People and Places: The Micro-Geographies of Social Cohesion

Rebecca Wickes, Griffith Criminology Institute

Social cohesion—the sense of connectedness, mutual trust, and shared norms that bind communities—is vital to the capacity of groups to collectively respond to challenges. While often considered an abstract social good, social cohesion is rooted in everyday interactions and micro-level exchanges that take place in the local areas where people live. A growing body of research has examined how neighbourhood socio-demographic characteristics shape these dynamics, with strong evidence from Australia and elsewhere pointing to the corrosive impact of socio-economic disadvantage on trust, belonging, and civic engagement. Advances in spatially granular administrative data, GPS technologies, and smartphone applications allow researchers to move beyond static, census-based views of neighbourhoods to capture the fine-grained geographies of interaction—where norms of inclusion are built, challenged, or eroded. Drawing on recent empirical findings, the presentation highlights the importance of attending to both people and the places they live in understanding social cohesion

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