Model City: community and sustainability in Hammarby Sjöstad
Funding source: Formas - The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning
Period: 6/1/07 - 5/31/10
Funding: 2390000 SEK
Description:
Through a detailed ethnographic case study of Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm, this project will explore the extent to which the definitions of community assumed and prescribed in discourses and policies for sustainable cities adequately describe and are compatible with the actual communities that are present and developing in major schemes for sustainable urban solutions. It will examine the kinds of social and cultural diversity present in Hammarby Sjöstad, the implications of the participation of citizens, and the receptiveness of local populations to the kinds of social pedagogy employed in sustainable urban development projects. The project contributions include highlighting the relationship between community forms and the likelihood of sustainability receiving support among residents in schemes for sustainable cities and urban environments, providing detailed information about local understandings of ‘sustainable development’ and its different dimensions – environmental, economic, social – and what they mean and entail for private citizen, and a demonstration of how expert discourses and pedagogy on sustainable development are made part of the daily lived experience of local people – i.e. received, interpreted, modified, resisted and rejected by them. It provides an anthropological contribution to the study of sustainable communities in Sweden. Given the status of the Hammarby Model as an international role model, the study is likely to be of international interest.
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