28. A Neighbourhood of Fragmentation

Once isolated as a bordered neighbourhood, the Raploch Council housing estate in Stirling, Scotland, has been regenerated through a gentrification policy that encouraged increased owner-occupied housing in an area previously dominated by social housing. As a result, new norms and values were reflected in the visual environment and architecture by creating new buildings and moving new residents into the area. To investigate these issues, an auto-driven photo-elicitation method was used. Area residents, both established and new, were given single-use cameras and asked to take photos of the places and spaces that illustrated the changing nature of the Raploch. Guidance to the participants was limited to allow their perspectives to emerge and to reduce the researcher’s effect. Simultaneously, this method considered Foucauldian power relationships as the participants guided the discourse through their images. The interviews that followed focused on the participants’ photos. It became clear that social boundaries between established and new residents resulted in an “us and them” discourse. These social differences were reinforced by the physical barrier of a road between each group’s areas. In addition, the participants were acutely aware of another border—the different architectural styles of each area. Established residents considered the architectural style of the other group as out-of-place, and newer residents viewed the housing of the established residents as old with an underlying discourse of needing redevelopment by the new residents.