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Everyday sociospatial practices across borders? A photowalk between Huangyan, China & Thüringen, Germany with WeChat Group "URA 照片共享群"

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Abstract

What does it mean to “see the ‘seeing’ of others” (Kato, 2014) through the exchange of photos on mobile devices across two countries, when those involved may never be able to meet each other in person? In this photowalk, we explore the everyday socio-spatial practices that were exchanged on the WeChat group ‘URA 照片分享群’(Urban-Rural Assembly Photo Exchange) between 23 participants in China and Germany in 2021, and the critical dynamics observed through these encounters. // Citation: Braybrooke, K. & Xiao, G. & Lynam, A. & Huang, H., 'Everyday sociospatial practices across borders? A photowalk between Huangyan, China & Thüringen, Germany with WeChat Group "URA 照片共享群"', In A. Lynam & H. Huang & Y. Guiqing (eds), URA Periodical 1(2), Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin, DE.
Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin
URA PERIODICAL · ISSUE 2
Dialogues
EDITORS
Ava Lynam
Huang Huang
Sigrun Abels
Guiqing Yang
Everyday socio-spatial practic-
es across borders? A photowalk in
Huangyan and Thüringen with the
WeChat Group ‘URA 照片分享群
Dr. Kit Kat Braybrooke1, Gaoli Xiao2, Ava Lynam2, Dr. Huang Huang3
1 Habitat Unit, TU Berlin
2 Centre for Cultural Studies on Science and Technology in China (CCST), TU Berlin
3 Department of Urban Planning, Tongji University, Shanghai
Introduction
What does it mean to “see the ‘seeing’ of others” (Kato, 2014) through the exchange
of photos on mobile devices across two countries, when those involved may never
be able to meet each other in person? In this photowalk, we explore the everyday
socio-spatial practices that were exchanged on the WeChat group ‘URA 照片分享群
(Urban-Rural Assembly Photo Exchange) between 23 participants in China and Ger-
many in 2021, and the critical dynamics we observed through these encounters. We-
Chat is China’s most widely-known messaging platform, which is currently used by
1.2 billion users to share their everyday lives with others – 78% of China’s population
aged 16–64 use the app (Statista, 2022).
As social science researchers based in Germany, we were unable to conduct eld-
work with our collaborators in China due to ongoing travel restrictions around the
Covid-19 pandemic in 2021 and 2022. We set up the WeChat group as an experimental
approach for connecting creatively across borders in a time of great limitations. In-
formed by digital ethnographic methods such as photovoice (Nykiforuk et al., 2011;
Sutton-Brown, 2014), we invited individuals located in and around the URA project’s
Living Labs of Beiyang Town and Xinqian Street, Huangyan-Taizhou, to engage in
a curated exchange of photos of their everyday experiences from commutes and
panoramic views to intimate moments at home.
We situated our inquiries around the following research question: What can im-
ages shared on Chinese digital platforms like WeChat reveal about how urban-rural
transformation is experienced by people in their everyday lives? Participants were in-
vited from across the communities we had met so far in the URA project: students, mi-
grant workers, farmers, policymakers and entrepreneurs. We crafted a welcome text
in English and Mandarin, which explained that the group was an image-only environ-
ment, meaning that photos, videos, GIFs and stickers were welcome, but not words.
In doing so, the intention was to offer simple visuals that enabled engagement across
languages and cultures. We launched the group as a prototype, intending that our
methods and approaches would evolve over time based on user feedback and experi-
mentation with the WeChat platform. Our group has now entered a second prototype
stage of development based on these ndings.
Let’s take a walk through some of the group’s photos, and learn more about the
experiences of participants, along with our observations on the method and its po-
tential applications going forward.
59METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
Themed photowalk: physical mobility across
geographies. Source: Photos shared by WeChat
group participants
1
1
60
61METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
OBSERVATION 1:
PLACE COMES ALIVE THROUGH SHARED SOCIAL IMAGINARIES
Applying a virtual photo exchange approach results in outputs that are
at once anchored in people’s experiences of local places, and at the
same time disembodied due to the nature of the platform, with each
photo arriving seemingly by magic, its origin spread across geogra-
phies. Without geotagging each individual photo, and without words
to describe the context, the photos appeared universalised, the only
clues to their origin coming from the location of their creator and the
particular cultural characteristics they appeared to display. At times,
the photos seemed to shapeshift – some photos looked like they were
certainly from China, but actually came from Germany or Thailand,
while others looked very European, but actually came from China.
This produced a kind of dreamlike quality, a stream of consciousness
that seemed to transcend language, capturing moments that evoked
a variety of responses from participants.
I like to share photos which are beautiful to me, like
owers or landscapes,or something that is related
to my emotions, like places, food, views, or when
I had a good time with my family. I want to see
something which can make me happy.
If you like the photos people share, then you are
more willing to get to know more about him/her
and their life stories… I would like to have further
communication with group members who I do not
know. Their photos make me curious about their
life stories.
I really appreciate the photos from the Chinese
colleagues. Having not been able to go back home
for more than two years, even some photos of the
scenery with Chinese characters in there gave me a
bit of a sense of familiarity.
Researcher, Chinese in Germany:
Researcher, Chinese in Germany:
Student, Chinese in Germany:
62
Themed photowalk: social practices across
geographies. Source: Photos shared by WeChat
group participants
2
63METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
OBSERVATION 2:
FAMILIARITY MATTERS
Participants in the group became especially engaged when they
shared things in common, and had something to compare. People of-
ten got involved when they saw photos of places they recognised, and
expressed feeling alienated by photos that were too different from
what they were used to. When our team had the rare opportunity to
get one of our Chinese researchers in Germany, Gaoli, across the Chi-
nese border, her photos of local places in and around Taizhou such as
farms, cityscapes and street views resulted in a much higher level of
interaction from other Chinese participants, who responded by shar-
ing photos from experiences in common with hers.
I like to see how different everyone’s daily life is.
Everyone is doing such different things even though
we are working on the same project in the same
eld.
I think everything we do is related to our emotions.
A Wechat group is a group of personal connections.
If you feel comfortable with people, then you feel
comfortable with their photos.
I don’t feel too connected to other group members
yet as I don’t know them. I’m also not too curious
about their lives because they are not friends of
mine.
Researcher, Chinese in Germany:
Researcher, Chinese in Germany:
Worker, Chinese in China:
64
OBSERVATION 3:
IMAGES CAN BE A COMMON LANGUAGE – BUT THERE ARE LIMITATIONS
Working with a limited digital format can also constrict the possibilities of connection.
It is challenging to make theoretical concepts like ‘urban-rural’ and ‘socio-spatial’
clear in the casual setting of a WeChat group where participants come from many
different walks of life, live in disparate cultural or political contexts, and do not share
a common language. In this format, there was simply not the room to explain things
more deeply. Some participants found the instructions of the group too vague, and
others worried about things like personal privacy and the security standards of the
WeChat platform – topics which we could not discuss openly with them in the group
due to its image-only format.
OBSERVATION 4:
CONNECTING ACROSS CULTURES CAN BE MYSTERIOUS (AND FUN)
During the photo exchange prototype, participants who could not meet in person
gained an intimate view into each other’s unique life experiences across China and
Germany. Participants chose to share a variety of diverse images based on what they
were comfortable with, what they found funny or interesting, and which kinds of
activities or places they felt appropriate to share in the group. This meant that with
each image that people make the decision to share, we also got a little glimpse into
their personality. While some people shared photos quite spontaneously, others took
more time to carefully curate their selection, and only shared a photo every now and
then. A few participants expressed their motivations for sharing images when we
asked them about their experience, but for many who did not respond, the reasoning
behind the photos remains a mystery. At the same time, participants also articulat-
ed clear personal preferences about what kind of content they would like to see. In
particular, we observed that humour enables unexpected possibilities for connection
to emerge between cultures and languages, despite the limitations of the medium.
