European journal of American studies, 10-3

European journal of American studies

10-3 | 2015Special Double Issue: The City

Édition électroniqueURL : https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11186DOI : 10.4000/ejas.11186ISSN : 1991-9336

ÉditeurEuropean Association for American Studies

Référence électroniqueEuropean journal of American studies, 10-3 | 2015, « Special Double Issue: The City » [En ligne], mis enligne le 31 décembre 2015, consulté le 08 juillet 2021. URL : https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11186 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.11186

Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 8 juillet 2021.

Creative Commons License

https://journals.openedition.org

https://journals.openedition.org

https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/11186

SOMMAIRE

PART ONE Spatial Justice and the Right to the City: Conflicts around Accessto Public Urban Space

IntroductionAneta Dybska et Sandrine Baudry

Urban Discourses in the Making: American and European Contexts

Where the War on Poverty and Black Power Meet: A Right to the City Perspective onAmerican Urban Politics in the 1960sAneta Dybska

Who Has the Right to the Post-Socialist City? Writing Poland as the Other of MarxistGeographical MaterialismKamil Rusiłowicz

Segregation or Assimilation: Dutch Government Research on Ethnic Minorities in DutchCities and its American Frames of ReferenceRuud Janssens

Public Art: Transnational Connections

“The cornerstone is laid”: Italian American Memorial Building in New York City andImmigrants’ Right to the City at the Turn of the Twentieth CenturyBénédicte Deschamps

Performing the Return of the Repressed: Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Artistic Interventions in NewYork City's Public SpaceJustyna Wierzchowska

Competing Claims to Housing and Public Space: Fighting Displacement in theContemporary City

What Can Urban Gardening Really Do About Gentrification? A Case-Study of Three SanFrancisco Community GardensGuillaume Marche

Resisting the Politics of Displacement in the San Francisco Bay Area: Anti-gentrificationActivism in the Tech Boom 2.0Florian Opillard

“Meet de Boys on the Battlefront”: Festive Parades and the Struggle to Reclaim PublicSpaces in Post-Katrina New OrleansAurélie Godet

European journal of American studies, 10-3 | 2015

1

PART TWO Sustainability and the City: America and the Urban World

Introduction: How (Can) Cities WorkTheodora Tsimpouki

Real Cities

Infrastructures of the Global: Adding a Third Dimension to Urban Sustainability DiscoursesBoris Vormann

Dealing with the Past Spatially: Storytelling and Sustainability in De-IndustrializingCommunitiesJulia Sattler

The Implementation of the URBAN Community Initiative: A Transformative Driver towardsCollaborative Urban Regeneration? Answers from SpainSonia De Gregorio Hurtado

Imaginary Cities

Urban Figures, Common Ground: JR and the Cultural Practices of PerceptionPetra Eckhard

Space Over Time: The Urban Space in William Gibson’s Techno-thriller NovelsAnna Krawczyk-Łaskarzewska

Stanley Park, Literary Ecology, and the Making of SustainabilityGeorg Drennig


2

PART ONE Spatial Justice and theRight to the City: Conflicts aroundAccess to Public Urban Space

EDITOR'S NOTE

Edited by Aneta Dybska and Sandrine Baudry


3

IntroductionAneta Dybska and Sandrine Baudry

1 In 1968 the French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre defined the right to the city as a

right to “urban life, to renewed centrality, to places of encounter and exchange, to life

rhythms and time uses, enabling the full and complete usage of these moments and

places, etc.”1 His idea caught on in the Western countries and, in recent years, has been

widely used as a critical tool by American urban scholars. The study of urban dwellers’

access to space and greenery, as well as the uses these urban resources are put to,

reveals the existing discrepancies between the American values of justice and equality

on the one hand and day-to-day realities of urban life on the other. Since claims and

demands for a more equitable living environment materialize in public spaces in the

form of territorial conflicts, knowing who uses public space and how it is used can

inform us on a multitude of aspects of contemporary American society. Among them

are the relations between citizens and institutions in the making of an urban public, as

well as the relations among citizens themselves.

2 Contemporary scholars of the right to the city have elaborated on Lefebvre’s at

times vague formulations and abstractions on the right to the city. Indeed, Mark

Purcell argues that “Lefebvre’s urban politics of the inhabitant would not lead

necessarily to any particular outcomes,” in that the indeterminate character of the

right to the city makes it unclear who will be empowered, and to what degree. Purcell

argues that Lefebvre’s conception of the inhabitant is limited to the working class, thus

reducing the right to the city to anticapitalist resistance, whereas it is clear that such

divisions as race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation also are a ground for spatial

exclusion and inequality.2 For example, Eugene J. McCann underlines the necessity of

accounting for racial inequalities when applying Lefebvre's concept to North American

cities.3 McCann reminds us that rights are not inherently positive, so that it is not

enough to advocate for the right to the city; it is important to ask whose needs are

being met, and to keep in mind that urban space will become more democratic through

inhabitant participation only if we recognize the complexity and diversity of urban

needs.4

3 In the capitalist city operating as a “growth machine”5 and driven by the

incentive to accumulate capital with the privatization of land and real estate


4

development, conflict emerges over the exchange value and the use value of land by

the broad urban public. Since commodification of urban spaces breeds social exclusion

and surveillance, it is also thought to threaten the political and social needs of urban

citizens. A functional public sphere is the cornerstone of the civil society, whose

inherent nature is to “limit[] the power of state, but also contribute[] to the

development of common political debate and cultural exchange, which informs and

influences collective decisions, allowing for the negative and positive meanings of

freedom simultaneously to develop.”6 Public spaces such as parks, squares, playgrounds

have their antecedent in the agora of the Greek polis and serve to facilitate participation

in egalitarian and democratic processes.7 Functional public spaces are spaces for

representation where, as Mitchell explains, diverse urban groups such as immigrants,

veterans, the homeless, the queer youth of color, and urban gardeners can legitimately

constitute themselves as political subjects within urban and national polity.8 It is in the

public space that the otherwise invisible groups can draw attention to social, economic,

and environmental injustice as mapped onto exclusionary urban geographies:

displacement of low-income tenants, privatization of parks and playgrounds, as well as

discriminatory access to work, education, transportation, food, and health care.

4 In its political dimension, the right to the city is contingent upon the existence

of public spaces. Functional public spaces (the commons) constitute the foundation of

urban democracy since they ensure the exercise of political freedoms by diverse urban

actors. Geographer Don Mitchell makes a powerful claim in defense of the right to

appropriate urban space: “in a society where all property is private, those who own

none (or whose interests are not otherwise protected by a right to access private

property) simply cannot be, because they would have no place to be.”9 The presence of

the homeless in the public space is not voluntary, he insists. Unlike property owning

individuals who voluntarily create a public outside of the private realm, the homeless

pose a challenge to such a political order: their presence in public space is involuntary

and permanent, and thus strikes at the political core of modern societies, that is, the

division into the private/public realm on which the democratic system is built.10 To fall

back on urban planner Ali Madanipour’s definition:

Public space is a place of simultaneity, a site for display and performance, a test ofreality, an exploration of difference and identity, an arena for recognition, in whichrepresentation of difference can lead to an awareness of the self and others, and toan examination of the relationship between particular and general, personal andimpersonal. It is a place where many-sided truths co-exist and tolerance ofdifferent opinions is practiced.11

5 In recent decades, the right to the city has become the idiom of collective resistance

against the sanitization of public spaces and their transformation into sites of socio-

cultural exclusion and privilege. Cultural, economic, and ideological frictions play

themselves out territorially, and space, rather than being a backdrop against which

urban denizens articulate their demands, becomes an inseparable element of socio-

cultural struggle. Thus public space can be looked at through the prism of inclusion and

exclusion along the lines of gender, race, sexuality, religion, or home ownership.

American city leaders and planners realized early on that public realm was

indispensable for the citizens’ practice of their democratic right. For example, in 1872

New York City’s Union Square was planned by the authorities as an official place where

the spirit of democracy would thrive precisely because it was designated as a meeting

place, a public forum, a site of exchange of ideas and debate, an arena where conflicts


5

would be fought out.12 A century after its design, Union Square Park shared the lot of

many municipal parks that deteriorated during the 1970s fiscal crisis. Since the

mid-1980s Union Square Park has undergone revitalization and gained new life with

the opening of a farmers market as an anchor for commercial activity in the area.13

Today it is a subway hub with heavy pedestrian traffic and thousands of visitors. As in

numerous other places in New York City, areas adjacent to the park were rezoned and

opened to high-rise mixed-use construction. This was done at the cost of displacing

old-time lower-class residents from affordable housing which was demolished to make

room for corporate offices and upscale apartments. Now that the park’s open plaza and

playgrounds have been gradually revitalized, local advocacy groups make sure that the

commercial and consumer functions of the square (e.g. an upscale restaurant, shops

and entertainment) do not override the park’s civic function as an official site of

oppositional political rallies and demonstrations, community events, and festivities.14

Such reinscription of public spaces into sites of order, respectability, and safety stands

at odds with the original design and intended function of Union Square as a site of

encounter and exchange of ideas, of officially sanctioned disorder, where spontaneous

political protest and discontent could be articulated.15

6 The right to the city activism and debates revolve, in a large part, around

participation in political processes that shape the city. A group’s autonomy should be

measured in terms of its ability to voice concerns and demands in the public, gain

political recognition via visibility and exposure, and thus actively participate in the

production of law and social space.16 Whether used as a political philosophy of change

or as an analytical tool, the right to the city perspective shows that the hegemonic

discourses of the municipal governments and the nation-state have always generated

competing claims to space and space production. It can be an effective measure to

countervail the emergent socio-spatial injustices, cultural hierarchies of the state, and

profit-oriented public space management. For Edward Soja, the right to the city is

coterminous with “seeking spatial justice,” “democracy and citizen’s rights” both at the

level of the city and the metropolitan region.17 As Peter Marcuse explains, the right to

the city is a “moral claim, founded on fundamental principles of justice.” It is not a

single right but a set of manifold rights subsumed under the status of urban

citizenship18—a right to quality education, health care, affordable and decent housing, a

right to clean air, water, and sanitation, healthy food, public services, public space, and

political representation. At its root, the right to the city activism sets out to transform

the extant power relations in the capitalist city by building a new urban order premised

on equality, self determination, as well as justice: economic, racial, immigrant, and

environmental.

7 In the post-World War II period both North American and European cities,

communist and capitalist alike, were overwhelmingly controlled by centralized state

bureaucracies—a model that precluded the agency of urban citizens in the making of

their own living and working environment. Lefebvre’s notion of autogestion (self-

management), articulated in the atmosphere of the student revolt in 1960s France, aims

at a radical reordering of power relations within the capitalist city whereby urban

dwellers would be empowered to participate in local-level politics. Operating within

the terrain of the civil society, autogestion “calls the State into question as a

constraining force erected above society as a whole. . . . [and] tends to reorganize the

State as a function of its development, which is to say it tends to engender the State’s


6

withering away.”19 With this shift towards “prioritizing the social needs that are

formulated, controlled, and managed by those who have a stake in them,” Lefebvre

predicts the democratization of urban processes and a move towards a more just urban

order.20 When implemented in the realm of urban planning and management, self-

management stands for direct democratic processes that entail “efficacious

contestation” in the place of hierarchical, state-controlled government, as well as

“effective development” in place of the logic of accumulation and commodification.

Finally, “born and reborn at the heart of contradictory society,” the concept of

autogestion “coincides with that of freedom,” concludes Lefebvre.21

8 While in urban studies Lefebvre is credited for articulating an early version of

the right to the city, his writings were preceded by the Port Huron Statement (PHS), a

1962 manifesto of American activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS),

which insisted on participatory democracy as a legitimate alternative to the ailing,

“apathetic democratic system,” that is, representative democracy. Written by Tom

Hayden, the PHS expressed the radical youth’s disenchantment with both the American

Cold War policy and the quality of social life at home: racism, poverty, state

authoritarianism and paternalism, the “depersonalization” of individuals, and the

suppression of their “unrealized potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-

understanding, and creativity.” The SDS activists voiced hope in “a democracy of

individual participation” as a countermeasure to the widening chasm between the

nation-state’s professed ideals and lived reality. The Port Huron Statement re-centered

the individual, claiming that direct engagement in politics would “provide outlets for

the expression of personal grievance and aspiration . . . [much as] illuminate choices

and facilitate the attainment of goals” (PHS).22 Those demands would resonate a few

years later in Lefebvre’s notion of autogestion, validating urban citizens as agents of

social change.

9 Although the concerns raised by the right to the city idea have mostly been

tackled by such radical geographers as David Harvey and Don Mitchell, or planners

such as Peter Marcuse,23 researchers in American Studies are starting to pay attention

to matters of urban inequality through the lens of Henri Lefebvre’s concept.24 This

special issue brings together contributions by scholars from France, the Netherlands,

and Poland ranging from fieldwork among contemporary right-to-the-city activist

groups through archival research on 19th-century mobilizations to the analysis of

artistic and literary renditions of urban inequalities. These diverse methodological and

theoretical approaches provide a multiscalar look at conflicts around urban territories

on the local, regional, national, and global scale, and remind us that right-to-the-city

struggles existed well before the term itself was coined in the 1960s. They also show

that the right to the American city is not limited to resisting the production and

control of public space by corporate and state capital, but that it includes Italian

Americans, African Americans and other minorities’ struggle for representation and

control over their urban environment.

10 The first three papers of the issue, written by Aneta Dybska, Kamil Rusłowicz

and Ruud Jansens, investigate urban discourses in the making in American and

European contexts, through historical, political, and literary approaches respectively.

Bénédicte Deschamps’ and Justyna Wierzchowska’s contributions that follow look at

the role in the space of the city. Both read the claims for representation made by the

culturally marginalized in the past and the name of the homeless today through the


7

lenses of history and cultural studies. Finally, Guillaume Marche, Florian Opillard, and

Aurélie Godet use field work and case studies to analyze how competing claims to

housing and public space lead contemporary urban dwellers to organize at the

grassroots to fight displacement.

11 Aneta Dybska adopts the right to the city perspective to the discuss the federal

War on Poverty programs and Black Power agenda in the 1960s, with attention to their

respective advocacy of community governance as a means of countering ineffective

models of bureaucratic urban management and eradicating socio-spatial injustices.

Both initiatives were filled with well-meaning idealism grounded in such democratic

ideals as civic participation, fair chances, equal opportunities, and equal access to

public goods for all urban actors. The War on Poverty’s concern with political

empowerment through citizen participation was a public policy measure bent on the

poor’s cultural mainstreaming, notes Dybska. Yet, as the ideological goals of the War on

Poverty unfolded in the atmosphere of urban rebellion, demand for community control

became the rallying cry of Black Power organizations. They saw neighborhood-level

empowerment as a panacea to racial discrimination, oppression, and second-class

citizenship. Although grassroots activism among ghettoized Blacks grew out of the

political ferment of the students’ movement, it was fused with the ideology of black

nationalism. Black Power organizations such as the Black Panther Party linked

community control to emancipatory politics. They hoped to wield control over black

neighborhoods as scattered outposts of a racial nation that, once strong and unified,

would successfully integrate into the pluralistic American society.

12 Both War on Poverty and Black Panther Party survival programs yielded

palpable results: they gave African Americans a sense of agency and energized large

numbers of black youth to join an unprecedented tide of self-organizing and self-help

activities. If both initiatives encouraged a form of autogestion at the community-level,

they inevitably undermined the credibility of centralized state institutions. As effective

and transformative as the experience of self-management must have been for African

Americans, it nonetheless, “engender[ed] the State’s withering away,”25 as predicted by

Lefebvre, Dybska concludes.

13 In a similar vein, Kamil Rusłowicz analyses Polish writer Mariusz Sieniewicz’s

2003 novel Czwarte niebo [Fourth Heaven]. Drawing on theories of space developed by

David Harvey, Edward Soja, and Michel de Certeau, he investigates the social potential

for the right-to-the-city activism in the material space of communist urban planning.

The fictional district of Zatorze, in the north-eastern city of Olsztyn, Poland, is a former

industrial community whose material environment was designed around a factory. Due

to the collapse of the state-controlled economy followed by deindustrialization, Zatorze

is suspended in the physical space of Fordism, yet unyielding to the neoliberal strategy

of flexible accumulation.26 It is a clear instance of social and spatial inequalities, “a

waste product”27 that emerges along with the region’s economic growth. Rusiłowicz

adopts a multiscalar approach to show how the old time Zatorze residents enact their

local identities through resistance to global capital and neocolonial dominance by

forces beyond their control, be it economic or ideological. This defensiveness precludes

the community’s openness to change.28 Making use of the panoptic, disciplining

function of the communist-era architecture embodied in high-density apartment

blocks, neighbors resort to individual spatial tactics and the visual surveillance of

everyday street-level social interactions. Rusłowicz argues that through “the microbe-


8

like, singular and plural practices which an urbanistic system was supposed to

administer or suppress,”29 the social relations forged by the Concept-City of

authoritarian planning have outlived communism and, like the panopticon, continue to

regulate spatial practices at Zatorze. The ample social capital accumulated in the past

does not translate into neighborhood activism or incentives for a creative grassroots

makeover of the district. This kind of capital incapacitates rather than stimulates

action, conserves the social status quo rather than overcomes inertia.

14 If, politically speaking, the right to the city takes its origin in the idea of

participatory democracy and civic responsibility, then Zatorze can serve as a

cautionary tale for other post-socialist cities transitioning to neoliberal capitalism. The

old timers in Zatorze have a sense of entitlement to urban space but it is a far cry from

Lefebvre’s notion of autogestion.

15 Ruud Jansens’ contribution to this volume, “Segregation or Assimilation: Dutch

Government Research on Ethnic Minorities in Dutch Cities and its American Frames of

Reference,” shifts the discussion of the right to the city to the realm of policy making

and representation. Jansens shows that, ironically, the Dutch government’s

commitment to increasing urban equality in the 1980s introduced into public discourse

and national consciousness the concept of ethnic conflict, which led to minority

groups’ misrepresentation and stigmatization. Jansens reveals that the state-level

Minorities Policy geared towards greater social justice, in fact, produced a chasm

within the Dutch society along the lines of ethnicity and citizenship. By carrying out a

detailed study of governmental statistical reports released between the early 1980s and

the mid-2000s, he traces the discursive evolution of the term “ethnic minority” as

applied to immigrants and refugees on a par with second-generation Dutch citizens

born of a foreign parent, this classification being soon superseded by the division into

“autochtonen” (ethnic Dutch) and “allochtonen” (immigrants). The latter reveals that

concern with the assimilation of “ethnic others” into the dominant culture gradually

became the key concern of Dutch policy makers, with the stigmatization of the

“allochtonen” as a by-product. By the early 2000s, it was not an uncommon belief that,

if left to their own devices, non-assimilating immigrants would soon become a spatially

segregated and culturally alien underclass, a threat to social order and a serious

economic problem. Jansens’ study pinpoints the flaws in the application of classical

1920s theories of American urban sociology to the study of ethnicity and immigration

in the Netherlands today. Impressed by Robert Park’s urban ecology, Jansens contends,

Dutch statisticians and planners drew on the Chicago School scholarship in a selective

manner and completely overlooked the contemporary revisions of those early theories,

which challenged the assimilationist model and endorsed cultural diversity as

constitutive of urban life. The Dutch officials’ discussions evoked the conflictual nature

of ethnic relations but ignored the systemic explanations as root causes of the

immigrants’ cultural nonconformity. Neither did they foreground the ethnic Dutch

majority’s racial prejudice and discrimination as possible factors leading to social

inequality.

16 Jansens’ detailed study shifts in the discourse about immigrants shows that

Dutch state policies, which initially aimed at achieving greater socio-spatial justice,

diminished the “ethnic others”’ right to the city. He therefore demonstrates that

understanding the mutual constitution of power, knowledge, and social policy is a

necessary first step to guaranteeing that right.


9

17 The “ethnic other” is also at the center of Bénédicte Deschamps’ article, but

with an emphasis on strategies of representation, rather than state policy. “’The

cornerstone is laid’: Italian American Memorial Building in New York City and

Immigrants’ Right to the City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century” examines the

strategies used by early Italian Americans to apply their right to the city. During that

time of massive Eastern and Southern European immigration, Italians and other new

arrivals were perceived by Americans as undesirable invaders, physically and culturally

too different to hope for integration. The urban neighborhoods in which these

immigrants settled were similarly stigmatized as being filthy, loud, and unfit for living.

Underlining the relationship between urban space and social identity, Deschamps

explains how Italian Americans sought to assert their place in American society. They

extended “their walking geography” by stepping out of the Little Italies and into the

middle-class neighborhoods where they made their presence visible by erecting

monuments and gathering for inaugurations. She insists on the pivotal role of the

Italian American elite, in particular Carlo Barsotti, director of the newspaper Il

Progresso Italo-Americano, in advocating for these monuments to be built and negotiating

strategic locations with the city authorities so that the statues of Italian heroes would

be seen by as many New Yorkers as possible. Barsotti set out to expand the visibility

and prestige of Italian Americans by “forcing Italian historical heritage on Americans,

and giving Italians an excuse to occupy new areas of the city.” The goal was not only to

claim a right to the city but also a place in the American collectivity, as well as to foster

unity among Italian Americans themselves by forging a common ethnic identity. Yet,

these efforts generated dissent, in particular from other ethnic groups which competed

with Italian Americans for representation in public space; even within the Italian

community, the allocation of funds to statues rather than community infrastructure

was contested.

18 What links Deschamps’ analysis with Justyna Wierzchowska’s contribution are

the uses of monuments in forging and negotiating collective identities. At different

points in the history of New York, artistic and political interventions used public

memorials to bring to focus and validate the life experiences of the otherwise

underrepresented social groups: the immigrants, the homeless, and more recently war

veterans. Space in the city is not an “indifferent medium,” Lefebvre insisted30 but an

effect of power—a site of controversy and debate over who has the right to political

representation and recognition. Public monuments function to: symbolically integrate

minority group heroes into the nation-building narratives; leave a lasting mark of

those groups’ cultural heritage on the fabric of the city; as much as articulate, in spatial

terms, their aspirations of equal membership in the American body politic.

19 Wierzchowska’s paper deals with Polish-born artist Krzysztof Wodiczko’s

public art installations in Union Square Park, New York. Sited in a traditional protest

area where voices of dissent have been freely expressed, The Homeless Projection (1986)

and Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection (2012) offer a temporarily and fleeting

subversion of the meanings evoked by public monuments. Casting images of the

homeless and war veterans’ video testimonies onto three-dimensional statues,

Wodiczko prompts a critical revision of American national narratives. Otherwise

commemorating the nation’s past glories through such heroes as George Washington,

Abraham Lincoln, and Marquis de Lafayette, the public monuments used in Wodiczko’s

work double up as screens against which alternative visions of the past and the present


10

are projected. Those moments of reinscription are possible as long as the viewers

become involved in the act of witnessing human suffering, deprivation, loss and grief,

and social injustice. Wodiczko’s installations challenge the unitary vision of America as

a nation-state and the alleged continuities between the founding principles of the

Republic and its ideologies today, as embodied in the monumental statues of great

national heroes. Wierzchowska argues that the projected images expose urban citizens

to the traumas of others, thereby opening up space for a critical reassessment of

meanings sedimented in the nation’s self-narratives. Unlike The Homeless Projection

which took the shape of a proposal only, the War Veteran Projection was executed

outdoors. It invited the urban citizens passing through Union Square Park to engage in

a participatory mode of interaction whereby the viewing subjects act as prosumers,31 to

use Henry Jenkins’ term, that is, as both consumers and producers of cultural and

ideological meanings. The “embodied” experience of otherness, made possible by the

existence of the public realm, lends itself to a psychoanalytic reading. Since public

memorials usually commemorate a historical figure or an event, they serve to

legitimate the hegemonic narratives of American national origins and collective unity.

Wodiczko’s artistic interventions bring to the surface the repressed, traumatic aspects

of national myth-making and symbolism. The grand and monumental statues of the

nation’s political and military leaders are what Wierzchowska calls “aesthetic

anesthetics”—they serve to maintain the totalizing narratives that disguise the

contradictions built into the continuous reproduction of national identities. It is not

coincidental, she contends.

20 While planting statues of Italians in public spaces and projecting images on

statues of American national heroes are cases of artistic appropriation that contest

blatant inequalities built into the production and control of space by capital, Aurélie

Godet’s paper titled “‘Meet de Boys on the Battlefront’: Festive Parades and the

Struggle to Reclaim Public Spaces in Post-Katrina New Orleans” straddles two key

themes of the right to the city activism, namely, the appropriation of public spaces and

anti-gentrification struggles. Godet also tackles the forging of collective identities

through the use of public space, this time through mobile, short-term festive

occupation. The article discusses three case studies of the post-Katrina carnival culture

in New Orleans as a strategy of claiming urban space following the massive

displacements caused by the hurricane and its aftermath. The natural disaster was used

by the municipal government as an opportunity for urban renewal projects and

gentrification of working-class neighborhoods. Through the lens of Abdou Maliq

Simone’s conceptualization of people as infrastructure, Godet examines the ways in

which a marginalized population draws on festive practices to politicize urban space in

“the parading capital of the United States.” Since the 18th century processional rituals

rooted in African and Caribbean traditions have served to embody cultural prestige and

political power, and to turn New Orleans streets into lived spaces, but, according to

Godet, after Katrina, music and parades came to be used with more intensity as tools to

achieve the right to the city. Through three case studies—a funeral procession in 2007,

a Mardi Gras Indian St. Joseph’s Night Procession, and the Krewe of Eris Parade in 2012

—she underlines “the enduring power of ritualised collective effervescence” to

negotiate a local identity, as well as foster economic activity by attracting tourists. The

analysis of these parades raises the question of the residents’ ability to control the

urban space they inhabit when faced with increases in permit fees for public

processions, a troubled relationship with the police, and internal discord about how


11

subversive carnival krewes should be. Beyond the festivities, post-Katrina parades in

New Orleans emphasize the role of people in re-injecting meaning into places damaged

by a natural disaster, as well as the potential of the disenfranchised to induce debate

about conflicts around access to public space despite limited access to formal political

power.

21 The contributions by Guillaume Marche and Florian Opillard, like Godet, rely

on field work, but they examine the geographies of gentrification in San Francisco, a

highly gentrified city with a long history of grassroots activism, where social justice

advocates have been fighting neoliberal models of urban governance and the

commodification of land and housing.

22 Guillaume Marche’s paper focuses on how community greening can arguably

work for the advantage of either side of displacement, showing that advocacy for the

right to the city does not necessarily lead to greater equality. Indeed, even when land is

scarce and real estate value increases, green public spaces such as community gardens

attract individuals who represent what Richard Florida has dubbed the “creative class.”

Not only do they drive the gentrification process but they do so with municipal

support. On the other hand, residents involved in the community greening project tend

to be more attached to their neighborhood and determined to fight displacement. In

order to try and disentangle the apparent contradictions in the role of community

gardens in gentrification and tenant displacement, Marche takes a close look at the

organizational structures and motivations of three groups of gardeners through field

work: a couple in a low-income neighborhood whose project soon garnered support

from local residents, a single gardener in an already-gentrified neighborhood whose

residents seek to beautify their surroundings, and a top-down greening initiative on

the premises of a housing project. Marche’s comparative analysis reveals that the

relationship between community gardening and gentrification greatly depends on the

type of decision-making processes and the degree of community engagement. This

paper brings out one of the paradoxes inherent in the application of the right to the

city, namely, the claiming of that right by residents who want to beautify urban space

through community greening, yet simultaneously deny it to the disempowered, so that

it eventually becomes a tool of displacement.

23 Florian Opillard’s research, in turn, deals with San Francisco tenant

associations organizing to resist the commodification of housing and the subsequent

displacement of residents caused by hypergentrification due to the influx of tech

industry workers during the “tech boom 2.0.” The paper explores strategies of

resistance to tenant evictions in a “boiling political activism milieu” by studying the

group styles of two activist collectivities, Eviction Free San Francisco and the Anti-

Eviction Mapping Project, as well as their “repertories of contention,” a concept

developed by Charles Tilly. Tenant eviction has gone up since the first tech boom in the

late 1990s as a result of the landlords’ overuse of the 1985 Ellis Act, which allows them

to get out of the rental market and remodel their buildings to sell them as individual

luxury condos. Activist groups are targeting the speculation process—which involves

the displacement of tenants—through whistle-blowing strategies such as collection of

data and creation of maps, or the “public shaming” of speculators by releasing their

names. Opillard discusses the impact of the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition,

to which the discussed activist groups belong, especially through the proposal and

successful passing of legislation to disincentivize the flipping of property and ensure


12

financial aid to displaced tenants. He also suggests the need for a change of scale in the

study of gentrification processes and resistance, from the city to the urban region,

which requires “a major change in the analysis of embedded patterns of racial and class

segregation.”

24 The contributions in this special issue highlight how critical inquiry into the

relationship between the socio-spatial processes and urban governance on the one

hand and capitalist economies on the other helps shed light on the contingent nature

of the city. This critical approach can be applied to the various methodological and

theoretical frameworks developed by scholars in American Studies in order to explain

contemporary as well as historical urban phenomena of space production and struggles

for equality and representation in the city. Although the concept itself was born in

France in the 1960s, the right to the city as an analytical tool or a form of urban

activism can be used in understanding cities in other times and places, provided it is

extended beyond the scope of working-class struggles central to Lefebvre’s work, to

include categories of urban actors and processes of exclusion specific to each studied

context.

NOTES

1. Henri Lefebvre, “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities, eds. and trans. Eleonore Kofman

and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000 [1968]), 179.

2. If Lefebvre were writing today, he would surely have taken into account the increasing racial

diversity of European cities.

3. Eugene J. McCann, “Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the US city,”

Antipode 31, no. 2 (1999): 163-184.

4. Mark Purcell, “Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and its Urban Politics of the

Inhabitant,” GeoJournal 58, no. 2 (2002): 99-108.

5. Harvey Molotch, “The City as a Growth Machine: Toward a Political Economy of Place” in Cities

and Society, ed.Nancy Kleniewski (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2005), 17-27.

6. Ali Madanipour, Public and Private Spaces of the City (London: Routledge, 2003), 207.

7. Some urban scholars point to the exclusive nature of political life in the Greek Polis. See, for

example, Lewis Mumford, The City in History (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 1989 [1961]), 135; Don

Mitchell, The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York: The Guilford

Press, 2003), 132.

8. Mitchell, The Right to the City, 129.

9. Ibid., 34.

10. Ibid., 128-134.See Mitchell, The Right to the City , 128-134.As a case study Mitchell uses the

early 1990s struggle of the homeless to reside in People’s Park in Berkeley, California.

