Parks are sites of rich sociological enquiry, revealing divisions and conflicts as well as contributing enormously to wellbeing.
#PARKLIFE SA FULL#
This area became ripe with potential to observe, in Hubbard and Lyon’s terms, embodied encounters which are essentially unmediated a place with wonderful potential for ‘mis-meetings’ which make cities full of ‘risk and liveliness’ ( Stevens, 2007). Lockdown forays into parklife present those of us living in mainstream ‘accommodated’ lives, with daily glimpses of another culture, one of street life.ĭespite the incursion of a new demographic of pandemic home-workers, I noticed how the regular ‘park class’ of street drinkers retained control of one distinct space, occupying six benches in a circle around a central memorial cenotaph in my local park. I noticed a change to the social interactions in my park – the histrionics of stepping aside to allow passers-by, the sideways smiles as we perform exaggerated muscle-stretching upon entering the park, the solidarity of nodding at strangers. As community centres and shops closed, urban parks experienced the greatest increase in use of any public space ( Eadson et al., 2020, p. 49). More of us were drawn to dabble in a bit of ‘parklife’. This altered the demographics of my local inner-city park.
A place where the ‘park class’ claim space.īetween 26 March and 1 June (and then again, and then again) the UK was put into what Boris Johnson called “national hibernation” with one permissible hour of outdoor exercise. ‘Parklife’ is a place to suspend social norms: public sunbathing, loud music, playing with dogs. It conjures up the secret life of city parks – as cloisters for plebs.
In an interview explaining the origins of their 1994 hit ‘ Parklife’ band member Coxon said, "it wasn't about the working class, it was about the park class: dustbin men, pigeons, joggers – things we saw every day." I love Blur’s song and its glorious 70s retro video. There was a time when heading to a park for a bit of company was the prerogative of those the Britpop band Blur described as “the park class”.
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