I feel restricted to share photos, because the group
is quite small and I don’t know anyone. When I
want to share photos I would usually go for Wechat
Moments. For me the function of this group over-
laps with Wechat Moments. I think if the group is
not limited to photo sharing, and if there are more
talkative people chatting about their daily lives,
people will become more active.
I still have some doubts about data
protection with this WeChat applica-
tion… so I feel a bit uncomfortable to
post more personal images showing
mine or other people’s faces, also
because no one else is doing it. So I
don’t really get the level of exchange
with our colleagues that would make
me feel connected to them…. Of course
there is also this separation between
professionalism (work) and the private
sphere, and this WeChat group is the
intersection of both.
I don’t feel there is a restriction when it comes to
sharing photos, but rather in terms of interacting
with each other. At least for me, I want to comment
something like, ‘This is so nice, this looks so cre-
ative, where is this?’ when I see something inter-
esting, but I also noticed that there is a ‘no words’
rule, which I want to respect and obey.
Worker, Chinese in China:
Student, German in Germany:
Student, Chinese in Germany:
65METHODOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
RESEARCHER REFLECTIONS
The assorted materials of this photowalk reect an on-
going work-in-progress, which has important implica-
tions for the URA project as we attempt to work with
local stakeholders in our Living Labs in Beiyang Town
and Xinqian despite continued Covid-19 limitations. It
is clear from our experience that there are signicant
challenges to be faced with regards to communication
between Chinese and German participants. We also
recognise that it is important to ensure that efforts to
introduce ‘European’ methods in Chinese spaces are
done with sensitivity to local contexts, in a space of
mutual care and trust. In this section, the researchers
involved in facilitating the group reect on its future
possibilities for URA.
Ava, researcher, Irish in Germany: “With borders
closing up around the world, digital formats became
essential for maintaining connection, in our research
and in our everyday lives. The photo exchange group is
an experimentation of how this might be possible, and
our rst prototype has highlighted several lessons: rst
is the issue of trust. Our inability to go to the eld and
establish personal connections has made it dicult for
many participants to feel comfortable joining a group
only known to them by their Wechat name. It is possi-
ble that some participants do not fully understand our
aims, or are skeptical of our intentions. In the current
climate, surveillance and data protection is a real con-
cern for many participants, making them wary of shar-
ing intimate moments. Building trust means investing
time and listening to participant feedback to create
a more familiar and comfortable space. Second, the
participants come from very different walks of life, cul-
turally and socio-economically. The rst prototype has
highlighted that we have to be sensitive to different
dynamics between participants, and perhaps introduce
guidelines to limit the type of images that may high-
light inequalities. Inviting participants to send photos
relating to a specic neutral theme may support com-
mon ground. Third, is our positionality as researchers.
What kinds of photos
do you like to share?
I prefer to share scenes of the city streets, which
can reect the changes and essence åof the city in
my eyes. For example, a construction site or a tram
crossing a city street.
There are various types of photos in the WeChat
group, and they are all from different perspectives
and observations. Some people like close up views
of owers and plants, and some people like distant
scenery, which are very diverse. I think it’s good
that we can get to know each other through photos
like this.
I like to share funny scenes from my neighbour-
hood, and nice or interesting objects and practices
I have observed…
I prefer to share photos of natural scenery, and I
would like to see more photos of others, or interest-
ing content with local characteristics.
Student, German in Germany:
Researcher, Chinese in Germany:
Researcher, Chinese in Germany:
Student, Chinese in China:
66
As a foreign researcher in China, I experienced curios-
ity as well as reservations from people in the eld. As
much as I was interested in people’s everyday lives,
some people were equally curious about my life in Ger-
many and asked for my Wechat contact. One contact
was very actively posting personal photos on the We-
chat public feed, but when approached by a Chinese re-
searcher who they were not familiar with, they did not
join the Wechat group. This shows that some people
feel more comfortable using different formats to share
their personal moments, but also offers us lessons in
thinking about how we approach people to engage in
our group.”
