning. They believe that people visualize a place based on their own experiences and perceptions of it. Lynch (1960) identified the core elements by which people develop their image of the place, including paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks. Gould and White (1974) explored ways of measuring, representing and interpreting residential choices, concentrating on the mental redevelopment of preferred surfaces, whereby rankings of perceived residential desirability can be represented cartographically on paper. More recently, mental mapping has been advanced as a technique and even mobile mapping (focused on memory resurfacing) has also been developing in academic research and academic writings (see, Wilmott 2020). As such, we see that neighbourhood can be defined based on geographical features, distances and perceptions, but that definitions are temporally and spatially contingent.

2.2 Neighbourhood effect and social ties Neighbourhood acts as a space for its residents’ social life, as locales for social interaction and for development of social ties. It is common knowledge that people who live geographically closer, tend to interact more than those who live far from each other. Social impacts of these interactions on individual lives could be negative, positive or a mix of both or no impacts at all. Granovetter (1973, 1361) defines the strength of neighbourhood interpersonal social ties as, ‘...the strength of a tie is a (probably linear) combination of the amount of time, the emotional intensity, the intimacy (mutual confiding), and the reciprocal services which characterize the tie’. Social ties have various levels of strength based on the above-mentioned criteria, such as strong ties, weak ties

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and absent ties. Neighbourhood ties need not be emphasized on the frequent interactions and deep socializing, but they can have multiple dimensions like simply chatting, asking for minor favours, asking for looking out, exchange of area information, nodding while passing by and so on (Guest and Wierzbicki 1999). Neighbourhood effects can be defined as ‘the influence on an individual’s behaviour and attitudes that can be attributed to interaction with others in a neighbourhood’ (Castree et al. 2013). Neighbourhood effects scholarship has been developed rapidly in recent years and it mainly revolves around four main themes. First, there is rising social inequality between neighbourhoods in terms of socio-economic and ethnic segregation. Second, effect factors are connected with concentration and geographic isolation of minorities and immigrants. Third, issues such as health problems and crime are given rise at neighbourhood level and these issues are predicted by neighbourhood characteristics for instance poverty, family composition, residential and housing instability and so on. Fourth, many social indicators such as affluence, computer literacy and elite occupational attainment are also clustered geographically among neighbourhoods (Sampson 2012, 46). The neighbourhood effect discourse has many related aspects or concepts attached with it. For example, van Ham et al. (2014) discuss deterministic influences of neighbourhoods to examine the extent to which young adulthood trajectories resemble the trajectories of older generations of adults in the same neighbourhood. Kling et al. (2007) proposed that trajectories of male and female lives are affected differently by neighbourhood effects, eventually leading towards a more feminist study of neighbourhood effect with regards to gender differences. Kleinpier & van Ham, in their recent article raised the question of heterogeneity of experiences (2017), they discussed whether positive or negative effects exerted by a particular neighbourhood can be generalised or not and what are the factors associated with being and exception form the general. Another rather complex component of the neighbourhoods is its composition and the extent to which it plays a role in the dynamics of neighbourhood effect. These components relate to the social composition theory of the mixed neighbourhood theory or spatial mixing (Sampson 2012, 37 & 42). Researchers have two contrasting theories about spatial mixing, one favouring the positive impact of spatial mixing onto neighbourhood effect and the other coming from gentrification experts, suggesting there is a negative impact of spatial mixing on socio-economically disadvantaged groups (Sampson 2012). Next section discusses the theory of collective efficacy in detail and it further links the efficacy theory by Sampson (2012) with place attachment as well.

2.3 Collective efficacy Collective efficacy is a relatable concept in my discussion of the neighbourhood effect on individuals. Collective efficacy relies upon two basic factors: (1) social cohesion among neighbours and (2) their willingness to intervene on behalf of the common good (Sampson 2012). Cusson (2015) further explains the hypothesis of collective efficacy by Sampson as the ‘differential ability of neighbourhoods to maintain social control, cohesion and trust’, which in turn variates the criminal behaviours and violence among different neighbourhoods. It is also important to mention here that social control is not always meant to exactly measure the positive or negative results or impacts of control but rather efforts aimed at social control either successful or failed as a measurement of social cohesion (Cusson 2015 cites Gibbs 1989).

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Sampson explored this concept further through developing a survey for the measurement of collective efficacy in an area. The survey focuses on two sets of inquiries. The first involved investigating if neighbours in a specific area can be counted on to intervene in various social situations to measure the informal social control and cohesion in the area. The second aimed to assess if people agreed with various statements about the residents in that area as a measure of the level of trust and values among residents (Sampson 2012). This survey has been used continuously in various fields of research such as criminal behaviour studies, social and cultural behaviour studies, racial behaviour studies, collective reaction studies and to mention the obvious – neighbourhood effect studies even today. Here, it is also important to mention Bourdieu’s social capital theory. Social capital is ‘the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992). Whereas the ‘inability of a community to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls’ is referred as social disorganization by Sampson (2012). Social disorganization relates to social capital in a way that neighbourhoods lacking a rich social capital are usually unable to realize their common values and structures. Social capital theory thus can be applied on neighbourhood levels in hopes to understand the social structures and richness of areas. A richer social capital leads to higher levels of collective efficacy and social cohesion in an area.

2.4 Place attachment Place attachment is a complex phenomenon that refers to the bonding among people and place and involves the ‘interplay of affect and emotions, knowledge and beliefs, and behaviours and actions in reference to a place’ (Rollero and De Piccoli 2010). Another definition by Brown & Perkins (1992, 284) suggest that...

place attachment involves positively experienced bonds, sometimes occurring without awareness, that are developed over time from the behavioural, affective, and cognitive ties between individuals and/or groups and their socio-physical environment. These bonds provide a framework for both individual and communal aspects of identity and have both stabilizing and dynamic features.

Scannell and Gifford (2010) proposed a three-dimensional framework of place attachment that suggests person dimension, psychological dimension and place dimension in order to cover the differing concepts of place attachment that keep emerging in every field of research.

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Figure 1: The Tripartite Model of Place Attachment (Scannell and Gifford 2010, 2) According to this model, the first dimension is the person: who is attached? And to what extent? is the attachment based on individual meanings and collectively held meanings and experiences? The second dimension is the psychological process: how are feelings, situations, cognition, and psychological and collective behaviours play a role in the attachment? The third dimension is the object of the attachment, including place characteristics: what is the attachment towards, and what is the social and physical nature of, this place? (Scannell and Gifford 2010). This model suggests that the most important aspect of place attachment is the place itself. This dimension has been a centre of research and analysis for various geographical scales, for instance; home, neighbourhood and city. In my discussions and results chapters, I further elaborate the importance of elements of social lives within place attachment and neighbourhood effect processes. The place dimension is further distinguished by its social and physical aspects. Riger and Larvakas (1981) suggest that the social aspect of place attachment or bondedness consists of social ties, belongingness to neighbourhoods and familiarity with fellow residents and neighbourhood children and physical attachment or rootedness comes from the length of residence, ownership and plans of stay. Many studies suggest that residents of neighbourhoods exhibit relatively stronger social attachments than physical attachments (e.g., Hidalgo and Herna ́ndez 2001). People tend to attach to places where they usually meet or greet people and make social relationships and group identities. This point suggests an assumption that social relationships and interactions go hand in hand with place attachment towards physical places. Place attachment comes partly from the objects of social interaction and social ties as well, for instance, friends, neighbours, family or acquaintances whom you form social ties with. Woldoff (2002) assumes that attachment to a place means attachment to those who live there and to the social interactions that the place affords them. Lewicka (2014, 1) beautifully narrates, ‘place attachment implies “anchoring” of emotions in the object of attachment, feeling of belonging, willingness to

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stay close, and wish to return when away’. Here it is important to note the significance of memory as an enabler for attachments towards various social and physical elements of place as well (see for example, Drozdzewski et al. 2019; Lewicka 2008, 2014). Although I do not use this concept any further in my discussion as it is out of scope for my study. The physical aspect of place attachment suggests attachment for various physical features of a place, ranging from built environment such as streets, pathways, buildings, monuments and what not, to natural environments such as lakes, parks, rivers, mountains, hills, woods and views. Another way of looking at physical place attachment is to look at the individual characteristics of a resident combined with the physical aspects of places, for instance length of residence of a person in a specific neighbourhood, the longer someone stays in an area, the more difficult it becomes to detach themselves from that place, and the harder it is to move from that place. Same scenario is true for house ownership status, previous links to a place and so on. Another aspect of attachment to physical place is rootedness or embeddedness with a particular culture that holds up ideals and standards of a place, this could range from built environment to landscapes to building types as well that correspond to the ideas of those cultural norms. Human nature of storing memories and associating feelings towards places is very crucial in making sense of place (Corcoran 2002). This chapter highlighted all the relevant theories on neighbourhoods that I use in my thesis. The theoretical concepts are used together with the findings and discussions and they mean more when used together instead of separately, none of them is significant without each other. For example, collective efficacy theory and neighbourhood effects theories go hand in hand with each other and place attachment elements, intensities and scales fuel ideas of neighbourhood effects. Thus, I try to use all of them in the discussions. Next chapter details the research design, methodology and employed methods of research and further motivates their significance specifically for my research.