11. Madanipour, Public and Private Spaces of the City, 206

12. Union Square became a public park in the 1830s and only in 1872 was redesigned by

Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux specifically as a meeting place.

13. For a few decades now, four times a week Unions Square has held the Union Square

Greenmarket that sells regional farm produce, foodstuffs, and flowers. Lower Manhattan’s largest

market, as the New Republic contributor Corby Kummer put it perceptively, is “about more than


13

buying food”—it’s about striking up conversations, exchanging information, feeling part of a

community and actively contributing to it. Along with subways and buses, a public food market is

one of the only places left for people of different economic classes to encounter one another, and

even ... strike up a conversation.” See Corby Kummer, “How to Create the Perfect Public Food

Market,” New Republic, September 21, 2015, accessed September 23, 2015, http://

www.newrepublic.com/article/122670/how-create-perfect-public-food-market.

14. See “Union Square,” The New York Preservation Archive Project, 2014, accessed September 20,

2015, http://www.nypap.org/content/union-square; and “Union Square Park,” NYC Parks,

accessed September 20, 2015, http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/union-square-park.

15. We are relying on Don Mitchell’s analysis concerning the struggle over People’s Park in

Berkeley which, he argues, reveals a tension between two opposing visions of public space in

general: order vs. disorder, entertainment vs. political protest, and control vs. freedom of

interaction. See Mitchell, The Right to the City,128-129.


17. Edward Soja, Seeking Spatial Justice (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), 7, 96.

18. Peter Marcuse, “Whose Rights to What City” in Cities for People Not for Profit: Critical Urban

Theory and the Right to the City, eds. Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit Mayer (London:

Routledge, 2012), 35.

19. Henri Lefebvre, “Theoretical Problems of Autogestion” in State, Space, World: Selected Essays,

eds. Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 146-147.

See also Aneta Dybska’s contribution to this volume, “Where the War on Poverty and Black Power

Meet: A Right to the City Perspective on American Urban Politics in the 1960s.”

20. Ibid., 148.

21. Ibid., 149.

22. Tom Hayden, “The Port Huron Statement of the Students for a Democratic Society, 1962,”

msu.edu, accessed November 18, 2015, http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/

huron.html.

23. For a detailed discussion of critical urban theory see Neil Brenner, Peter Marcuse, and Margit

Mayer, “Cities for People, Not for Profit: An Introduction” in Cities for People Not for Profit, 1-10.

24. As evidenced for instance by the success of the 2014 Paris conference, “The Right to the City

in an Era of Austerity (1973-2014): Perspectives on the Past, Present, and Future of Urban

Democracy in the United States and Great Britain.”

25. Henri Lefebvre, “Theoretical Problems of Autogestion,” 147.

26. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change

(Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992).

27. Ibid., 95

28. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York:

Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2000).

29. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1988), 96.

30. Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,

2003[1970]), 154.

31. Henry Jenkins, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture,” HenryJenkins.org,

October 20, 2006, accessed September 25, 2015, http://henryjenkins.org/2006/10/

confronting_the_challenges_of.html.


14

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122670/how-create-perfect-public-food-market

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/122670/how-create-perfect-public-food-market

http://www.nypap.org/content/union-square

http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/union-square-park

http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/union-square-park

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/huron.html

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/huron.html

http://henryjenkins.org/2006/10/confronting_the_challenges_of.html

http://henryjenkins.org/2006/10/confronting_the_challenges_of.html

AUTHORS

ANETA DYBSKA

Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw

SANDRINE BAUDRY

Faculty of Applied Language Studies and Humanities, University of Strasbourg


15

PART ONE Spatial Justice and the Right to the City: Conflicts aroundAccess to Public Urban Space

Urban Discourses in the Making:American and European Contexts


16

Where the War on Poverty andBlack Power Meet: A Right to theCity Perspective on American UrbanPolitics in the 1960sAneta Dybska

1 This paper looks back to the 1960s Black Power Movement in the U.S. as one of the

unacknowledged antecedents of today’s right to the city movements. It draws on the

right to the city both as an ideal of urban governance and a critical perspective through

which urban histories can be re-told and diverse social practices investigated. I am

particularly interested in two 1960s federal War on Poverty programs and how they

were related to black grassroots movements. In that period, the federal government

gave leeway to the local expression of collective grievances by encouraging the urban

poor to become stakeholders in community-level politics. Incremental urban

regeneration was the War on Poverty’s professed goal. To achieve this the state would

devolve some of its functions to the level of the local community, bypass the

unresponsive and ossified state and municipal bureaucracies, and thus gradually

dismantle the racial and power inequalities. This ideological shift towards space-based

politics and a recognition of the poor as collective political actors happened almost

synchronously with Henri Lefebvre’s articulation of the right to the city idea in France.

Yet, recourse to participatory politics during the Johnson era, a fundamental tenet of

the right to the city activism today, turned into a fleeting political concern with

fleeting rewards to local communities. As soon as grassroots mobilization inspired the

urban poor to affect change, the federal government retreated from its unprecedented

support for participatory politics. Its initial commitment to the recovery of direct

democracy was followed by withdrawal from local political enfranchisement—a factor

that triggered the piecemeal radicalization of urban Blacks. What citizen participation

was to the anti-poverty programs, community control was to Black Power activism.

Grounded in the philosophy of racial empowerment which had taken root in American

cities during the Garvey movement of the 1920s, Black Power of the 1960s offered a


17

viable alternative to the War on Poverty’s investment in participatory politics. While

the latter ended up reinforcing the political and racial status quo, the former

encouraged a nationalist and even a separatist agenda. The racial self-help programs

run by such Black Power organizations as the Black Panther Party dethroned the state

from its position as a sole redistributor of wealth and derailed its attempts at restoring

national unity with policies bent on cultural conformity.

2 Due to modest scholarly interest in the political agenda of welfare programs of

the Kennedy-Johnson era today, my discussion draws on critical analyses written in the

1960s and 1970s and is based on few case studies. But I would like to argue that it is the

early scholarship on citizen participation published as the War on Poverty unfolded in

the urban “battlefield” that foreshadowed the key preoccupations of the right to the

city movements of today.

3 The right to the city is a political ideal that calls for a radical rearrangement of

power relations in the capitalist city. Introduced into sociological parlance in the late

1960s by French Marxist philosopher Henri Lefebvre, the right to the city stands for a

right to “urban life, to renewed centrality, to places of encounter and exchange, to life

rhythms and time uses, enabling the full and complete usage of these moments and

places, etc.”1 Highly critical of the post-World War II France as “a bureaucratized

society of organized consumption,” Lefebvre defied the primacy of capital and

repressive state control in the production of urban space.2 As a solution to the

excessively segregated and spatially divided city, he proposed the democratic control

of urban processes as a prominent feature of local urban politics. The new forms of

urban governance rested on what he called autogestion, that is, self-management at the

grassroots. Lefebvre assumed that the devolution of power to lower scales would

obliterate the state hierarchies and allow the participatory democracy to flourish.3

Political enfranchisement of urban citizens would pave the way for their commitment

to the planning and development of their cities, as well as challenge the primacy of the

exchange value of land that served the interests of power elites and corporate

businesses.

4 That today urban activists and social justice advocates in all parts of the globe

evoke the right to the city as an ideal of urban politics reveals the pervasiveness of the

socio-spatial injustices brought on by the profit-oriented urban politics. Regardless of

the state of affiliation, geographical location, or histories of urbanization, cities and

metropolitan regions networked into a global system of local economies suffer the

destructive effects of growth and capital accumulation. In this context, the right to the

city articulates the ever pressing need for a re-orientation of political and socio-

economic priorities. The contemporary urban justice movements insist on the revival

of local democracies as a way of countervailing exclusionary urban geographies forged

by the unconstrained market forces: poor schools, meager educational and

employment opportunities, substandard housing, residential displacement, food

deserts, lack of public transportation and health services, and paucity of recreational

spaces. Thus etched into the fabric of the contemporary city, as into the French city of

Lefebvre’s time, are the oppressive power relationships brought by the workings of

capital and the muting of the affected publics. A fight for a more equitable access to

public spaces, facilities, and public infrastructure necessitates a recognition of diverse

urban actors (racial or sexual minorities, the poor, immigrants or otherwise

disadvantaged) as relevant participants in urban politics.


18

5 When in his State of the Union address on January 8, 1964, President Lyndon B.

Johnson announced his administration “declare[d] unconditional war on poverty in

America,” one quarter of the U.S. population lived in poverty. Brought to national

attention by liberal poverty scholars4 as well as the civil rights movement, poverty

became the target of the largest federally-funded welfare program since F. D.

Roosevelt’s New Deal. The quote from the President’s speech aptly illustrates the

comprehensive nature of the program:

. . . this attack, to be effective, must also be organized at the State and the local leveland must be supported and directed by State and local efforts. . . . Our chiefweapons in a more pinpointed attack will be better schools, and better health, andbetter homes, and better training, and better job opportunities to help moreAmericans, especially young Americans, escape from squalor and misery andunemployment rolls where other citizens help to carry them. Very often a lack ofjobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may liedeeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their owncapacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing,in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children. . . . Wemust help obtain more modern mass transit within our communities as well as low-cost transportation between them. . . . All of these increased opportunities -- inemployment, in education, in housing, and in every field—must be open toAmericans of every color. As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolishnot some, but all racial discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue, ora social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue . . . . All members of thepublic should have equal access to facilities open to the public. All members of thepublic should be equally eligible for Federal benefits that are financed by the public.All members of the public should have an equal chance to vote for public officialsand to send their children to good public schools and to contribute their talents tothe public good.5

6 The anti-poverty agenda that transpires from Johnson’s “declaration of war” does not

essentially differ from the right to the city postulates. Both look up to an ideal of social

justice that is achieved with public/urban policies bent on empowering the

disadvantaged groups, and measured with greater equity. Redistributive at their core,

equity-oriented programs aim to vest power in the hands of the socially invisible,

economically disadvantaged and politically underrepresented. Such programs do not

take away from the better off, but aim to eliminate a group’s disadvantage where it

exists.6 But the War on Poverty programs did not set out to eliminate destitution by

means of direct social aid alone; their understanding of equality was as social as it was

political. In a manner that is reminiscent of the right to the city movement’s appeal to

the civil and human rights, the War on Poverty was concerned with structural

inequalities and institutional racism that the spatial segregation of the racialized poor

clearly instantiates.

7 When looked at through the prism of the right to the city idea, the federal anti-

poverty policies come across as a radical attempt at reorganizing the welfare model of

urban governance. Weaving together political, economic, and cultural concerns, the

Community Action Program and the Model Cities Program, at least at their inception,

conceived of small urban geographies, neighborhood and block communities, as sites of

participatory democracy rather than mere peripheries governed in a top-down

authoritarian fashion by the state and municipal administrative machine.

8 The Johnson administration’s long overdue reaction to poverty was

necessitated by the socio-political realities of the era: the civil rights activists’


19

disenchantment with the peaceful strategies of fighting racial inequalities; the failure

of the government to address the African Americans’ political and social demands,

their continued racial oppression by the police and white-dominated institutions, and

importantly, a simmering rage among the black youth in the North and the West who

were excessively drawn to the separatist agenda of black nationalist organizations. The

socio-political unrest in the nation’s racial ghettoes as well as the pervasiveness of

poverty in the American society explain why the federal program embraced political

enfranchisement as a conduit of change. But what may also account for the promotion

of citizen participation in the 1960s is the broad scholarly and political appeal of

anthropologist Oscar Lewis’s concept of “the culture of poverty.”

9 A result of Lewis’s study of the urban poor in Mexico, the concept of “culture of

poverty” points to the mechanism behind the persistence of poverty, as “both an

adaptation and a reaction of the poor to their marginal position in a class-stratified,

highly individuated, capitalistic society.” Although its foundations are both economic

and cultural, it is transmitted across generations and leads to the perpetuation of

poverty.7 One way of looking at the War on Poverty programs would be to recognize

their far-reaching goals. If translated into action, the language of “equal opportunity”

and “fair access” that permeated President Johnson’s address would serve as an

antidote to the “culture of poverty,” and harbinger of the cultural mainstreaming of

the poor. Equal educational and professional opportunities as well as equal access to

public goods and services, accompanied by equal political rights, appeared as viable

strategies of including the nation’s poor into the cultural mainstream. In light of the

“culture of poverty” thesis, putting authority in the hands of the impoverished local

communities and encouraging them to take a pro-active stance carried the hope that

they would slough off the cultural residue of deprivation.8 The 1967 Seattle Model Cities

grant application concerning the Central area, the city’s all black neighborhood,9 offers

substantive evidence of the Seattle authorities’ preoccupation with social dysfunction

as a symptom of poverty: “single-parent families, lack of adequate child care facilities,

school expulsions, disorganized homes, illegitimacy, mental illness, and poor use of

leisure time.”10 The description bears a striking resemblance to the notorious 1966

Moynihan Report’s claim about the underclass black family as the source of persistent

social problems and culprit in the intergenerational reproduction of poverty.11

Community Action and Model Cities Programs

10 The Economic Opportunity Act of August 20, 1964, was the bedrock of

President Johnson’s War on Poverty. Established to administer the law’s

implementation, the federal Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) brought to life,

among others, the Community Action Program (CAP), which operated directly via local-

based Community Action Agencies (CAAs). Usually run by private and public not-for-

profit organizations, the CAAs were initially “exempt from direct political review or

control at the local or state level.”12 Designed so that socially and economically

disadvantaged citizens from blighted neighborhoods would partake in the planning and

implementation of anti-poverty measures, the agencies offered literacy and skills

training, health care, social and welfare services such as the pre-school Head Start

program, food pantries, utility bill assistance, and drug rehabilitation. To increase local

resident input, the OEO required that at least 1/3 of all the staff positions on


20

community action agency boards be allocated to nonwhite community residents.

Though the War on Poverty was not race-specific in its origin, it acquired a more racial

and urban character when the nation’s black ghettoes erupted in riots. What may not

immediately transpire from the anti-poverty program’s assumptions is a top-down

legitimization of citizen participation, that is, granting political power to the poor

(predominantly people of color confined to urban ghettoes) who lacked adequate

democratic representation in the official power structures. In their informative study,

Race and Authority in Urban Politics: Community Relations and the War on Poverty, David

Greenstone and Paul E. Petersen make a compelling claim about the long-term goals of

the community action programs:

Although apparently addressed to the economic problems of the nation’s poor,community action, the heart of the war on poverty was in its content, origins, andconsequences a political response to a political problem. Its content addressed therelationship of poor people to the American regime, not the economic relationshipsof poor people to the marketplace; its origins were rooted in a civil rightsmovement that focused on altering the country’s political, not its socioeconomicrelationships; and its long-range impact has related to the political condition ofblack Americans, not their economic state. To judge the war on poverty as aneconomic failure is to misinterpret its character.13

11 Greenstone and Peterson are cautious to avoid any generalizations about the

effectiveness of the community action program. Depending on place-based urban

political traditions, the voice of the grassroots as a countervailing economic and

political force met with varied responses from the local power structures. For example,

unlike their counterparts in Philadelphia, Chicago and Los Angeles, poor communities

of color in New York and Detroit had a significant impact on the community-action

programs.

12 The civil rights activists, neighborhood organizers, as well as black nationalists

were drawn to black empowerment and community control as tools of change in a

racially polarized society. They would not merely stop at securing the anti-poverty

grants.14 Rather, encouraged by the government agenda of citizen participation in the

urban rehabilitation process, the young generation of urban Blacks emerged as crucial

players in local politics. The shared experience of racial oppression and spatial

segregation became a potent force on the road to Blacks’ political enfranchisement.

They did not shy away from a confrontational rhetoric which had increasingly been

gaining popularity in black urban ghettoes across the nation. Seeing the black

populations’ successful community-level organizing, the local political elites attempted

to recover some of their diminishing political influence, and demanded that the federal

government take action.

13 The exercise of political power through citizen participation suggested that, as

John H. Strange notes, “if control of a publicly financed organization could be acquired,

a significant redistribution of the rewards and benefits (jobs, prestige, security) of the

political and social welfare systems could be attained. Participation here was equated

with control.”15 This view substantiates Greenstone and Peterson’s claim about the

political nature of the War on Poverty.

14 The residents’ take on the pending problems of day-by-day life in the ghetto

stood at odds with the city authorities’ rendition of the problem in terms of the

“culture of poverty.” The Model Cities Law and Justice Task Force (LJTF) articulated the

residents’ grievances most forcefully.23 Though they saw a need for a better quality of


21

social services, their main complaint pertained to mistreatment by the police,

particularly brutality and unfair arrests. Improving neighborhood security and

curtailing racial discrimination and legal injustice were the key demands that urban

Blacks univocally agreed on. Framing the community-police relationship in terms of

colonial-like occupation and oppression, the residents revealed a commitment to the

politics of community empowerment.24

15 Rather than regain the urban poor’s trust in the federal government by way of

the politics of inclusion, administrators of Community Action and Model Cities

programs perpetuated the former’s racial disenfranchisement and their ultimate

disenchantment with the state’s professed agenda of fighting poverty with citizen

participation.26 Writing on the failure of the bureaucratic ideology of citizen

participation in 1968, Krause perceptively noted that “this loss of hope in the efficacy

of the community action program and the rejection of the ideology may very well have

added to the frustration which explodes in riots.”27 The War on Poverty discourse of

citizen participation appealed to young community organizers and activists precisely

because it carried a promise of solving ground-level problems with governmental

action.28 As long as the federal programs yielded palpable results such as effective

neighborhood revitalization and increased employment, the community activists

remained cooperative. Yet since the grassroots endeavors were torpedoed as soon as

they proved effective, Black Power gained ground as an ideology of racial and political

empowerment in segregated black neighborhoods.

“All Power to the People”

16 The timing of the centerpiece legislation of Johnson’s War on Poverty was not

coincidental. As the Economic Opportunity Act was written into law, the news of race

riots on the East Coast circulated in the media. The Harlem Race Riot and Rochester

Race Riots of July, 1964, and the Philadelphia Race Riot of late August, 1964, set off

alarm bells about the gravity of interracial tensions in the country’s urban ghettoes.

Those outbursts of spontaneous violence were all triggered by a rumor of a brutal

police assault on a member of the black community.

17 Yet, contrary to popular opinion, such violence did not have the endorsement

of black radical groups. For instance, the clenched fist of Black Power activists, often

shown as a symbol of racialized violence, was a call for armed self-defense inspired

with Malcolm X’s political philosophy. Disappointed with the civil rights struggle for

dignity, equality, and basic political rights, young urban Blacks found Malcolm X’s

notion of black nationalism a feasible alternative to the peaceful protests of the Civil

Rights era. In April, 1964, a few months prior to the passage of the EOA and the race

riots, Malcolm gave the famous speech “A Ballot or a Bullet” to a black audience in

Cleveland. His words vividly captured the political mood of young urban America at the

time: “No, I’m not an American. I’m one of 22 million black people who are the victims

of Americanism. One of the … victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy.

So I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter,

or a flag-waver – no, not I! I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. I don’t see

any American dream; I see an American nightmare!”29 The African Americans’ “political

maturity,” Malcolm X believed, would show in the way they used their collective voting

power to bring about social change. He put forward a new understanding of the civil


22

rights struggle as a black nationalist project that would empower black communities

politically and economically, on condition that their political targets were articulated

and strategies of empowerment well-crafted. The “ballot”—the black citizens’ use of

political rights— would challenge the political hegemony of the white power structure.

“A ballot is like a bullet,” he urged his audiences to fight for political rights granted

them as U.S. citizens and to hold the black political leaders accountable for their

actions.30 Efforts to bring justice and equality in social and economic life rested on the

Blacks’ collective “unity and harmony,” moral betterment and self-work. In words that

foreshadowed the War on Poverty’s investment in national cohesion, Malcolm X made a

realistic assessment of white power structure’s response to black nationalism: “The

white man is more afraid of separation than he is of integration. And the white man

will integrate faster than he'll let you separate.”31

18 In their 1967 political manifesto Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America,

Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton professed “strategic separatism” as a

temporary measure, a transient yet inevitable stage in the process of group

empowerment leading towards future integration. To them, Black Power was about

“proper representation and sharing of control.”32 Working within the ethnic paradigm,

Carmichael and Hamilton called on African Americans to develop a political and

institutional base—“a bargaining position of strength in a pluralistic society”—so that,

like immigrant groups, they would gain “an effective share in the total of the society.”33

To this end, they gave priority to cooperative forms of economic activity, but insisted

on the uniqueness of the black experience and cultural heritage.

19 A powerful response to institutional racism, with slum clearance programs as

the most devastating instances of the technocratic approach to urban renewal, the

Black Power ideology appealed to Blacks confined by zoning regulations to segregated

inner-city neighborhoods. They wanted to eradicate the social and spatial injustices

that race and class oppression perpetuated: destruction of long-standing ethnic

neighborhoods, as well as the territorial dispersal of the poor to new areas, which

created more congestion and segregation.34 Black Power advocates recognized that

community control was crucial to African Americans’ political and social

empowerment. Substandard and segregated schools, lack of municipal health clinics or

public transportation were on their agenda, as were substandard, unhealthy housing,

lack of sewage, or exploitative practices of white landlords. Although the governmental

officials’ and grassroots activists’ political diagnoses overlapped significantly, only the

latter considered building institutional alternatives in the event the extant political

processes failed to bring about substantial change: black-controlled bodies such as

school boards, law enforcement, municipal planning, and housing commissions should

wield power in the black communities, Carmichael and Hamilton argued.35

20 In his 1968 political autobiography, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther

Party, Bobby Seale gives a detailed account of how Huey P. Newton’s and his own

participation in the anti-poverty programs in Oakland, CA, led them to establish a

revolutionary black nationalist party that would operate in the streets and address the

needs of the black community.36 Working in summer youth work program supervised

by the North Oakland Neighborhood Anti-Poverty Center, Seale acted as a foreman to a

group of 100 young unemployed men and women, many of whom would later become

members of the Black Panther Party.37 His duty was to offer basic literacy training as

well as act as an instructor showing his students how to perform small jobs such as


23

cutting lawns or fixing broken fences. It seems that Seale was given the job to act as a

role model and a leader: a college student, yet an insider to black youth culture, he

would teach the black youth to emulate the mainstream culture’s norms and behaviors:

“In the poverty program the young brothers many times would try to be slick and think

they were pimps, or think they could out-gamble or out-talk or out-rap anybody.

. . .They drank wine, shot dice, and things like that. I knew here was a way to reach

these brothers because I wasn’t too much different from them. I knew how to drink

wine, how to shoot dice, play cards and chase women.”38 Using his position he

developed in his team members an awareness of black history and racial oppression

and a need for collective action.39 What seems to have been the biggest irony of the

federal program is that it was at the poverty center’s offices that Seale and Newton

founded the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP), wrote down, copied and

distributed the party’s ten-point program. More, Seale and Newton opened the first

BPP office with the money earned in the anti-poverty program. It was also at the

center’s law service section that Newton studied the gun law which he would later

recite to the white police officers if they attempted to violate his or anyone else’s

constitutional rights to carry guns. Clad in black leather jackets and black berets, as

well as ostentatiously flaunting their weapons, the Panthers embodied a challenge to

the political and institutional status quo. They patrolled the police in the neighborhood

and, if necessary, intervened to stop a brutal assault and demanded equal treatment

under law.

21 The Panthers’ community activism grew out of Seale’s and Newton’s

engagement in the government program. Their agenda was not at odds with the anti-

poverty program: it prioritized community work as well as armed self-defense. For

instance, in a 1967 struggle over a traffic light, the Panthers used the administrative

and legal framework of the anti-poverty program to urgently demand the installation

of traffic lights at a dangerous intersection. They cooperated with the poverty center’s

staff and advisory council, all of which were equally committed to the cause. Only when

the Oakland City authorities postponed the installation until the end of 1968,

apparently for technical reasons, did the Panthers make a public performance of their

determination to make change happen. They announced that armed party members

would direct traffic as long as necessary to ensure that no black resident, especially no

child from the nearby school, would be hurt. It transpires from Seale’s account that the

very threat of the gun-toting Panthers pushed the city to change tack and the traffic

lights were erected by October, 1967.40

22 The Panthers set out to address the spatial injustices of class and race via

recourse to the philosophy of Black Power, which in their case evolved from the

embrace of revolutionary nationalism, linking nationalism and socialism, to the

gradual acceptance of capitalist economics as a means of building self-determining and

self-governing black communities.41 Their ten-point platform articulated the most

severe problems ailing ghettoized African Americans: an ineffective segregated school

system, poor access to medical services, undernourishment and sickness that came

from destitution, hazardous housing conditions, a discriminatory criminal justice

system, and excessive police surveillance. Between 1966 and 1982, the Panthers’ local

affiliates across the nation ran an impressive list of community-based survival

programs, with the collective input of the party’s members: the free breakfast program

for schoolchildren, the free clothing program, free busing to prison program, free shoe

program, free health clinics, free plumbing and maintenance program, free pest


24

control program, as well as free black liberation schools.42 Newton’s speeches from the

early 1970s, published in the volume To Die for the People, reveal his persistent belief in

the empowerment of black communities through survival programs and a retreat from

the earlier confrontational rhetoric and armed self-defense. He insisted that the

survival programs would be “a political revolutionary vehicle . . . in [blacks’] quest for

freedom,” while “any action which [did] not mobilize the community toward the goal

[of raising Blacks’ political consciousness would] not [be] a revolutionary action.”43 The

immense popularity of the survival programs indicates that they were desperately

needed and testifies to the Panthers’ efficacy in engaging the black community in

practical reforms that the citizen-participation oriented anti-poverty programs fell

short of approximating.44

23 When after Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968 many black urban

communities went up in flames, Oakland’s Blacks did not riot, loot, or burn their

neighborhoods. Urged by Seale, they abstained from the use of violence. Government

reports on the causes and prevention of violence pointed to the Panthers’ official

distancing from spontaneous outbreaks of violence as a powerful anti-riot measure.

Indeed, as Jones and Jeffries note, the Panthers’ official stance on riots was that they

would impair progress and make the group prone to state-led surveillance.45 But

whether the Panthers’ chapters advocated armed self-defense or focused their energies

on free breakfast and free clinic programs was of little importance to the state. In 1967

the federal agency launched a counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO

(discontinued in 1971) to target “Black Nationalist Hate Groups.” The clandestine FBI

operations included such techniques as surveillance, harassment, arrest and detention,

provocations, infiltration, and misinformation. Infrequently helped by the local police,

the FBI managed to divide the party’s political leadership, incarcerate the most

prominent members, disrupt their community work, deplete their financial resources,

as well as undermined the Panthers’ credibility among the public at large.46 To make

matters worse, when COINTELPRO activities were discontinued, intra-party conflict

weakened the political and social capital it had accumulated. Starting from 1973,

Newton resorted to the authoritarian concentration of power. He centralized finance

management, assaulted and expelled established party members, and used extortion to

run the party’s operations.47

Conclusions

24 With the rising prominence of the right to the city ideal worldwide as a

paragon of new urban governance, many tend to be drawn to the idea of political

participation as a panacea for the long discredited authoritarian mode of urban

management. They find participation in local political processes fundamental to

achieving social justice, which they render in terms of equality of opportunities,

equitable access to affordable housing, quality education, healthy food, recreational

facilities, and open public spaces. One key aspect of urban power struggles that needs

attention, however, is the policy of the state towards the right to the city movements.

Are they perceived as legitimate players in local politics, or as potential contenders for

power, or else, as anti-statist elements that threaten to dismantle the state?

25 As the foregoing discussion has shown, both the War on Poverty and Black

Power politics made an investment in restoring local democracies via citizen


25

participation. The trust deposited in the state by the urban poor waned as soon as their

grievances became secondary to the public officials’ contest for political influence.

Indeed, when the time was ripe for making concessions to the demands of urban

Blacks, the state enhanced its position as “a bordered power container”48 unwilling to

relinquish its administrative, political, and military power over the nation’s segregated

neighborhoods.

26 Black Power activism stands as a compelling example of autogestion as

elaborated on by Lefebvre: “autogestion tends to reorganize the State as a function of its

development, which is to say it tends to engender the State's withering away.

Autogestion revives all the contradictions at the heart of the State, and notably the

supreme contradiction, which can be expressed only in general, philosophical, terms,

between the reason of the State and human reason, which is to say, liberty.”49 In the

case of the 1960s Black Power movement, seeking independent statehood was, in some

instances, a natural consequence of community control.50

NOTES

1. Henri Lefebvre, “The Right to the City” in Writings on Cities, eds. and trans. Eleonore Kofman

and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000 [1968]), 179.

2. Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003[1970]),

178, 92.

3. Ibid., 150.

4. For example, Michael Harrington’s The Other America (1962) is reported to have influenced the

federal anti-poverty policies of the era.

5. President Lyndon B. Johnson, State of the Union Speech, 8 January 1964. http://

www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbj1964stateoftheunion.htm

6. Susan S. Fainstein, The Just City (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010), 36.

7. Oscar Lewis, “The Culture of Poverty,” Scientific American 215, no. 4 (October 1966): 21.

8. In the conservative 1980s “culture of poverty” became a mere code word for the cultural

shortcomings of poor individuals, and bereft of structural considerations. For a detailed

discussion, go to Stephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America (New

York: Atheneum, 1981) and William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the

Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).

9. Seattle was awarded the first Model Cities grant and the program continued between 1967 and

1974.

10. James Braman quoted in Elizabeth Brown, “Race, Urban Governance, and Crime Control:

Creating Model Cities,” Law & Society Review 44, no. 3/4 (September/December 2010): 780.

11. For more go to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action” in

The Moynihan Report and the Politics of Controversy, eds. Lee Rainwater and William L. Yancey

(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967 [1965]), 39-102.

12. John H. Strange, “Citizen Participation in Community Action and Model Cities Programs,”

Public Administration Review 32, Special Issue: Curriculum Essays on Citizens, Politics, and

Administration in Urban Neighborhoods (Oct., 1972): 655.


26

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbj1964stateoftheunion.htm

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbj1964stateoftheunion.htm

13. David Greenstone and Paul E. Peterson, Race and Authority in Urban Politics: Community

Relations and the War on Poverty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), xiv.

14.

Ibid., xi, xiv.

15. Strange, “Citizen Participation,” 660.

16. Jill Quadagno, The Color of Welfare: How Racism Undermined the War on Poverty (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1994), 33.

17. Elliott A. Krause, “Functions of a Bureaucratic Ideology: ‘Citizen Participation,’” Social

Problems 16, no. 2 (Autumn, 1968):139. Krause observes that: “In community action programs, in

precisely those cases where both the action bureaucracy and the poor accepted, believed in, and

acted upon their own stated ideology, they have been slapped down by the central OEO

bureaucracy in Washington. Because the overall political climate grew increasingly conservative

as more radical activity took place in action programs (in part as a reaction to this activity), local

politicians put pressure on state and congressional leaders to pressure the federal OEO, which in

turn had to tell its own local action agencies to “go easier” or to “cool it.”