Gaoli, researcher, Chinese in Germany: “Our We-
Chat group brings people from different social, cultural,
economic, and geographic backgrounds together, and
places them in a small, private, focused virtual room.
This is different from any other forms of public social
media (blogs, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), as the group
members could have direct human contacts and con-
nections with each other. This level of intimacy could
provoke a stronger emotional reaction of participants
towards what they see other people have posted. Be-
cause of this, I have been hesitant to invite my respond-
ents from Huangyan to the WeChat group, as they
come from very different social backgrounds compared
with the group members from Germany. Most of them
are low-skilled workers who might have never traveled
abroad. In our group they not only see the “seeing” of
others, but also their lifestyles. How would they feel
when they see landscapes, food, streets, and lifestyles
that are completely alien to them? How would they feel
about a lifestyle they might not be able to afford, but
have always longed for? What immediate impressions
would they get after seeing these strong visual mate-
rials, and how would they react to them? Would they
hold back from sharing their own lives, after seeing
how others’ lives are like? With these questions in mind,
the next step of our research is to transform our group
into a mutually benecial platform with minimal risks
for both Chinese and German participants.”
Huang, researcher, Chinese in China: “Social net-
work platforms (SNPs) have become a popular place for
people to communicate daily and exchange everyday
experiences. Affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, face-
to-face communication became even harder, especial-
ly for cross-regional exchanges, which gave SNPs an
even more active role in everyday life. Similarly, chal-
lenges are also faced by scholars working in sociolo-
gy and urban planning among other elds that work
closely with people's everyday practices and spatial
transformations. Creative and alternative approaches
are needed to assist scientic research, especially for
studies on socio-spatial practices which rely upon ob-
serving everyday practices in the eld. This pilot study
explores a possible way to connect with people and
encourage exchange in a convenient and comfortable
way, while at the same time providing an opportunity
for researchers to gain an understanding of their roles
in the research. The group also revealed how (social)
concepts are perceived distinctively by individuals
due to their personal experiences and contexts. It re-
minds us that we can not always take those concepts
for granted without embedding them in certain time-
space contexts.”
Kit Kat, researcher, Canadian in Germany: “In these
collected photos and observations, we see how abstract
coordinates on a map turn into our senses of place – a
space with many individual and intimate experiences
and histories attached. Places came to life in the We-
Chat group over time, through mundane encounters
shared across borders and time zones the owers
and lakes we admired, the meals that were special, the
sunsets worth recording, the homes we passed as we
headed to work, the observations that made us laugh.
In their ubiquity, these digital traces become great-
er than the sum of their parts – an archive of what it
means to move through space in a time of hyper-con-
nectivity, surrounded by digital screens and at the same
time bodies of esh and blood; globally-minded while
simultaneously rooted in our own families, communi-
ties, cultures and languages. As the WeChat group con-
tinues on its own journey of becoming, there will be fur-
ther experiments with its form and function which take
on board the insights and suggestions of participants,
an example being the inclusion of words to accompa-
ny the photos so people can get to know each other
better. This remains an ongoing challenge, however,
when participants are unable to meet in person, and
build the trust required to make deeper connections.
Like the human lives represented in its photos, the We-
Chat project must continually evolve. As we reect on
the challenges of inviting new ways of seeing between
strangers, we also gain a greater understanding of our
own biases and assumptions.”
The authors would like to offer their great thanks to all
the participants of the WeChat group URA 照片分享群
whose photos are featured in the photo walk.
Credits
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Published online on the institutional Repository of the
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DOI 10.14279/depositonce-16308
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Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the FONA program Sustainable
Development of Urban Regions (NUR).
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Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin
ISBN 978-3-7983-3295-9 (print)
ISBN 978-3-7983-3196-6 (online)
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