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3. Research methodology In this chapter, I present the research methodology. First, I detail the process of case study selection, followed by the research methodology and methods employed in this research. I conclude this chapter by providing some reflections on these methods choices including hurdles and shortcomings faced during data collection. Therein, I also detail my positionality as researcher and provide an ethics statement. In order for me to explore the neighbourhood effect and place attachment, a case study method of research is chosen, since it is possible to study a smaller neighbourhood within the time extent of this course instead of a larger case study.

3.1 Research design 3.1.1 Qualitative and interpretative approach This study attempts to explore neighbourhoods through qualitative research methods. Qualitative research offers a variety of approaches ranging from data collection methods to data analysis methods in a number of social science disciplines. This study intends to follow an empirical research methodology in order to explore a social phenomenon, following the structure; specific research questions, specific themes of the discussions, methods and reliance on both primary and secondary data collection and results that satisfy the research questions and purpose of the research. The research questions are well suited for a qualitative and interpretative approach. An inductive case study approach is utilized in this thesis. An inductive approach allows for a more flexible research design wherein researchers start by gathering all the relevant data about the object of interest or case study. The researcher then takes an overview over the data and look for important patterns that if explained or developed further can add into valuable research. The researcher then develops theory and tries to explain those phenomena. Inductive research design enables the researcher to go back and forth between research processes many times and allows for a process of making general propositions from particular sets of data or observations. It can be thus said that inductive approach follows the pattern of, moving from data to theory or in other words from specific to general (Blackstone 2012).

Figure 2: Inductive case study approach (Blackstone 2012) Further in my study, I use an interpretative approach for the analysis of interview data which is strictly qualitative. The narratives of people are interpreted without moulding their meanings to favour researcher’s own theory. The interpretative nature of my analysis derives its nature from feminist geographical methods of interpretation. Interpretative research in social sciences assumes that human experience and context of reality is the most important factor in its understanding and that the continuously changing social phenomena and context is giving shape to new kind of realities. It’s a process which never attributes objectivity to the reality, it doesn’t assign good or bad, true and false, accurate and inaccurate labels to a social happening. It believes that any interpretation of societies and cultures cannot be truly understood until or unless the interpreter is involved in some kind of social phenomena with them and try to at least pseudo experience it from the

Gather data Specific level of focus

Look for patterns Analysis process

Develop theory General level of focus

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perspective of that society that is, research is subjective instead of being objective. Interpretive research process follows Hermeneutic circle or rather a ‘double Hermeneutics’ (Jackson, 1989), which refers to interpretation of an interpretation and making it an iterative process. Reality of a society is different in every individual’s mind who construct the idea of it. Every perception of reality is different from the other and it is the job of researcher to understand the interpretation of it and reinterpret it for the readers with all of its verbal and nonverbal context in a way that makes it more meaningful and powerful. As Cosgrove (1989, 568) argues that ‘texts escape their authors, control the inscriptions of later writers and are open to the interpretative discourse of their readers’. Later sections of the thesis will discuss the methods employed, motivation for their usage and reliability of the study results and conclusions drawn from it.

3.1.2 Selection of case study – Skärholmen and Vårberg neighbourhood The case study location for this research is the combined Skärholmen-Vårberg neighbourhoods that come within the larger Skärholmen district in the southwestern Stockholm region.

Figure 3: Vårberg (Google maps 2020) Figure 4: Skärholmen (Google maps 2020)

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Figure 5: Aerial view over Skärholmen (Jan Augustsson 2010) In order for me to explore the neighbourhood effect and place attachment, I chose a case study method of a small neighbourhood. The rationale for the selection criteria of this case study area was two-fold. First, the socio-economic demography of the area shows that it is rich in multi-ethnic population and general economic conditions are varying in every part of the larger area which makes it interesting for my research question. A versatile neighbourhood could give mixed and unique kind of results and understandings of neighbourhood effect. This area also ‘fits’ within the area classification clusters identified and presented by Kawalerowicz et al. (2020) at the department of Human Geography (Stockholm university) in the larger parent project The Neighbourhood Revisited, because it exemplifies spatial polarization and social cohesion in a neighbourhood characterised by the specific variables listed in the table below. The illustrations of cluster classification for one cluster containing the case study are as well, is presented here under:

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Figure 6: Cluster 9 areas (Kawalerowicz et al. 2020)

Figure 7: Cluster 9 tendencies (Kawalerowicz et al. 2020)

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The data in this cluster suggests following tendencies for selected indicators in the case study area of Skärholmen and Vårberg: Table 1: Criteria indicators for area clusters (Kawalerowicz et al. 2020)

Indicators Tendency (for case study area)

Tertiary education Medium

Social assistance High

At-risk-of-poverty High

Employment Low

Non-European migrants High to very High

High income Medium

European migrants High

The classification of areas was determined by divisions into clusters based on the variables in Table 1. Above mentioned indicators when measured for over a large number of population (individuals for k number of neighbours). In my case study location of Skärholmen, key markers identifying it as an area of interest and warranting further investigation include medium tertiary education and medium high income; high poverty, high social assistance and low employment; high to very high non-European migrants and high European migrants (Kawalerowicz et al. 2020). The second rationale motivating the choice of case study location pertains to Swedish Police Report (Police 2017) relating the aspects of the socio-economic categorization mentioned above to the area’s levels of criminal activity and its potential increase over time. In their categorisation of risk areas, they use three markers of different levels of risk intensity: Especially vulnerable areas; ‘is characterized by social issues and a criminal presence which has led to a widespread disinclination to participate in the judicial process and difficulties for the police to fulfil their mission. The situation is considered acute’. These areas work as hotspot for recruitment of extremist militant groups and often religious extremism is prevalent in these areas. Risk areas; is an area which lies somewhere between the two of them, especially vulnerable and vulnerable areas. Vulnerable areas; ‘is a geographically defined area characterized by a low socio-economic status where criminals have an impact on the local community. The impact is linked to the social context in the area rather than a wish to take power and control the community’. Police often has to adapt their methods in order for them to control these areas (Police 2017).

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Vårberg is listed as a vulnerable area, but also at risk of becoming an especially vulnerable area given if the report recommendations are not administered properly and if adaptive law enforcement methods are ignored due to some reason (Police 2017). These indicators of high crime and social imbalance again link back subsequently to the above-mentioned indicators of lower levels of tertiary education and employment and also high levels of at-risk-of-poverty and social assistance in these combined areas of Vårberg and Skärholmen. Cumulatively, both socio economic status and potential risk of crime motivated my choice of Skärholmen-Vårberg because I am interested in exploring the neighbourhood effects and social lives of Stockholm residents who have diverse ethnic backgrounds and mixed socio-economic demographics. Apart from neighbourhood composition, this area is close to central Stockholm and has good links by public transport which makes it quite easily accessible for anyone. I personally live in an area nearby and I happen to occasionally visit the supermarkets and multi-cultural food store sections available in shopping areas of Skärholmen and Vårberg. I often go to the centrum (commercial centre) of Skärholmen to enjoy a specific café that serves stuff from my homeland. I am quite fond of the multi-cultural environment of the shops in centrum which motivates me further to choose this neighbourhood for my study.