19. The Model Cities program was authorized by the Demonstration Cities and Metropolitan

Development Act of 1966.

20. H. Ralph Taylor and George A. Williams, Jr., “Housing in Model Cities,” Law and Contemporary

Problems 32, no. 3 (Summer, 1967): 397-401, 408.

21. Ibid., 398.

22. Brown, “Race,” 781-782.

23. The right to vote on a proposal was given to residents only.

24. Brown, “Race,” 782-785.

25. Ibid., 784-788.

26. The city did, however, accept the residents’ proposal of establishing an “observer program,”

which would involve placing a young black person in every police car patrol an objective

observer to witness any abuse of power during the police-resident interaction and testify when

needed.

27. Krause, “Functions,” 140-141.


29. Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet” in Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements, ed.

George Breitman (New York: Grove Press, 1990), 26.

30. At the time of the speech, Malcolm disapproved of the black leaders’ support for mainstream

party politics and the Democrats’ ineffectiveness in pushing through the Civil Rights legislation.

The Civil Rights Act would be passed a few months later, in July, 1964, and the Voting Rights Act a

year later, in August, 1965.

31. Malcolm X, “The Ballot,” 38, 40, 42.

32. Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America

(New York: Vintage Books, 1967), 120, 46.

33. Ibid., 44, 47.

34. Ibid., 156.

35. Ibid.,71, 41-42.

36. According to Robert O. Self, Oakland had a long tradition of black political organizing and

coalition building with the labor organizations. One of the main destinations for black

sharecroppers from the South in the 1940s and 1950s, Oakland was a typical industrial center of

the WWII era. It was the site of the Southern Pacific Railroad, the Pullman Company, shipyards

and the military industry (the Oakland Army Base and the U.S. Naval Supply Station developed

around the city’s port and recruited blacks in large numbers). By the late 1950s Oakland had

been severely affected by suburban flight, disinvestment and urban decay; urban renewal, which


27

claimed black property under eminent domain laws, destroyed thousands of housing units and

led to community displacement and concentration of racialized poverty. The federal and state

governments as well as private-not-for profits offered programs to stop the expansion of poverty

among the working-class blacks. Via the introduction of civic councils and a range of

community-based services, those early efforts, as Self informs us, “dramatically reengaged” black

urban communities. The War on Poverty, with its ever-present stress on citizen participation,

drew on the rich tradition of labor and community organizing. Robert O. Self, “‘Negro Leadership

and Negro Money’: African American Political Organizing in Oakland before the Panthers” in

Freedom North: Black Freedom Struggles outside the South, 1940-1980, eds.Jeanne Theoharis and

Komozi Woodard (New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 108-111.

37. Although an average Panther was a high school or college student, the Panthers’

backgrounds were diverse. For more, see Charles E. Jones and Judson L. Jeffries, “‘Don’t Believe

the Hype’: Debunking the Panther Mythology” in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles

E. Jones (Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press, 1998), 46.

38. Bobby Seale, Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party (London: Arrow Books Ltd.,

1970), 53.

39. Ibid., 61-63.

40. Ibid.,123-126.

41. See for example Newton’s 1971 speeches “Black Capitalism Re-Analyzed I” and “Black

Capitalism Re-Analyzed II (Practical Application)” in Huey P. Newton, To Die for the People: The

Writings of Huey P. Newton: Selected Writings and Speeches, ed. Toni Morrison (New York: Writers and

Readers Publishing, Inc., 1999), 101-108,109-111.

42. Jones and Jeffries, “‘Don’t Believe the Hype,’” 30. See also Newton, To Die,66-68.

43. Newton, To Die, 47, 53.

44. As regards the financial side of the operation, the party relied on donations from white

philanthropists and corporations, church and community organizations, but black businesses

were also expected to pay contributions to support the community programs, the logic being that

those businesses prospered thanks to the black clientele.

45. Jones and Jeffries, “‘Don’t Believe the Hype,’” 40.

46. Winston A. Grady-Willis, “The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political Prisoners”

in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press,

1998), 363-389.

47. Ollie A. Johnson, III, “Explaining the Demise of the Black Panther Party: The Role of Internal

Factors” inThe Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore, MD: Black Classic

Press, 1998), 391-409.

48. Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1985), 120.

49. Henri Lefebvre, “Theoretical Problems of Autogestion” in State, Space, World: Selected Essays,

eds. Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 147.

50. While the Panthers did not advocate territorial separatism, other radical black nationalist

organizations did. The most pronounced claims to a sovereign territory were made by the Nation

of Islam and the Republic of New Africa. For a detailed discussion of territorial nationalism, see

William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture,

1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 132-152.


28

ABSTRACTS

This paper looks at the U.S. American federal War on Poverty programs as a progressive attempt

at rejuvenating local communities with citizen participation in the post-Civil Rights era. The

anti-poverty measures set out to enhance the political empowerment of impoverished

communities of color that by the late 1960s had become increasingly segregated and socially

polarized. The federal programs did so by encouraging participatory democracy at the grassroots

level and with recourse to the rights discourse. Both these aspects of the War on Poverty

mobilized the targeted communities to fight for greater social justice and, eventually but

unintentionally, to self-organize under the slogan of Black Power. As will be shown in this paper,

both the federally-sponsored War on Poverty and Black Power activism, as dialectically related to

each other, can be regarded as natural antecedents of the right to the city movements in the

contemporary U.S.

INDEX

Keywords: autogestion, Black Power, citizen participation, community action programs, model

cities program, War on Poverty, “culture of poverty” thesis

AUTHOR

ANETA DYBSKA



29

Who Has the Right to the Post-Socialist City? Writing Poland as theOther of Marxist GeographicalMaterialismKamil Rusiłowicz

I

1 In 2011, following David Harvey’s call for thereconstruction of historical-geographical conditions thatbecame the basis for social formations in late capitalism,Paul Giles proposed a geographical re-reading of the historyof American literature that would account for “themultidimensional effects of globalization [that] haveconfigured the premises of U.S. national identity in relationto a wider sphere.”1 Looking at the history of Americanliterature geographically, Giles distinguishes twocontradictory impulses that shaped the American lettersduring the post-Civil War period: assimilation and nationalintegration on the one hand, and emphasis on local loyaltieson the other. Yet, while seemingly antithetical, the twoattitudes complemented each other through a dialoguebetween centrifugal and centripetal tendencies,2 withmodernism establishing the local as the synecdoche ofnational identity at the turn of the nineteenth and twentiethcentury3 and late twenty- and early twenty-first-centurywriters “struggling to articulate the changed,


30

interdependent nature of the relationship between placeand planet.”4

2 Giles’s The Global Remapping of American Literature

has proved a successful endeavor for at least two reasons.Firstly, it follows a theoretical model based on the changesinitiated in a country that, after World War II, became theworld’s leading economy.5 Secondly, a country whoseliterature recognizes mobility as a national feature is morelikely to manufacture subjects willingly undergoingreterritorialization than a country with a history ofnostalgia for a national territory. And even though afterWorld War II the immobilization through Fordist-influencedurban planning became the dominant economic model inthe United States, American literature was able to enter adialogue with the lifestyle promoted by the economy basedon mass production. By way of comparison, while Americanwriters responded to models of life that coincided with theobjectives of the Fordist economy, thus building a traditionof critical representation of reality, the post-World War IIPolish literature could not openly engage in a discussionwith the official economic order and all polemics withWestern models of life were under the scrutiny of thecensors. As a result, with the fall of communism in 1989, anew generation of Polish writers found themselvesunprepared for an engaged polemical discussion with thepostmodern neoliberal world, a discussion that, both inliterature and theory, had been taking place in the U.S.since the 1970s.

3 While Giles’s scholarship does not include the study ofsmall American post-industrial towns (also largelyoverlooked by Harvey), it still manages to provide acomplex literary map of the United States: the AmericanSouth is analyzed in terms of local communities bound bystrong kinship ties, with issues of race and economy as abackground for social tensions; Philip Roth and John Updikeare good examples of writing suburban America; and DonDeLillo and David Foster Wallace write the postmodern,digital United States. Giles chooses both local and globally-affected literature to remap the history of American lettersaccording to the latitudes delineated by Harvey in TheCondition of Postmodernity. At the same time such criticallyacclaimed novels as Richard Russo’s 2001 Empire Falls orPhilip Meyer’s 2009 American Rust, although overlooked byscholars (including Giles), provide insightful commentsupon deindustrialization. Similarly to Harvey’s geographical


31

materialism, which created its default Other – small factoryor rural towns influenced by the shift from Fordism toflexible accumulation – Giles could overlook the problem ofunsuccessful deindustrialization due to the bulk ofAmerican literature devoted to other pressing issuesconsuming the world of late capitalism. In other words,Giles’s analysis of American literature provides insightfulcomments on how American writers enter a dialogue withthe globalized world theorized by Harvey, yet it overlooksthe blind spot of Harvey’s criticism. The fact that Giles doesnot analyze such writers as Russo or Meyer seems anecessary consequence of following the theoretical modelthat does not list small factory towns among majorproblems of the globalized world.

4 If one were to look at the history of Polish literaturefrom Giles’s perspective, one of the most general problemsconcerns geography. Poland’s historical and politicalrelation to its territory is a complex dialogue betweennational identity and shifting geographical conditions. It isthe case of a country that for over 100 years producedliterature with no material, politically recognized referent.When in 1918 it reappeared on the political map of Europe,its new borders called for a redefinition of the nation’srelation to its former territories. Finally, after World War IIit underwent another geographical remapping,simultaneously becoming dependent on the political andeconomic directives from Moscow. As a result of this finalchange, Polish literature needed to (but officially could not)define itself in relation to the oppressive regime whoseimprint is still visible in the architecture of Polish cities. Thesecond major obstacle addressed in the present paperregards the condition of the post-socialist city that resistsadaptation to the globalized world of flexible accumulation.Even though Giles did not address the issue of the post-socialist city, small factory American towns excluded fromhis map of postmodern America bear a strikingresemblance to many settings of the Polish literaryproduction written after 1989. Thus the Other of Marxistgeographical materialism – small factory towns that failedto successfully accomplish the process ofdeindustrialization – becomes one of the major literarylandscapes of Poland written after the fall of Communism.

5 When in the 1980s Harvey was describing thetransition from the Fordist economy to the economy offlexible accumulation that had been taking place in the


32

United States since the 1970s and spreading to otherliberal democracies, Poland was still struggling to regain itsindependence from the communist regime. And when theIron Curtain finally fell in 1989, the Polish society had togradually adapt to the conditions of the globalized world.Those who adapted quickly to the rules of free marketwould profit. Their additional advantage was the ability tonavigate within the economic grey zones that the state wasyet unable to regulate. Others, brought up in the state-controlled economy that provided little space for individualinitiative, waited for the new political order to fix theeconomy. Simultaneously, with censorship finally gone, thePolish society got free access to Western cultural modelspropagated by the most democratic medium of values andattitudes – American movies. Yet before movie theatresbecame an integral part of Polish shopping malls (that wereyet to be built), and before the Polish society got connectedto the Internet, the statistical Pole would learn about theAmerican Dream from the vicissitudes of the Dynasty’sCarrington family. Thus those who waited for the economiccrisis of the 1990s to end often did so in front of their TVsets, identifying with the Hollywood vision of America as asymbol of a better world.

6 As I argued elsewhere, Harvey’s critical theory, whileproviding a model of the transition from Fordism to flexibleaccumulation, seems to apply to large American urbancenters, overlooking places that were unable to finish theprocess of deindustrialization. Those post-industrial “ghosttowns” become the repressed Other of Harvey’s writing. Onthe one hand, their inhabitants are still trapped within thematerial space of functionalist architecture designed so thatthe workers’ lives would revolve around the factory. For thebenefits offered by what usually was the main employer inthe region, they paid with voluntary immobilization: forinstance, if the largest employer in the region was a carfactory, most of its employees would be given a positionthat did not require developing such skills as adaptability orgeographical mobility. Therefore, while often menial andrepetitive, by offering such advantages as full employment,social benefits, housing and welfare, this line of workseemed to successfully tie the workers to their unskilledposition and, consequently, to geographical location. In theaftermath of the recession of 1973, many large plants gotshut down or relocated and employment in industry gotreduced. Those inhabitants of small American industrialtowns, suddenly deprived of access to industrial jobs that


33

used to be the cornerstone of the economy based on massproduction, became the target of worldwide neoliberal(ideological) engineering that promotes mobility andheterogeneity, and rewards its participants with access tothe world of wealth advertized in movies, magazines, andon billboards. Unable to adapt to the rules of this newgame, yet constantly reminded about the existence of the“right side of the tracks,” they became trapped within thematerial space of Fordism and ideological space of flexibleaccumulation.6

7 In 1989 the Polish society regained civil and politicalrights and was granted economic freedom within theneoliberal global market. Simultaneously, it becameexposed to Western popular culture promoting neoliberalvalues. However, the Polish towns and cities continued tofunction as repositories of the state-controlled past. Asstressed by sociologist Karol Kurnicki, it is impossible todistinguish between an “ideological socialist city” and a“post-ideological post-socialist city,” for all cities areentangled in ideology, whether Marxist or neoliberal. Andsince ideology is reproduced in space by subjects, spacebecomes an arena where ideologies are legitimated orrejected. In other words, for an ideology to be successful itrequires social legitimization – the more a society identifieswith a given set of ideas, the less visible the ideology. Onthe other hand, if a society rejects a given set of values,urban space becomes the stage of social discontent. Thus,concludes Kurnicki quoting Žižek, one cannot proclaim theend of ideology, for the post-ideological order is merelymore successful at concealing its ideological roots.7

8 During the Polish People’s Republic (1945-1989) citiesbecame the space where society expressed its discontentwith the worsening conditions of life and lack of politicalsubjectivity, a discontent which ultimately resulted in theoverthrowing of the communist regime. In thecontemporary Poland, cities such as Gdańsk, Gliwice,Gorzów Wielkopolski, Cracow, Opole, Płock, Poznań,Racibórz, Świdnica, Toruń, and Warsaw witness theproliferation of the right to the city movements that – whilenever completely rejecting the neoliberal order – demandmore control over the city. Based on the analysis of aliterary representation of the transformation-era Poland,this article investigates the space in-between the socialistand neoliberal city. It is precisely because of the hybridstatus that the post-socialist cities in Poland have become a


34

testing ground of neoliberal policies. The key questions Iam going to address are: What is the position of the post-socialist city within the free-market neoliberal economy?How does the residue of the past built into the fabric of thefunctionalist space affect its inhabitants? What prevents theresidents of the post-socialist city from entering whatHarvey calls the space of flexible accumulation? And finally,how can the inhabitants of the post-socialist city reclaimpublic space?

9 The novel discussed in this article, MariuszSieniewicz’s 2003 Czwarte niebo [Fourth Heaven], providesan interesting depiction of the post-socialist city upon thearrival of the neoliberal ideology. The discussion thatfollows will analyze the spatial organization of the districtwhere the novel takes place, juxtaposing it with socialtensions brought about by the arrival of a private-ownedcellphone company, leading to an investigation of theposition of the post-socialist city within the global space ofthe free market. This discussion will, in turn, allow for ananalysis of the post-socialist city as experienced by itscitizens, making it possible to address the central questionof this essay: who has the right to the post-socialist city?

II

10 Fourth Heaven opens with the description of Zatorze, an olddistrict of the north-eastern city of Olsztyn where the noveltakes place. Separated from the rest of the city by railwaytracks, “The district came to a standstill in the shadow ofthe city that has been spreading blindly, swallowing upnearby forests, lakes, and meadows.”8 While the rest of thecity grows, Zatorze remains a place without prospectsdotted by such establishments as a milk bar for studentsand homeless people, a once-famous restaurant that haspreserved its socialist décor, a closed-down cinema, and akiosk with the cheapest beer in town.9 All of these functionas the material reminders of the district’s economiccollapse. Similarly, the railway tracks become a symbolicborderline that separates Zatorze from the rest of the city.On the one hand, then, Olsztyn from Sieniewicz’s novelseems to embrace the post-1989 imperative of economic(and spatial) growth, with regard to both the city’s size andthe type of cityscape one would encounter if invited to itsnewer post-1989 districts (although such an invitation isnever issued, as the characters rarely cross the tracks). On


35

the other hand, the stagnation of Zatorze is a clear markerof growing uneven regional development.

11 Expanding Ernest Mandel’s argument, Edward Sojastresses the fact that “[r]egional underdevelopment is anintegral part of extended or expanded reproduction,creating large reservoirs of labour and complementarymarkets capable of responding to the spasmodic andcontradictory flow of capitalist productivity.”10 From thepoint of view of profit-oriented economy, Zatorze seems tobe a perfect space for neocolonization, both in terms ofsurplus labor and lack of goods and services. Yet the districtproves remarkably self-sufficient. Local businesses areadapted to the needs and resources of the inhabitants,while a high level of unemployment seems a successfulcounterpoint to the initial attempts at including the districtin the globalized world of consumption. Colorful billboards– one of the most recognizable signs of the advent of thenew economic order in the post-1989 Polish literature –seem in Sieniewicz’s words “uncanny, stuffed there byforce, by force made happy.”11 What is more, they are one offew modifications in the local landscape that has remainedlargely unchanged since the 1950s, when the working-classpublic housing estates were built adjacent to the prewartenements. As the narrator puts it, “[t]he district wasmarked by the immutability gene and all improvementsturned out unsatisfactory – often bringing results oppositeto the expected ones, usually grotesque.”12 While it is truethat most of the inhabitants of Zatorze have no resources toafford the advertized products, the grotesqueness of thebillboards is not a result of the juxtaposition of humansubjects with material objects. Rather, public space provesto be an independent actor capable of resistance. While itmanages to combine the pre- and the postwar architecturalorders, it refuses to absorb yet another layer of meaning,thus refusing to become a postmodern palimpsest. From thevery beginning of Fourth Heaven, this refusal is given aspatial dimension of a clash between the communistarchitecture and the capitalist advertisements. The narratorseems to perceive the residents of the district as an equallyimmobile part of the landscape as the buildings theyinhabit. Displayed “in the windows of the prewartenements, [the tenants] looked like miniature figures fromold postage stamps fading in the stamp album of thegreatest philatelist – time,” notes the narrator.13 Instead offocusing on the inhabitants, the narrator describes the


36

urban space as a stage which determines human inertia.The colorful billboards – a sign of commercial desires thatdrive a large part of the economy of flexible accumulation –never become successfully incorporated into the urbanlandscape of the district, thus failing to reignite individualresourcefulness and become the sign of a successfultransition from communism to capitalism. As long as theyseem “uncanny,” the district remains trapped within thematerial space of the old regime and the “immutabilitygene,” reflected in the urban space, remains a constantreminder of the inhabitants’ exclusion from the post-1989neoliberal cornucopia.

12 Giving an account of the debate about the connectionbetween the “centers” of industrial production and theunderdeveloped “periphery,” Soja points to the neo-Marxistscholars’ emphasis on the “core” countries as the source ofexploitation and the resultant inequalities in the“peripheral” countries.14 This neo-Marxist distrust of thecentre is mirrored in Sieniewicz’s novel. When a richinvestor arrives in Zatorze, planning to open a cellphonefactory there, one of the questions raised at the residents’meeting concerns the involvement of foreign capital.15

Although the source of the distrust of foreign investors isnever explained, it may be interpreted as a remnant of thecommunist-era official state ideology that indoctrinatedPolish citizens into an unquestioned suspicion of capitalismas a source of class struggle and workers’ exploitationrooted in the capitalist class control over the means ofproduction. With Marxism-Leninism no longer the officialstate ideology, the distrust may attest to the perseveranceof the spatially-limited version of Marxism. While foreigncapital is still perceived as causing workers’ alienation,domestic investors are more welcome by Zatorze’spopulation. This shows in the words of an unnamed femalecharacter in Fourth Heaven who expresses a utopian desirefor independence from the “core,” unaware that any brandof capitalism, whether domestic or foreign, “builds uponregional or spatial inequalities as a necessary means for itscontinued survival.”16 For even though one can design a mapwhere elements of global market are “so distributed andmixed across firms and sectors that they cancel themselvesout . . . leading to no significant areal value . . . thisconceivable spatiality of capitalism is an idealizedequilibrium that rarely if ever occurs in the persistentlydisequilibrating world of capitalist development,” stressesSoja.17 The female character in Fourth Heaven expresses the


37

belief in that “idealized equilibrium” criticized by Soja.Interestingly, Sieniewicz’s novel modifies Soja’s theoreticalmodel by adding to it a geographical limit characteristic forutopian discourses.18 While in Soja’s reading the limits ofthe global market are stretched to the point of losingsignificance, Fourth Heaven provides an illusion of aneconomy confined within the national borders. What ismore, the inhabitants of Zatorze consent to entering thefree market only after the utopian status of a self-sufficientnational economy is recognized by the investor. Thus theinhabitants and the investor become equally responsible forcreating and sustaining an idealized space capable ofcancelling out regional or spatial inequalities. However, thiseconomic utopia may be established only after one of thetwo equally implausible scenarios is implemented: eitherthe “core” of the global market does not affect the Polisheconomy or Poland develops its own “core” independent offoreign influences and capable of exploiting its national“peripheries.” Thus Fourth Heaven depicts an economicparadox: on the one hand, it establishes a market withclearly delineated national borders, seemingly independentof more developed regions of the world; on the other hand,this economy is an unequivocal product of capitalistgeographies of inequality described by Soja that Polandbecame part of after the fall of communism in 1989.

13 Marxist geographical materialists such as Soja andHarvey, by juxtaposing Marxist critique of capitalism withthe analysis of geographical conditions that allow for theformation of economic power relations, prove that space isnot an abstract entity that easily yields to rational planning.They oppose the notion of space as commodity that can beused and controlled. Instead, they perceive space as anactive element in the process of forming economicrelations. For instance, Harvey observes that the transitionfrom Fordism to flexible accumulation was accompanied bya shift from vertical integration to vertical disintegration.19

While Fordism attempted to concentrate production in asingle area, flexible accumulation disperses it across theglobe. Therefore, claims Harvey, the crisis ofoveraccumulation in 1973 marks the beginning of theprocess of deindustrialization that not only dismantles theeconomic relations established by Fordism, but also affectsthe social tissue of communities shaped by theirdependency on the factory. Thanks to the satellitecommunications systems “[i]t is now possible for a largemultinational corporation . . . to operate plants with


38

simultaneous decision-making with respect to financial,market, input costs, quality control, and labour processconditions”20 in many different locations across the world.As a result, as multinational companies relocate parts ofproduction to regions with cheaper rent and labor, areasshaped by Fordism often get abandoned by multinationalcapital. Harvey recapitulates this state of affairs by notingthat“political economy … confine[s] our understanding ofspace and time to its absolute dimensions.”21 In other words,when considered in abstract, absolute terms, space isperceived as susceptible to colonization, which often resultsin profit as the main premise for relocating capital. InHarvey’s reading, capital treats space as prone toreshaping, often disregarding networks of relations it eitherencounters upon arrival or leaves behind. However, eventhough generally true for functionalist architecture andFordism, the above statement gets amended with theadvent of flexible accumulation: “the less important thespatial barriers, the greater the sensitivity of capital to thevariations of place within space, and the greater theincentive for places to be differentiated in ways attractiveto capital.”22

14 Zatorze exemplifies the paradox of flexibleaccumulation noticed by Harvey. As an underdeveloped partof the free global market it seems attractive to capital; yet,it remains a local geography shaped by spatial, social, andeconomic relations established during communism. The factthat Zatorze remains an underdeveloped place turns out tobe the greatest obstacle in incorporating the district intothe free market. Zatorze never becomes the abstract spaceof the neoliberal economy. Or, to put it another way,numerous borders that confine the space are reinforcedrather than erased. The tracks separate Zatorze from therest of the city in the same way as the national bordersseparate Poland from its still suspicious-looking politicaland economic allies. What is more, the cellphone company,by employing only women from the district, strengthens theexclusion of Zatorze from the rest of the city as thisemployment strategy prevents Olsztyn’s other inhabitantsfrom crossing the tracks. This strategy of exclusion seemsto fulfill a promise that the flow of capital can be controlledfrom and sustained within an underdeveloped part of theglobalized world. Interestingly, the inhabitants of thedistrict who express their distrust of the new companyseem so preoccupied with the origin of the capital that theydisregard the fact that the cases for cell phones are made in


39

China – a clear example that Zatorze has become part ofthe global free market. Therefore, as long as the moneythey are bought with is said to be Polish, the final productmay be a result of the global uneven development thatinvites multinational companies to search for rent- andlabor-friendly regions around the world. Even though thegeographical transfer of value takes place, all its unwantedconsequences, the major one being the arrival of capitalismwith its tendency to exploit underdeveloped parts of theglobe, seem to get cancelled within the symbolic borders ofZatorze. However, in order to maintain the illusion of self-sustainability, a visible façade of limits must be created,disguising places where spatial barriers get crossed. Whilethe inflowing capital challenges the stability of the borderbetween Zatorze and the rest of the city, its arrival isjustified through the strengthening of another, nationalframe that the Zatorze population can identify with asPolish citizens. But shifting one border implies theinstability of all frames, and the intrinsically contradictoryprocess of negotiating limits to capital brings aboutunexpected consequences. While some inhabitants ofZatorze seek employment in the cellphone company, thusexpressing their willingness to become part of theneoliberal economy, others openly express their radicalopposition to any form of capital, whether foreign ornational. For example, the speech given by two radicals,Owiewka and Lew, incorporates key elements of thepost-1989 populist discourse: distrust of capital that musthave its origin in exploitation; disappointment withconsumerism; opposition to poverty and the collapse ofPolish agriculture; fear of being under the influence offoreign superpowers such as China or Russia combinedwith the opposition to regulations introduced by theEuropean Union; conviction that Poland is constantly beingbetrayed and sold; opposition to rewriting the Polishhistorical metanarrative in a way that would recognize suchshameful events as the Jedwabne and Kielce pogroms, andMarch 1968; and finally, an attempt to name the enemyresponsible for the above mentioned problems – politicianswho squandered the achievements of the Solidaritymovement, the Church, Jewish communists, andhomosexuals. The speech ends with a comment on GeorgeW. Bush’s “war on terror” that is presented as a totalitarianattempt to claim territories that still remain outside theinfluence of the United States. Here Lew sympathizes withviolent attempts at destabilizing the global order,


40

suggesting that a peaceful solution is part of the neoliberalideology introduced by the United States with the Pope’sblessing, and therefore cannot bring about any change.23

15 However, an unsuccessful attempt at gaining sociallegitimization through negotiating local borders is not theonly spatial reason for the cellphone factory’s failure.Equally important seems the way that restructuring is (not)conducted in the district. Commenting upon restructuringin a different context, Soja stresses that in order for theprocess to be successful, old social structures must first bedisassembled (or their power over citizens’ lives at leastundermined) to be replaced with new ones. Duringsuccessful restructuring, “[t]he old order is sufficientlystrained to preclude conventional patchwork adaptationand to demand significant structural change instead.”24 Thefactory in Fourth Heaven is not established on the ruins ofthe old order but next to it. The investor attempts to profitfrom the underdevelopment of the district, maneuveringbetween the well-established social frustrations stemmingfrom impoverishment and growing nationalism. While thecellphone plant is erected in the place of the old cinema,the rest of the district does not undergo any restructuring,remaining the vestige of a culture incompatible with theneoliberal ideology. For Zatorze’s population, whosesignificant part remains unemployed, everyday afternoonwalks become rituals acted out within the post-socialistspace that solidify social inertia.25 Similarly, the spatialproximity of the inhabitants of Zatorze, a result of both thephysical layout of the district and the flagship communist-era public housing architecture, seems to serve twointerlinked purposes: sustaining habit and executingcontrol. Firstly, it anaesthetizes the inhabitants to theunchanging rhythms of the district. Each Sunday afternoonthey fill their window seats to observe the courtyards infront of their buildings, thus recreating a social ritual ofhabit.26 For while they may be observing the courtyardcurious for something to happen (even though it rarelydoes), it is equally plausible that the incentive behind theritual is not boredom but fear of change, and the gaze’sfunction is to freeze space and its inhabitants in a never-changing state of inertia. Therefore, the second function ofsocialist architecture that stems from constant visualsurveillance is the creation of an environment susceptibleto social control.


41

16 In a manner similar to Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon,the communist-era apartment block disciplines itsinhabitants to exercise control over themselves. As stressedby Michel Foucault, “the major effect of Panopticon [is] toinduce in the inmate a state of permanent visibility thatassures the automatic functioning of power.”27 Similarly tothe Panopticon, which “sustain[s] a power relationindependent of the person who exercises it,”28 socialistarchitecture places subjects within an environment capableof establishing power relations even without the regimethat originated it. Additionally, even though it istheoretically possible to withdraw from the public spaceinto the confines of one’s apartment, paper-thin and sound-transmitting walls make it impossible to erect animpenetrable border between the inside and the outside.Smells of cooked food, coffee, or perfumes escapeapartments becoming public testimonies to private lives.29

Thus an attempt to escape the gaze of neighbors is merely amanifestation of one’s need for privacy that cannot befulfilled.

17 However, Zygmunt Bauman stresses the fact that theresidents of the Panopticon, in exchange for theirsubmission to constant surveillance, are granted the senseof security derived from the predictability of daily rhythms.30

All residents have to accept the rules that organize a givenspace, for these rules guarantee a community’s harmony.That is why when a person deemed unfit by the neighborsmoves into an apartment block, the latter take steps thatwill result in that person’s eviction. By way of example,when a woman and her HIV-positive son move into theapartment block of the main protagonist of Fourth Heaven,the majority of tenants sign a petition addressed to thehousing association demanding the woman’s eviction. Eventhough the tenants demand peace in exchange for the taxesand the rent they pay,31 the fact that the sick son neverdisturbed that peace (unlike the protagonist, ZygmuntDrzeźniak, who is a constant nuisance to other tenants, yetwhose excesses never result in his eviction) points to amotive different than the one given by the tenants. One’sbelonging to the local community endows one with the rightto delineate borders that separate fellow citizens fromstrangers, making legitimization a process negotiated fromwithin the district. Even though the woman and her HIV-positive son pay the same taxes as other tenants, theirstatus of newcomers places them in an inferior position to


42

the Zatorze community. While economic capital may be aprerequisite for entry into a neighborhood, it is the well-established community that holds control over space bygranting newcomers insider status. That is why ZygmuntDrzeźniak, whose “parents obtained a public housingapartment in the new district”32 during the communist era,never gets evicted. Although he is a constant nuisance toother tenants, his old-timer status protects him againsteviction. Interestingly, with the collapse of the communistregime and the advent of the free market economy, publichousing is no longer available. Money falls short of grantingnewcomers access to a close-knit community and theprivilege to modify the rules of its functioning. Zatorze is anexample of a community so indebted to its communistorigin that any attempt at reinventing the collective in apost-socialist reality seems to lack social legitimization. Asa result, a paradoxical situation occurs: while thecommunist regime lost social legitimization and wasoverthrown, the citizens cultivate the communist-grantedbase of community ties, successfully opposing the advent ofneoliberal urban politics. And since it is impossible to turnback time and restore state-controlled housingcooperatives, any inflow of new inhabitants deemed unfit bythe community will meet with the residents’ resistance.33

18 The above discussion presents a rather pessimisticview of the post-socialist city as a place organized by itsinternal logic that neither capital nor individuals can bendto their needs. At this point it seems appropriate to pose thefinal question: who does the post-socialist city described bySieniewicz really belong to? To answer this question, Iwould like to propose a change of perspective. While Sojaand Harvey provided valuable theoretical tools foranalyzing the processes that take place in Zatorze upon thearrival of the neoliberal economy, Michel de Certeau’stheory of “spatial practices,” developed in his book ThePractice of Everyday Life (1984) offers an illuminatingperspective on the city as experienced by its citizens.

