Methodological frameworks and interdisciplinary research on gated communities

Abstract

The paper examines gated communities as an object of study that has received intense scholarly attention from diverse disciplines over the last 10 years. The many conference presentations and published papers on the subject have not, however, always contributed to a cohesive body of knowledge. We suggest in this paper that clearer frameworks for empirical investigations are needed; not only for specific disciplines, but also for providing an interdisciplinary perspective. The paper focuses on methodology: first highlighting three different approaches to the analysis of urban fragmentation (social, spatial and institutional); and second, outlining a framework for interdisciplinary analysis. In the latter part, we illustrate the connections that may be made between the analyses of the social, spatial and institutional fragmentation effects and causes of gated communities and suggest ways of handling phenomenological as well as linguistic complexity in this multi-disciplinary area of urban scholarship. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.