Parks are sites of rich sociological enquiry, revealing divisions and conflicts as well as contributing enormously to wellbeing. 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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