19 De Certeau begins his project of “spatial practices”with a description of Manhattan seen from the 1370 foottower of World Trade Center. According to de Certeau, thisscopic vision “continues to construct the fiction that createsreaders, makes the complexity of the city readable, andimmobilizes its opaque mobility in a transparent text.”34 Tothis God-like project of city planners he opposes the city ofits ordinary practitioners, who, immersed in the fragmented


43

space of New York, are never granted the luxury of atotalizing viewpoint. Instead of becoming voyeurs, theyexperience the city through walking, their knowledge neverlimited to one, superior sense. The city as a concept devisedby urban planners, claims de Certeau, rests upon thepossibility of three operations: the creation of rationallyorganized space; the repression of the tactics of users; andthe creation of the city as a universal and autonomoussubject. In theory, the “Concept-city” redistributes its parts,simultaneously creating “waste products” to be readmittedinto the city as it develops and becomes capable ofreintroducing excess into a profitable economy of exchange.In reality, continues de Certeau, these processes do notaccount for space as experienced by its users, resulting in atotalizing project based on exclusion. The unprofitableperipheries can be readmitted into the city only afterfulfilling scientific, political, or economic criteria, thusyielding to the requirements of the city seen as atransparent text.35 However, while “in discourse the city serves as a totalizing and almost mythical landmark for socioeconomic and political strategies, urban lifeincreasingly permits the re-emergence of the element that the urbanistic project excluded.”36

20 If one considers Zatorze from the point of view of deCerteau’s analysis, it seems analogous to the “wasteproducts” that the city produces as a consequence of itsdevelopment. Both its economic status and the locationsituate the district at the periphery of Olsztyn, excluded, yetin theory susceptible to readmission. However, while deCerteau seems optimistic about the possibility of reclaimingthe city through spatial practices of its inhabitants, the“walking rhetorics” of the characters in Fourth Heavenprovide an interesting counterpoint to de Certeau’s view.According to de Certeau, functionalist totalitarianism seeksto eliminate from the city “local authorities” such as storiesand legends that provide the abstract surface of the citywith additional layers of meaning that the inhabitantsencounter while traversing its districts. “Stories diversify,rumors totalize,” claims de Certeau, “stories are becomingprivate and sink into the secluded places in neighborhoods,families, or individuals, while the rumors propagated by themedia cover everything and . . . wipe out or combat anysuperstitions guilty of still resisting the figure.”37 Thejuxtaposition of stories and rumors in The Practice ofEveryday Life grants stories a diversifying power, capable


44

of resisting the panoptic vision promoted by the cityauthorities.

21 Sieniewicz’s Fourth Heaven provides an interestingcomment on the possibility of maintaining the dichotomy:stories/rumors discussed by de Certeau. Even thoughinformation in Fourth Heaven seems to follow along the twochannels delineated by de Certeau, neither of them resultsin a greater diversification of the district. While the localmedia inform citizens about the opening of the factory,stressing the possibility of new employment for femaleinhabitants of Zatorze, informal exchange of informationbetween neighbors focuses on the potential threats thefactory will bring to the district. While the former use theneoliberal rhetoric of profit,38 the latter presents thebusinessman as Satan, appealing to the Christianbackground of the inhabitants, simultaneously providing aclear division between good and evil.39 By allowing therumor to spread, the channel of informal exchange provesequally homogenizing as the official media. While the latteroperate through formal, disembodied channels, the rumorspreads through informal, embodied encounters acted outin the urban space – a practice de Certeau believes to bemore liberating.

22 After diagnosing the functionalist administration asoppressive, de Certeau proposes a strategy of resistancebased on the analysis of practices that managed to resisthomogenization and survive in the streets:

one can analyze the microbe-like, singular and plural practiceswhich an urbanistic system was supposed to administer or suppress,but which have outlived its decay; one can follow the swarmingactivity of these procedures that, far from being regulated oreliminated by panoptic administration, have reinforced themselves ina proliferating illegitimacy, developed and insinuated themselvesinto the networks of surveillance, and combined in accord withunreadable but stable tactics to the point of constituting everydayregulations and surreptitious creativities that are merely concealedby the frantic mechanisms and discourses of the observationalorganization.40

23 Zatorze in Sieniewicz’s novel seems to simultaneously fitand elude de Certeau’s project. Undoubtedly, the space ofthe post-socialist city is a reservoir of “singular and pluralpractices” which “have outlived” the decay of thecommunist regime. Their “illegitimacy,” however, is a moreproblematic issue. The example of the tenants fromZygmunt Drzeźniak’s apartment block shows that eventhough the communist panoptic administration is no longerin power, the inhabitants have created their own network of


45

surveillance rooted in the spatial practices establishedduring the former political system. What during the PolishPeople’s Republic was seen as oppressive has become astrategy of resistance to the advent of the neoliberalideology. Seen from the point of view of Olsztyn’sauthorities, the inhabitants’ resistance to the new economicorder must seem unwarranted. As the political andeconomic system changed, so did the official objectives ofurban administration. No longer does it seem profitable tomaintain the district’s exclusion. Yet while Olsztyn seemsready to readmit Zatorze into the circulation of capital, itsinhabitants are disinclined to renounce their independence.

24 Fourth Heaven depicts a district whose internalspatial organization immunizes it to neoliberal managerialtactics. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, describing theworking of Empire – what they define as a new politicalsubject that emerged as a consequence of globalization andthe decline of sovereignty of nation-states – claim that onemechanism of control it applies is the kind of inclusion thatseemingly erases all differences between the members ofthe globalized world. “Setting aside differences means, ineffect, taking away the potential of the various constituentsubjectivities. The resulting public space of powerneutrality makes possible the establishment andlegitimation of a universal notion of right that forms thecore of the Empire,” claim Hardt and Negri.41 The strategyof control through inclusion, made possible by lifting spatialbarriers to the flow of capital, products, and people, resultsin individuals’ disempowerment. As they become membersof the globalized world, they renounce any possibility to putpressure on multinational capital. What is more, sincenation-states become dependent on multinationalcorporations, it is increasingly more difficult for work-basedlocal communities to negotiate with state authorities.42Fourth Heaven depicts a community unwilling to becomepart of Hardt and Negri’s Empire, refusing to renounce itsstrong local identity and the power that stems from it. Withthe railway tracks as a material marker of its socio-spatialand economic exclusion from the remaining part of the city,Zatorze recreates the mechanisms of exclusion within itsown borders and forges a collective subjectivityincompatible with a perspective that invalidates the inside-outside dialectics. While de Certeau sees spatial practicesas a liberating form of reclaiming the city and Hardt andNegri consider imperial inclusion as yet another form of


46

ideological control, Sieniewicz’s novel depicts a space thathas not yet become part of Empire, nor do spatial practicesof its inhabitants result in their liberation.

25 Interestingly, the opposition to the neoliberal order inFourth Heaven is not an expression of a higher civicawareness that stands behind numerous initiativesundertaken by right to the city movements. Commentingupon the growing “deficit of the political” in thepostmodern world, Hardt and Negri claim that “[t]he urbanlandscape is shifting from the modern focus on the commonsquare and the public encounter to the closed spaces ofmalls, freeways, and gated communities.”43 In a similarmanner Harvey proclaims that “[c]apitalist urbanizationperpetually tends to destroy the city as a social, politicaland livable commons.”44 In order for the city to once againbecome a political idea capable of shaping civicresponsibility, states Krzysztof Nawratek, cities need tostrengthen their social capital. Ties between citizens arestrong in places where an individual is weak, both ineconomic and political terms. One of the examplesdiscussed by Nawratek concerns the period of the PolishPeople’s Republic when economic and political deficienciesresulted in strong ties between neighbors.45 Finally,working-class communities prove more efficient atcontrolling place than space, notes Harvey,46 which makesthem the more likely subjects of successful social revolts.While oversimplified, the above discussion provides aninteresting theoretical frame for the analysis of Zatorze, asSieniewicz’s novel seems to comment upon the right to thecity in an unexpected manner. Firstly, while it is true thatthe public spaces of Zatorze have not yet been claimed bycapitalist urbanization, they fail to provide a successfulbackground for civic responsibility. While right to the citymovements tend to offer pragmatic solutions aimed atreshaping local landscapes in a way that takes intoconsideration the needs of the citizens, the inhabitants ofZatorze either go to work at the factory or oppose anychange in the district, refusing to participate in the creationof a more inhabitant-friendly commons. Therefore, ahypothesis concerning the relation between the post-socialist city and the right to the city movements may beproposed: while, as claimed by Harvey, “capitalisturbanization tends to destroy the city as a social, politicaland livable commons,” it simultaneously creates a spacewhere civic rights may be executed. Sieniewicz’s novelillustrates that the post-1989 Polish city has not yet shaped


47

citizens capable of social engagement, and civic rights thatthe collapse of communism granted to the Polish citizensremain a potentiality. Fourth Heaven seems to suggest thatthe space in-between the socialist and neoliberal city is stillmarked by the inertia characteristic for the old regime thatthe citizens would overcome only in moments of highdiscontent. While right to the city movements adapt theneoliberal imperative of “customized production” to thesocial production of the city, the radicals in Sieniewicz’snovel are incapable of proposing any positive alternative forthe district. Instead of engaging in restructuring, they blowup the cellphone factory at the end of the novel. Secondly,strong ties between the inhabitants of Zatorze do notproduce social capital capable of reclaiming the district.What during the communist regime was a successfulelement of social protest, in a neoliberal world can onlydelay the inevitable advent of foreign capital. Therefore, thecommunist social capital accumulated within the post-socialist city, instead of becoming part of creative socialrestructuring, turns into an element of social control,strengthening the district’s exclusion. And thirdly, eventhough the inhabitants of Zatorze prove successful atcontrolling the district, their power may be the result ofZatorze’s peripheral role in Olsztyn’s cityscape, a semi-autonomy being the result of neglect and lack of interest.Sieniewicz’s novel seems to suggest that without a project(either public or private) that ensures a socially-responsiblerestructuring, and without citizens willing to execute theircivic rights, districts such as Zatorze will either continuetheir economic collapse or become incorporated into theneoliberal order that will destroy their common squares andbreak social ties between inhabitants. The post-socialist cityfrom Fourth Heaven turns out incapable of providing either.

III

26 Kim Dovey argues that “[t]he more that the structures andrepresentations of power can be embedded in theframework of everyday life, the less questionable theybecome and the more effectively they can work. This iswhat lends built form a prime role as ideology.”47 Therefore,even though one can give a temporal marker of aneconomic or political change, and even though space maybe a witness to a radical social protest, when the protestingcrowds have dispersed with their needs seemingly satisfied,


48

space remains largely the same, consolidating old habits,prejudices, and divisions. Mariusz Sieniewicz’s FourthHeaven proves that the fall of communism in 1989 wasmerely a historical marker unable to bring any social andeconomic change to places such as Zatorze.

27 Once again, Edward Soja provides a useful theoreticaltool in the analysis of the post-1989 literary representationof the Polish city. Drawing upon Henri Lefebvre’s TheProduction of Space, Soja coins the term Thirdspace whichhe defines as “a distinct mode of critical spatial awarenessthat is appropriate to the new scope and significance beingbrought about in the rebalanced trialectics of spatiality-historicality-sociality.”48 By juxtaposing what he believes arethe two major modes of spatial thinking – materiality(Firstspace) and discourse (Secondspace) – Soja recognizesa shift in spatial thinking that extends beyond thosetraditional approaches and synthesizes them into the livedexperience of space as the nexus of the material, thehistorical, and the social. The trialectics of the material, thehistorical, and the social in Sieniewicz’s novel result in arepresentation of a city whose historical debt to theprevious regime is imprinted in the materiality of thedistrict to such an extent that it continues to shape socialinteractions. As a result, any attempt at the district’spatchwork adaptation to the conditions of the neoliberalworld that does not account for a significant spatial changemeets with social protest.

28 Since it is impossible to change the dynamics ofThirdspace without reshaping the material, what would apositive spatial restructuring look like? Sieniewicz does notpropose a solution, yet his novel seems to offer a ratherpessimistic view on the right to the city movements’potential within the space of the post-socialist city. Itscitizens may either adapt to the economy of flexibleaccumulation and leave for cities more successful atcompleting the transition from Fordism to flexibleaccumulation, or they can stay and wait for the advent ofthe neoliberal economy. In no way do I want to suggest thatneoliberal spaces are the only ones that need reclaiming.Rather, Fourth Heaven seems to suggest that the post-socialist city in its most extreme form (exemplified byZatorze) is incapable of forming citizens that couldsuccessfully prevent the privatization of their commons ifsuch an event were to take place.


49

29 The present paper did not attempt to present anempirical model of privatization that took place in thepost-1989 Poland, since literature creates fictionalrepresentations that stress one process at the expense ofothers. However, Fourth Heaven offers an interestingperspective on the processes that the post-socialist city hadundergone after the collapse of communism in 1989.Sieniewicz depicts the city whose materiality, a result offunctionalist, communist urban planning, continues toinfluence social life. He addresses the issue of unexercisedcivic rights, suggesting that as long as the material imprintof the old regime holds sway over the Polish cities, it isimpossible to develop civic attitudes and a sense ofentitlement to urban space. Paradoxically, then, until theglobal capital has claimed Polish cities and privatized publicspaces, the only form of protest Polish citizens are capableof involves restaging the social discontent of the Solidaritymovement era. Then, the post-socialist city, with its internaldivisions strengthened by the spatial organization ofdistricts and communist architecture, consolidates itssymbolic borders. Communication is one of theprerequisites of building a responsible civic society. FourthHeaven seems to suggest that the post-socialist city doesbelong to its citizens as long as they do not have to interactwith the outside world. The moment the neoliberal worldcrosses the tracks that separate Zatorze from the morecapital-friendly parts of Olsztyn, the district’s inhabitantsprove unsuccessful in either adapting to the new economicorder or resisting it. Sieniewicz depicts the post-socialistcity as a remnant of the old regime, a vestige of idylliceconomic stagnation that no individual effort seems capableof overcoming. Finally, the materiality of the post-socialistcity is an important factor in convincing its inhabitants thatit is the only city they have the right to.

NOTES

1. Paul Giles, The Global Remapping of American Literature (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2011), 1.

2. Ibid., 114-115.

3. Ibid., 11.


50

4. Ibid., 143.

5. In The Condition of Postmodernity, David Harvey describes the shift that took

place in the American economy he calls the transition from Fordism to flexible

accumulation. According to Harvey, changes initiated by Henry Ford (the

introduction of the five-dollar, eight-hour workday, and development of new

technologies used in mass production such as the assembly line) shaped the

global postwar economy, resulting in a relatively stable economic growth.

During the postwar era, employment in industrial production increased as did

demand for mass-produced goods. However, the recession of 1973 showed that

the postwar economic boom (1945-1973) reached the point where the market

could no longer absorb mass-produced goods, resulting in many large plants

being shut down or relocated to more rent-friendly regions of the Third World.

Often unable to find employment that would require skills developed in their

previous jobs, former employees of large factories were forced to show

“flexibility with respect to labour processes, labour markets, products, and

patterns of consumption” (147), thus adapting to the new economy Harvey

christened flexible accumulation. In short, the core-periphery relation of Fordist

employment got reversed. While in Fordist economy the core consisted of full

time employees with skills easily available in the labor market, in the economy

of flexible accumulation it got replaced by employees expected to be

geographically mobile and susceptible to reskilling. Similarly, mass production

got reduced, gradually replaced with growing employment in service-sector and

information-management. See: David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity:

An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992).

6. For a detailed discussion, see Kamil Rusiłowicz, “Between Fordism and

Flexible Accumulation: Towards the Chronotope of a Post-Industrial ‘Ghost

Town’,” in Americascapes: Americans in/and their Diverse Sceneries, ed.

Ewelina Bańka, Mateusz Liwiński, and Kamil Rusiłowicz (Lublin: Wydawnictwo

KUL, 2013), 307-318.

7. Karol Kurnicki, “Produkcja miasta postsocjalistycznego,” Autoportret 4, no.

36 (2011): 38 39.

8. “Dzielnica zastygła w cieniu miasta, które rozrastało się na oślep, pożerając

okoliczne lasy, jeziora i łąki.” Mariusz Sieniewicz, Czwarte niebo (Warszawa:

Wydawnictwo W.A.B., 2003), 8. [all the quotations from Czwarte niebo in the

text are my translations].

9. Ibid., 9-10.

10. Edward Soja, Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical

Social Theory (London: Verso, 1990), 105.

11. “dziwaczne, wepchnięte na siłę, na siłę uszczęśliwione.” Sieniewicz, Czwarte

niebo, 13.

12. “Dzielnicę cechował krnąbrny gen niezmienności i wszelkie ulepszenia

dawały niezadowalające efekty – nierzadko przeciwne do oczekiwanych, a

najczęściej karykaturalne.” Ibid., 13.

13. “Lokatorzy w oknach przedwojennych kamienic przypominali miniaturowe

postacie ze starych znaczków pocztowych, które blakły włożone do klasera

najlepszego z filatelistów – czasu.” Ibid., 13.

14. Soja, Postmodern, 110.

15. Sieniewicz, Czwarte niebo, 112.


17. Ibid., 113.


51

18. Thomas More’s 1516 Utopia is the most famous example of a perfect state

where geographical location serves as a crucial factor in establishing the

island’s self-sustainability. The sea surrounding Utopia points to the fact that an

ideal society can be established only within a total confinement. See Elizabeth

Grosz, Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space

(Massachusetts: MIT Press Cambridge, 2001), 133.

19. David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins

of Cultural Change (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1992), 284.

20. Ibid., 293.

21. David Harvey, Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom (New

York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 257.

22. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 296.

23. Sieniewicz, Czwarte niebo, 156-163.


25. Sieniewicz, Czwarte niebo, 61-62.

26. Ibid., 15-16.

27. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan

Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 201.

28. Ibid., 201.


30. Zygmunt Bauman, Wolność, trans. Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (Kraków:

Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak, 1995), 18-19.


32. “rodzice dostali mieszkanie na nowym osiedlu.” Ibid., 33.

33. Interestingly, the owner of the cellphone factory seems aware of that fact

and tries to use this local particularism to his own benefit. Firstly, the fact that

the factory employs only local women may be a sign of the investor’s

understanding that Zatorze remains a close-knit community that does not

tolerate outsiders. Secondly, an attempt at recreating the social relations of the

district within the factory may be seen as a way of assuring its productivity. In

theory, eliminating internal tensions should increase the factory’s efficiency.

34. Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 92.

35. Ibid., 94-95.

36. Ibid., 95.

37. Ibid., 107-108.


39. Ibid., 70, 84.

40. De Certeau, Practice, 96.

41. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge: Harvard University

Press, 2001), 198.

42. This seems to coincide with David Harvey’s theses on the urban revolution.

According to Harvey, if workers are to be successful in defending their rights, a

transformation must take place from work-based to community-based struggles.

In addition, this transformation must be accompanied by a redefinition of the

concept of work that would include non-industrial forms of labor. See David

Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution

(London: Verso, 2012), 138-139.

43. Hardt and Negri, Empire, 188.

44. Harvey, Rebel Cities, 80.


52

45. Krzysztof Nawratek, Miasto jako idea polityczna (Kraków: Korporacja Ha!

art, 2008), 46.

46. Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 236.

47. Kim Dovey, Framing Places: Mediating Power in Built Form (London:

Routledge, 2002), 2.

48. Edward Soja, Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-

Imagined Places (Blackwell: Cambridge, 1996), 10.

ABSTRACTS

The article opens with a thesis that the post-socialist city is not part of the neoliberal world

theorized by David Harvey. By way of comparison, the text discusses Paul Giles’s The Global

Remapping of American Literature which is a successful endeavor because the history of American

novel is abundant in examples that fit Harvey’s model. The fact that small American factory

towns that were unable to successfully accomplish deindustrialization are not accounted for in

Giles’s scholarship does not diminish the strength of the scholar’s argument. However, these

towns – the blind spot of Harvey’s and Giles’s criticism – bear striking resemblance to the post-

socialist city present in the post-1989 Polish literature. Therefore, the analysis of the post-

socialist city may provide insightful comments on both Polish and American literary

representations of small factory towns.

Focusing on Mariusz Sieniewicz’s Czwarte niebo, the article analyzes how the

post-socialist city remains a repository of the state-controlled past and resists

adaptation to the globalized world of flexible accumulation. It attempts to answer

the following questions: What is the position of the post-socialist city within the

free-market neoliberal economy? How does the residue of the past built into the

fabric of the functionalist space affect its inhabitants? What prevents the

residents of the post-socialist city from entering what Harvey calls the space of

flexible accumulation? And finally, how can the inhabitants of the post-socialist

city reclaim public space?

INDEX

Keywords: Czwarte niebo, David Harvey, Edward Soja, flexible accumulation, Fordism, Mariusz

Sieniewicz, Michel de Certeau, post-socialist city, right to the city, space

AUTHOR

KAMIL RUSIŁOWICZ

Institute of English Studies, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin


53

Segregation or Assimilation: DutchGovernment Research on EthnicMinorities in Dutch Cities and itsAmerican Frames of ReferenceRuud Janssens

1 On 5 November 2004, after the murder of cineaste Theo van Gogh by a Muslim

extremist in Amsterdam, The New York Times editorial under the heading “Deadly

Hatreds in the Netherlands” stated: “Something sad and terrible is happening in the

Netherlands, long one of Europe’s most tolerant, decent and multicultural societies.”1

In the two decades before the murder, immigration had led to heated debates in the

Netherlands. The inflow of immigrants from (former) colonies like Suriname and the

Dutch Antilles, labor migrants from Turkey and Morocco, and refugees from a range of

countries raised concern about the social consequences for Dutch society. Reflecting

the public debate about immigration, politicians made a range of statements from

celebrating cultural diversity to condemning Islam and deploring the decline of

civilization.

2 Since about half of the immigrants lived in the four biggest cities of the

Netherlands, the debate about immigration was often a discussion about ethnic groups

in an urban setting. While the confrontations at the local level were regularly about the

building of mosques, crime, run down neighborhoods, housing, unemployment,

affirmative action, and discrimination, at the national level politicians wanted to

formulate a social policy based on equality. National government officials were

concerned about ethnic minorities in cities, because they read American sociological

studies on immigration and city life, from Robert Park and the Chicago School in the

1920s to recent studies by Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, and feared segregation,

ethnic tensions, crime, and poverty. In their mostly statistical studies, government

policy planners described how different ethnic minorities were from Dutch citizens and

how important it was that immigrants should integrate into Dutch society. The word

integrate might give the impression that policy planners would find it acceptable if


54

immigrants kept (part of) their own culture, as long as they would fit in with Dutch

society. As I will show, while policy planners used the word integration, they actually

mostly meant assimilation, and expected immigrants to become similar to the Dutch.

By using American analytic models, policy planners at the national level defined

policies at the local level, while trying to force ethnic minorities to adapt to a Dutch

way of life.

3 In the 1980s, the Dutch government formulated a new Minorities Policy, in

which it wanted to guarantee equal access for all Dutch citizens to social goods such as

housing, jobs, and education. The government gathered new statistical data to support

political initiatives for equality, which resulted in a political and public debate that set

ethnic minorities apart from the rest of Dutch society. Soon the focus of the debate

switched from equal access for all to the question whether ethnic minorities wanted or

were able to become equals.

4 The focus of this essay is on these statistics. Since they concerned housing,

unemployment, and education, some government officials raised the question if social

and economic problems impeded the achievement of equality by ethnic minorities.

However, to avoid the stigmatization of any ethnic group, the government devised a

national policy for all ethnic minorities. In order to establish the active role

government officials had in defining an ethnic problem in the Netherlands, I will

highlight two aspects of the policy. First, I will show how the definition of ethnic

minorities contributed to the perception of social problems caused by the presence of

immigrants. Second, I will analyze the governmental studies on immigrants in major

Dutch cities, which drew heavily on American scholarly studies on immigrants and

segregation. What began with the intention of giving ethnic minorities equal access to

housing, jobs, and education, resulted in a focus on the differences between Dutch and

immigrant culture. Using statistical data as their source, the government reproached

ethnic minorities for not making an effort to assimilate. The way policy planners and

makers defined minorities, minority problems, and threats to city life (if not Dutch

society), drawing on the related statistics, shaped popular perceptions of immigrants

and immigration policies. This process was filled with ironies, because government

officials increased the magnitude of the social problems as well as cherry picked

theories from American urban sociology from the 1920s onward, implementing

misguided policies, which were rooted in skewed assumptions.

1. Dutch Government Studies of Immigrants

5 In 1983, the Dutch Parliament adopted a new Constitution. After about twenty

years of deliberation, the various Dutch political parties settled on a compromise. The

new Constitution was based, in part, on the 1961 European Social Charter and the 1966

International Treaty on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The Constitution

included new fundamental social rights such as equal opportunity to make use of social,

economic, and cultural policies. The new Constitution led to a new Minorities Policy,

also adopted in 1983. Previously, the government had a different policy for each major

ethnic group. With the new emphasis on equality in access and use of social and

economic rights for all citizens, the Dutch government wanted to make sure that all

groups were treated fairly. In order to be able to assess the situation of various social

groups, the Dutch government needed new statistical material. The Centraal Bureau

voor de Statistiek (Central Bureau for Statistics; CBS) and the Sociaal & Cultureel


55

Planbureau (Social & Cultural Planning Agency; SCP), both government institutions,

had to gather the new data.

6 As political scientist Marco Martiniello and sociologist Jan Rath pointed out in

their 2010 collection of essays about migration studies, there were few scholars in

Europe working on immigration before the 1990s.2 Sometimes government agencies

contracted social scientists to write studies about immigration in The Netherlands, but

mostly policy planners based their work on statistical material. When policy planners

or social scientists needed a theoretical framework, they turned to American theories

about immigration.

7 Martiniello and Rath raised the question if the adaption of American concepts

was such a positive development, since these ideas were developed in a specific cultural

context. One of the examples Martiniello and Rath used to illustrate how some

theoretical concepts could be mangled in translation is the term “ethnicity.” They

pointed to Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan’s 1963 study Beyond the Melting Pot.

Based on their research in New York City, Glazer and Moynihan found that various

ethnic groups would shed their original ethnicity when they lived in the United States,

and create a new ethnicity, based on their traditional culture and the new American

culture in which they lived. As Glazer and Moynihan wrote: “Italian-Americans might

share precious little with Italians in Italy, but in America they were a distinctive group

that maintained itself, was identifiable, and gave something to those who were

identified with it, just as it also gave burdens that those in the group had to bear.”3

Since the publication of Glazer and Moynihan’s work, the term ethnicity was used in

relation to immigrant groups that could contain several identities: their culture could

have elements from the home country, from American culture, and new elements

created in the United States. Overall, they could still be considered American. In

Martiniello and Rath’s reading, for Europeans, who often saw immigrants as a

temporary migrant labor force, such bringing together of ethnic and national identities

was inconceivable. In the European context, a different ethnicity implied a threat to the

national culture of the host country.4

8 Martiniello and Rath raised two important points. First, in 2010, they were still

convinced of American dominance in the theories and concepts used in European

immigration studies. Second, while there is a considerable reservoir of negative images

of immigration both in the United States and in Europe, there is hardly a European

equivalent to the American optimistic view on immigration in the United States (with

ideas such as the classic “melting pot,” President John F. Kennedy’s book A Nation of

Immigrants, praising the contributions of all immigrants groups to American society

and culture, or the more recent ideas about the advantages of multiculturalism). As I

will show in my analysis, Dutch policy planners and makers think in terms of

integration or assimilation, but not in terms of the contributions immigrants and their

culture can make to Dutch society. Such an attitude by the Dutch government has

actually made it harder for immigrants to adapt to the host culture.

2. The Definition of Minorities

9 The 1983 equality-oriented Minorities Policy focused on “1) social and

economic deficits, 2) legal status and discrimination, and 3) the limited participation

and upsetting isolation in society” of minorities. The bill mentioned specific attention

to education, housing, employment, and legal status as policy goals.5 The Minorities


56

Policy defined the following groups as minorities “Antilleans, foreign employees,

Moluccans, Surinamese, refugees, people in trailer camps, and gypsies.”6 Interestingly,

the government did not include the largest immigrant groups: German, Indonesian,

Turkish, and Moroccan immigrants. It is unclear why they made such a distinction, but

the Minorities Policy may have listed only the groups they found most problematic.

2.1. Who is a Minority Member?

10 Since there was only a limited amount of statistical data available in the 1980s,

government officials made a selection of the groups and topics they would research.

Initially, they would focus on the “Mediterranean groups” (i.e. Turks and Moroccans),

Surinamese, and Antilleans, leaving out refugees, trailer park people, and other

foreigners mentioned in the Minorities Policy. They studied access to “public goods”

such as education, employment, income, and housing.

