May I Take Your Picture?
The Critical Importance of Designing for Culture & Cultural Diversity
By Beng Abella Lipsey
A few years ago, a friend of mine visited Manila. He wanted to see more of the "real" Manila, beyond the gleaming skyrises, condominiums, and large shopping malls. I decided to take him to a traditional public market. I thought it was a good idea because he always liked visiting public markets, whenever he visited other countries. He considered it a way to learn more about the culture of a place.
We went to the Farmer's Market, one of the largest surviving public markets in the Metropolitan Manila area. I used to visit this market regularly with my mother when I was younger. However, with the introduction of grocery stores and supermarkets, my family stopped going to this traditional public market. Because of this, when I visited this market with my foreigner friend, I also experienced it from a “visitor’s” perspective.
Farmer’s Market, Cubao, Quezon City, Metro Manila
The market was very crowded. We couldn’t help but bump into other people, as we went down the corridors. Most vendors were shouting out to the people passing by, naming their ware and asking people to buy, "bili na kayo ng isda, suki." This phrase translates loosely to "please buy fish, my regular customer." The market's corridors were quite wide, but most of the vendors expanded their vending space, into the corridors. We had to step over plastic containers of fresh, live fish strewn outside the stall areas. My friend took pictures with a professional DSLR camera, and most everyone was posing for their photographs. They were smiling and were asking him what his name was. Colloquially, they referred to him as "Joe" which is a friendly name used by locals to refer to someone who looks like an American. “Hi Joe, where are you from?” There was also joyful banter among the vendors, especially when they noticed that a foreigner was taking their photo.
When my husband and I visited the Granville Public Market in Vancouver last December 2018, I couldn’t help but compare my experience of the Farmers Market in Manila with that of the Granville Market. In Granville, we headed out to the fresh produce section, where we were happy to note that fresh seafood and meat were still available for sale. Despite a large number of people going around the stalls, the place was much quieter, compared to the public market in Manila. Everything was clean and tidy and, the fresh seafood and meat were inside refrigerated, glass-covered shelves.
Granville Market, Vancouver (Fresh Produce Area)
The vendors were friendly and were answering questions about their products, but they were doing so in a relatively lower tone of voice. They were not calling out to customers, for the customers to buy their ware. The busier stalls had a numbered queuing system, and everyone had to wait their turn. Being self-professed "foodies." we wanted to take a lot of pictures around the market. We were careful to ask permission from the vendors. We also avoided taking frontal photo shots of the other customers. We were sensitive to their privacy and sense of personal space.
Granville Market, Vancouver (Fresh Produce Area)
As I read about the ways by which food halls can be designed and operated to encourage social interaction, I am reminded of the significant difference in my experience of various public markets and food halls which I have visited around the world. The differences in my experience are likely due to a lot of factors, including social, economic, political, etc. One important factor is the difference in culture, which impacted on how the vendors interacted with their customers and how the customers, in turn, responded to the said social environment.
Most research findings on public markets and food halls highlight the nature of these spaces as prime spots for social interaction [1, 9-12, 15, 16, 18]. These studies generally recommend the concepts of increased proximity and “sociopetal” arrangement [1, 8, 13, 14]. They recommend narrower corridors, more intimate lunch counter or cafeteria style seating, and open stall arrangements, to increase the possibility for physical and eye contact among both the customers and the vendors as well [1, 4, 8, 13, 14, 19].
However, given the increased diversity of the communities where these food halls are to be located, we need to be reminded of the cultural differences in personal space and preferred distance for social interaction. These have implications on how we should physically design food halls, especially for communities with higher levels of diversity.
In his book Hidden Dimension, Hall differentiated the sense of personal space and distance of social interaction among different cultures. For example, he noted that a Japanese person needs less space and will thus stand much closer to an American, who will feel uncomfortable with this distance 5, 6. He also differentiated between the larger sense of personal space which Northern Europeans are comfortable with, compared with Europeans from the Southern Hemisphere, like people from Greece, Italy, Southern France, and Spain 5, 6. Hall also differentiated social distance among cultures in terms of voice levels, observing that the American voice level is lower than the Arabs, the Spaniards, the South Asian Indian, and the Russian, but a little above that of the English upper class, the Southeast Asian, and the Japanese [5, 6].