3.2 Research methods Two methods of primary data collection are used as described in the following sections. 3.2.1 Interview process Participant recruitment was completed through social media (Facebook) and personal social networks. Groups of residents3 of case study area on Facebook were joined and used as a source to contact and recruit participants. Posts (see appendix) were made in these groups containing personal introduction, purpose of study, request to participate and pre-requisites to participate. Three interview participants were recruited through these Facebook groups. One participant was contacted through personal social network and one participant was further contacted through snowball technique. The participants in this study were randomly selected with only one pre-requisite; they should be living in the case study area for at least five or more years. This criterion was set bearing in mind that they have at least some knowledge or a viewpoint towards the area. A short-term resident would not have been suitable for my study of neighbourhoods because they would have been lacking this significant level of place knowledge and place attachment too that could hinder the purpose of the study. An overview of the sample group is presented in the table below.

3 https://www.facebook.com/groups/829139593813136 https://www.facebook.com/groups/642121149135719 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1898795570401839

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Table 2: Interview subjects overview (own illustration)

Name Age Gender Area of residence

Years of residence

Family status

Employment status

Jaeeous 68 years Male Vårberg 7 years Married (2 children) Pension

Eva 72 years Female South Vårberg 20 years Single (no

children) Pension

Chris 58 years Female Vårberg 51 years Divorced (3 children)

Part-time working

Anna 47 years Female Skärholmen 8 years Married (1 child)

Full-time working

Noor 33 years Female Skärholmen 20 years Married (no children)

Full-time working

In this thesis, semi-structured interviews were used for their unique function of covering broader topics of research and their flexibility. Interviews have been most commonly used for qualitative research purposes and they can generally be defined as ‘a conversation with a purpose’ (Burgess 1984, 102). In more elaborate terms, two definitions by Green and Thorogood (2004) jointly suggest,

A conversation that is directed more or less towards the researcher’s needs for data… and can be seen as a specific kind of interaction, in which the researcher and the interviewee produce language data about beliefs, behaviour, ways of classifying the world, or about how knowledge is categorised. (Minichiello et al. 2008, 47).

Interviews suited my research questions because they facilitated a thorough dialogue between the researcher and the participant and helped in enhancing each other’s knowledge about the topic and not merely the interpretation of the researchers (May 2013) and they helped provide valuable insights to the social life of the case study residents. The semi-structured character of the interview guide enabled flexibility and meant that instead of pin-pointed and strictly worded questions, I covered broader topics and keywords, for instance, the questions were varied in every interview, but the themes remained more or less the same. Further, the structure allowed scope for additional information to be added by participants during the course of the interview. It also allowed them to sometimes divert the conversation towards any interesting fact they might know about the area. Semi-structured interviews also helped breakdown the power relations between the researcher and the participants of research and allow for a more interpretative and informed deduction of results from such methods (Haraway 1991). One shortcoming

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of semi-structured interviews is the fact they one cannot compare the data or information gained from each interview in a systematic manner, but for this study, I employed interpretative approach for deduction of results and not a comparative one, that overcame this possible shortcoming. Four interviews were conducted and recorded by phone. While all interviews were initially planned to be conducted in person, only one interview was conducted in person and rest were conducted on phone due to the social distancing implications of the pandemic situation and risk of spread of corona virus (see section 3.5). 3.2.2 Coding and analysis process Qualitative researchers agree on the acknowledgement of legitimacy of different levels of abstraction of data and accept that the type of analysis depends largely on the nature of the research questions and the overall purpose of the study (Ritchie et al. 2014). Some researchers support the extraction of a narrative and further development of theory as a necessary outcome for research (see Whittemore et al. 1986). Others acknowledge that it is sufficient to fulfil the research questions by detailed descriptions, interpretations of the observations and other such analysis techniques as deemed necessary. Lofland et al. (2006) argues that qualitative research cannot produce the same level of causal explanations possible in experimental or statistical research, but it can have various cause and effect models that identify factors to certain social and other outcomes in qualitative ways. An analysis process start with efficient management of data and the term ‘coding’ is in particular referenced for a formal analysis process in qualitative research. In this study, I will use a deductive coding method based on the coding and analysis techniques explained by Ritchie et al. (2014) and Saldana (2009). The following illustration suggests two main parts of the coding process, first is indexing and sorting and second is categorization and classification of the codes.

Figure 8: Coding method (own illustration)

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By using textual data generated from the interview transcripts, I started my analysis by familiarizing with the data by going through the transcripts several times. In the first phase of indexing and sorting, two types of codes are used for coding and categorizing data, namely; etic codes and emic codes (Given 2008). Etic codes refer to the codes and themes identified from within literature and previous knowledge of the researcher, for example social interaction with neighbours is an etic code. The emic codes refer to the codes that are emerged and identified from within the data, for example attachment with street is an emic code that I identified after going through the interview data and I found it interesting. This type of codes requires the researcher to go back to the chosen theoretical frameworks and concepts and include relevant readings into that section. In the next phase of analysis, the chosen and identified codes are re-evaluated and some of them are eliminated because of their irrelevance. Some data is double coded, identified as belonging to more than one category. Such data is also refined and labelled as that code which seems more important and significant for the analysis. The initial categories are fairly descriptive and broad and mostly include all parts of data from transcripts, after this phase, the codes become more relevant, significant and focused on the study purpose (Ritchie et al. 2014). Lastly, in the abstraction and analysis phase, the coded and categorized data is used in the form of explanatory quotes and phrases as supporting arguments of relevant theoretical concepts detailed in chapter 2. 3.2.3 Survey As mentioned in the earlier section of collective efficacy (Chapter 2, Section 2.3, ‘Collective Efficacy’), a survey on collective efficacy, developed by Robert Sampson, was adopted in this research in its original form. This method of data collection was deployed as a contingency plan amidst the Covid-19 pandemic situation that disturbed the original plans of relying solely on the interviews for data collection. When the interview format shifted to phone interviews, it was noted that it became difficult to position myself in the context of phone interviews in terms of getting detailed responses and a deeper level of discussion as compared to an in-person interview. One particular part of the interview consisted of mental mapping of the neighbourhoods by interview participants and it couldn’t be done on phone so eventually that part was also skipped. In addition to that, I did not get that level of satisfaction as a researcher that I expected. Eventually, I extended the survey part of data collection to a bigger sample in order to get a richer data. Survey template is attached in appendix section. The survey was conducted in two phases. First, participants who undertook an interview were also asked to complete the survey. This survey strategy was then self-administered, in that I asked participants the survey questions after the interview and wrote out their responses on paper. The second survey strategy focused on recruiting for solely the survey via a digital copy of the survey in google forms. That version of the survey was posted on various Facebook groups (previously found local groups for residents in Skärholmen and Vårberg). Consent was tacit, in that participation and completion of the survey proxied for written consent, a short description of purpose and usage of data was written along with the Facebook posts and emails containing the survey link (screenshots of posts can be found in appendix). Further recruitment and snowball strategies included help was taken from personal social networks and requests to friends to forward the survey by email or other means to their networks of local residents. The survey was

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answered by 22 people of various age groups in total. Participants had different age groups as presented in the following chart. The responses are valuable in terms of being generated from different age groups that ensures that they are reliable in terms of varying experience levels of participants.

Figure 9: Age groups of survey participants (own illustration)

3.3 Positionality Paneli (2003, 8) claimed that all geographical ‘knowledges are constructed from somewhere, that geographies are investigated and written by people who are working from specific personal and academic positions’. Every knowledge produced exhibits a different kind of impact and power on its readers. Haraway (1991) suggested that every knowledge is different from the other and that knowledge can be partial, located and embodied and comes from somewhere and someone. She further claims that situated knowledge enables a more critical understanding of the world as compared to knowledge that claims its detachment and disembodiment from the source. The context of researchers also decides the power of knowledge that their research creates. The researcher’s position, background, knowledge, experience and personal insight is helpful in determining the level of trust with their research participants. Although personal knowledge plays a role in the research, but the researcher needs to recognize the potential impact of their knowledge that it might lead to desired results. I find it important, therefore, to talk about my positionality in this thesis and the discourse of knowledge that this study will eventually create. The position of the researcher plays a critical role in the determination of the impact of research. I personally refer to myself as an urban planner and I am particularly interested in neighbourhood dynamics and neighbourhood effect studies through geographical research practices. When it comes to research practice, I get my inspiration from feminist

2

4

3

4 4 4

1

0

1

2

3

4

5

Count

Age groups of survey participants

21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90

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research methodologies and through the ideals of feminist research, I believe in the embodied and interpretative methodologies of research. In this study, I see myself as an active part of research, influencing meanings and creating situated knowledge no more than considering the participants of my study as an active agent of shaping ideas and influencing results and meanings. The research methodology that I employ in my thesis realizes the power of discourse among the observant and those observed (Fenster 2005). The nature of semi-structured interviews in particular depict the two-dimensional power relations in my research methodology. I opt for subjectivity in my research by recognizing and explaining the place and position where I write things from. I position myself as an immigrant in Swedish society who does not have previous linkages or cultural associations with any part of Sweden. The fact that I am learning so much about this society through my studies and this thesis, gives me a position to rationally process every piece of information and data received throughout the research process. It gives me chances to reflect upon the similarities and differences of the research practices in Sweden and in my homeland. And it is possible that I lack the deeper understanding of place attachment towards the neighbourhoods in this societal context and I bring a somewhat different perspective because of my different background. The fact that I live close to the neighbourhood that I am investigating in this thesis and I occasionally visit the shopping places and centrum of that area puts me in a unique position to have an already built viewpoint and perception of it.

