(Re)presenting a sense of place for social and health-related policy purposes: place-making, belonging, and the value of community-based knowledge: Findings from Representing Communities Project: The Butetown Case Study

This paper explores mechanics and practices of place-making, and uses case-study data (interviews, observations, visual documentation and other evidence) also to explore the nature and impact of belonging that arises as part of such practices. The paper is rooted in collective leisure pursuits and in the community-facing activities of local artists based in a historic urban neighbourhood. We will argue that the unravelling of meaningful significations of place, and the mapping of manifestations of belonging emerging from the findings, reveal the need to remain attentive to how a sense of one shapes and is shaped by the other. With this comes the role of shared leisure in third spaces in understanding place-making, how relational approaches to place and placemaking move us beyond the stultifying notions of urban multiculture so often reconstituted in official imaginings, and the importance of capturing the particularity of manifestations of belonging.