Making space for ‘the social’: connecting sociology and professional practices in urban lighting design

Entwistle, Joanne and Slater, Don ORCID: 0000-0002-4767-3187 (2019) Making space for ‘the social’: connecting sociology and professional practices in urban lighting design. British Journal of Sociology, 70 (5). pp. 2020-2041. ISSN 0007-1315

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Abstract

Lighting is increasingly recognized as a significant social intervention by both lighting professionals and academic social scientists. However, what counts as ‘the social’ is diverse and contested, with consequences for what kind of ‘social’ is performed or invented. Based on a long-term research programme, we argue that collaboration between sociologists and lighting professionals requires negotiating discourses and practices of ‘the social’. This paper explores the quality and kinds of spaces made for ‘the social’ in professional practices and academic collaborations, focusing on two case studies of urban lighting that demonstrate how the space of ‘the social’ is constrained and impoverished by an institutionalized division between technical and aesthetic lighting. We consider the potential role of sociologists in making more productive spaces for ‘the social’ in urban design, as part of the central sociological task of ‘inventing the social’ (Marres, Guggenheim and Wilkie 2018) in the process of studying it.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14684446
Additional Information:	© 2019 London School of Economics and Political Science
Divisions:	Sociology
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Date Deposited:	28 Mar 2019 12:30
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 01:43
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/100375

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