3.4 Ethical considerations In this thesis, interviews were employed as a primary data collection method, hence it becomes a necessity to consider ethical responsibilities as a social science researcher. The ethical criteria set by Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet 2017) gives four concepts of handling and using data and information, namely, secrecy, professional secrecy, anonymity and confidentiality, and these were taken into account during and after the interviews. All the participant interviewees were given a short synopsis of the study at the beginning and their informed consent was taken if they were willing to take part of the study. The notion of informed consent was found important for the fulfilment of ethical considerations of research, as Fisher and Anushko (2008) suggested that informed individuals are best suitable to protect their own well-being and interests when it comes to hazardous research practices and it also shifts part of the responsibility towards the participants if any negative impacts happen to occur during or after the study. At the beginning of each interview, participants were given a verbal description of how the data will be used and presented only for academic purposes within a controlled group of students and academic professionals and will not be discussed with anyone in the outer sphere. In addition, a written agreement of anonymity was printed, signed and was given to the participants if wished so. Later, when I shifted to phone interview, this part of printed anonymity agreement no longer remained possible, so I changed this strategy with a verbal assurance in the beginning of the recording, which worked out just fine. Interviewees were given a chance to choose a pseudo-name of their own choice that will be used to refer to them in the written thesis. The recording of the interviews was also agreed upon, by asking in the beginning of the interview. It was assured that it will be turned off whenever wished and the recording will be deleted after the study was done in order to make sure that it does not get distributed further by any means. The language and

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phrases used in conversation during interviews was also very carefully chosen so that it does not hurt the feelings and sentiments of the participants. The participants of surveys were also given a short written description of the purpose of the survey and usage of data and opinions along with the survey questions. All the participants who were asked survey questions verbally were informed verbally and every participant who got the survey by email or Facebook posts received that written synopsis as well. Other than the ethical considerations for the participants’ sake, general research ethics were also prioritised throughout the thesis process. All the theories and concepts used in the study are properly cited and their authors are given credits. All the interview participants and other people who helped or contributed in the study in any way are given proper acknowledgments.

3.5 Statement of impact by Covid-19 In connection with the recent Covid-19 pandemic in winter/spring 2020, there have been many changes and subsequent impacts on the academic research activity. I personally have been affected psychologically and socio-economically by this situation like everyone else. This thesis also bore repercussions of this pandemic situation. Three major impacts need to be stated here so that the readers know about the relevant context and the subsequent changes in strategy in the data collection methods. First, the data collection methods employed in my research changed. The interviews were supposed to be the major source of data collection and they were initially planned to be conducted in person. The first interview was done in person and I was satisfied with the level of detail of data obtained from the transcript, but it was noticed that the participant was practicing physical distancing and following other guidelines of the health department during the interview, he also mentioned about him being afraid in these times. After the interview, I pondered upon the ethical and moral considerations of putting my participants in health related risks if asked to meet in person and this was discussed with my supervisors as well. Although it was significantly important for my research strategy to physically be in that place that I am researching and to note down every non-verbal communication from the participants. Place attachment research is better done with emplace methods than remote methods. Being in the place while interviewing is better than being outside of it and walking and interviewing in that place is even better for making sense of that place. It would’ve been great to include a part of mental mapping of neighbourhood by residents to signify the mental mapping practices in the process of place attachment towards physical aspects of place. But given the risks of the situation, eventually, I shifted towards phone interviews for their easement and conducted four interviews on phone. During some of those interviews, I noticed, a lack of interest, a lack of trust, a lack of adequate details in response of questions, misunderstandings and repeated explanations of questions which led to a dissatisfaction on my part and maintenance of rapport was difficult in that scenario. I, then altered my strategy and enhanced the part of surveys to get richer data and satisfy my research instincts through that. The amount of data is still lesser than desired, but it is deemed enough for a justified deduction of results and conclusions. Secondly, the writing phase of thesis was also affected by Covid-19 situation. The Swedish health agency’s instructions related to social distancing and suggestions of working/studying from home are easier said than done. Writing a thesis and writing it

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well requires peace of mind and a quiet and undisturbed working environment which was absent in my case due to, i) my husband working from home since three months which covers all the time of my data collection phase and writing phase as well, ii) my daughter who was supposed to be in day care but instead she was staying home often because she sees everyone else is home, iii) living in a relatively smaller apartment which doesn’t ensure privacy and quite even if in a separate and locked room, iv) not being able to go the library or somewhere else of that sort to write in peace due to health care agency’s recommendations of staying home and avoiding public place unless for a necessary work. Thirdly, the ongoing psychological effects of hearing and thinking about the number of sick people and eventual rise in deaths and also other Corona related socio-economic effects led to an overall stressful state of mind for me amidst everything else. With everything combined, this study suffered a lot because of Covid-19 global situation for the past few months and this should be acknowledged by the readers. In the next sections, I have divided the discussion and results in two chapters (one for neighbourhood effect discussion and one for place attachment discussion) for the better understanding of the concepts but it is to be noted that I relate them continuously through my discussion and later I relate them both in the conclusion chapter as well in order to answer my research questions.

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4. Discussion and results (part I – Neighbourhood effect) This chapter starts with identifying various themes of discussion that emerge from the interviews and background theoretical frameworks. Each theme is discussed in a section with supporting quotes by interview participants. One section is dedicated to the discussion of collective efficacy survey results. Last section aims to summarize the results of both interview and survey results. Three themes of discussion are identified and used in my discussion of results, social ties among residents of same neighbourhood, sense of security and collective efficacy for the neighbourhood. Place attachment (discussed in next chapter) also occurs on two levels as perceived by the data; attachment towards the street and attachment towards the area/neighbourhood.

4.1 Social ties Social aspects of resident’s life follow a positive relationship with place attachment towards area of residence. The term bondedness (as suggested in section 2.4) explains the social element of place attachment. Lewicka (2010) suggests two predictors of positive place attachment namely, social ties and sense of security in a neighbourhood, which were themes of inquiry from the interview participants in the form of different questions. When asked about social interactions within the area or among the residents, many participants answer with positive responses. The frequency and place of interaction with neighbours is one of the most significant predictors of social ties within neighbourhood. I used these predictors in questions from my participants; one of them signified the iterative social contact everyday with people who live around her. She quoted:

[I asked about how often do you meet your neighbours] Often, almost every day. We are talking, like how do you do, it’s a nice day, about the weather or whatever. [I asked where the interaction takes place] Oh, just in the area, you know. Just because I have lived here for so long, I have many contacts around. Because I have had two dogs and when you have dogs you have to go out and when you go out you meet people, so! (Chris, 9 April 2020).

Such interaction mentioned by Chris may not seem as significant an occurrence as a bigger social event, but it does play a role in the formation of social ties within neighbourhoods that further adds into the bondedness of residents towards the place. These ties are able to provide subtle support and thus are usually experienced positively, as they help the individual to maintain bonds and to produce higher levels of trust (Kohlbacher et al. 2015). Even small talks and casual greeting gestures are deemed important neighbourhood social ties. In this regard, one participant described her interactions and her bond with one of her neighbours:

We are pretty close to one of the neighbours because he is an elderly, above 65. It’s mainly in the street or in the nearby centrum, like if we run into each other there, we take a minute to ask if he needs anything or if he feels well. And also, if we see him in his garden or taking a walk, we always go up to him and say hi (Noor, 30 April 2020).

