Research Projects
Street life: Investigating urban transformations around the Mediterranean
Marseille
Supported with seed funding from the University of Tübingen Excellency Strategy (2021-2023) and a grant from the local social housing agency, Logirem, the aim of this interdisciplinary project has been to explore the transforming composition, structure and relationality of social networks of urban dwellers along a highly contrastive street in Marseille. The purpose is to better understanding how urban social life is forged, represented and experienced across time, space and unequal relations of power.
The project has been carried out in partnership with the architecture and historian of urban planning, Amel Zerourou, and the photographer Abed Abidat. A range of methodological approaches were taken including archival research, mapping, urban analysis, interviews, participant observation and portraits of users of the street and the street itself.
Project outcomes to date
- Photographic exhibition, ‘Boulevard national, au-delà des clichés’, in Marseille (16 September-11 December)
- Local history walks, in collaboration with the local history association, Comité du vieux-Marseille, during the European Heritage Weekend 2023
- Articles and book chapters
- Bullen, C. (2023), "From the Street to the World: Situating Urban Social Networks in Multi-scalar Relations of Power." In: Antonyuk, A., Basov, N. (eds) Networks in the Global World VI. NetGloW 2022. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol 663. Springer, Cham.
- Bullen, C. (2022), Gentrified, Euro-Mediterranean, Arabic? Situating Mediterranean locations along a street in Marseille’. In Locating the Mediterranean: Connections and Separations across Space and Time, edited by Carl Rommel and Joseph John Viscomi, 103–27. Helsinki University Press. https://doi.org/10.33134/HUP-18-5.
Forthcoming outcomes include:
- Photographic exhibition, ‘Marseille, au-delà des clichés, Institut culturel franco-allemand, Tübingen (10.04.2024-30.06.2024)