11 The new Minorities Policy led to changes in the registration of immigrants. It

included Surinamese and Antilleans as minority groups, yet since most of them had the

Dutch nationality, their numbers did not show up in the statistics. Only in 1992 did the

Dutch government switch to a definition of ethnic minority that considered an

individual’s place of birth, as well as that of their parents, decisive, so that Surinamese

and Antillean people would be included in the statistics. Meanwhile the government

explicitly stated they wanted to support socially disadvantaged minority groups rather

than condemn or stigmatize them.7

12 The redefinition of ethnic minorities had important consequences. One result

was that the overall size of ethnic minorities increased. Not only were Surinamese-

Dutch and Antilleans included in the new statistics, but second-generation

“immigrants” as well. According to a 1996 government report, if only first-generation

immigrants were counted, there were 166,000 Turks, 140,000 Moroccans, and 181,000

Surinamese in the Netherlands on January 1, 1995. If the second-generation was

included as well, the numbers increased to 264,000 Turkish-Dutch, 219,000 Moroccan-

Dutch, and 278,000 Surinamese-Dutch citizens. The new definition of minorities led to

an increase in the overall number of ethnic minorities from 1,387,000 to 2,572,000

persons (the total population of the Netherlands was 15.4 million at that time, which

meant that ethnic minorities accounted for 16% of the Dutch population compared to

earlier estimates of 9%).8 In spite of the intention of the government to solve social

problems and not to stigmatize people, for politicians who wanted to discuss

immigration and ethnic minorities in terms of problems, the size of the ethnic

minorities (and the problems they might have in Dutch society, or Dutch society might

have with them) almost doubled, only because of the statistics used.

13 The new definition of ethnic minorities led to confusion in the governmental

departments. Officials debated whether an individual belonged to an ethnic minority

when he or she and one of his or her parents were born abroad, or when just one of his

or her parents was born abroad. In 1999, the Ministry of the Interior and the Central

Bureau for Statistics drew up a new definition of ethnic minorities, which was to be

used by the Dutch government. In the new definition, a person belonged to an ethnic

minority if one of his or her parents were born abroad.9 According to the new

definition, there were 2.7 million ethnic minority members (nearly 17 % of the overall

population) in the Netherlands on January 1, 1999.10


57

14 The new government policy no longer spoke of ethnic minorities, but of

“allochtoon” to refer to a person with at least one parent born abroad and

“autochtoon” for Dutch people. The terms entered the public debate, and over time

especially the term “allochtoon” acquired negative connotations, indicating a failure to

assimilate.11

15 The terms autochtoon and allochtoon were not in line with the legal position

of Dutch citizens and immigrants. According to Dutch law, a person has Dutch

citizenship if one of his or her parents is a Dutch citizen.12 Whereas the Dutch statistics

count an individual as an “allochtoon” in case one parent is a foreigner, Dutch law

considers an individual to be a Dutch citizen if the other parent is Dutch. Consequently,

government statistics compute more “allochtonen” than would register under the legal

definition of a Dutch citizen.

Table 1. Allochtonen in the Netherlands in 2013

Immigrants by Nationality Numbers (absolute) in 2013

Total Population 16,779,575

Total Western 1,576,986

Indonesia 374,847

Germany 372,270

United States 35,357

Japan 7,387

Total Non-Western 1,966,095

Turkey 395,302

Surinam 347,631

Morocco 368,838

Dutch Antilles 145,499

China 61,890

Source: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek.13

16 When the Ministry of the Interior and the Central Bureau for Statistics drew up

their new definition of allochtoon, they also created two new subcategories: Western

and non-Western allochtonen.14 The reason for this subdivision was “the different

socio-economic and cultural position of Western and non-Western allochtonen.” If a

group was close to the Dutch population socio-economically or culturally, it was

considered to be “Western,” and if not, then the group was “non-Western.”15 According

to this definition, “Western” and “non-Western’ were not so much geographic

indications, but economic and cultural concepts. It was not clear how economic, social


58

or cultural proximity to the Dutch society was defined, and whether an ethnic group

could move from a “non-Western” to a “Western” status, or the other way around. This

approach led to peculiar definitions of ethnic groups in Dutch society, especially if one

took the geographical indication seriously. Indonesians (born in the colonial Dutch East

Indies before Indonesia became independent in 1949) and the Japanese (“employees of

large Japanese firms, living in the Netherlands with their families”) were placed in the

Western immigrants category.16 The non-Western immigrant group included the

Chinese, Moroccans, Turks, Surinamese, and Dutch Antilleans (the last two groups

originate in (former) colonies of the Netherlands, just like Indonesia). By these

definitions, the Western and non-Western immigrants were about equal in size in 2013

(there is an almost 390,000 person difference, see table 1). Yet by putting the wealthy

Japanese immigrants and assimilated Indonesians in the Western category, the

government emphasized integration as a distinctive feature of the “Western” groups.

2.2. Statistics on Unemployment, Education, and Housing

17 In 1987, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) published the first statistical

overview on ethnic minorities, which began a series of yearly reports, either written by

the CBS or the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau (SCP). These reports offered a great

deal of information. Ranging from 150 to over 500 pages, they contained statistics and

research methods. Gleaning data on a regular basis, researchers tried to establish

trends, but they could hardly do so, given the fact that the data available before 2000

was scarce. Since we have the advantage of hindsight, I will offer an overview of the key

statistics. Having already analyzed the statistics pertaining to the size of the ethnic

minority population, I will now focus on the statistics on the job market, education, and

housing. Minority policies were a political issue. Therefore, specific details within a

particular category would change over time, and new types of data would be collected

to answer new questions. If sometimes the research became more detailed, it offered

new insights as well. Overall, though, the major trends are clear.

2.2.1. Labor Statistics and Immigrants

18 As regards to labor statistics, two kinds of data were emphasized. The first

statistics concerned the rate of unemployment. It was always higher among ethnic

minorities than among the Dutch. Yet, a positive development took place around the

year 2000, when the unemployment rate among Turkish and Moroccan men dropped

from above 30% to around 10%. This was due to a surge in prosperity in the Dutch

economy. Although after 2000 unemployment numbers remained higher among ethnic

minorities than among the Dutch, the gap was not as dramatic as in the early 1990s.

This positive development could be interpreted as a sign of integration of Turks and

Moroccans into Dutch society.

19 The second kind of statistical data accounted for the factor of gender in access

to the labor market. Women as a gender group scored overall lower in the category

than men. In 1971, only 30% of women were part of the labor force, a number that

increased to over 50% since 2000. In the 1970s and 1980s Turkish women had a higher

labor market participation than Dutch women, but since 1990 the former scored

substantially lower than the latter. Moroccan women always scored a great deal lower

and Antillean women slightly lower than Dutch women. Surinamese women scored at

the same level as Dutch women. After 2000, the participation rate of women in the


59

workforce was used to show how modern or integrated certain ethnic groups were in

Dutch society. Surinamese women were seen as very emancipated, since they had about

the same participation in the labor market as Dutch women.

Table 2. Unemployment by ethnic group

1981 1991 1995 2000 2004 2011

Men

Total

population

6 7 5 3 4 4

Turks 15 34 36 9 12 11

Moroccans 20 39 32 12 24 13

Surinamese 27 17 7 10 12

Antilleans 32 25 8 16 21

Women

Total

population

11 13 7 5 6 4

Turks 39 48 37 12 18 12

Moroccans 37 66 27 12 19 12

Surinamese 35 16 11 13 9

Antilleans 48 29 9 15 14

Source: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek.17

2.2.2. Education and immigrants

20 Politicians and government officials saw education as an important integrating

factor. This refers both to teaching immigrants the Dutch language and introducing

them, especially the second-generation immigrants, to Dutch culture.18 Over the years,

the reports focused on two statistics: what kind of education students followed after

elementary school and the overall education level of Dutch society. The statistics

divided education into vocational training and advanced secondary education, the

latter including university preparatory education.19 Among the Dutch students there is

close to a 50/50 split, while among Surinamese and Antillean students around 70% have

vocational training and 30% advanced secondary education. Among Turkish and

Moroccan students this split was respectively 80% and 20%. Over the years,

participation of all ethnic groups in advanced secondary and university preparatory

education increased steadily.


60

21 Another important education statistic is the educational level attained by

people in the labor force. In 1983, the majority of the Turkish and Moroccan

immigrants had only an elementary education at best. Within twenty years, these

numbers dropped from 66% and 73% to 27% and 26% respectively. This meant that

almost 3 out of 4 children of Turkish and Moroccan immigrants finished secondary

education. It is true that in 2000 only 10% of them finished higher vocational education

or had a university degree, but even that development is impressive, compared to a

mere 1% seventeen years earlier. A 2012 report, which for the first time presented a

comprehensive view on ethnic minorities and education, concluded that problems and

eventually lower levels of education for certain minority groups were probably more

closely related to the educational level of the parents than to the pupils’ and students’

culture of origin.20

22 The overall number of Dutch with higher vocational education or university

education has increased over the last thirty years as well, from 12 to 27%. While it is

beyond the scope of this essay to analyze the factors leading to the success of Dutch

public education, over the last thirty years the Dutch school system, at all levels, has

been very successful in getting more students to higher levels of education.

2.2.3. Housing

23 The category of housing is very complicated, because different reports studied

different aspects of this topic. The basic question was whether ethnic minorities lived,

on average, in worse housing conditions than the Dutch. The Minorities Policy asked

for the following information: how many people lived on their own or shared a house,

how many people shared a room, how many people lived in houses with only a little

luxury, how many people lived in houses built after World War II, and how many owned

or rented their house. Answers to some questions, like the one concerning house

ownership or rental, were predictable since most ethnic minorities rented their house.

Other questions, for instance the one about the luxury of the house, were hard to

answer or to quantify. Many did not know when the house they lived in was built. This

question was relevant, because, for instance, many pre-World War II houses had no

bathtub, shower, or central heating. During the 1970s, many housing associations had

begun to build mostly showers in the older houses. Maybe because the questions about

housing did not deliver clear answers and because not only the government but also

institutions like the housing associations played an important role in housing, starting

from 1992, housing was not included in the statistical reports anymore.

3. Immigrants: A National Integration Issue or a BigCity Problem?

24 It was in 1988 that the statistical reports mentioned for the first time that the

largest ethnic minority groups lived in the four biggest cities. Of the Surinamese 56%

lived in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague or Utrecht, and the same was true for 48%

of the Moroccans, 36% of the Turks, and 30% of the Antilleans. Of the total Dutch

population, only 11% lived in these four major cities.21 These statistics suggested that

immigration problems basically were social and economic problems, limited to an

urban setting. Instead of social problems, statisticians discussed immigration and the

concomitant problems mainly in terms of culture. In 1989, the authors of the SCP


61

report began to pay attention to minorities and Dutch culture. This interest in ethnic

culture within Dutch society would later develop into the question whether and to

what extent immigrants could or would integrate.

3.1. Robert Park and the Social Decline of Dutch Cities

25 The 1995 SCP report returned its focus to the ethnic minorities’ spatial

settlement patterns in the Netherlands. Negative reporting in the media by then had

created a public image of ethnic minorities as living close together in specific

neighborhoods in the four major Dutch cities, which were characterized by “social

decline, corruption, and crime.” The SCP believed that this public image was not based

on reliable data, which they wanted to provide.22

26 The authors of the report referred to American theories about ghettos and how

a concentration of the poor increased poverty. They pointed out that the debate about

immigration and settlement was not limited to the United States, but played out in the

Netherlands as well. Their partial understanding (or reading) of the American

sociological studies led not so much to a better insight into the problem of urban

immigrants, but only slightly nuanced the negative media portrayal, without

challenging the theoretical assumptions underpinning the media-generated image.

Following the American example, the Dutch government believed that the immigrant

problems in the Netherlands had to be addressed (in the way policy planners already

proposed); otherwise, the social problems might get worse. The report made repeated

references to, on the one hand, Robert Park and the 1920s Chicago School of Sociology

(with their model of migrants moving from poor neighborhoods to middle class

neighborhoods, while assimilating into society);23 on the other hand, to Douglas Massey

and Nancy Denton’s 1993 book American Apartheid, which claimed that specifically

African Americans migrants from the South lived confined to the racial ghettos of

Northern cities, permanently segregated, unemployed, and poor.24 The Dutch authors

noted that in the Netherlands there were no ghettos in the American sense; each ethnic

minority knew poverty, unemployment, and crime, but they did not live segregated by

ethnicity.25

27 The authors of the SCP report displayed a rather selective reading of Robert

Park, Douglas Massey, and Nancy Denton. They took some basic ideas from these

American authors, but missed out on some of the nuances of their scholarship that

could have created more insight into the Dutch situation. Park was convinced that the

second-generation of an ethnic group adapted to American life. He also posited the idea

that diverse communities in big cities contributed to the happiness of individuals and

would offer geniuses and adventurers the opportunity to play a significant role in

society. As Park wrote: the segregation of the urban population

tends to facilitate the mobility of the individual man.The processes of segregation establish moraldistances which make the city a mosaic of littleworlds which touch but do not interpenetrate. Thismakes it possible for individuals to pass quickly andeasily from one moral milieu to another, andencourages the fascinating but dangerous experimentof living at the same time in several differentcontiguous, but otherwise widely separated, worlds.… The attraction of the metropolis is due in part … to


62

the fact that in the long run every individual findssomewhere among the varied manifestations of citylife the sort of environment in which he expands andfeels at ease; finds, in short, the moral climate inwhich his peculiar nature obtains the stimulationsthat bring his innate dispositions to full and freeexpression. … In a small community it is the normalman, the man without eccentricity or genius, whoseems most likely to succeed. The small communityoften tolerates eccentricity. The city, on the contrary,rewards it.26

28 Park had a more dynamic view of city and immigrant life and of the life of the

“natives” than the Dutch statisticians. He also looked at the city from the perspective of

individuals, while the statisticians were, naturally, expected to think in terms of

groups, rather than individuals. The Minorities Policy also asked statisticians to think

in terms of accessibility and equality, which tended to create a mode of thinking which

rewarded the ethnic minorities’ conformity to the Dutch culture. Park, with his

attention to the relationship between individuals and ethnic groups, was able to see the

advantages of cultural diversity, an option never considered by the Dutch government

officials.

29 The statisticians were right in stating that Park thought in terms of

assimilation, although they did not seem to be familiar with the remainder of his work.

Their lack of understanding the context and critique of Park’s ideas showed that they

were not really interested in the (American) debates on cities and immigrants; rather,

they used Park to support their own ideas. Consequently, they overlooked different

perspectives and helpful insights in the debate about immigrant culture, city life, and

government policies. Park based his ideas on Social Darwinism, taking social conflict as

the central assumption underlying his scholarship. He believed that it was not

government interference but natural selection that would lead to the assimilation of

ethnic minorities. He had little interest in the study of social inequality.27 To mention

just one example, Louis Wirth, one of Park’s prominent students, had a different

approach to the study of urban immigrants. He believed in a heterogeneous, culturally

pluralistic society. According to Wirth, social planning was important— because it was

bad government policies and lack of corporate responsibility, rather than the urban

residents themselves that caused high crime rates and poor health in cities.28 Where

Park’s ideas seemed identical to those of Dutch policy planners, his concepts based on

natural selection were very different from the considerations of Dutch government

officials and politicians. Wirth’s ideas were all about government planning, just as in

the Dutch situation, but he believed in a culturally pluralistic society, and was far from

blaming the ethnic minorities for social problems. Dutch politicians and policy

planners did not even contemplate such concepts.

30 As in the case of Park, the SCP report authors also missed a key part of Massey

and Denton’s argument. They used American Apartheid to show that the living

conditions of ethnic minorities in the Netherlands were not as bad as in the United

States. The gist of Massey and Denton’s argument was that the African American

ghettos were created by the Caucasian majority: “This extreme racial isolation did not

just happen: it was manufactured by whites through a series of self-conscious actions

and purposeful institutional arrangements that continue today.”29 Even though African

Americans and Caucasians had lived in the same neighborhoods in nineteenth-century

cities, when industrialization led to the migration of African Americans from the


63

countryside to the cities, they ended up in segregated neighborhoods. Caucasians

controlled the housing market, and it was their racism that created segregation. This

argument could also be relevant for the Dutch situation, because it emphasized not so

much the role of the ethnic minority, but the attitude of the majority toward the

minority. In the Dutch statistical research on accessibility and equality for ethnic

minorities occasional attention was paid to discrimination and the attitudes of the

Dutch majority toward ethnic minorities. Overall, though, the research was about

whether and how ethnic minorities in the Netherlands were assimilating into the

lifestyle of the Dutch. If Massey and Denton’s argument about the importance of

acceptance of minorities by the majority was valid, then the research in the

Netherlands on the practices of ethnic minorities and their efforts to integrate was

largely irrelevant.

31 When the SCP report authors studied life in ethnic neighborhoods in the

Netherlands, they focused, as did Massey and Denton, on one-parent families, crime,

and segregation (in addition to the standard topics of education, health, and

unemployment.30 Overall, the Turkish and Moroccan communities were more

segregated than those of the Surinamese and Antilleans. Detailed research in

Amsterdam showed that all neighborhoods were ethnically mixed, which meant that

the Dutch and ethnic minorities lived together. Nationally, only in 5.3% of the postal

code areas more than 70% of the population was of one specific, non-Dutch ethnic

group. The authors believed that the geographic dispersal of ethnic minorities at the

micro-level was a consequence of the municipal housing policies, which in its turn was

due to a housing shortage (in the bigger Dutch cities, municipalities have policies to

allocate housing to all citizens, both ethnic Dutch and immigrants).31 Also, the

availability of housing for ethnic minorities in certain urban neighborhoods was a

consequence of the suburbanization of the ethnic Dutch that was taking place since the

end of the 1960s.

32 According to the SCP authors, one-parent families in American ghettos were

associated with poverty, lack of supervision, and bad education. Since there were

hardly any one-parent families among the Turks and Moroccans, the SCP research

focused on the Surinamese, Antillean, and Dutch families. As regards the Surinamese

and Antilleans, half of the families were one-parent families, but in poor

neighborhoods, the proportions were higher: two thirds of the Antilleans and three

quarters of the Surinamese families were one-parent families. For about three quarters

of the one-parent families, the head of the family was unemployed. If they had a job,

they earned less than a two-parent family with one income. Members of Dutch one-

parent families had more to spend individually than members of Surinamese and

Antillean two-parent families – that might have been caused, in part, by the number of

children per family, which was higher among Surinamese and Antillean families.

Compared to the American context, the situation of Surinamese and Antillean one-

parent families was much better, even though the latter were in a disadvantageous

position in the Dutch society, stated the SCP report.32 In other reports, discussed above,

Surinamese women were praised for their participation in the labor market on a level

equal to Dutch women. Almost half of the Surinamese one-parent families were

working women.33 So in some SCP reports, the Surinamese women were seen as

progressive because they had a job, and in other SCP reports they were condemned for

being a single parent, which was linked to poverty and the bad education of their

children.34


64

33 The SCP report saw education as a means to counterbalance the lack of

education of the first-generation immigrants and the disadvantageous situation in poor

neighborhoods. White flight did not only mean that Dutch families moved to suburbia,

but also that these parents, especially if they had higher education, did not want their

children to go to so-called “black schools,” that is, schools attended by minority

children. The Dutch parents believed that the educational level of these schools was

below standard. The SCP report did see differences in test results between school

children from poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods, which they called

confusingly “weak, but significant.” While they concluded that “white flight” resulted

in, on average, poorer school performance in poor neighborhoods, they also pointed to

schools in poor neighborhoods that did well, and to schools in richer neighborhoods

that did not so well. Those findings made it hard to support the Dutch parents’

tendency to self-segregate by moving their children to “white schools.”35

34 Finally, the SCP report discussed crime. Referring once again to American

studies, they saw crime as a possible reason why poor neighborhoods turned into

ghettos.36 Although they stated that statistics and research concerning crime and

population groups was limited, they also felt confident to conclude that a number of

ethnic groups were overrepresented in crime, and that specific age groups scored

above average as well. The researchers mentioned that they could not establish

whether the crime rate increased because of the ethnicity of the criminals, or because

of the low incomes of criminals (i.e. whether living in poverty led one to commit

crimes, or whether criminality was more determined by ethnicity). Whereas age and

gender were the likely determinants of crime, the researchers could not verify the

relationship between crime and the place of residence. But the sense of insecurity and

fear of crime were higher in poor neighborhoods than in other neighborhoods, leading

to a tendency for all ethnicities to leave the neighborhood as soon as possible. Given

the overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in these neighborhoods, and a relatively

high presence of younger members of certain groups in crime, the researchers found

this flight from the neighborhoods understandable.37

35 The SCP researchers concluded their report by discussing possible government

policies for dealing with the problems related to poor neighborhoods with a high

concentration of ethnic minorities. One policy would be to counter the concentration of

ethnic minorities by moving them to other neighborhoods. A possible policy was

busing. Yet no such policies were implemented at the national level. Some cities,

mostly smaller ones, did try to prevent high concentrations of ethnic groups, both in

education and in housing. Another policy was the so-called “compensation policy,”

which set out to counter the negative effects of living in poor neighborhoods. Such

policies were not necessarily aimed at ethnic minorities, but were more general

programs concerning crime prevention, the creation of jobs, and the emphasis on the

idea of community in poor neighborhoods. Most of these policies were also executed at

the level of city governance.

3.2. Alejandro Portes and Lack of Integration

36 In 2002, the government decided that in odd years it would bring out a report

on the results of its minority policies. In even years they would publish “Integration

Monitors,” which would focus on the actual position of the minorities in society. The

SCP would write the report on the results of the policies. The SCP selected the Institute


65

of Sociological-Economic Research (Instituut voor Sociologisch-Economisch Onderzoek;

ISEO) of the Erasmus University of Rotterdam to write the Integration Monitor, which

was to cover statistics on “demographics, education, language, integration

[‘inburgering’], income, health, social contacts, housing, concentration/segregation,

racism, images, crime, and remigration.”38

37 The introduction of the Integration Monitor established new ways in which

policy planners and politicians discussed ethnic minorities. Originally, the focus of the

debate was creating successful policies to minimize and preferably erase the

disadvantageous position of minorities in Dutch society. The statistics presented in the

traditional fields of education and (un)employment showed a positive trend among

ethnic minorities since 2000. The politicians who asked for more information, a request

that led to the Monitor, wanted to check if the government policies for minorities were

effective. They ended up with a new type of report that showed more categories in

which Dutch people and immigrants were different. It is debatable whether these new

categories were always relevant. The authors of the Monitor implied that a uniform

population would form an ideal society; they did not consider whether diversity would

offer any advantages, and they ignored the various lifestyles and social ideals among

the Dutch.

38 Statisticians had already been looking at cultural aspects of immigrants and

integration in earlier years. In 1989, the Ministry of the Interior had asked the ISEO to

investigate the “social position” of “allochtonen” and the use of social benefits by

them. ISEO set up a research project titled Social Position and Facilities Used by

Allochtonen and Autochtonen (Sociale Positie en Voorzieningengebruik Allochtonen en

Autochtonen; SPVA), based on an extensive public opinion poll. Originally, the

questions were mainly aimed at establishing whether ethnic minorities were actually in

touch with the ethnic Dutch. For instance, members of ethnic minorities were asked

which ethnic groups they met most often at work (overall 68.5% had contacts within

their own ethnic group, and 50.9% with Dutch people) and in their spare time (69%

within their own ethnic group, and 18.4% with Dutch people). In 1989, the ISEO

researchers concluded that 9.2% of ethnic minorities did not interact with Dutch

society, 13.9% slightly, while 22.9% strongly identified with the Dutch, and 6.8% very

strongly.39

39 The 2000 report took a more negative approach to integration than its

predecessor in 1989. While the focus of the 1989 report was on the extent that

immigrants tried to be part of Dutch society, the 2000 report emphasized the lack of

social interaction of immigrant groups with Dutch society. As regards informal

participation, the Surinamese and Antilleans socialized more with ethnic Dutch than

the other minorities did. Especially the refugee groups did not socialize with the Dutch,

most notably the Somalians (74% of whom were only in touch with members of their

own ethnic group). Among the Turks 50% socialized exclusively within their own ethnic

group, while that was true for 40% of the Moroccans, 22% of the Surinamese, and 13% of

the Antilleans. About half of the Dutch population said they had friends from one of the

four traditional major immigrant groups (50% socialized exclusively within their own

ethnic group). Apparently as the highest form of socialization, the researchers

regarded inter-ethnic marriages. Among the Surinamese 36% of the marriages were

with a Dutch person, among Turks 11%, and among Moroccans 10%. What inter-ethnic

divorce did to socialization and integration was not mentioned in the report.40


66

40 The statistics for the 2000 Integration Monitor were based on the 1998 SPVA

research, both written by Edwin Martens. He had explained in the 1998 report that

education, labor, income, and housing described the social-economic position of the

ethnic minorities, but he suggested that this information was incomplete. Social

integration could only be measured if informal participation (i.e. contacts between

ethnic minorities and the ethnic Dutch) and cultural (or normative) integration was

included.41

41 Martens wanted to see more cultural or normative integration. In his reading,

this type of integration was identical to the idea of modernization, which he defined as

follows:The term modernization usually refers to

the process in which an agrarian society transformsinto an industrial or even post-industrial society. It isa process of increasing social differentiation, drivenby science and technology. We are interested in theconsequences of modernization at the cultural level,such as increasing rationalization andindividualization. These can be considered asdimensions of rational thinking. On five of thesedimensions we have collected information in theSPVA to see to what extent ethnic minorities hadmade progress to adjust.42

42 Martens’ view on immigrants was condescending. He saw ethnic minorities as

less modern and less rational than the ethnic Dutch. If Martens was serious about the

difference between an agrarian and a post-industrial society, it is interesting to note

that the SPVA research was executed in the four biggest cities and nine other big cities

and towns in the Netherlands.43 The research among the Dutch was conducted in the

same cities. Martens stated explicitly: “the data collected about the Dutch cannot be

generalized to all Dutch people, because they are primarily intended for comparison

with the ethnic minorities in the selected cities.”44 So, Martens consciously compared,

in the context of modernization, people he associated with an agrarian society to Dutch

city people. If his theory were right, it would automatically lead to a substantial

difference between Dutch people and ethnic minorities. It would also mean that by only

looking at Dutch city people, and excluding the Dutch in smaller towns and in the

countryside, the Dutch would seem more modern than they were in general. Martens’

assumptions and approach should have raised serious doubts on the validity of his

research results. Moreover, his statistics emphasized the backwardness and lack of

integration of ethnic minorities.

43 The Integration Monitor of 2000 used the five dimensions of modernization

from the SPVA of 1998. Those five dimensions were: 1) emancipation of women; 2)

individualization; 3) secularization; 4) democratization and respect for authority; and

5) general modern ideas.45 Based on their answers in opinion polls, all ethnic groups

were divided into five categories of modernization, ranging from “very few” moderns

to “very strong” modern.” The majority of Turks and Moroccans were in the “hardly

modern” and “moderate modern” categories. Most Surinamese and Antilleans belonged

to the “moderate modern” and “less strong modern” categories. Finally, the ethnic

Dutch were in the “less strong modern” and “strong modern” categories.

44 Based on these numbers, the authors of the report concluded that the major

ethnic groups, especially Turks and Moroccans, were not as “modern” as the Dutch.

The authors noted that all of these groups were diverse in their response to modernity


67

in themselves. They also concluded that the Dutch people as a group “cannot be

considered to be ‘integrated.’ . . . With them, too, a part of the population is less

modern, even if it is less so than among the other ethnic groups.”46

45 The researchers went into even more details on how different groups within

the ethnic categories looked at modernization. They ranked the various subcategories

on a scale of 1 to 7 (with 7 representing “very strong” modern). According to these

statistics, among Turks and Moroccans, women are more modern than men, while the

opposite is true among the Surinamese, Antilleans, and Dutch. Apparently Turkish and

Moroccan women had more progressive ideas about the emancipation of women,

individualization, secularization, and respect for authorities than Turkish and

Moroccan men had. All Turkish and Moroccan immigrants scored significantly lower

than the Surinamese, Antilleans, and Dutch. The second-generation of all immigrant

groups scored higher on the modernization scale than the first-generation, which could

be an indication that these immigrant groups were integrating. Second-generation

Antilleans were even more modern than the average Dutch person. Within all groups,

younger people were more modern than older people. The “over 65 years” among the

Dutch scored lower than eight age groups among the Antilleans and Surinamese.

Table 3. Median scores on the variable “modernization,” according to ethnicity, gender,generation, and age, on a scale from 1 to 7.

Turks Moroccans Surinamese Antilleans Dutch

Total 3.38 3.32 4.22 4.32 4.83

Men 3.32 3.26 4.25 4.43 4.84

Women 3.46 3.46 4.21 4.24 4.82

1st generation 3.30 3.24 4.12 4.17 --

2nd generation 3.70 3.77 4.62 4.96 --

Age 15-19 3.77 3.80 4.48 4.59 5.00

Age 20-24 3.48 3.65 4.47 4.48 5.19

Age 25-29 3.42 3.44 4.38 4.49 5.17

Age 30-34 3.42 3.38 4.29 4.30 5.15

Age 35-44 3.38 3.30 4.14 4.25 4.98

Age 45-54 3.17 3.09 4.13 4.18 4.87

Age 55-64 2.85 2.87 3.97 3.98 4.58


68

Age over 65 2.78 2.87 3.79 3.70 4.27

Source: E.P. Martens & Y.M.R. Weijers, Integration Monitor 2000, 153.

46 The conclusion that there are diverging opinions among the Dutch population

about norms, values, and lifestyles did not lead the authors to question whether their

standards of modern or not modern were too absolute, even for the Dutch. Their

judgment that ethnic groups were not modern, and therefore not integrated, led to a

negative assessment of these groups, while it was debatable whether the standards of

modernization should have been so strict. This was yet another example in which

government officials depicted ethnic minorities as different from the ethnic Dutch,

with a focus on culture (while ignoring social and economic issues).

47 Politics was the final dimension of integration considered by the authors. They

found in their opinion poll that a limited number of members of any ethnic group

seemed interested in Dutch political issues, or in being a politician. A striking deviation

from this pattern was that in the city councils of Amsterdam, Deventer, and Helmond

the share of ethnic minority council members was in proportion to the overall share of

the ethnic groups in the local population.47

48 The authors of the 2002 report introduced new socio-cultural integration

statistics. They had gathered opinion polls in which Dutch citizens expressed their

ideas about immigrants. In the period 1986 to 2000, between 29% (in 1986) and 44% (in

2000) of the Dutch believed that immigrants contributed positively to society, because

they brought them in touch with others cultures. Around 75% of the Dutch found it a

moral duty to welcome refugees. Yet a substantial part of the Dutch felt that

immigrants should return to their country of origin after retirement (31% in 1986 and

21% in 2000), while at least half of the Dutch wanted immigrants who had received

social security benefits for over a year to return to their country of origin as well (56%

in 1994 and 50% in 2000). The majority of the Dutch wanted city councils to prevent

immigrants from moving into their neighborhoods (83% in 1994 and 84% in 2000).

Another new insight was offered by answers to the question how often Dutch people

interacted with immigrants. 12% of the Dutch said they met on a daily basis with

Turkish people, 11% with Moroccans, 12% with Surinamese, and 8% with Antilleans.