Jaeeous also described his everyday interactions with people who are ‘bekanta’ (acquaintance but not friends), whom he meets and greets all the time but is not close friends with them. These small talks are the foundation of what researchers call ‘weak

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ties’ or ‘weak social ties’ (Granovetter 1973). Bridge (1995) and Schiefloe (1990) emphasised the ‘strength of weak ties’ in a sense that even small gestures of recognition of one’s neighbours, which one may classify as ‘nodding relationships’ can be important for residents especially migrants in a process of social integration (Kohlbacher et al. 2015, 449). Regardless of the intensity and deepness of interaction, these everyday greetings and small talks are a bigger step towards integration within a neighbourhood through social processes. The positive neighbourhood effect also stems from such integrations through social processes. Granovetter (1973, 1373) emphasized the strength of social ties by pondering upon ‘why some communities organize for common goals easily and effectively whereas others seem unable to mobilize resources, even against dire threat’. Further, he suggested that analysis of networks of ties helps to examine whether a community might lack or facilitate community organization and social cohesion among them. Strong social ties and weak social ties both form important aspects of a society that can hope to work towards common goals. The differences in the function of such ties can be explored by looking at the macro and micro level effects they have and how the smaller level ties generate significant ties and are deemed fruitful for formation of later interpersonal networks. I further emphasize in the next paragraph, the importance of ties with family and relatives that live in the same area and are a very important reason of your residential wellbeing. Having family and relatives living nearby within your neighbourhood whom you visit often is another positive indicator that adds into the social ties among residents and eventual positive neighbourhood effect generated because of it. Residential and neighbourhood preferences are also strongly relational as they are defined by biographical experiences and the ‘linked lives’ of family members and friends. Studies (for example, Belot and Ermisch 2009) show that residential choices and moves are influenced by the geography of kinship and social networks (Clark and Coulter 2015, 2684). One participant Jaeeous, felt the extra need to be in Vårberg because of his family being in close proximity. He mentioned: ‘My mother who lives next to me […] My daughter lives very close to me, like ten minutes walking away’. He also emphasized his initial move back to Stockholm after many years was because he wanted to be close to his daughter who moved here earlier. Another participant Noor mentioned her future plans of moving to another part of the same neighbourhood were partly based on her parents’ house being closer. These family attachments further intensify my earlier discussion of, ‘strong family ties generate strong social ties and subsequently positive neighbourhood attachments’ (Clark and Coulter 2015). Clark et al. (2017, 3) quoted about people whose decision depend on the family residence and proximity:

‘People who move to a new house but stay in the same neighbourhood are movers, but at the same time, they are stayers in the sense that they did not fundamentally change their routines...They do not change their everyday space of life’.

This further gives rise to the questions of internal migration and residential mobility that are outside the scope of my discussion. But the important fact stated above remains the same, that family ties can be categorized as strong social ties and a strong determinant of place attachment and moving internally in closer proximities in an area is also a positive indicator of neighbourhood attachment.

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In the next sections, I present another chosen indicator of place attachment and neighbourhood effect combined, the sense of security and perceived safety for children through various angles of safety perception.

4.2 Sense of security Sense of security is a strong positive social predictor of place attachment, as discussed in many different studies (see Brown et al. 2003, 2004; Mesch & Manor 1998). It is possible to discuss sense of security from many different perspectives, I have chosen three angles: objective sense of security, subjective sense of security (Lewicka 2010) and future perspective of residential and neighbourhood choices. When asked about an objective sense of security from residents of Skärholmen and Vårberg, I found mixed responses from every participant. Residents tended to think that their immediate closer area (for instance, street, or block) was safer as compared to the larger area of Skärholmen and Vårberg. This latter position was evidenced in the following response:

Where I live, south Vårberg is one of the friendliest areas for children but I think those who live near the underground...it’s not so friendly there […] I feel safe where I live. But it’s the area around the underground in Vårberg that’s...sometimes late at night or late evenings especially Saturdays and Sundays, it can be a little busy with drunk people and drug addicts (Eva, 8 April 2020).

A few places of interests also came up in the conversation with Eva and other participants as well, identified as unsafe areas. A few such examples were areas around underground station of Vårberg, empty schoolyards in evenings and areas with thick woods where people might grow drugs in hiding (might not even be possible in Swedish weather but such rumours are still powerful in terms of feeling unsafe). Specific timings are also associated with criminal activities such as evenings, later at night or when it is dark. Apart from specific areas associated with criminal behaviour as mentioned above, an objective sense of security also stemmed from a history of criminality in our case study. I asked participants about anything criminal they had ever witnessed or heard about from others. Some of the responses, including cases concerning drug dealing, assault and break-ins were mentioned, as detailed by the following participant quotes:

My mother who lives next to me had one break-in a while back, they took her jewellery (Jaeeous, 17 March 2020). They had a burglary in my street that I heard about afterwards. [when asked about directly witnessing] Not directly witnessed, but I can see and sometimes I can sense when they are dealing drugs in the school yards and in evenings (Eva, 8 April 2020). I heard that ten young guys stoned two or three policemen, so in Vårberg there is a lot of criminality, a lot of drugs. I like when the police is there. They come more often now because they have captured some criminals, they made a big attack and arrested a lot of people (Jaeeous, 17 March 2020).

A subjective sense of security comes from the personal feelings and experiences, or feelings and experiences of family or friends living close to you in the same neighbourhood. A direct experience or exposure towards criminality is associated with feelings of stress and dissatisfaction in the area. Ramsden and Wang (2018) emphasized

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upon the role and functions of neighbourhoods with levels of satisfaction of its residents and subsequent levels of attachment with the neighbourhood. Both these indicators have a direct positive relation with each other. Some participant quotes, given below, strengthen support for this relationship between individual feelings of safety and neighbourhood attachment as a whole. For example:

The first year when I moved into my house here, I found outside my house, down there they were growing Hash...Marijuana! It was very confusing; I found some pots and I called the police and they were there in 15 minutes and they got it. […] And there’s...in the woods there is a big farm of Optamine, just where I live (Jaeeous, 17 March 2020). Yeah, I have seen many things, I used to work at a gas station here and I got robbed many times, but I am not afraid anymore, I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I feel safe all the time now (Chris, 9 April 2020).

The narrative of Chris is very interesting, and it shifts my focus towards the contrasting preference discourse of an individual that on one hand, people need to be satisfied with their neighbourhoods and the level of satisfaction affects their residential preferences. While on the other hand, they can for example, choose to be in an area where apparently there are safety issues, but they choose not to be affected by them because they have this sense of belongingness towards this neighbourhood. They tend to acknowledge and are indifferent towards every positive and negative element that comes along with it. Their attachment towards this place comes from their belongingness and not the external formal safety measures. Gilbert et al. (2016, 6) elaborated the feelings of safety further with regards to personal and/or impersonal exposure as; ‘…personal exposure to crime, particularly vandalism and violence, was a better predictor of perceived personal safety than neighbourhood crime rates’. Noor described in very much detail, her perceived personal safety when asked about feelings of safety in her area of residence, she stated:

For me it is safe, since I have been living there for so long, so I know many people, so I feel safe. If it was the other way around, then it might be different. There are lesser streetlights, so you never know who or what is hiding around the corner. I know every street, I know every corner, I know where the streetlights are, so I know my way around. I know where the people move and how the youngsters move. [when asked to further think about safety for kids] If you think about the parks and stuff, then it is a child friendly area because the government and city hall have invested a lot in parks and open spaces. Every building block has their own open space. But on the other hand, you always get to hear about stuff like youngsters vandalizing shops and businesses and people usually recognize those youngsters that these are the people doing it. I also heard about many robberies and burglaries in Skärholmen recently as well. Mostly I see youngsters dealing drugs so in that sense it’s not a very child friendly area […] even I sometimes feel if I had kids yet, I would be thinking and planning a lot differently than I do now (Noor, 30 April 2020).

Noor’s narratives suggested that having children might change the residential preferences of people. If a neighbourhood possesses harmful environment and subsequent negative

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effect on children’s and teenagers’ lives, this leads parents to choose a different area of residence, or at least plan their future differently. Manu studies show that the outcomes of neighbourhood effects that are experienced in childhood, are more significant in adulthood (see for example, Haandrikman et al. 2019)4. The future planning for residential preferences and consequent residential mobility also sheds light on the neighbourhood attachments of residents. Furthermore, future perspectives of living or moving from an area with regards to the feelings of safety and security explains the long-term neighbourhood effects on individual lives. The concept of fear from criminality, looking for opportunities to flee from an area or being on the look-out all the time are a few undermining elements that can affect negatively the place attachment towards the neighbourhood. Chris for example, seemed to think she would not move because she never personally felt threatened and she was never afraid, as she mentioned:

Yeah because I think Vårberg is mine! And no one had something to say to me or going to attack me, because it’s my area, and I have to live here, and I want to live here (Chris, 9 April 2020).