Subsequent studies on personal space and social distance probed both the differences and similarities, across different cultures and situations. Olesen built on Hall’s concept of proxemics. Olesen used the term “proxemics” to define differences and the term “proxetics” to identify similarities, across cultures, for personal space and social distance [7]. He observed the same cultural differences between people from Southern Europe, Latin America, and Middle Eastern countries (“contact cultures” with shorter preferences for distance) and people from North America and North Europe (“non-contact” cultures) [7]. On the other hand, he also identified common preferences for socialization space regardless of culture. These included findings that men prefer more personal space compared to women, children tend to require smaller personal spaces, and extroverts prefer shorter distances for interaction [7].
Van Eijk and Engbersen pointed out the need for some amount of distance to be provided in public spaces, among people in a community who are not familiar with each other [17]. This prescribed distance allows for observation to first happen, rather than for immediate social interaction to occur. Another factor to consider in designing food halls is the need to preserve the authenticity of a particular market or food hall [2, 3]. This authenticity may be highly dependent on the shared social traditions and unique physical space preferences of a specific culture or ethnicity [2, 3].
Given all these factors, the physical planning & programming of food halls in communities with high levels of diversity is quite complex. Hall also points out the need to study and better understand the different cultures of minority groups in the United States, to ensure that planning decisions will take into consideration their different requirements, in terms of personal space and social interaction [5].
In a US planning environment, a good starting point will be to study the physical design of successful food halls which have a similar diversity profile as one's community. Also, food halls must continue to work on programs for inclusion to increase familiarity and social interaction among a broader group of the community's diverse residents [16].
Sources:
Elijah Anderson, The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life (New York, New York W.W. Norton & Co., c2011. 1st ed., 2011).
Montserrat Crespi-Vallbona, and Darko Dimitrovski, 'Food Market Visitors: A Typology Proposal', British Food Journal, 118 (2016), 840.
———, 'Urban Food Markets in the Context of a Tourist Attraction: La boqueria Market in Barcelona Spain', Tourism Geographies, 20 (2018), 397-417.
'Food Halls of North America', (Cushman & Wakefield, 2018).
Edward T. Hall, The Hidden Dimension (New York: Anchor Books, 1990).
Edward T. Hall, and Mildred Reed Hall, Understanding Cultural Differences (Yarmouth, Me. : Intercultural Press, c1990., 1990).
Henrik Høgh-Olesen, 'Human Spatial Behaviour: The Spacing of People, Objects and Animals in Six Cross-Cultural Samples', Journal of Cognition and Culture, 8 (2008), 245-80.
Brigitte Jordan, and Austin Henderson, 'Interaction Analysis: Foundations and Practice', The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4 (1995), 39-103.
Alfonso Morales, 'Marketplaces: Prospects for Social, Economic, and Political Development', Journal of Planning Literature, 26 (2011), 3-17.
———, 'Planning and the Self-Organization of Marketplaces', Journal of Planning Education & Research, 30 (2010), 182-97.
———, 'Public Markets as Community Development Tools', Journal of Planning Education and Research, 28 (2008), 426-40.
Alfonso Morales, and Steven Balkin, 'The Value of Benefits of a Public Street Market: The Case of Maxwell Street', Economic Development Quarterly, 9 (1995), 304.
Nigel Oseland, Alexi Marmot, Felicity Swaffer, and Sophia Ceneda, 'Environments for Successful Interaction', Facilities, 29 (2011), 50-62.
Susan Parham, 'Designing the Gastronomic Quarter', Architecture Design May/June 2005.
'Public Food Markets: Build Cities, Regions, and Revitalize Communities', (Toronto Public Food Markets Working Group 2017).
'Public Markets as a Vehicle for Social Integration and Upward Mobility', in Phase I Report: An Overview of Existing Programs and Assessment of Opportunities (New York, New York Project for Public Spaces, Inc. & Partners for Livable Communities 2003).
Gwen van Eijk, and Radboud Engbersen, 'Facilitating ‘Light’ Social Interactions in Public Space: A Collaborative Study in a Dutch Urban Renewal Neighbourhood', Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, 5 (2011), 35-50.
Sophie; Studdert Watson, David, Markets as Sites for Social Interaction Spaces of Diversity (Bristol, United Kingdom The Policy Press for Joseph Rowntree Foundation 2006).
Tad Wilkes, 'Food Halls and Markets Still on-Trend ', in Hotel F&B (2017).