More striking was the finding that 46% of the Dutch had never met a Turkish

immigrant, 55% a Moroccan, 47% a Surinamese, and 65% an Antillean. The same

statistical data could be read in another way. The ISEO authors wished to emphasize the

overall averages, which stated that 80% of the Dutch met with foreigners, and 25% of

the Dutch did so on a daily basis.48

49 The 2002 Integration Monitor concluded with two scenarios. The first scenario,

which the authors thought most likely, was that ethnic minorities would continue to do

better in education and employment, which would lead to expansion of the middle

class among ethnic minorities. The middle class would leave the poor neighborhoods,

settle mainly in Dutch suburbia, and their contacts with Dutch people would increase.

The second scenario assumed that ethnic minorities would continue to trail behind,

which would lead to a permanent immigrant underclass, and a society without

cohesion or solidarity.49 Although Park, Massey, and Denton were not mentioned, the

report repeated the scenarios discussed in the 1995 SCP report.

50 The authors of the 2003 SCP report expressed an increasing doubt that

integration would happen over time. The assumption that second- and third-


69

generation immigrants would become an integral part of society, and that the distance

between Dutch people and immigrants would disappear, became debatable. They

referred to the article “Should Immigrants Assimilate?” by Alejandro Portes and Min

Zhou, which stated that the optimistic integration model was based on North- and

Western-European immigrants in the United States, but was less applicable to new

ethnic immigrant groups.50 Incidents in Dutch public life such as increasing conflicts in

Dutch society after 9/11, the popularity of Muslim fundamentalist Abu Jahjah among

second-generation Moroccan youth, and the rowdy behavior of “allochtone” youth

during the national remembrance of the World War II deaths on May 4, 2003, led SCP

authors to ask whether these incidents might be indications that segregation rather

than integration was taking place.

51 The article by American social scientists Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou,

though, was not about integration, but about assimilation, as the authors state in the

title of the article. The SCP researchers did not even consider the differences between

the concepts of integration and assimilation (neither in the research by Portes and

Zhou, nor in their own thinking about the Dutch situation). Yet on the basis of the

Portes and Zhou essay, which studied recent Haitian immigrants in the United States,

the SCP researchers claimed that integration of Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese, and

Antillean immigrants in the Netherlands might not take place. Part of Portes and

Zhou’s argument was that Haitian youth assimilated into inner city life rather than

mainstream culture, which led to the disappearance of solidarity and mutual support in

the Haitian immigrant community.51 Terms like mainstream versus inner city culture,

and the importance of solidarity and mutual support in the immigrant community

were concepts not used in the Dutch debate about ethnic minorities, neither in the

government reports, nor in the public debate.

Conclusion: Diversity among Minorities, Consistencyof Discourse

52 Since 2009, the Ministry of the Interior has added new categories of ethnic

minorities to the studies. Since the number of refugees had increased substantially,

they needed to be included in the minority studies. The government policy planners

studied refugees from Iran, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Later on, immigrants from

Central and Eastern Europe, like Poles, Bulgarians, and people from former Yugoslavia,

were included in the statistics. Overall, these new groups are studied in the same way

as the government officials studied earlier immigrant groups. On average, Iranians

were doing well in education, the job market, and housing. Somalians were more likely

to follow the patterns of Moroccans and Turks and in some cases scored lower.

53 Events like 9/11 and the 2004 murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh

by a Dutch Moroccan extremist Muslim led to concern in the reports about a widening

gap between the Dutch population and ethnic minorities, specifically Muslims. Since

2008, immigrants (even if they have already lived in the Netherlands for many years)

have had to take a citizen exam to prove that they have mastered the Dutch language

and Dutch social customs. It was not clear to what extent this citizen exam contributed

to the integration of ethnic minorities.

54 In some statistical categories, the position of ethnic minorities did improve

over the years, but in other cases it declined. The second generation did well in getting

a higher education. According to the 2012 report, among all ethnic groups


70

unemployment remained significantly higher (around 12%) than among the Dutch (at

4%). Housing also continued to be a problematic category. The majority of the ethnic

minorities continued to live in the four biggest cities in the Netherlands. Political

refugees who were originally located at various places around the country within a few

years moved to the four big cities as well. This concentration of ethnic minorities in

major cities was mostly a consequence of the behavior of these groups, the researchers

explained. Immigrants often thought it would be easier to get a job in a big city, and

they preferred to live close to their compatriots.

55 Recently, researchers moved away from the idea of segregation, and pointed to

the fact that most of the groups identified more with the city neighborhood they lived

in than with the Netherlands. This type of very local integration was deemed to be

positive. The researchers also pointed out that immigrants often moved from one

neighborhood to another and saw this mobility as an indication of social and economic

improvement. They did not realize or recognize this development was in line with the

theories of Robert Park about how the assimilation of immigrants could be tracked in

them moving from poorer to richer neighborhoods. In general, since 2004 the reports

paid little attention to American literature on immigration. The various researchers did

refer to books on civic life, such as Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone or Francis

Fukuyama's Trust, but they only footnoted them and did not go into details about the

theories underpinning the studies.

56 With the recent reports, researchers have had the opportunity to establish

trends among immigrants and ethnic minorities over a period of more than 20 years.

Not surprisingly, it turned out that the groups that had been the longest in the

Netherlands integrated the best. When children, either as young immigrants or the

second-generation immigrants, were educated in the Dutch school system, their

chances of success were higher compared to immigrants who had no Dutch education.

Although overall ethnic minorities reached a lower level of education than the Dutch,

they were catching up. The main conclusion seems to be that, over time, and in spite of

problems in fields like employment, integration of ethnic minorities into Dutch society

would happen in two or three generations. Such a conclusion indicated that the focus

of politicians and statisticians on culture as an explanation for social and economic

differences between the Dutch population and immigrants was misleading.

57 Although politicians intended the 1983 Minorities Policy as a measure to

ensure equal access to key social groups, such as housing, jobs, and education, the

result was that immigrants were, in many respects, set apart as ethnic minorities. In

order to track and measure the situation of minorities in Dutch society, government

officials both expanded the number of people studied, and made a clear distinction

between well-integrated Western immigrants and less-immigrated non-Western

immigrants. Even when ethnic minorities were doing relatively well, for example

around 2000, new categories such as modernization were added with the effect of

emphasizing dissimilarity. Though politicians and government officials alike had

expressed in the 1980s that they did not want the Minorities Policy to set immigrants

apart from the rest of society, in the end the policy itself did so.

58 In general, politicians and government officials focused on immigration

statistics. When they tried to predict the future position of ethnic minorities, they

regularly referred to American sociological literature on immigration. The American

literature was not studied seriously; rather, various government officials tended to pick

and choose whatever was convenient for the policies. Based on the premises of the


71

Minorities Policy, politicians expected ethnic minorities to integrate, or rather

assimilate, into Dutch society. Notably the works by Denton and Massey and Portes and

Zhou were used as a warning that an American-type of segregation could take place in

the Netherlands. In other words, Dutch government officials used American scholarly

literature on ethnic minorities to warn politicians and the public that social problems

could become even worse, unless political action was taken. In that sense, the role of

the American literature was to emphasize the looming threat of social turmoil.

59 In 1985, four sociologists, Frank Bovenkerk, Kees Bruin, Lodewijk Brunt, and

Huib Wouters, published a study of ethnic groups in Utrecht, the fourth largest city in

the Netherlands. They found that the ethnic Dutch objected to non-Dutch cultures in

their city. When it was about nuisance caused by neighbors, the Dutch were bothered

by ethnic minorities as much as they were by their fellow Dutchmen. Both local and

national government irritated the Dutch just as much as ethnic minorities did. Beset by

such problems as the decay of poor neighborhoods and unemployment, Dutch locals

reproached the government for positive discrimination (while understanding that

ethnic minorities would make use of such arrangements). The idealistic, egalitarian

intentions of the 1983 Minorities Policy contributed to ethnic conflict, because the

ethnic Dutch felt that ethnic minorities got preferential treatment. The researchers

found many examples where Dutch citizens had realized that when they phrased their

problems in terms of ethnic conflict, local and national government would all of a

sudden respond to their complaints.52 In other words, politicians had expressed in the

Minorities Policies their idea that minorities and Dutch people should have equal

access to social goods, and Dutch citizens became aware that by emphasizing ethnic

conflict politicians helped them to achieve their political and social goals sooner. As

shown above, government officials collecting data to inform the execution of the

Minorities Policy also stressed cultural differences between the Dutch population and

ethnic minorities. All in all, the 1983 Minorities Policy contributed to ethnic conflict in

Dutch society.

NOTES

1. 1 I would like to thank Don Weber and Charlotte Hille for their generous and insightful criticism

of the first draft of this paper. All errors are mine. The New York Times editorial is quoted by Jaap

Verheul in “Could this Have Happened in Holland? Perceptions of Dutch Multiculturalism after

9/11,” in Derek Rubin and Jaap Verheul, eds., American Multiculturalism after 9/11: Transatlantic

Perspectives (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 191.

2. Marco Martiniello and Jan Rath, "Introduction," in Selected Studies in International Migration and

Immigrant Incorporation, eds. Marco Martiniello and Jan Rath (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University

Press, 2010), 11.

3. Nathan Glazer and Daniel P. Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews,

Italians, and Irish of New York City, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1970), xxxiii.

4. Martiniello and Rath, Introduction, 15.


72

5. Nota Minderhedenbeleid, Handelingen Tweede Kamer, 16102, no. 21, 1982-1983 sess., (September

15, 1983b), 9.

6. Antilleans, Moluccans, and Surinamese are people from (former) Dutch colonies. The Dutch

Antilles is a group of islands in the Caribbean, including Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Sint Maarten,

Saba, and Sint Eustatius, which became an autonomous part of the kingdom of the Netherlands in

2010. Suriname, in South America, became independent in 1975. The Moluccas is an island group

in Indonesia. When Indonesia became independent in 1949, many Moluccans wanted to have

their own independent state, which the Dutch government promised to them. The Dutch

government could not deliver on its promises. A large group of Moluccans, a majority of whom

had served in the Dutch colonial army (Koninklijk Nederlands-Indisch Leger; KNIL), moved to the

Netherlands, where they declared the independent Moluccan Republic (which has only been

recognized by the state of Benin).

7. Minderhedenbeleid 1992, Handelingen Tweede Kamer, 22314, no. 11, 1991-1992 sess., (July 2,

1992), 1-19.

8. J. A. A. de Beer, "Hoeveel Allochtonen Zijn Er in Nederland?" in Allochtonen in Nederland 1996,

eds. F. W. M. Hulse and P. van der Laan (Voorburg/Heerlen: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek,

1996), 27; "CBS Statline: Bevolking Kerncijfers." Centraal Bureau voor Statistiek, http://

statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?

DM=SLNL&PA=37296ned&D1=a&D2=0,10,20,30,40,45,50,60,62-63&HDR=G1&STB=T&VW=T

(accessed October 24, 2013).

9. Han Nicolaas and Arnoud Sprangers, "Migranten, Vreemdelingen En Vluchtelingen: Begrippen

Op Het Terrein Van Asiel En Buitenlandse Migratie," Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, http://

www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/themas/veiligheid-recht/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2012/2012-10-

bt-btmve-migratie.htm (accessed August 22, 2013).

10.

Ingeborg Keij, "Standaarddefinitie Allochtonen," Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, http://

www.cbs.nl/NR/rdonlyres/26785779-AAFE-4B39-AD07-59F34DCD44C8/0/index1119.pdf (accessed

August 22, 2013).

11. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, "Begrippen: Overzicht," http://www.cbs.nl/nl-NL/menu/

themas/bevolking/methoden/begrippen/default.htm (accessed August 13, 2013).

12. Dutch government, "Rijkswet Op Het Nederlanderschap, 1984," http://wetten.overheid.nl/

BWBR0003738/geldigheidsdatum_13-08-2013 (accessed August 13, 2013). Until 1985 only when

the head of the family was Dutch did the child get Dutch citizenship. In 1985, the law was

changed and the child was granted Dutch citizenship if one of the parents was Dutch. See

Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Minderheden in Nederland: Statistisch Vademecum 1987 (Den

Haag: Staatsuitgeverij, 1987).

13. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, "Bevolking; Generatie, Geslacht, Leeftijd En

Herkomstgroepering, 1 Januari 2013," http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/publication/?

DM=SLNL&PA=37325&D1=a&D2=a&D3=0&D4=0&D5=0,3-4,46,59,94,101,137,152,220,237,247&D6=9-17&HDR=T&STB=G1,G2,G3,G4,G5&VW=T

(accessed August 13, 2013).

14. Nicolaas and Sprangers, “Migranten, Vreemdelingen En Vluchtelingen: Begrippen Op Het

Terrein Van Asiel En Buitenlandse Migratie,” 1.

15. Keij, “Standaarddefinitie Allochtonen,” 2.

16. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, “Begrippen: Overzicht.” It is striking to note that in the

former Dutch East Indies, colonial authorities also put the Japanese in the category “European,”

and not in the category “Alien Orientals,” in which the Chinese could be found. See J. E. Ellemers

and R. E. F. Vaillant, Indische Nederlanders En Gerepatrieerden (Muiderberg: Dick Coutinho, 1985),

15-16.

17. Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Minderheden in Nederland: Statistisch Vademecum 1987, 51;

Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Minderheden in Nederland: Statistisch Vademecum 1992, 108;


73

http://statline.cbs.nl/statweb/publication/?dm=slnl&pa=37296ned&d1=a&d2=0,10,20,30,40,45,50,60,62-63&hdr=g1&stb=t&vw=t



http://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/menu/themas/veiligheid-recht/publicaties/artikelen/archief/2012/2012-10-bt-btmve-migratie.htm






http://www.cbs.nl/nr/rdonlyres/26785779-aafe-4b39-ad07-59f34dcd44c8/0/index1119.pdf




http://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/menu/themas/bevolking/methoden/begrippen/default.htm




http://wetten.overheid.nl/bwbr0003738/geldigheidsdatum_13-08-2013




http://statline.cbs.nl/statweb/publication/?dm=slnl&pa=37325&d1=a&d2=a&d3=0&d4=0&d5=0,3-4,46,59,94,101,137,152,220,237,247&d6=9-17&hdr=t&stb=g1,g2,g3,g4,g5&vw=t




Allochtonen in Nederland 1996, 99; Allochtonen in Nederland 2001, 108; Jaarrapport Integratie 2005, 85;

Rik van der Vliet, Jeroen Ooijevaar and Ronald van der Bie, Jaarrapport Integratie 2012 (Den Haag/

Heerlen: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2012).

18. Ibid., 70.

19. For the translation and explanation of Dutch educational terms, see Nuffic Glossary, at http://

nufficglossary.nuffic.nl

20. Vliet, Ooijevaar and Bie, Jaarrapport Integratie 2012, 70.

21. Ibid., 24.

22. P. M. T. Tesser et al., Rapportage Minderheden 1995 (Den Haag: Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau,

1995), 9.

23. See Robert Ezra Park, Ernest Watson Burgess and Roderick Duncan MacKenzie, The City

(Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 1925).

24. Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the

Underclass (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

25. Tesser et al., Rapportage Minderheden 1995, 15, 426.

26. Park, Burgess and MacKenzie, The City, 40-41.

27. See Park Dixon Goist, “City and ‘Community’: The Urban Theory of Robert Park,” American

Quarterly 23, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 46-59, Richard C. Helmes-Hayes, “'A Dualistic Vision': Robert

Ezra Park and the Classical Ecological Theory of Social Inequality,” The Sociological Quarterly 28,

no. 3 (Autumn 1987): 387-409, Stanford M. Lyman, “Civilization, Culture, and Color: Changing

Foundations of Robert E. Park’s Sociology of Race Relations,” International Journal of Politics,

Culture, and Society 4, no. 3 (Spring 1991): 285-300, and Edward Shils, “The Sociology of Robert

Park,” The American Sociologist 27, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 88-106.

28. See Wolfgang Vortkamp, “Partizipation und Gemeinschaft: Louis Wirths Soziologie der

Moderne in der Tradition der Chicagoer Schule,” Soziale Welt, Jahrgang 49, Heft 3 (1998): 275-294,

and Roger A. Salerno, “Theory and Action in Louis Wirth’s ‘Urbanization,’” International Social

Science Review, 67, no. 2 (Spring 1992): 51-59.

29. Massey and Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass, 2. See also

page 83.

30. Ibid., 4-7.

31. Ibid., 413-420.

32. Ibid., 442-443.

33. I could not locate any statistics specifically on working Surinamese single mothers.

According to the 2005 government statistics, of the 58,000 non-Western single mothers, 22.000

had a job. The statistics were not further specified to ethnic group. CBS, Statline. http://

statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?

DM=SLNL&PA=71957ned&D1=a&D2=0-1&D3=3,9-11&D4=4-12&HDR=T&STB=G2,G1,G3&VW=T

(accessed December 29, 2014).

34. Although the policy planners did not refer to American studies on the links between poverty

and one-parent families, an awareness of this discourse might have been helpful in analyzing the

Dutch situation. Especially Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 paper “The Negro Family: The Case

for National Action,” led to an intense debate in the United States. Moynihan claimed that one-

parent families with absentee fathers led to poverty and unemployment among African

Americans. In the public debate in the United States, Moynihan was accused of racism and anti-

feminism, while civil rights activist William Ryan coined the phrase “blaming the victim” in his

response to Moynihan’s ideas. The response by scholars to Moynihan’s thesis included studies in

which the problem was not so much determined by ethnic culture, but rather by poverty. In

some studies poverty was defined in the economic sense, while other studies discussed it in the

context of a society-wide culture of poverty, which led to one-parent families. The Dutch policy

makers, by assuming that one-parent families led to poverty, took the same position as American


74

http://nufficglossary.nuffic.nl/




http://statline.cbs.nl/Statweb/publication/?DM=SLNL&PA=71957ned&D1=a&D2=0-1&D3=3,9-11&D4=4-12&HDR=T&STB=G2,G1,G3&VW=T



conservatives in their response to the Moynihan report, who not just stated that family

instability caused crime and poverty but also emphasized ethnic culture in this context. An

understanding of the American debate on this issue might have informed the Dutch policy

makers' emphasis on the cultural explanations over economic and social causes. (For the debate

on the Moynihan report, see, for instance, Frank F. Furstenberg, “If Moynihan Had Only Known:

Race, Class, and Family Change in the Late Twentieth Century,” Annals of the American Academy of

Political and Social Science 621 (January 2009): 94-110; Douglas S. Massey and Robert J. Sampson,

“Moynihan Redux: Legacies and Lessons,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social

Science 621 (January 2009): 6-27; L. Alex Swan, “A Methodological Critique of the Moynihan

Report,” The Black Scholar 5, no. 9 (June 1974): 18-24, and William Justus Wilson, “The Moynihan

Report and Research on the Black Community,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and

Social Science 621 (January 2009): 34-46.

35. Tesser et al., Rapportage Minderheden 1995, 453-466.

36. The authors did not refer to their reading of Robert Park, who had noted, somewhat

ironically, that crime showed how well the second-generation integrated, changing from the

crimes of their parents to the kinds of crimes the majority of the Americans committed (Park,

Burgess and MacKenzie, The City, 27-28).

37. Tesser et al., Rapportage Minderheden 1995, 466-472.

38. Brief Van De Minister Voor Grote Steden En Integratiebeleid, Handelingen Tweede Kamer,

26333, 1998-1999 sess., (June 8, 1999).

39. T. Ankersmit, Th. Roelandt, and J. Veenman, Minderheden in Beeld: Sociologisch-Economische

Positie Van Allochtonen (SPVA 1989; P1234) (Amsterdam: Netherlands Institute for Scientific

Information Services, 1989).

40. E. Martens and Y. Weijers, Integratiemonitor 2000 (Rotterdam: Instituut voor Sociologisch-

Economisch Onderzoek ISEO, 2000 ),100, 103-104.

41. Edwin Martens and Instituut voor Sociologisch-Economisch Onderzoek, Minderheden in Beeld:

SPVA-98 (Rotterdam: Instituut voor Sociologisch-Economisch Onderzoek ISEO, 1999), 79.

42. Martens and Instituut voor Sociologisch-Economisch Onderzoek, Minderheden in Beeld:

SPVA-98, 89. (quote translated from Dutch by the author).

43. The cities and towns were: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven,

Enschede, Almere, Alphen aan den Rijn, Bergen op Zoom, Hoogezand-Sappemeer, Delft,

Dordrecht and Tiel (Ibid., 7).

44. Ibid., 1-2.

45. Martens and Weijers, Integratiemonitor 2000, 105.

46. Ibid., 106, 126.

47. Ibid., 118.

48. Ibid., 96.

49. Ibid., 152.

50. Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, “Should Immigrants Assimilate?” The Public Interest 116

(Summer 1994): 18-33.

51. Ibid., 21.

52. Frank Bovenkerk et al., Vreemd Volk, Gemengde Gevoelens: Etnische Verhoudingen in Een Grote

Stad (Meppel: Boom, 1985), 20, 146.


75

ABSTRACTS

While formulating a national policy for ethnic minorities since the 1980s, Dutch government

officials interpreted immigrant problems in the cities through American sociological studies. The

way the officials defined minorities and immigrant problems as well as their cherry picking of

American research contributed to the failure of policy planners to formulate policies to create

equality for all Dutch citizens. On the contrary, the officials’ reports increased ethnic conflicts in

Dutch society.

INDEX

Keywords: Allochtoon, Antilleans, assimilation, autochtoon, Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek,

crime, education, ethnicity, housing, immigrants, Instituut voor Sociologisch-Economisch

Onderzoek, integration, Integration Monitor, minorities, Minorities Policy, modernity,

Moroccans, multiculturalism, Netherlands, policy planners, poverty, refugees, segregation,

Sociaal & Cultureel Planbureau, Sociale Positie en Voorzieningengebruik Allochtonen en

Autochtonen, Somalians, statistics, Surinamese, Turks, unemployment, United States of America,

urban life

AUTHOR

RUUD JANSSENS

Amerikanistiek, Universiteit van Amsterdam


76


Public Art: TransnationalConnections


77

“The cornerstone is laid”: ItalianAmerican Memorial Building in NewYork City and Immigrants’ Right tothe City at the Turn of theTwentieth CenturyBénédicte Deschamps

1 At the end of the nineteenth century, the massive arrival ofEastern and Southern European immigrants in the UnitedStates was often depicted in the local press as an “invasion”of “undesirable” crowds. Permeated with eugenic ideology,the New York newspapersresented the “dark faced Italians”who were “swarming through the doors of Barge Office.”1

This “miserable lot of human beings” was deemed apotential nuisance in a society which needed cheap laborbut had difficulties welcoming foreign workers on an equalfooting.2 At a time when rapid industrialization wascontributing to shaping the cities, the question of spacebecame crucial. Indeed, immigrants were somehow seen asusurping an urban territory which was not theirs, andwhich they were allegedly altering for the worse. Thus,Italians, like other groups, were constantly criticized forclustering in specific neighborhoods that were “filthybeyond description” and “unfit for a human being to livein.” While some associations campaigned “to rid [the] cityof the presence of swarthy sons and daughters of sunnyItaly,” conflict, tensions or derision could be observedwhenever the latter tried – even temporarily – to trespass


78

the limits of their wards and invest public areas, be theystreets or parks.3 Yet the elite of what was then called theItalian “colony” was quite aware that “space is political”and that to gain recognition and acceptance, their fellowcountrymen should claim a right to the city.4 This paper willanalyze how Italian Americans used memorial building toget a greater exposure as an ethnic group and transcendthe boundaries of the skimpy Little Italies. It will arguethat, by disputing space with the city authorities for theerection of monuments, immigrants also questioned theplace they had been assigned in American society andhistory, and tried to redefine their role as political actors ofthe city.

1. Carving Ethnicity in the City

2 In New York City, the man who led that struggle forappropriating public space in the name of Italian Americanswas Carlo Barsotti (1850-1927), the directing manager ofthe leading Italian-language newspaper Il Progresso Italo-Americano. At the same time a banker and a boardinghouse landlord, he had left Tuscany when he was twenty-one and had rapidly shown great abilities as a businessman.5 In the paper he founded with Vincenzo Polidori in 1880, hepressed readers to “rise and walk towards the highesthopes that might smile at the emigrant in America,” a goalhe believed could be reached also very concretely bybuilding memorials outside of the Little Italies.6 IncreasingItalian Americans’ visibility was a process which did include“rising and walking” in the city, and memorials provided theimmigrants with opportunities to do so. Thus Barsottidedicated much of his time to raising funds and lobbying forthe construction of various monuments to the glory ofItalian heroes, among whom were Giuseppe Garibaldi atWashington Square Park (1888) and on Staten Island(1896), Christopher Columbus at Columbus Circle (1892),Giuseppe Verdi between Broadway and 73rd Street (1906),Giovanni da Verrazzano in Battery Park (1909), and DanteAlighieri between Broadway and Columbus Avenue, nearLincoln Square (1921).

3 Barsotti was certainly not the only editor to invest somuch energy in memorial building, within or outsideimmigrant communities. In fact, the first monument to beerected by Italian Americans in New York City was a bust ofRisorgimento’s leading political thinker Giuseppe Mazzini.


79

It had been inaugurated as early as 1878 in Central Park,under the initiative of sculptor Nestore Corradi (1811-1891)and the Unione e Fratellanza benevolent society, with thesupport of the Italian-language weekly L’Eco d’Italia, ownedby Giovanni Francesco Secchi de Casali (1819-1885).7 Moregenerally, ethnic newspapers made a point of markingurban space to promote ethnic pride and show theAmerican public an expression of their collective identitythat was redefined in their terms, and staged outside oftheir despised neighborhoods. Although the WashingtonPost claimed “the Italian’s devotion to commemorating”was “a national trait particularly strong in his race,”8 payingtribute to great historical figures by organizingcelebrations, parades and pageants or by buildingmonuments was a compulsion shared by most immigrants.9

As John Bodnar has shown, the latter expressed theirpatriotism with multiple forms of commemorations aimingat affirming their ethnic identity as “a positive force helpingthem create the nation,” thus contributing to forging apublic memory of their own experience in the UnitedStates.10 It is not surprising, then, that the New York CityArt Commission was overwhelmed with requests from allethnic groups, each of them wanting to leave its imprint onthe urban space, revisiting its immigrant past, andinscribing its presence in the vast panorama of urbanactivities.11

4 The initiatives led by Il Progresso Italo-Americano aretherefore to be understood against this backdrop. ToBarsotti, promoting Italianità (a sense of Italian pride) withmemorials was essential because carving the name ofItalians and his own in the Carrara marble of thosemonuments was a way of marking his environment. Thebuilding process seemed almost of a carnal nature as itallowed Italian Americans to actually dig into the flesh ofthe city. When referring to the construction of theColumbus statue, Il Progresso Italo-Americano underscoredthat Italian workers had excavated sixty thousand cubic feetof earth from 59th Street and 8 th Avenue to form the holethat was then filled with quicklime and cement as afoundation of a seventy-feet-high granite column supportingthe Genoan sailor. For this project, the Italian laborers,whose contribution to the development of the localinfrastructures usually remained unacknowledged, hadaccepted to work for free because they knew they wereleaving a trace for everyone to see.12 In the same line of


80

thought, when the Garibaldi and the Columbus memorialswere laid, Barsotti buried copies of his daily in thefoundations, as if he conferred the press the power tofecundate the American soil with seeds that would growinto flags of Italianness.13 This feeling was imparted by hisreaders who congratulated him for showing that, fromscratch, “a scrap of paper like Il Progresso Italo-Americano”could “make monuments of bronze and granite rise up” inAmerica.14 Italian immigrants, therefore, wished to impressAmericans with their art and the legendary mastery ofItaly’s sculptors was meant to contrast with the squalor oftheir tenements. Planting statues obviously aimed atenhancing their image not only in New York City’s publicsites but also in the press, a strategy which proved to beonly partly successful. In 1909, even though the New YorkTribune praised Italians for “doing their part toward thedecoration of the city,” it had to admit “few New Yorkersrealize[d] the extent to which they ha[d] contributed to thecity’s beautification.”15 The path to recognition of Italianmerits was long and tortuous.

2. Breaking Boundaries, Switching Roles

5 Yet modifying the cityscape did help Italian Americans mapthemselves into the future social space of the United States,if anything because it extended their walking geography. Ata time when “new immigrants poured into” the “moderncity,” thus making the urban population “increasingly fluidand unstable,” the creation of monuments gave themreasons to stroll outside the boundaries of their enclaves.16

Historian Bernard Lepetit explains that, “confronted withan existing space,” foreigners develop practices whichallow them to make this new environment their own, notonly by building their own places, but also through what hecalls a “deambulatory usage” which ranges from religiousprocessions to the daily commuting of workers betweentheir homes and the factory.17 Barsotti himself understoodthat the city’s restlessness and constant movement couldserve his purpose of putting the Italian-Americancommunity on display. For example, when the City of NewYork decided the Garibaldi statue was to be laid inWashington Square, many of his countrymen complainedthat the spot was “unsuitable and unbecoming” because itwas not as decorous a place as other landmark squares ofthe city. There was too much agitation around it. Barsotti,


81

on the contrary, defended that choice on the ground that“the creation of a statue honoring a European hero in oneof the rare places of passage of the city was quite unusual,yet not unheard of.”18 The location was deemed strategic:the monument was to be seen by an ongoing flow ofAmerican passersby, including the “ancient and aristocraticNew York families” living in the “magnificent houses”surrounding Washington Square. At the same time, the sitewas at the crossroads of “main streets” like “Fifth Avenue,University Place, the outlets of Broadway and 6th avenue”where “all the Italian societies converged for the parade ofthe XXth of September,” 19 and where the Garibaldi statuewould be “exposed to [their] sight, memory andadmiration.”20 It therefore matched two of Barsotti’s implicitrequirements: forcing Italian historical heritage onAmericans and giving Italians an excuse to occupy newareas of the city. The inauguration of memorials was indeeda moment when the Italian population was breaking thebarriers separating the Little Italies from bourgeois NewYork. In 1907, as the original Garibaldi statue was moved toStaten Island and replaced by a new more artistic piece bythe same sculptor, the American press was struck by theunexpected and overwhelming fluidity of Italian Americans,noting that, in addition to Mulberry and Elizabeth Streets,“the uptown Little Italies” had “sent hundreds downtown.”The tide of men and women had “daubed the square withcolor” and “beneath the Washington Arch they made apicture that could hardly have been classed as American.”21

With their parades, immigrants were consciously seizingquarters from which they were estranged by their socialcondition. Such movement was often regarded withcondescension or amused contempt, since mostcelebrations brought with them not only the orderlymarches or processions planned by the Italian élite to earnAmericans’ respect, but also boisterous crowds of ordinarypeople whose joyful customs contrasted with the localdecorum. Quite revealing in that regard is the followingdescription of the laying of the Columbus Statue, publishedby the New York Times in 1892:

Fifth Avenue was treated to such a color display as it had not seen in many a longmonth. All Little Italy swarmed out of Mulberry Bend and the streets south ofWashington Square to see the great procession of the Italian societies march up theavenue and to Fifty-third Street and Eighth Avenue, where the cornerstone of thestatue to Christopher Columbus was to be laid. It was something unusual for theavenue, and the regular promenaders were to be seen gazing at the spectacle fromthe chamber windows, while the Italian peripatetic vendors thronged thesidewalks, and Italian mothers in rainbow attire dandled their children in arms on


82

the steps of millionaires’ palaces. The column of men in uniforms seldom seenabove Bleecker Street marched up between the rows of brownstone houses to thelively music of the Italian national air. It was Italy’s Day, and the dwellers along theavenue could only look and smile, and perhaps wish for a fraction of the sense ofenjoyment and the enthusiasm displayed by these same Italians.