I quote Noor here again, when asked about how she feels about moving from Skärholmen in future if given a chance, she immediately exclaims:

NO!! I would not, because I like it here. I have been living here for the past 20 years, I know people here. I know the area […] I would be moving inside Skärholmen but not outside. I am already in process of that [moving] but inside the larger Skärholmen and Vårberg area (Noor, 30 April 2020).

My discussion in above paragraphs about feelings of safety further links to the social cohesion and social control combined. According to Sampson (2012), the more informal social control is exhibited by the neighbourhoods, the lesser is the crime rate and violent behaviours and the safer is the perception of neighbourhoods. It would have been interesting to study perceptions of people who are already on the move (out of the area), they might have more negative things to say about the neighbourhood because they already plan to move out. In following sections, I discuss these concepts for my case study area.

4.3 Collective efficacy In this section, I present the survey results and discuss the collective efficacy of the case study neighbourhood through social cohesion and the level of willingness of people to intervene in various social situations happening around them.

4 Haandrikman et al. 2019 presented their work in 21st Nordic Demographic Symposium on the investigation whether a favourable neighbourhood composition when growing up can improve adult outcomes of children growing up in poorer families, and thus whether a lack of resources from the parental home can be compensated for by the exposure to other high-resource adults. The relevant publication is a work in progress.

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4.3.1 Discussion and results from survey The survey results are presented here below. As stated earlier, two sets of five questions were used in the survey and the responses from 22 participant are compiled in following tables. The detailed discussion of results is found in the above section. Table 3: Survey questions of willingness to intervene by neighbours (own illustration)

Could your neighbours be counted on to intervene in various ways if:

Likely Neither likely nor unlikely

Unlikely

1. Children were skipping school and hanging out on a street corner

7 3 12

2. Children were spray-painting graffiti on a local building

14 1 7

3. Children were showing disrespect to an adult

12 1 9

4. A fight broke out in front of their house 10 3 9

5. The fire station closest to their home was threatened with budget cuts

12 4 6

Table 4: Survey questions of trust, shared values and cohesion among neighbours (own illustration)

Please rate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements.

Agree Neither agree nor disagree

Disagree

6. “People around here are willing to help their neighbours”

18 1 3

7. “This is a close-knit neighbourhood” 13 4 5

8. “People in this neighbourhood can be trusted”

16 5 1

9. “People in this neighbourhood generally don’t get along with each other”

4 4 14

10. “People in this neighbourhood do not share the same values”

9 4 9

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Social cohesion is a term commonly used in writings and discussions about neighbourhoods and communities. The common understanding of social cohesion suggests that it is the level of willingness of a society or members of a neighbourhood to cooperate with each other and grow together as a community to survive and prosper (Stanely 2003). This cooperation is an additional support to the household’s personal economic and educational resources that helps in the integration and inclusion process of residents in an area. Social cohesion can be observed at various levels of social activities, a few such examples are used in my survey questions. Social cohesion differs from social control and social order; therefore, it also differs from collective efficacy but can be included as a positive indicator of it. Researchers suggest that high levels of collective efficacy can have positive impacts on facing a range of problems that emerge in the urban space (see for example, Sampson and Groves 1989; Sampson et al. 1997) and especially the growing behaviour problems in younger adults are often overcome by societies as a whole (Carranza et al. 2017, 2598). The survey had two sets of questions, the part where participants were asked questions about social cohesion suggests a strong level of trust and cooperation among the residents. In this part, three positive and two negative statements were asked from the participants about the case study area. They were asked to agree or disagree from the statements. The positive statements suggest, if people/residents are willing to help each other, if it is a close-knit neighbourhood and if people/residents here can be trusted and the responses of these were in agreement of statements. The response shows high levels of trust and cohesion in my case study area. The two negative statements were, that people in this area generally do not get along with each other and they do not share the same values. The responses to first statement were for the most part in disagreement, which if looked at inversely, show a positive image of the neighbourhood. For the second statement, the responses were fifty-fifty in agreement and disagreement, which suggests that not everyone thinks that the residents of the case study share the same values. One reason for this, as explained by one participant, is that Skärholmen – Vårberg area is a multicultural area where people from various countries and ethnicity live together so the values differ from each other when it comes to religion and culture. On the other hand, if we think about the part where they co-exist and integrate with each other in a close-knit society, then there are shared social and moral values (Jaeeous ,17 March 2020). The part of the survey that was oriented towards the informal social control and the ability or/and willingness of the residents to intervene in various social situations for the common good and shared values gave mostly positive responses. I am assuming from the rationale by Ramsden and Wang (2018, 2) that

‘If neighbourhoods satisfy the needs of residents, both physical and psychological, then residents may express strong neighbourhood attachment, encompassing both emotional bonds (for instance, sense of belonging, generalised trust, and respect in each other) and interactive bonds (for instance, talking and interactions among residents; Bailey, Kearns and Livingston 2012; Gorny and Torunczyk-Ruiz 2014; Livingston et al. 2010)’.

The survey questions were assumptions of various social situations, three of them were related to common children behaviours and possible responses from neighbours, for instance, if children were skipping school or if they were painting graffiti on local

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buildings or if they are showing disrespect to adults, will the resident neighbours intervene or not. The responses strongly suggest a possible intervention by people in the graffiti situation or disrespect situation but an unlikely intervention in case of skipping school. Next scenario is occurring of a fight in front of a resident’s house and subsequent involvement of neighbours in that situation, the survey response almost a half and half possibility of intervening or ignoring such situation by neighbours. One of the interview participants further went on to suggest that the response or intervention depends on ‘who’ is fighting, if it is kids that neighbours know of or if it is some local gang members or if it is some known troublemakers. She suggests that if neighbours have some sort of interaction with those fighting, they will most definitely get involved and tried to resolve the situation (Noor, 30 April 2020). These kind of irrational acts by children and teenagers result when their bonds from society and family are weak. Research suggests the theology of social control theory assuming that these bonds are nurtured with family, with school, with friends and peers and with society for children and teenagers (Hirschi 1969). In the case of teenagers and younger adults, Cusson (2015, 824) suggests that such bonds are formed of four elements: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. A combination of all these elements make them form strong social ties with family, school and society and the stronger those ties are, the better is the social control and collective efficacy and the lesser irrational behaviours and delinquent acts are reported from a neighbourhood. Social ties for children also come from the strength of their belief system in their family and society. Researchers like Carranza et al. (2017) suggest that children are keen observers of their socio-economic differences from other people living nearby and within the neighbourhood and their satisfaction or dissatisfaction can lead to the delinquent behaviours that we are discussing here. Children, just like adults show respect and stronger attachments towards their residence area if it satisfies their needs both physical and psychological (Ramsden and Wang 2018). The survey results from my case study show a mostly high level of social control and cohesion in that sense.

4.4 Summary of results (I) The main points of discussion of the concept Social Ties was the connection of social ties and interactions with that of place attachment towards the social aspects of a neighbourhoods. All the participants expressed that their local social interactions are a positive happening in their routine life. Some of them signified their family ties and proximity of family residence as their reasons of belongingness towards the neighbourhood. The main theme of discussion in the topic Sense of Security revolved around the objective and subjective sense of security. The participants described through their quotes that sense of personal security and safety is far different than that of neighbourhood security in general. Some of them identified their immediate neighbourhood as safer than the larger neighbourhood and they seemed to associate safety for children with that of drug activity in the area. Some participants associated their future perspectives of residence with their rootedness in the area, length of residence and presence of family members in the same neighbourhood. The main theme of discussion of the concept Collective Efficacy suggested that the case study area exhibited strong levels of social cohesion, trust and informal social control among their residents. That being said, the collective efficacy is relatively high for the discussed area of Skärholmen-Vårberg and residents have a generally positive image of the area regardless of the presence of minor drug and criminal activities. The neighbourhood effects on the social wellbeing of residents’ lives seemed to be positive

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and the future perspective of residential preferences is also positively affected by neighbourhood effect. In the next chapter, I discuss the place attachment with regards to the scale of place and further describe the links between higher intensity of attachment with that of positively exhibited neighbourhood effect.

