Spatial constructs as tools for inclusion studies : the CRISOLA phenomenology in two Mediterranean Islands

Abstract

The phenomena of space-time and their impacts on the social fabric have been rarely tackled and only the emergence of the socio-technic approach in the mid-2000s led to a focus on the social and spatial disciplines towards a common research process. The social realities faced by a rapidly-evolving society require modelling approaches that move away from techno-centricity towards horizontal socio-technic approaches: a process that the CRISOLA model has driven forward in the fields of crime, social issues and landuse (pivots) and their impacts on social cohesion. This study focuses on the visual identification of the hotspot approach in a process to review whether tackling inclusion from disparate research methodologies elicits an understanding of the issues that result in exclusion and others that enhance inclusion. The study identifies the linkages between the socio-economic/cultural parameters towards an understanding of poverty and deprivation as a surrogate for social and community health, offences as a measure of attractiveness of an area, offender data as a measure of social disorganisation and landuse zoning as a measure of affluence, leading to an understanding of opportunity structures. The three-year Malta-Sicily study at NUTS3 level is analysed from the CRISOLA three-pivot perspective through the creation of forty indicators, as analysed through spatial information systems. The statistical findings are reviewed through a comparative approach from on-the-ground perspectives of policy-makers and administrators and as visualised from fieldwork surveys.