6 Once the ceremony was over, concluded the newspaper, “allLittle Italy disappeared from its unaccustomedsurroundings.”22 Surprise and embarrassment seemed toprevail in this account of what was presented as anintrusion into areas normally reserved to a certain class ofNew Yorkers. The temporary displacement of populationwent with a change of roles. The immigrants who weremarching under the banners of their fraternalorganizations, displaying with pride the colors of theirhumble professions (tailors, barbers, etc.) became thecenter of American passersby’s attention. In this process,rich Americans were pushed up against the buildings, to themargins of sidewalks, a place where a number ofimmigrants were usually waiting to sell their goods andservices. Such a reversal of positions was a source ofdiscomfort that could generate mockery. Some lamentedwith cruel irony that “not a shine or a chestnut was to behad” down those colorful processions and that shouldanyone have “yelled ‘next’ the parade[s] would have beendisrupted.”23 Nonetheless, the Italian-American leadersthought those pageants and the publicity they brought inthe press enhanced the image of their countrymen in theUnited States, and created a favorable context for a moregeneral reflection on the Italians’ contribution to Americanhistory.

3. Claiming a Space in the City, Finding a Place in theNation’s History

7 The idea that monuments participated in the civic educationof the people was not new and it found many supporters inthe City Beautiful Movement of the 1890s. For example, arthistorian George Kriehn praised historical bronzes andsculptures for teaching patriotism to Americans. He alsobelieved nothing could be a “more effective agent in makinggood citizens” of the “foreign population” who could notread English books but could “read monuments whichappeal to the eye.”24 Carlo Barsotti and other prominentfigures of the Italian colony were using similar arguments,but they were targeting the American public. By grantingItalians a space in the city, they meant to give them a place


83

in the past of America, the latter justifying the former. Inother words, they intended to rewrite history, correcting itsomissions and errors, so as to show that Italians were notinvading a foreign land but that, on the contrary, they weresettling in a place that their ancestors had contributed todiscovering, and that they could claim as their own too.

8 Two historical figures played a major part in thatquest for legitimacy: Christopher Columbus and GiuseppeDa Verrazzano. Columbus supposedly embodied thefraternity bonds existing between Italy and America andallowed the Italian-American elite to develop a kind ofrhetoric immigrants relished. As Barsotti liked to recall, the“man who had discovered the New World and had opened itto the conquests of civilization, labor, industry, wealth andglory was Italian.”25 Italy was, therefore, presented as “themother of the great discoverer” and America as “theDAUGHTER of its genius,”26 a line of argumentation whichwas quite convenient as it reinvented an organic bondbetween the United States and Italy, while making eternalthe debts the New World had contracted towards Italians. Itwas, obviously, to remind Americans of this debt that ItalianAmericans launched a campaign to make October 12 anational holiday known as Columbus Day, the celebration ofwhich also led to a greater appropriation of public space.27

9 After Columbus, Barsotti looked for new heroes thatcould further justify the presence of Italians in the UnitedStates. Verrazzano, who was known for having sailed in theBay of New York as early as 1524, stood out as a perfectchoice. In 1909, the editor of IlProgresso Italo-Americanothus commissioned Italian artist Ettore Ximenes to sculpt astatue which he hoped would be planted in City Hall Park, asymbolically-charged place where the already existingmonuments immortalized the proud Anglo-Dutch past of thecity. The point was to fill in what he considered a historicalgap: Henry Hudson was not the first explorer to havediscovered the bay and the river that were unjustly bearinghis name and this honor should be granted instead toVerrazzano. The New York Art Commission, whichquestioned the artistic quality of the bust and was reluctantto challenge the predominance of the Anglo-Dutch heritageof the park, denied his request.28 Yet it took more than arebuff to discourage Barsotti, who kept harassing thecommission until the latter allowed Ximenes’s work to findrefuge in Battery Park, south of Manhattan. He defendedhis project all the more fiercely as he wanted the memorial


84

to be unveiled during the great festivities organized in thefall of 1909 for the tercentenary of the discovery of the bayby Hudson. Barsotti won that battle and succeeded not onlyin being assigned a space in what was to be the centerstage of the Hudson-Fulton pageantry, but also in imposingthe Italian name of Verrazzano on the program of ahistorical event dedicated to the memory of an Englishsailor. It was no small victory, considering that city planningwas controlled by advocates of historic preservation, who,as historian Randall Mason recalls, favored the creation ofspecific places where immigrants could pay tribute to theirheroes. In New York City, “tacit negotiations” were indeedtaking place about “the geography of memory sites andtheir political symbolism,” resulting in the “zoning ofparticular narratives in particular places.”29 A touch ofethnic plurality was welcome, but only as long as it did notinterfere with the official tale of the nation or irrupt intoareas designed for American civic education. GettingVerrazzano to be admitted in the Hudson-Fulton celebrationmeant making room for the heritage of undesirableimmigrants in a festival that was praising mainly thecontribution of early northern European colonists. It was atour de force which, as American newspapers remarked,“ought to have caused old Henry Hudson to turn in hisgrave,” but which Barsotti fully savored.30 His obstinacy ledthe whole national press to discuss Verrazzano and hiscompatriots’ claim.31 The Hudson-Fulton commission wasthus forced to admit the Italian navigator was “the earliestEuropean visitor to these waters,” although they insistedthe stream had been “correctly named” because Hudsonwas “the first to give an authentic record of carefulexploration of the river,” making it known to mankind, asthe true definition of the term “discoverer” required.32 Eventhough the name of the celebration was maintained, thevery fact that the commission had to justify itself could beinterpreted as an achievement.

10 It was Barsotti’s granddaughter, an American girl ofItalian ancestry, who unveiled the monument which shehoped would show “all the children of New York” that “itwas an Italian who discovered the island of Manhattan.”33 Asfor Barsotti, he took pride in the “boldness of IlProgressoItalo-Americano,” which had met the “noble challenge” ofplanting the statue in Battery Park.34 This was an act of“vindication”by which he wanted to right the wronginflicted on Italians.35 Beyond what he called the “justice ofhistory,” what was at stake was not so much the past as the


85

present of Italians in America. The bronze was meant tobecome a symbol of the qualities nativist politicians andscientists denied his countrymen. The Italian ambassador’saddress during the festivities reflected suchpreoccupations. While eugenic principles were gainingmomentum, he chose to pay “tribute to the sublime Latingenius, the grand Latin genius which led its sons toconquests of science not less than of letters and art.”Implicitly replying to the racist theories of the time, thediplomat claimed that “the union of the two races – theLatin and the Anglo-Saxon – in what he called ‘this nobleAmerican land,’ formed a race more complete and moreperfect, which promised to advance more and more in thehigh road of civilization.”36 Clearly, the Verrazzano andColumbus memorials also served as tribunes for voicingItalian immigrants’ grievances, and claiming a politicalspace at the city and state levels. Indeed, Barsotti resortedto the same strategy each time he wanted to launch a newcommemoration project, transforming all those heroes –including Dante Alighieri – into “symbols of italianness”who heralded the hopes of the “New immigrant Italy.”37

4. Conquering New Spaces for Unity or Division?

11 It is obvious that the United States’ collective memory wasthen rather selective and left little room for newimmigrants. Yet, as mentioned above, building memorialshad a wider scope than the mere celebration of old glories.To use historian Christine M. Boyer’s words, citymonuments became for Italian-Americans “artifacts andtraces that connect[ed] the past with the present inimaginative ways, and help[ed] to build a sense ofcommunity, culture and nation.”38 On the one hand, erectingbronzes and marble columns was supposed to get so-called“old stock” Americans to look at Italians as legitimate co-users of the city. On the other hand, it aimed at bringingtogether Sicilians, Neapolitans, Genoans, and others,easing the process of national identity building within anethnic group whose members hardly felt Italian yet, as theunification of Italy (1861) was still rather recent. Layingstones was, therefore, intended as an opportunity to fosterunity within and without the community. Nevertheless, thatgoal was not easily reached. Both the American and theItalian authorities looked at the mushrooming of statueswith a critical eye. While the Garibaldi monument in


86

Washington Square was criticized for being “the leastartistic statue in this unhappy city,” the unlucky fate ofother Italian bronzes delighted the U.S. press, which did notnecessarily support the message of national pride thosememorials conveyed.39 Far from generating admiration, theVerdi statue was said to diversify “the not too attractivesquare at the junction of Broadway and Amsterdam with atouch of the grotesque” and to provide “a background ofunconscious but lasting humor for the row of waitingtaxicabs.”40 Dante’s bust, which found a place in the cityonly after years of hectic negotiations between Barsotti andthe New York City Art Commission, became a source ofparticular strain and sarcasm.41 When Il Progresso Italo-Americano’s editor suggested that it be laid in TimesSquare, Commissioner Stover confessed he had “gravedoubts as to the appropriateness of placing a man whowrote the divine comedy in such a bustling, happycrossroads,” for “if ever a monument [was] to grace thesquare it should be an American of the Americans.”42 As forthe New York Tribune, it held that that just because the citywas “so hospitable to peoples of the Old World,” it could not“afford to be equally hospitable to their enthusiasms whenthey take the form of statues,” as there was no “room in theparks for all the national poets and heroes, even of theforeign groups who cut a figure at the polls.”43

12 Other ethnic groups also contested the public spaceItalians had been granted, and the memorials becametargets for potential dissenters. The Garibaldi statue, forinstance, was deemed “a thorn in the eye” of the Irish whothought the monument was the “apotheosis of the mostferocious and implacable enemy of the papacy and of thechurch” and who therefore seized every opportunity to spiton it. On such occasions, Washington Square witnessedepisodes of physical conflict, Italians giving a “good hidingand fist fighting lesson” to those who dared disrespect thestatue.44 Mayor Abram Hewitt himself “received severalprotests for consenting to review the Garibaldi Italianjubilation over the looting of the Pope’s temporalpossessions” whereas he had refused to attend the SaintPatrick parade.45 As Michael Kammen has shown,commemorations were not just moments of consensus.46

They were also staging competing memories.

13 The Little Italies were not exempted from dissensionseither. While the city authorities were suspected of wantingto sacrifice municipal space on the altar of political


87

patronage, Barsotti was accused of wasting and evenembezzling funds from his contributors. Italian-Americanradicals such as anarchist leader Luigi Galleani (1861-1931)systematically tried to undermine Barsotti’s efforts becausenot only did they see memorials as worthless and politicallyunacceptable,47 but they also claimed the money sent to IlProgresso was being misappropriated. Barsotti “will floodNew York with great monuments of stone,” “pocketing hugemoney in addition to applauses” because he has“understood the spirit of the colony and knows how toexploit it,” explained Galleani’s newspaper CronacaSovversiva in 1910.48 Such an allegation was recurrent evenamong his competitors, who mocked his “mal della pietra,”49

a disease which led him to build memorials all over the cityand made him rich.50 Dubbed the “Statue Man” by the U.S.press, Barsotti was certainly raising monuments so as toget the attention of both the Italian consulate and the cityauthorities and be seen as a leading figure of the “colony.”51

While many Italian benevolent societies contributed tocollecting funds and organizing the commemorativeparades, he was the first to benefit from the light he shedon Italian historical figures. So intense was his thirst forfame that he tried to get his own name carved on thepedestal of the statues whenever he got a chance to.52 Whathe did with the funds cannot be ascertained. Yet thenumerous campaigns led against him by Italian-Americanbusinessmen like Vincenzo Polidori, the editing manager ofCristoforo Colombo53 show that the stakes were high.Barsotti’s detractors also questioned the very necessity offinancing statues when the Little Italies needed hospitals,schools, and libraries. Memorial building was thus anythingbut consensual, even within the ethnic community.

14 The Italian-American newspapermen’s drive to laystatues in New York and other cities of the United Stateswas undoubtedly motivated by a quest for self-promotion.When Barsotti and his competitors dedicated time andmoney to mark the territory they lived in, they wanted toleave a personal imprint as much as they hoped it wouldhelp their countrymen force their way through new areas ofthe American public space. But there was more to it. Barsotti did see space as a reality that endured, toparaphrase Maurice Halbwachs.54 He cared about posterityand wanted to reshape the geography of memory sites inthe city by impressing lasting landmarks of Italian heritageon New York maps. To sculptor Ettore Ximenes, who haddesigned two of the monuments sponsored by Il Progresso


88

Italo-Americano, Barsotti had confessed that he paid littleattention to criticisms because the future was his onlypreoccupation. “As long as Columbus looks at those smallcreatures who press around him today, and stays on hispedestal,” he explained, “as long as people bow to Verdiand now to Verrazzano, I feel happy,” because “monumentsremain while petty talks, gossips and calumny die awaywith men.”55

NOTES

1. “Blue-Eyed Immigrants,” Sun, 6 April 1891, 5.

2. “Undesirable Immigrants,” New York Times, 6 November 1879, 3. On anti-

Italian prejudice, see: Salvatore J. LaGumina, ed., Wop! A Documentary History

of Anti-Italian Discrimination in the United States (San Francisco: Straight

Arrow Books, 1973) and William J Connell, Fred Gardaphé, eds., Anti-Italianism:

Essays on a Prejudice (New York: Palgrave, 2010).

3. “An Anti-Italian League,” Sun, 17 July 1887, 12.

4. Henri Lefebvre, “Reflections on the Politics of Space,” in State, Space, World:

Selected Essays (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 170. See

also: Grégory Busquet, “Political Space in the Work of Henri Lefebvre: Ideology

and Utopia” [translation : Sharon Moren], Justice Spatiale | Spatial Justice 5

(Dec. 2012-Dec. 2013), http://www.jssj.org.

5. Howard Marraro, “Carlo Barsotti,” in Dizionario biografico degli italiani, vol.

6, ed. Alberto GhisalbertiDizionario biografico degli italiani, vol.6, (Rome:

Istituto della enciclopedia italiana, 1964), 541-542.

6. Il Progresso Italo-Americano,Per la mostra del Lavoro degl'Italiani all'estero,

Esposizione Internazionale di Torino pel cinquantenario dell'Unità nazionale

(New York, 1911), 43.

7. “In Memory of Mazzini. Unveiling the Bust in Central Park,” New York

Tribune, 30 May 1878, 8. The bust was sculpted by Giovanni Turini.

8. “Italians Love Monuments,” Washington Post, 22 October 1910, 6.

9. See for instance: Jürgen Heideking, Geneviève Fabre, eds., Celebrating

Ethnicity and Nation, American Festive Culture from the Revolution to the Early

20th Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001); Terence Schoone-Jongen, The

Dutch American Identity: Staging Memory and Ethnicity in Community

Celebrations (New York: Cambria Press, 2008).

10. John Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration,

andPatriotism in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University,

1992), 69-70.

11. See Michele H. Bogart, The Politics of Urban Beauty. New York and its Art

Commission (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 22-24; 108-114. The

author dedicates well documented pages to the building of the Verrazzano and

Dante statues promoted by Barsotti.


89

http://www.jssj.org/

http://www.jssj.org/

12. “Il 4°. Centenario della Scoperta d’America,” in Guida Italiana e calendario

universale del Progresso Italo-Americano per gli Stati Uniti, il Canada, il

Messico etc (New York: Tipografia del Progresso Italo-americano, 1893), 9.

13. “Per Garibaldi: La collocazione della pietra del monumento,”Il Progresso

Italo-Americano, 1 June 1888, 1; “The Columbus Memorial Arch,” The

Architectural and Building Monthly, 1 October 1892, 10.

14. “Lettere,” IlProgresso Italo-Americano, 10 February 1888, 1.

15. “Columbus Day Joys,” New York Tribune, 10 October 1909, A5.

16. Kevin Mattson, Creating a Democratic Public : The Struggle for Urban

Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era (University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 15.

17. Bernard Lepetit, “Proposition et Avertissement,” in Les étrangers dans la

ville, Minorités et espace urbain du bas Moyen-Age à l'époque moderne,eds.

Jacques Bottin and Donatella Calabi (Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences

de l'homme, 1999),14.

18. “Per Garibaldi: L'Inaugurazione del Monumento,” IlProgresso Italo-

Americano, 7 June 1888, 1.

19. This parade celebrated the completion of Italian unity with the capture of

Rome on September 20, 1870.

20. “Perché il Monumento a Garibaldi in New York sarà eretto in Washington

Square,” Il Progresso Italo-Americano, 2 March 1888, 1.

21. “Italians Dedicate Garibaldi Memorial,” New York Times, 5 July 1907, 6.

22. “The Cornerstone is Laid,” New York Times, 17 September 1892, 8.

23. “Verrazzano Bust Unveiled,” Sun, 7 October 1909, 5.

24. George Kriehn, “The City Beautiful,” Municipal Affairs 3/ 4 (December

1899): 600.

25. “Per Cristoforo Colombo,” Il Progresso Italo-Americano, 22 July 1890, 1.

26. “To Stand Forever,” New York Tribune, 13 October 1892, 3.

27. This battle was finally won in 1968 at the federal level, but some states had

already adopted Columbus Day as a legal holiday as soon as the 1910s. For

more details see: Carol J. Bradley, “Towards a Celebration: The Columbus

Monument in New York,” in Italian Americans Celebrate Life. The Arts and

Popular Culture, eds. Paola A. Sensi-Isolani and Anthony Julian Tamburri

(Staten Island, NY: American Italian Historical Association, 1990), 81-94;

Bénédicte Deschamps, “Italian Americans and Columbus Day: A Quest for

Consensus Between National and Group Identities (1840-1910),” in Celebrating

Ethnicity and Nation, eds. Jürgen Heideking and Geneviève Fabre,, 124-139;

and “La scoperta dell’America narrata dai giornali italo-americani, 1880-2000,”

in Comunicare il passato: Cinema, giornali e libri di testo nella narrazione

storica, eds. Simone Cinotto and Marco Mariano Comunicare il passato:

Cinema, giornali e libri di testo nella narrazione storica(Turin: L’Harmattan

Italia, 2004), 409-438; Stefano Luconi, “Le celebrazioni del cinquantenario e i

prominenti italo-americani negli Stati Uniti,” Archivio Storico dell’Emigrazione

Italiana 7 (2011):41–50 and “Columbus and Vespucci as Italian Navigators: The

Ethnic Legacy of Explorations and Italian Americans’ Search for Legitimacy in

the United States,” in Florence in Italy and Abroad from Vespucci to

Contemporary Innovators (Florence: Florence Campus Publishing House, 2012),

62-77; and Kathleen Loock, Kolumbus in den USA: Vom Nationalhelden zur

ethnischen Identifikationsfigur (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2014).

28. Michele H. Bogart, The Politics of Urban Beauty, 109-110.


90

29. Randall Mason, The Once and Future New York: Historic Preservation and

the Modern City (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009), 62.

30. “Henry Hudson's Peary Luck,” New York Tribune, 14 September 1909, 12.

31. See, for instance, “Verrazzano Saw the River First,” Evening Statesman, 6

October 1909, 8.

32. “Hudson River Correctly Named. Hudson-Fulton Commission Tell Briefly of

Discovery of Stream,” Daily People, 1 March 1909, 2.

33. “Verrazzano Bust Unveiled,” Sun, 7 October 1909, 5.

34. Il Progresso Italo-Americano,Per la Mostra del Lavoro degl’Italiani all’Estero,

100.

35. “La gloria di Giovanni da Verrazzano scopritore del North River rivendicata

agli italiani dal ‘Progresso,” IlProgresso Italo-Americano, 27 June 1909, 1;

“Verrazzano Bust Unveiled,” op.cit.

36. Address by Marquis Paolo Montagliari as reported in Edward Hagaman

Hall, dir., THE HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION 1909, The Fourth Annual

Report of the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Commission to the Legislature of the

State of New York (Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, State Printers, 1910), 481-482.

37. Agostino de Biasi, “Il monumento a Dante Alighieri in NuovaYork,” Il

Progresso Italo-Americano, 27 mai 1910.

38. Christine M. Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery

and Architectural Entertainments (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996), 309.

39. “The Fine Arts,” The Critic: A Weekly Review of Literature and the Arts, 16

May 1896, 358.

ABSTRACTS

This paper will analyze how, at the end of the nineteenth century, Italian Americans used

memorial building to get a greater exposure as an ethnic group, transcend the boundaries of the

Little Italies, question the place they had been assigned in American society and history, and

redefine their role as political actors of the city.

INDEX

Keywords: Carlo Barsotti, commemorative space, ethnicity, Italian Americans, Italian

immigration, memorials, New York City, politics of memory., urban planning

AUTHOR

BÉNÉDICTE DESCHAMPS

Department of Anglophone Studies, Paris-Diderot University


91

Performing the Return of theRepressed: Krzysztof Wodiczko’sArtistic Interventions in New YorkCity's Public SpaceJustyna Wierzchowska

1 In this paper, I want to discuss two projections1 by Polish-born and New York-based

artist Krzysztof Wodiczko that make use of public space and treat it a vehicle of artistic

and political interventionism. Addressing major ailments of modern society—

homelessness and the psychological effects of war—the two projections share the

location of Union Square in New York, and the mode of execution: casting images on

neoclassical statues featuring American national heroes and the Allegory of Charity.

While the first projection, The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for Union Square[for the city

of New York] (1986), 2 has never in fact been executed on location, 3 the other one,

Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection, was on view every evening for a month between

October 8 and November 9, 2012. During that time “the immobile statue [of Abraham

Lincoln] was animated with gestures and voices that made it part of the public debate

on war and the fate of veterans.”4 The 1986 projection was conceived in the context of a

massive yet controversial revitalization of the city of New York carried out throughout

the 1980s, the latter brought a heart-jerking comment on the psychological effects of

the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the case of both, the statues of American heroes

functioned as ideologically-charged screens upon which expressions of the usually

marginalized ailments were cast. The projections offered a critique of what after

Frederick Engels Rosalyn Deutsche has identified as “beautified surfaces, suppressed

contradictions, and relocated problems.”5 My goal in this paper is to present the

subversive potential of the two works, but at the same time discuss their inherent

problematics. It is my belief that while such artistic interventions are philosophically

charged and intellectually sophisticated, they necessarily fail to effectively deliver the

rich theoretical framework to a wider audience. At the same time, by enabling

spectators to go through an “embodied experience,” the projections may affect them in


92

an immediate way. This “embodied experience” may translate into a crack in the

spectators’ perception of what is commonly taken for granted, and, eventually, into

their individual questioning of the dominant ideology.

2 Since the 1970s, Krzysztof Wodiczko has engaged in artistic/political

interventions in the public space and has carried out almost a hundred projections in

various cities around the world.6 He works in the urban space and he believes that the

“city is the stage and stake of democracy.”7 His choice of ideologically-charged

structures, located in the public space, very often in busy city-centers (as is the case of

Union Square), involves an element of surprise, as one may actually happen to witness

a projection and there is no entry fee. In his projections, Wodiczko temporarily

appropriates the most spectacular sites of hegemonic authority such as civic buildings,

monuments and memorials by projecting upon them images and/or testimonies of the

excluded (e.g. war veterans, immigrants, the homeless, the victimized etc.).8 A very

good example of Wodiczko’s work is a 1986 projection carried out in Pittsburgh, PA, on

the façade of the Allegheny County Memorial Hall. The Allegheny Hall is the largest

memorial to honor all branches of military veterans in the USA, commemorating over

600 recipients of military awards, medals, stars and crosses in the “Hall of Valor.” On its

façade, Wodiczko displayed an image of a huge accordion played by the bony hands of a

skeleton. The image perfectly filled in the silhouette of the building, with the

neoclassical columns smoothly incorporated as a core part of the image. Thus Wodiczko

projected a sign that might be associated with the dance macabre over a building that

celebrates the military in its most alluring dimension: unambivalently heroic and

honorable. More than that, he did so on an architectural structure that, by its noble,

classical, and authoritarian look, effectively aestheticizes and thus conceals the

incoherence and contradictions of its contents. This way the building itself, mostly

because of its ethically-questionable grandeur and fake ideological neutrality, became

part of the dance macabre.

3 The Allegheny Hall example demonstrates how civic architecture, which acts

like a stabilizing agent of the official version of history and the present-day recognition

of political authority,9 is taken by Wodiczko as a starting point for his artistic

interventionism. When during a projection another, conflicting image/narrative is cast

on its surface, the very often unconsciously internalized acknowledgement of the

hegemonic discourse is suddenly brought to attention. Because the image/narrative

projected on the surface undermines the coherence of the one underneath, the original

meaning is evoked with its inherent contradictions. This way, during a projection,

when the cold, petrified, and obdurate structure is flooded with an elusive image or an

emotionally-charged narrative, the taken-for-granted narrative is suddenly

deconstructed. The viewers may feel prompted to reflect upon the official intended

meaning and function of civic architecture and a sense of abuse it elegantly and

effectively conceals. As a result, a new, conflicting unity is created: what is projected

and what it is projected onto are held together by two converging frames: the edges of

the slide and the shape of the structure underneath. Over the years, such clashing of

the official historical-political narrative with that of the unrepresented or repressed

has become Wodiczko’s artistic trademark, as, in the words of Rosalyn Deutsche, he

often makes the “excluded material … [return] within the vehicle of its repression.”10

4 As the chief intellectual framework for his artistic interventionism, the

theoretically vocal Wodiczko lists the scholarship of Chantalle Mouffe, Michel Foucault


93

and depth psychology. He is also very much aware of the tradition of post-Marxism

(Gramsci, Habermas) and philosophy of the Other, as elaborated in the works of

Emmanuel Levinas, Étienne Balibar and Giorgio Agamben. This all offers rich material

for academic interpretations, which has been done extensively and convincingly by

such scholars as Deutsche, Dora Apel, Bożena Czubak, and Ewa Lajer-Burcharth.11 What

is more, in “Subversive Signs,” Hal Foster locates Wodiczko among artists who

understand the status of art not as a formal or perceptual experiment, but as “a social

sign entangled with other signs in systems productive of value, power and prestige,” a

sign that “seeks out its affiliations with other practices (in the culture industry and

elsewhere).” Within this framework, the artist “becomes a manipulator of signs more

than a producer of art objects” in order to “intervene in ideological representation and

languages of everyday life.”12 This is why Foster calls such artistic practices “subversive

signs,” for they have a potential to disrupt existing chains of signifiers which are

usually so sedimented in the collective worldview that they function as natural and

neutral. Additionally, Wodiczko’s art shares similarities with the Situationist

movement. As noted by Nicolas Whybrow:

the experience of art, like the experience of the city, is embodied. It is dependent onparticipating entities who engage or interact with art, with the environing field ofthe city …. [The spectators] are, therefore, as much producers as consumers orrecipients. The radical move out of the museum [is] a “reaching out” of artgenerally towards incorporating both participation and the everyday […].13

5 Similarly to the Situationists, Wodiczko’s move “out of the museum” into the

“environing field of the city” enhances the spectators’ active participation in the

projection and their going through an “embodied” experience. This experience can

never be fully ritualized or refuted, for sensory experience is always immediate and the

spectators can be drawn into becoming active participants of the event.

6 It follows that Wodiczko’s emphasis on the direct and relational (or even

therapeutic) character of his work locates him among artists, who, since the 1980s,

have engaged in critiquing the political from a position that has absorbed the

developments within humanities, especially psychology and cultural studies. The

emphasis put on the relational character of art has been inspired by psychologists such

as Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and John Bowlby.14 As Rosalyn Deutsche has noted:

“contemporary art, especially since the 1980s, has stressed that a work of art is not a

discrete entity but, rather, a term in a relationship with viewers.” Such art necessarily

questions “rigid forms of identity” and perceives the subject as constantly on the make

by coming into contact with other people. Since this subject-making has a relational

character, there is “a convergence between contemporary art and psychoanalysis.”15

This understanding of the subject goes against the grain of what traditionally has

passed as historiography in which “unitary, preconstituted, and self-possessed”16

subjects perform actions in the name of a people. Deutsche notes that especially

feminism has “explored the role played by totalizing images in producing and

maintaining heroic, which is to say, warlike subjects.”17 Wodiczko shares the feminist/

psychoanalytic critique of subjectivity, maintaining that the subject is fundamentally a

“question,” formed “by the relationship between the self and the other in the polis.”18

Thus, according to Deutsche, he belongs within “the feminist practice of contemporary

art that produces what have been called critical images, images that undo the viewing

subject’s narcissistic fantasies.”19In accordance with Deutsche’s observations, Wodiczko

perceives subjectivity as neither monolithic nor fully self-aware, which makes it


94

possible for art to produce shifts in its complex and opaque structure. Already in the

1980s, Wodiczko explained the psychoanalytical aspect of his art: he projects at night

when “the building sleeps, when it dreams its nightmares” and when “the excluded

[elements] come back as ghosts to haunt the places that expelled them.”20 He thinks of

his projections as of “public psychoanalytical séances, unmasking and revealing the

unconscious of the building, its body, the ‘medium’ of power”21 through an act of

“emotional artistic communication.”22 This is why he finds his projections effective

only when there is “an emotional engagement and a critical detachment.”23 Because the

projection simply happens to individual spectators and disturbs them by acting directly

on their minds, senses and bodies, it produces short-circuits, forestalling the routinely

followed mind-paths.24

7 As I am going to demonstrate in this essay on the example of the two Union

Square projections, the above reservoir of ideas underpins Wodiczko’s artistic

interventionism and translates into the ways in which he comes in a dialogue with civic

urban architecture. Wodiczko notes that the major reason for civic architecture’s

ideological effectiveness is that its symbolism is hardly ever questioned, this is why it

retains a “disciplining function.”25 He puts it in the following way: “The [civic] building

is not only an institutional ‘site of the discourse of power,’ but, more importantly, it is a

meta-institutional, spatial medium for the continuous and simultaneous symbolic

reproduction of both the general myth of power and the individual desire for power.”26

Since most city inhabitants pass by those grand structures every day without paying

attention to them and yet, subconsciously or not, acknowledge their authority, civic

architecture remains a mute yet powerful supporter of the biopolitical status quo and

successfully legitimizes the official narrative. Wodiczko notes:

Circulating around and between the buildings, we cannot stop moving. We areunable to concentrate and focus on their bodies. This establishes an absent-mindedrelation to the building, an unconscious contact, a passive gaze. By imposing ourpermanent circulation, our absent-minded perception, by ordering our gaze, bystructuring our unconscious, by embodying our desire, masking and mythifying therelations of power, by operating under the discreet camouflage of a cultural andaesthetic “background,” the building constitutes an effective medium andideological instrument of power.27

8 This way civic buildings and memorials act as purely aesthetic anesthetics (note the

pun here: aesthetics/anesthetics): with their perfect proportions and neoclassical

façades, they are aestheticized masks that cover up the violence and tragedies that

happened in their name. They allow for a smooth and officially legitimized (or even

enhanced) repression of the traumatic dimension of the celebrated or commemorated

event. What is more, because of people’s “daily inattention,” to use Bataille’s term,28

their original meaning is often not even acknowledged and thus becomes almost

irrelevant. What remains is the aura of authority that radiates from such architecture,

often experienced as a physical sensation when passing by a governmental building:

the site of Prime Minister, the building of Congress, a prison, etc. It is an impression

that the building’s gaze hits the skin on one’s cheeks as one physically feels the power

and the possible abuse the building is imbued with.