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5. Discussion and results (part II – Place attachment) The scale of place attachment in my study falls on two levels as discussed in the coming sections, the street and the neighbourhood. All the interview participants in some way or another talk about their streets and their everyday activities attached to it, and also about the various aspects and character of their neighbourhood which directed me towards discussing both these scales of place in detail through the narratives of the participants.

5.1 Place attachment Two scales of place attachment are found from data and theory, as described in the following sections.

5.1.1 The street scale The scales of experiencing place attachment differ widely depending upon the individual perceptions of place and space (Lewicka 2010). Residents often separate their immediate neighbourhood from larger neighbourhoods, making a sensuous micro-neighbourhood (Catney et al. 2019), which can include the street or block where they live. Many place attachment studies explore the scale of neighbourhood places and subsequent attachment towards them as perceived through mental mapping of its residents (see, Catney et al. 2019; Corcoran 2002). Many participants of my study referred to their favourite place in their neighbourhood as ‘my street’ or as ‘the street where I live’ or ‘closer to my house’ and also ‘the streets where I usually walk around’. For older adults living in densely populated urban neighbourhoods, walking may be an important mode of everyday mobility, sometimes the only possible way of mobility (Lager et al. 2019). One participant in particular was very fond of her street, when asked about the physical places of her interactions with other people, she responded: ‘I don’t know that. I don’t do that outside my street’ (Eva, 8 April 2020). There is an ownership discourse evident from her narratives about ‘my street’. When she uses the term ‘my’, it signifies her attachment towards that particular street and her personal sense of safety within that. It is interesting how resident tend to attach themselves towards a secure living arrangement that is owned by them and not someone else. When asked about her favourite public place in the area, the same participant immediately referred to her street: ‘Well obviously, my street! [laugh]’ (Eva, 8 April 2020). With the rise of housing shortage in Stockholm region, it is evident that people who are bound to move quite often have difficulty attaching themselves towards their area of residence unless they have a secure living arrangement. There was also a deciding factor of age in Eva’s case (72 years), because she is at that age where people move lesser than younger age people and in closer vicinities than most (Lager et al. 2019). Her age and conversation with her suggest that her definition of neighbourhood has transformed into her immediate block of residence or in other words her street alone and she has a sense of ownership towards it. For example, she stated once:

It depends, if its spring or summer, I meet people in the garden or in the street. Not so much in the winter (Eva, 8 April 2020).

Jaeeous also talked about his habits of walking many times every day in nearby streets and in the woods nearby. He was not very fond of driving because he felt the need to be mobile at his age to improve health and also to enjoy the nature around. When asked about his routines, he answered with more or less similar words as of Eva:

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I usually walk, sometimes I drive a car but often I walk. I like to move, or I need to move because I am so old (Jaeeous, 17 March 2020).

During the interviews, my attention was drawn towards how residents talk about their everyday visited places like they saw those right in front of them, as if they could feel the places and be in them by just talking about them. People form intimate relationships over the years of their residence with the streets, blocks and neighbouring parks. ‘Individuals depend on the place for certain desired activities and experiences and are less willing to use another site’ (Mihaylov and Perkins 2014, 66). Such place attachment is special and Corcoran (2002) has contended of ‘existential significance’. This attachment can also be enacted and performed when a sense of place is mentally mapped through neighbourhood walks. I had originally intended to use mental mapping with a mobile interview with my participants in their neighbourhood. I had planned to ask them to draw their 10 most visited places and/or favourite places in proximity to their houses. However, as previously mentioned in chapter three, due to the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic, I had to interview by phone (except for one first interview) thus foregoing this emplaced research elements. Yet, I was intrigued by the fact that many of my participants indeed narrated this mental map to me when answering questions about their neighbourhoods. This type of mental mapping tells the stories of how discourses, imaginations and impulses by individuals can bring together spaces (Wilmott 2020, 13). However, when I interviewed the participants on phone, they mentioned these places like they are just shrugging their hands in different direction where the places are located around them and they imagine that the person listening them understands where they are in their imaginations. Listening to their narratives later in the transcripts, I could easily identify a few places of interest in the case study, as I have marked in the following map.

Figure 10: Google maps 2020 (own illustration)

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The above illustrated map shows few publicly accessed places within Skärholmen-Vårberg that were discussed by the interview participants as their places of interest (a few more were discussed but they are not mentioned here because that could risk the anonymity of the participants). 5.1.2 The neighbourhood scale As previously discussed in section 2.3, the ‘place’ element of place attachment theology has a physical aspect attached with the social aspect of place (Scannell and Gifford 2010, 2). The neighbourhood itself is the physical place, containing many places of different scales within it. Despite all the criminal activities found in Skärholmen – Vårberg area, participants seem to like the area for its liveliness and character. For example, one participant said:

We first moved to [another area of Stockholm] which is a very wealthy and rich area, but it was no fun there. It was very boring there. So, we decided when we found a little house here [Vårberg], we moved here. It is very much lively (Jaeeous, 17 March 2020).

Jaeeous has had an additional history of living in this area in the past (1970s) for a few years, which suggests his familiarity, previous knowledge and an attraction towards ‘what is known’ as positive indicators of attachment towards physical area. People also get attached to the character of an area. Special markets, festivals and events that are specific for an area forms a unique identity for it. Bourdieu & Wacquant (1992) suggest that the social capital of an area and its residents does play a positive role in the integration process and it reduces levels of stress among residents. Noor talks a lot about the special character and cultural significance of Skärholmen from what she has seen for the past 20 years. She explained:

We have one event for children that takes place every summer, the tournament moves around, like it starts in Bredäng and moves to Skärholmen and then may be moves to Sätra. It’s like a tournament that goes on for entire summer. There are different kinds of mixed activities for kids like sports, games, then writing poetry, then football and basketball for guys and much more. It’s really fun. […] And even though I was born here, I have foreigner parents and I like to have these foreign markets that offer our type of food and stuff. You can have that and everything around the corner here so it’s such a good thing (Noor, 30 April 2020).

However, in discussion of Bourdieu’s social capital theory, Cederberg and Villares-Varela (2018) noted that each social tie and social capital does not play the same role and the benefits of the such social resources for an individual depend on how the individuals are positioned in relation to the structure of power within a society. I conclude by this, that the significance of social ties and social capital depends on the level of involvement of individuals within a society and it is their active participation in local activities that determines whether they can benefit from local ties and associations. The above-mentioned quote from Noor further strengthens the physical and social aspects of place attachment discourse by Corcoran (2002) that suggested how residents can attach themselves towards those features of a place which signifies their rootedness or embeddedness with a specific culture. Food markets in the case of Noor, helped her in

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identifying herself as belonging to a certain part of the world and a certain culture as well as Swedish culture. Anna mentioned a yearly theatre that takes place in Vårbergstoppen (located in central Vårberg) and a yearly circus from Brazil that used to come to the area but not anymore. The government wants to build houses where the circus used to take place, which is not a good thing, according to her. She said that she joins the theatre every time and even looks forward to it. It is part of her yearly routines.

When theatre comes to Vårbergstoppen, I always go. It’s very cultural if you think about it (Anna 6 May 2020).

Two of the older participants (Jaeeous and Eva) were very fond of the local cinema, Heron City Bio, and also Skärholmen Centrum. The cinema offers free popcorns (according to Jaeeous at least) and shows nice films and it is a happy activity whenever you are there. He also mentioned two churches around the centrum, one of which he occasionally visits and feels comfortable in. And according to Eva, the Centrum is a good place for grocery shopping and looking around at different people. Chris has been living in the same area for 51 years and never had thoughts about moving to another place because of how much she feels content and satisfied towards her neighbourhood. The attachment towards her physical neighbourhood comes from her sense of rootedness and belonging. Accessibility of the area from different destinations of natural and cultural element adds into her rootedness. Also, the length of her residence is a positive indicator of belonging and in turn place attachment.

I will live here till I die. I haven’t had any thoughts about moving. Because it is near to woods, it’s near the water and it takes 24 minutes to get to the Stockholm city, what more could you ask for (Chris, 9 April 2020).

In the case of Chris, length of her residence and more importantly, stability of her residence in one place adds into her strong relationship and attachment towards that area. She feels more acquainted and bonded with her neighbourhood as compared to someone who has been more mobile in terms of residence (Taylor 1996).

