Navigating Spatial Publicity: Social Exclusion and Negotiation of Young People’s Street Dance Space at Tamsui MRT station

• Main Authors: Wang, Mei-Hsin, 王鎂欣
• Other Authors: Hsieh, Yu-Chieh
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/bsjk63

碩士 === 中國文化大學 === 地學研究所地理組 === 103 === This study adopts the perspective of the mutual construction of space and society. It explores the issues of social exclusion and negotiation in the public space at Tamsui MRT station. More specifically, this research aims to understand the ways in which young people produce and transform the public space into street dance place. The discussion in this research is divided into three main sections, which are ‘the publicity of Tamsui MRT station’, ‘construction of young people’s street dance place in Tamsui’, and ‘exclusion and negotiation of Tamsui street dance place’. Firstly, to survey multiple usages of public space and understand whether young street dancers as one of the social groups could have the same right to use the public space as adult users do. Secondly, to understand the ways in which young people construct their identities through the daily practices of street dance. Finally, to explore how the ‘adultized’ public space is reproduced by young street dancers. By doing this, this research emphasizes that the society needs to pay more attention to young people’s need of space. The methods adopted in the study are observation, questionnaire survey and in-depth interview. The participants include pedestrians, street dance young people and MRT managers of the Tamsui MRT station. These methods are used to investigate the ways in which the social differences of social roles, age, and gender create the mechanism of inclusion and exclusion between the self and the other. The research findings suggest that the publicity of public space can be improved if young people have opportunities to express their needs. A mechanism to negotiate opinions among different social groups as users of the public space is also needed. By reviewing English and Chinese literature on public space, and carrying out the empirical research, this study explores the meanings and the process of (re)producing public spaces in Taiwanese context. Also, this research contributes to promoting the development of young people’s geographies in Taiwan.