5.2 Summary of results (II) The theme of discussion in the concept The Street Scale of place attachment revolved around the theory of micro neighbourhood or the immediate neighbourhood as identified by the residents’ walking capacities especially for older age residents. Mental mapping concept was also discussed as a means to make sense of place without being physically present in the place. The theme of the concept The neighbourhood Scale mainly consisted of the attachments towards the bigger area as a place. Many participants attached themselves with the physical character of the area, such as woods and lakes, many liked the liveliness and multicultural environment of the area, some talked about the special festivals and social and cultural capital of the area, some talked about their rootedness and belongingness within the neighbourhood in terms of the tenure and stability of their residence.

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6. Conclusion This thesis has explored the elements that affect place attachment of individuals towards their residential neighbourhoods and also shed light on the neighbourhood effects in combination with social aspects of residents’ lives through the theoretical frameworks of Scannell and Gifford (2010), Sampson (2012) and Lewicka (2010) along with many other researchers’ valuable concepts on the subjects under study. These theoretical assumptions were verified and further explored for their validity through the narratives of interview participants and survey responses of case study residents. The case of Skärholmen – Vårberg area acted as a case study for a multicultural, mixed socio-economic residential classes and criminally vulnerable neighbourhood in Swedish capital region. As the research participants reveal through their narratives, they have strong levels of place attachment towards it. The discussion on social predictors of place attachment leads to a conclusion that people experience place attachment with various intensities and on various scales based on their individual and collective experiences. Most of social predictors identified in literature namely, social ties, sense of security and social cohesion among the residents are verified by my discussion section (Chapter 4) as significant determinants of place attachment. It is also noted that attachment towards physical places also stems largely from social aspects of people’s lives attached with those places. The scales of place attachment as discussed in Chapter 5 reveal that older residents tend to attach themselves to their proximate places and immediate blocks of neighbourhoods more than the larger and distanced places in the area while a younger participant is more attracted towards the neighbourhood as a whole and relates to various activity elements of the area to describe her attachment. The various scales therefore identified, are attachment with their street and attachment with their neighbourhood as a whole. The exploration of neighbourhood effect through social ties and collective efficacy reveals that residents of the case study area experience more positive than negative effects which undermines the assumption that places with stronger social cohesion experience reduced rates of criminality. One could infer from just the statistics that people may have a negative association with an area as a result of high criminality and high risk of poverty, but this was not the case. As surprising as It sounds, the level of perceived personal safety was higher than expected (from the criminality of area). Neighbourhood effects occurs when geographical space matters significantly more over and above the personal and family characteristics (Overman 2000). In this regard, the narratives on the subject of future plans of moving from the area also reveal that the neighbourhood effect of criminality and drug activity does not play a role on this and the preference of living in that area comes from many other factors instead of this. The higher level of collective efficacy (as revealed by the survey results) of case study area suggests that it may depend on the level of trust, strong social interactions, societal bonds and also place attachment towards area of residence and it does not necessarily need the physical elements of rootedness and formal safety precautions such as police presence (Sampson 2012). Informal social control mechanisms in our case study are also positively viewed and appreciated by residents. Thus, the research questions formulated in the beginning of the thesis are answered as such: i) To understand the neighbourhood effect through people’s social lives, social ties

and collective efficacy.

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Strong positive neighbourhood effect was found, as perceived by abundance of social ties, high levels of percieved personal safety and high levels of collective efficacy inspite of high crime statistics proposed and high risk of poverty.

ii) To explore individuals’ place attachment discourse, practices and scales of attachment in their residential neighbourhoods.

The study revealed strong levels of place attachment among residents that seems to stem from various social and physical predictors of attachment and various scales of places. It also reveals that the scale and intensity of place attachment differs for older and younger people. Changing scale of place attachment related to age, younger people think of area as a whole and activities and events available, and older people think in a more limited space around their immediate surroundings and closer neighbourhood. Strong place attachment is also evident from the lack of incentive to move away from the area among all the resident participants.

iii) To explore the inter-relationship among these aforementioned characteristics of a residential neighbourhood.

The study shows that positive neighbourhood effects doesnot only depend on the socio-economic demography and tendency of criminality of an area, but it may come from many factors including the level of trust, strong (also weak) social interactions, societal bonds and also place attachment towards area of residence. Inspite of high levels of inward migration, statistically high levels of crime and higher instances of poverty than most other places in Stockholm region which, according to the literature, should undermine a sense of security or rootedness for residents, the residents of Skärholmen and Vårberg experience strong and positive neighbourhood effects. As such, it is clear that there are other factors that need to be explored between the cause and effects of positive neighbourhood effects through a better consideration of place attachment. I conclude that place attachment serves as a precondition to neighbourhood effect, this conclusion is drawn from the discussion of future plans of residents about moving or staying in the same area, findings about the social aspects of place attachment and exploration of social cohesion discourse in this thesis.

A minor limitation of the size of data is acknowledged in this study. The number of interview participants (5 in total) is less for the purposes of generalization of the study results and a total of 22 survey responses may not seem a very large response rate as compared to the combined population (Skärholmen + Vårberg) of around 20,000. The background of these limitations is explained in section 3.5. Another minor limitation of this study is it being strictly qualitative whereas the survey of collective efficacy is mostly used by the quantitative research scholars and the results of survey are further examined by various quantitative models and various other datasets for instance, violent crimes data, dropout rates of young individuals, measurement of segregation and so on. Another interesting perspective of future research could be to look at the groups of residents with regards to their residence length and classify them into those categories, this could give various new perspectives of their place attachment practices and intensities.

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Appendices i. Interview guide

Name: Time: Place: Checklist to clarify Description of purpose, anonymity, secrecy agreement, recording of interview Basic information

Age Years of residency Marital status Children

Immigrant status Employment status Address Pseudo name

Interaction with neighbours How often do you meet your neighbours? Where does the interaction occur in the area? What is the busiest or liveliest place in the area? Are there many public places to hang out with people? Feelings of safety Do you feel safe living here? Do you want your family/children to live here? / Do you think it is a child friendly area? Have you ever witnessed any theft or criminal activity while living here? Place attachment Which is your most favourite place in your neighbourhood? Any special events or festivals specific to the neighbourhood. Define and draw your neighbourhood with at least 10 places of interest? (on a separate sheet) Future prospect Do you see yourself living here in the next five years? Why? Why not? Personal observations / reflections

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ii. Survey Collective Efficacy

Instructions: Please circle your answer below.

Could your neighbours be counted on to intervene in various ways if: 1. Children were skipping school and hanging out on a street corner Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Very unlikely

2. Children were spray-painting graffiti on a local building Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Very unlikely

3. Children were showing disrespect to an adult Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Very unlikely

4. A fight broke out in front of their house Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Very unlikely

5. The fire station closest to their home was threatened with budget cuts Very likely Likely Neither likely nor unlikely Unlikely Very unlikely

Instructions: Please rate how much you agree or disagree with the following statements. 6. “People around here are willing to help their neighbours” Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree

7. “This is a close-knit neighbourhood” Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree

8. “People in this neighbourhood can be trusted” Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree

9. “People in this neighbourhood generally don’t get along with each other” Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree

10. “People in this neighbourhood do not share the same values” Strongly agree Agree Neither agree nor disagree Disagree Strongly disagree

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iii. Anonymity agreement Stockholm University Department of Human Geography Master’s thesis in Urban and Regional Planning Supervisors: Danielle Drozdzewski & Eva Andersson Spring 2020

Agreement of anonymity As a student of the master course ‘Master’s thesis in Urban and Regional Planning’, I will conduct interviews and run analysis on the interview data. The informants of the study are informed that the interview will be used as study material within the framework of this course. By signing this agreement, I guarantee that I will treat the information gained from the interviews with care and that I will respect the integrity of the informant. This includes that:

• I will not share the interview material with any other persons but the students and supervisors of this course.

• I will keep the name of the informant and other sensitive information in the interview to myself. Accordingly, in the transcribed material I will remove the name of the informant and use a pseudo name.

• I will not use the material for purposes that are outside the scope of this master course, which includes treatment on seminars and the writing of a student thesis.

Name:

Date:

Signature:

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iv. Social media posts

Figure 11 (screenshots of posts) Figure 12 (screenshots of posts)

Figure 13 (screenshots of posts) Figure 14 (screenshots of posts)