9 The idea of bringing together conflicting narratives is very much present in

the two Union Square projections that I now would like to focus on. In both, Wodiczko

took “advantage of the prestige of historical symbolic structures … that bear witness to

events and stand for their authority”29 and protested “the monopolization of collective


95

memory with a working on various different memories.”30 In both, the artist cast

images of the repressed (of the homeless and of suffering war veterans) against the

beacons of authority and tradition – the statues of American national heroes. His choice

of the place was also not accidental. Union Square, located at the meeting point of

Broadway, Park Avenue and 14th Street, and bordering with Chelsea, East Village, and

Greenwich Village, belongs among American National Historic Landmarks and is known

for its long tradition of political demonstrations and gatherings. Opened to the public

in 1839, in 1882 Union Square hosted the first Labor Day parade in the U. S. and until

today functions as a meeting place in times of social unrest. For example, after the

attacks of 9/11, the square became the first spontaneous gathering site for people who

came to mourn the victims, light candles and hold vigils in their honor. Significant is

also the very topography of the Square. Filled with a carefully designed oval park,

Union Square hosts the “majestic presence”31 of four neoclassical statues that Wodiczko

used in his projections: the statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Marquis

de Lafayette, and the previously mentioned Allegory of Charity. Placed in the square’s

most representational venues, with the monumental equestrian bronze statue of

George Washington occupying the very center of the park, the statues honor American

national heroes and reward charity. All four statues were unveiled in the late 19th

century as part of the municipal art movement that was to “create order and tighten

social control in the American city”32 in the turbulent times of the city’s rapid

industrialization and large immigration. As pointedly noted by Christine Boyer:

[N]eoclassical imitations of Greek and Roman sculptures were designed to concealsocial contradictions by uplifting “the individual from the sordidness of reality”through the illusions of order, timelessness, and moral perfection thatneoclassicism was supposed to represent.33

10 Significantly, the same kind of rhetoric was used in the 1980s when New York was

undergoing intensive and extensive revitalization that produced the context for

Wodiczko’s 1986 Homeless Projection. For example, the 1980s senior architecture critic of

The New York Times Paul Goldberger praised the square’s “finest statuary” that

preserves its merit even if “a derelict is relieving himself beside it.”34 Echoing Boyer,

Rosalyn Deutsche identifies the use of the statues in the process of the city’s

revitalization as an attempt to “restore to the city a surface calm that belies underlying

contradictions.”35TheHomeless Projection visually brought the contradictions into the

open. Onto the surface of the statues he cast images of homeless people that completely

filled the statues in: thus the equestrian Washington was as-if put in a wheelchair,

Lafayette and Lincoln became handicapped social outcasts, and the Allegory of Charity

turned into a begging mother, clinging to her hungry children. The projection was the

artist’s response to the whitewashed sense of history and injustice covered up by the

falsely depoliticized language of aesthetics and past glory. It also offered a critical

comment on the link between “the production of cultural space and the production of

homeless,”36 triggered by New York’s revitalization.

11 What is more, Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection coincided with the redevelopment

of Union Square’s park itself, which, in the official narrative, involved the eviction of

the “socially undesirable population.”37 In fact, as part of the revitalization of Union

Square’s area, “luxury condominiums, lavish corporate headquarters and high-rent

offices … proliferated … [eroding] the existing low-income housing stock, thereby

destroying the conditions of survival for hundreds of thousands of the city’s poorest

residents”38 who were removed from the revitalized areas. This social abuse was


96

masked under an aesthetic narrative which, in the case of Union Square, exploited the

symbolic potential of the statues of American celebrated figures (Washington, Lincoln)

for self-legitimization. The “majestic presence” of “bronze statues as representatives of

eternal values – aesthetic and moral”39 functioned as “an aesthetic disguise for

revitalization” and was manipulated into what Wodiczko calls “a journey-in-fiction”40

that is presenting the revitalization as something unambiguously positive and desired

by all, purposely silencing its human cost. As Denis Hollier has noted on a more general

note, “art’s political neutrality is the favorite alibi for operations that are neither

neutral nor artistic.”41 In his projection, Wodiczko exposed this hypocrisy and made

visible the fact that by revitalizing an area, the city does not get rid of its social

problems – they forcibly disappear in one place just to appear in another. This was the

case with New York’s redevelopment: it is estimated that by 1989 there were 10,000

people living on the streets of the city.42 What is more, the revitalization questioned the

very idea of the public space being an arena available to all, as, in fact, it turned out to

be fully accessible only to those wealthy enough to live elsewhere. The most vivid

manifestation of this exclusion was the decision to bulldoze the park “in preparation

for the first phase [of the restoration] … [which] thoroughly reorganized the park’s

patterns to permit full surveillance of its occupants,” thus assigning architecture “the

role of policing urban space.”43 Thus the public character of Union Square turned out to

be conditional upon the hegemonic constraints imposed by the city establishment and

business.

12 In 2012, in War Veteran Projection,Wodiczko returned to Union Square, this time

animating Lincoln’s statue only. By overlapping its shape with talking images of

American war veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq, he focused on another area of pain

usually excluded in the mainstream discourse. In this projection, returned male and

female soldiers delivered individual testimonies of the psychological effects of combat

they could not foresee. One after another they painfully confessed: “I could not be close

to anybody,” “I’ve [become] an undifferentiated schizophrenic,” “I can see my eyes just

tired and lifeless,” “The daydreams, they sneak up upon you … and you don’t know how

to defend yourself,” which was intertwined with descriptions of horrific experiences

they had been through and to which they, as soldiers, had frequently actively

contributed.44 In the testimonies, the emphasis was put on the emotional costs of war

that very often are not acknowledged in the mainstream media which usually tend to

focus on the physically injured and the dead. This mainstream narrative operates with

statistics and claims to present “facts,” usually silencing or depreciating the

psychological dimension of war. In his New York Times article, Nicolas Kristof quotes

Iraq veteran Ben Richards who explains that “Coming from an Army ethos … you’re not

even entitled to complain unless you’ve lost all four limbs.” Contrary to the

mainstream image, Kristof observes that “traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic

stress disorder … are the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghan wars.”45 Further he

states that:

The United States is now losing more soldiers to suicide than to the enemy. Includeveterans, and the tragedy is even more sweeping. For every soldier killed in warthis year, about 25 veterans now take their own lives.46

13 These words appeared in the official trailer of Wodiczko’s 2012 projection, released by

nonprofit organization More Art that was responsible for producing the projection.47 Kristof’s observation was a significant reference point for the artist, as War Veteran

Projection clearly has a therapeutic dimension. In a two-fold process, Wodiczko first


97

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81nxZhbqv-Y

encouraged the veterans to work out the best linguistic expression for the way they

felt. Then for a month, their recorded testimonies, accompanied by their moving

images, were displayed on the Lincoln statue in Union Square, a witness to a multitude

of previous protests and lamentations. The veterans’ individual voices, gestures and

interrogations were blurred with the authoritarian, immobile, lofty statue of Lincoln,

an icon of American patriotism in its tragic dimension. This way, there was “a passage

from individual testimony” to “a public action” and thus “a secret trauma” became part

of “social criticism.”48 Crucially, as observed by Bożena Czubak, “[the veterans’] voices

and testimonies of wartime and post-war traumas contradicted the media

universalization of wars and their victims, transformed into objects of noncommittal

empathy.”49 Wodiczko then did not address the mainstream discourse on its own terms,

instead he provoked the spectator to ask the question of “What kind of vision might

overcome apathy and respond to the suffering of others?”50 It echoed the observations

put forward in the book authored by Wodiczko, titled The Abolition of War (2012). There,

the artist quotes Bronislaw Malinowski, Roy L. Prosterman and Margaret Mead who

juxtapose the universalizing language of war with that of the individual suffering. They

emphasize the tragically effective role of perceiving the “enemy” through the lens of

collective identities that divide the world into “us” and “them.” This split perception

dehumanizes “them” and allows for an ideologically justified killing of “non-

individualized members of the other community”51 who become a legitimate target that

needs to be annihilated.

14 Wodiczko’s effort to disrupt the above perceptual jump from the empathetic

individuality to the rationalized collectivity is, in my view, the unifying element of all

his art. This attempt is also reflected in the two projections carried out in Union

Square. Despite the differences, The Homeless Projection and War Veteran Projection have

been designed to appeal not only to one’s intellect (rationality), but also – to one’s

emotional and physical sensitivity (empathy). Additionally, in both,what is projected

and the projection’s addressees are individual people. More than that, when comparing

the two projections, one notes Wodiczko’s growing radicalism. The immobile slides of

undifferentiated homeless people of the 1986 projection, in 2012 gave way to moving

images of singular veterans sharing their intimate and painful stories. The artist has

also increased the collaborative engagement on the part of himself and the veterans,

but also on the part of the spectators who are prompted to empathetically witness the

traumatic stories. This therapeutic effect is further strengthened by Wodiczko’s making

use of Foucault’s observations on parrhesia (“fearless and free speaking”). Unlike

Foucault, the artist emphasizes the singular and relational character of the encounter

between the teller and the witness which is evoked during the projection. He claims: “It

must be assumed that those who bravely come forward with the otherwise unsolicited,

often unspeakable truth need others who can open themselves up to bravely listen,

open their ears.”52 Significantly, for Wodiczko, this individual encounter between the

teller and the witness constitutes the foundation not only of his projections, but also of

democracy as such:

Foucault’s demand for the ethics of the “self” and “care of the self” on the part ofthe potential parrhesiastic speaker … becomes today the Democratic Project. …[W]ithout a solid social, psychological, cultural, artistic, technological support andwithout the help of the community … the potential fearless speakers … will remainunable to open up and openly speak out in public space. They will remain silent. …They need, what I call monument therapy.53


98

15 Even though the The Homeless Projection and War Veteran Projection differ, they share this

basic belief in the validity of an individual, multi-layered encounter between a “fearless

speaker” and an emphatic witness. It is through this encounter that a larger democratic

awareness can be built, based on a nominalistic rather than collective perception of

others. In the remaining part of the paper, I would like to take a closer look at the two

projections and discuss their inherent problematics, addressing questions concerning

their status, politics of representation, and – eventually – effectiveness.

16 First of all, Wodiczko’s choice of Union Square as a place to display his

projections brings to mind Gramsci’s idea of the compromise equilibrium, according to

which the privileged presuppose “that account be taken of the interests and the

tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised.”54 By choosing a

public square that has long functioned as a protest area, Wodiczko safely stays within

the constraints imposed by hegemony, carefully negotiating the level to which his art

can be effective.This rings in accord with Henri Lefebvre’s understanding of the

capitalist “production of space.” Under this logic, Union Square has been produced as a

public space, thus one of its very functions is to be a vent for various voices to speak.

This public space is an “allowed for” or even, to some extent, a “designated” space for

voicing protest. As Rosalyn Deutsche notes in the context of New York’s 1980s

revitalization, the very word “public” very often functions as a major semantic pacifier:

Citing “the public,” whether this word is attached to art, space, or any number ofother objects, ideas, and practices, is one means of providing the unevendevelopment of New York with democratic legitimacy. … Rather than a realcategory, the definition of “the public,” like the definition of the city, is anideological artifact…55

17 What is more, by assigning the public space the role of a protest area, it becomes falsely

depoliticized, turning its subversive potential into that of an assigned a priori function.

Let me quote Deutsche again: “Instrumental function is the only meaning signified by

the built environment” which comes from the fake assumption of the

“functionalization of the city, which presents space as politically neutral, merely

utilitarian.”56 Within this logic, various urban spaces are given various functions: shops

are for shopping, train stations for commuting, parks for strolling, and protest areas

for voicing protest. It is acknowledged that people need a place to protest: professor of

philosophy Paul Scheffer explains that it is crucial to allow people to express their

anger and frustration with words, to verbally demonstrate it. Without this vent, anger

easily turns into violence. As he notes, “Debate makes hot heads cool down.”57 So while

the choice of Union Square to some extent deprives the protest of its disruptive,

anarchistic potential, in the same move it locates the protesters in a culturally silent

protest area. If one can speak of the “proper uses of the city” within the Lefebvrian

paradigm of the production of space,58 then the proper use of Union Square is to gather,

demonstrate and critique. Thus Wodiczko, by projecting the city’s ailments in a

hegemonically recognized public space, has necessarily used the city “properly.” This,

however, as I am going to argue later on, may have made his message more, not less

effective.

18 Another significant aspect is that the very idea of the public sphere seems

problematic. In her essay on the public space, Nancy Fraser has convincingly critiqued

Jürgen Habermas’ classic discussion of the public sphere as a singular entity. Instead,

she claims that there are numerous public spheres and very often those that have not


99

achieved a status of an “officially recognized public space” prove more effective. With

this in mind, Fraser considers two relevant questions: 1) Is a single public sphere always

preferable to a nexus of multiple publics?; and 2) Should discourse in public spheres be

restricted to deliberation about the common good rather than to “private interests”

and “private issues”?59 Pointedly she argues that:

[P]ublic spheres themselves are not spaces of zero degree culture, equallyhospitable to any possible form of cultural expression. Rather, they consist inculturally specific institutions – including, for example, various journals andvarious social geographies of urban space. These institutions may be understood asculturally specific rhetorical lenses that filter and alter the utterances they frame;they can accommodate some expressive modes and not others.60

19 While I find the observations by Deutsche and Fraser illuminating, it seems to

me that in his two Union Square projections, Wodiczko cleverly used their reservations

to his advantage. Clearly, by projecting images upon the emblematic statues on an

“official” public arena (that is: using the city “properly”), he did not challenge the

function assigned to the place by the urban planners. However, as his projections were

not spontaneous protests, but carefully designed artistic gestures, they acquired a

performative character. In other words, in both cases, they were prearranged, staged

acts of protest display. Referring to Foster’s observations on the manipulation of signs,

what Wodiczko did was combine the socio-political aura of Union Square with the

authority of a recognized artist and a university professor in a performative act of

public projection. The two projections were not acts of protest per se, but its

performances. This performative re-enactment of the protest idea by an established

artist and scholar fundamentally changes the status of the event. Locating the

projections (artistic performative acts) in a place of great cultural saliency translates

singular images/testimonies into a manifesto. In effect, Wodiczko turns a “private

issue” of individual suffering (homelessness and war trauma) into an artistic and

political statement.

20 However, the conflation of the private with the political on the level of an

individual spectator poses, in my view, major difficulty. The reason is that it prompts

the spectator to realize that the official discourse and one’s own world view are to a

large extent communicating vessels: often what is repressed in the hegemonic

discourse translates into one’s own repressions. Such realization often proves difficult

or even impossible, as repression generally provokes resistance and denial. It is a

fundamental belief of classical psychoanalysis that repression is a powerful defense

mechanism that protects the subject, therefore confronting the repressed is always

painful. As the repressed contents allow for a superficial integrity of the subject, the

subject is very resistant to any attempts of bringing the repressed into consciousness.

Acknowledging the repressed involves uncovering a trauma in a painful move, which

dismantles the subject’s structure and ruins one’s carefully elaborated self-image. This

is why it seems that Wodiczko was very clever in choosing the location of Union Square

as his vehicle to bring back the repressed dimensions of culture. Confronting them may

be easier in the context of a place that has a long tradition of hosting various “returns”

of the repressed.

21 Last but not least, in the 2012 projection, Wodiczko exploited the medium of

individual testimony, a medium which has been brought to saliency, but at the same

time has become formalized or even ritualized by the literature of the Holocaust. Again,

the artist’s choice proves to be a two-edged sword. Even though testimony may seem


100

overexploited or even clichéd, still, by its strong associations with the traumatic

narratives of the Holocaust, it is a powerful, heavily cathected connotative tool. By

resorting to this particular genre, Wodiczko’s War Veteran Project effectively

counteracts the official narrative, triggering in the viewers a certain emotional and

reflexive mood, which may not even be consciously realized. By appealing directly to

the spectators’ senses, emotions, and minds, Wodiczko exposes them to an experience

which is not only to be reasoned, but first of all – lived. This experience ignites a train

of emotional and semantic associations that may alter their mind frame.

22 In conclusion, I want to stress that the possible effectiveness of Wodiczko’s

artistic interventionism rests on the assumption that his art is relational and that this

relation is not abstract, but singularly created when a spectator empathetically

witnesses a projection (goes through a lived “embodied” experience). In his

projections, Wodiczko connects “the psychic with the political,”61 following the

feminist tradition which “has long insisted on the inseparability of the personal and

the political and on politics concerned with subjectivity.”62By skillfully manipulating

cultural signs (e.g. “Union Square,” “Washington,” “Lincoln,” “patriotism,” “the public

space,” “the testimony,” “the witness”), he cuts across the boundaries of art and

activates in the spectators trains of semantic associations. This intention is reflected in

Wodiczko’s words, calling on for an amalgamate of experience: “To get fit and fully able

in terms of democracy, the city has to look at itself from the perspective of its ailments:

physical, social and psychological.”63 Lately, the artist seems to be growing impatient.

The already mentioned book Abolition of War is very prescriptive, as Wodiczko calls for a

total abandonment of war, which he hopes one day will become a regrettable historical

institution. Even if not yet effective, it is still worth trying. Because, as Wodiczko

claims, “democracy is a job, you don’t find it, you make it.”

NOTES

1. By projection I mean here casting an image or a prerecorded audio&video material onto the

surface of a statue/monument/building. The term will be discussed in detail later in this essay.

2. While the original title was The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for the City of New York, it was

then changed to The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for Union Square. For more detail check Rosalyn

Deutsche’s “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban ‘Revitalization,’” in

Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed. Duncan McCorquodale (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011), 116.

3. This projection exists only in the form of a proposal that was exhibited at 49th Parallel, Centre

for Contemporary Canadian Art.

4. Bożena Czubak, ed., Krzysztof Wodiczko: War Veteran Projections (Lublin: Galeria Labirynt 2013),

64.

5. Rosalyn Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection and the Site of Urban

‘Revitalization,’” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed. Duncan McCorquodale (London: Black Dog Publishing,

2011), 127.


101

6. One can find an illustrated and theorized guide to Wodiczko’s projections in, among others:

Bożena Czubak (ed.) Krzysztof Wodiczko: Art of the Public Domain (2011) and Duncan McCorquodale

(ed.) Krzysztof Wodiczko (2011).

7. Wodiczko quoted in: Bożena Czubak, “Art of the Public Domain,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko: Art of

the Public Domain, ed. Bożena Czubak (Sopot: Państwowa Galeria Sztuki: 2011), 16.

8. In the early projections, Wodiczko made use of still slide images, with time he gradually

turned to projecting prerecorded audio-visual narratives.

9. Wodiczko has called civic architecture “a spectacle of images of social stability.” In: Bożena

Czubak, “Art of the Public Domain,” 18.

10. Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection,” 132.

11. For example see: Dora Apel, “Technologies of War, Media, and Dissent in the Post-9/11 Work

of Krzysztof Wodiczko,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed. Duncan McCorquodale (London: Black Dog

Publishing, 2011); Ewa Lajer-Burcharth, “Borders,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko: Guests/Goście, ed. Bożena

Czubak (Warszawa: Galeria Narodowa Zachęta, 2009); Bożena Czubak, “Art of the Public Domain,”

in Krzysztof Wodiczko: Art of the Public Domain, ed. Bożena Czubak (Sopot: Państwowa Galeria Sztuki:

2011).

12. Hal Foster, “Subversive Signs,” in Recodings: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics (New York: The New

Press, 1985), 99-100.

13. Nicolas Whybrow, Art and the City (London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 2011), 15.

14. The therapeutic aspect of art is discussed in more detail in the article by Eva Marxen,

“Therapeutic Thinking in Contemporary Art or Psychotherapy in the Arts,” The Arts in

Psychotherapy 36 (2009), 131-139.

15. Deutsche, Hiroshima after Iraq: Three Studies in Art and War. (New York: Columbia University

Press 2010), 7.

16. Ibid., 5.

17. Ibid., 4.

18. Leung qtd. in Deutsche, Hiroshima after Iraq, 5.

19. Deutsche, Hiroshima after Iraq, 67.

20. Denis Hollier, “While the City Sleeps: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed.

Duncan McCorquodale (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011), 197.

21. Wodiczko, “Public Projection,” 49.

22. Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Art of New Public Domain,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko: War Veteran

Projections, ed. Bożena Czubak (Lublin: Galeria Labirynt 2013), 21.

23. Wodiczko, “Public Projection,” 49.

24. In Poland, there is another artist whose art is reminiscent of Wodiczko’s. Joanna Rajkowska,

by creating unfamiliar contexts and locating them in familiar yet traumatic places, experiments

with participants’ reactions and opens up new dimensions to address the past and demand a new

type of discourse. In her public installations, she makes things visible in a new way by directly

affecting the senses of the recipients: confronted with her works, they cannot resist being

somehow affected, feeling something. I have analyzed several of her public installations in the

article “Polish Colonial Past and Postcolonial Presence in Joanna Rajkowska’s Art” published in At

the Cross-Words: Theorizing Race, Ethnicy and Postcolonialism, Ewa Luczak, Justyna Wierzchowska and

Joanna Ziarkowska ed. (Frankfurt, Berlin, New York: Peter Lang, 2011).

25. Czubak, “Art of the Public Domain,” 17.

26. Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Public Projection,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed. Duncan McCorquodale

(London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011), 48.

27. Wodiczko, “Public Projection,” 48-49.

28. Hollier, “While the City Sleeps,” 200.

29. John Rajchman, “Critical Guests,” interview with Krzysztof Wodiczko, in Krzysztof Wodiczko:

Guests/Goście, ed. Bożena Czubak (Warszawa: Galeria Narodowa Zachęta: 2009), 10.


102


31. Paul Goldberger quoted in Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection,” 113.


33. Qtd. in Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection, 121.

34. Qtd. in Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection,” 113.

35. Rosalyn Deutsche, “Uneven Development: Art in New York City,” October 47 (Winter 1988), 5.



38. Ibid., 113.

39. Ibid., 128.

40. Qtd. in Deutsche, “Krzysztof Wodiczko’s Homeless Projection,” 114.


42. “New York City Tableaux: Tompkins Square,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed. Duncan McCorquodale

(London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011), 206.


44. Czubak, Krzysztof Wodiczko: War Veteran Projections, 65-71.

45. The emotional aspect of war is now starting to be noticed by American mainstream culture.

For example, in the TV series Homeland it is given prominent visibility. Still, it is not presented as

being acknowledged or processed, as main protagonists (both the veteran and the CIA agent) are

not offered any psychological help. The veteran is put under CIA’s surveillance, the agent is

medicated.

46. Nicolas D. Kristof, “War Wounds,” New York Times, 10 August 2012, http://

www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/war-wounds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 .

47. On the official website of More Art one reads: “More Art is a federal nonprofit organization

dedicated to producing meaningful and engaging works of public art in New York City.”More Art

garners the power of public art to encourage social change and bridge the gaps existing between

underserved communities and the general public in New York City. We make art accessible to all

by fostering artistic collaborations between contemporary artists and local communities and

locating all our projects in freely accessible public spaces. We support artists in their creative

endeavors and provide a public platform of expression for artists and community members to

express themselves through art” (http://moreart.org/mission-history/).

48. Andrzej Turowski, “Przemieszczenia i obrazy,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko, ed. Duncan

McCorquodale (London: Black Dog Publishing, 2011), 294. In his text, Turowski referred to

another projection by Wodiczko carried out in Tijuana, Mexico in 2001. However, as the

projection also made use of individual testimonies, I believe that Turowski’s observations may be

applied to the projection carried out in Union Square as well.



51. Krzysztof Wodiczko, Obalenie wojen ( Kraków: Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej, 2012), 9-11.

52. Krzysztof Wodiczko, “Monument, Parrhesia, Projection,” in Krzysztof Wodiczko: Art of the

Public Domain, ed. Bożena Czubak (Sopot i Warszawa: Państwowa Galeria Sztuki i Fundacja Profile:

2011), 166.

53. Wodiczko, “Monument,” 167.

54. Qtd. in John Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (London: Harvester

Wheatsheaf, 1994), 216.

55. Deutsche, “Uneven Development,” 10,12.

56. Ibid., 6.

57. Paul Scheffer, “Spierajmy się, jak razem żyć.” Gazeta Wyborcza, No. 7 (8340), 10-11 January,

2014. 19.


103

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/war-wounds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0




http://moreart.org/mission-history/

http://moreart.org/mission-history/

58. For a more detailed discussion of the proper use of city spaces, see: Rosalyn Deutsche’s

“Uneven Development.”

59. Nancy Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually

Existing Democracy,” Social Text 25/26 (1990), 62.

60. Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere,” 69.


62. Ibid., 4.

63. Wodiczko, “Monument,” 166.

ABSTRACTS

This essay discusses two projections by Polish-born artist Krzysztof Wodiczko carried out in

Union Square in the city of New York. The Homeless Projection: A Proposal for Union Square (1986)

and Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection (2012) address major ailments of modern society:

homelessness and the psychological effects of war. By casting images on the statues of American

heroes, the artist clashes the official historical-political narrative with that of the unrepresented

or repressed. In the two projections carried out in Union Square, Wodiczko makes use of the

public space to performatively re-enact social protest in a culturally salient locus. The article

presents the subversive potential of the two projections and discusses their inherent

problematics, referring to observations by Jürgen Habermas, Nancy Fraser, Rosalyn Deutsche,

and others.

INDEX

Keywords: Afghanistan, contemporary art, homelessness, Iraq, Krzysztof Wodiczko, public

space, Union Square, war

AUTHOR

JUSTYNA WIERZCHOWSKA



104


Competing Claims to Housing andPublic Space: Fighting Displacementin the Contemporary City


105

What Can Urban Gardening ReallyDo About Gentrification? A Case-Study of Three San FranciscoCommunity GardensGuillaume Marche

Introduction: Of Gardens and Gentrification

1 Among other characteristics, San Francisco is known for its relatively

small acreage of 46.9 square miles and its high population density of17,620 people per square mile, making it the second-most denselypopulated major city in the United States after New York City. Due to itsattractiveness, the City by the Bay’s population is steadily increasing,which leads to a housing shortage, and the value of real-estate in SanFrancisco has skyrocketed since the early 1990s, especially since thelate 1990s’ “dotcom” bubble, and it is currently being pushed by thenew “tech” bubble. This has resulted in a steady process ofgentrification over the past twenty years, which has intensified in therecent past, with new, sometimes unexpected neighborhoods beingaffected: while gentrification in areas like the Mission has been goingon for twenty years at an increasing pace, it is moving further andfurther south, spilling over into adjacent neighborhoods such as BernalHeights and Potrero Hill. Gentrification has more recently overflowninto historically working-class, ethnic- and racial-minority, or generallydisreputable neighborhoods like Bayview, the Western Addition, Southof Market and the Tenderloin, some of which are regarded nowadays asa new frontier of middle- to upper-middle-class, mainly white,residential expansion.


106

2 Gentrification is one particularly critical aspect of the territorial

conflicts that are habitual in San Francisco, given the city’s contestedtransformations ever since its initial period of post-war growth in the1960s.1 And the disputed uses and appearance of public spaces isamong the guises this contestation assumes. From a Lefebvrianperspective, indeed, the right to the city is not only a question of accessto urban resources, but also a matter of being able to shape andtransform them. Thus, beautification assumes political significancesince it may, on the one hand, enhance the attractiveness of otherwisedisreputable neighborhoods: murals or urban greening initiatives—suchas community gardens and urban farms—are interventions in publicspaces that improve the quality of residents’ lives. Yet, on the otherhand, they may express a claim for legitimate use of urban space andfor an equitable living environment, so that it is unclear whether theyheighten the gentrifying transformation of such neighborhoods, orwhether they may support inhabitants’ resistance to being pushed out.

3 In fact, most scholarship on urban greening focuses on areas

such as New York City, where land is scarce, real estate values are high,and more or less informal garden projects have been viewed as forms ofresistance to urban development and capitalist urban growth.2 This ismainly true of studies of historical contexts where local governmentshave viewed urban greening as a form of insubordination to besuppressed, while more recently, since the early 2000s, even themunicipality of New York has sought to coopt urban greening into itsown smart growth agenda. Scholarship—as well as the media—has alsopaid attention to recent urban gardening and farming initiatives in thecontext of the Great Recession, typically in New Orleans afterHurricane Katrina and in Detroit and other cities deeply affected by theforeclosures and evictions resulting from the subprime crisis.3 In suchenvironments, local residents’ (literally) grassroots initiatives are aconcerted form of resistance, both to food deprivation, in a way thatharks back to the Great Depression, and, more generally, to the loss ofcivil and economic empowerment.

4 But San Francisco represents a different environment where

land is scarce, real estate values are getting higher, and citygovernment authorities do support urban growth projects—in MissionBay or the Waterfront front for example. Yet, more or less informalgarden projects are also actively encouraged by city governmentauthorities. If San Francisco is to ride the urban growth wave and reapbenefits in terms of tax revenue, it would seem to make more neoliberalbusiness sense to favor intensive urban development. But the fact isthat, along with murals and other forms of beautification, urbangreening initiatives in general fit in with the alternative urban modelthat San Francisco represents and which makes it so attractive to whatRichard Florida has named the “creative class.”4 The municipalgovernment’s support for such forms of bottom-up urban improvementis thus consistent with its desire to maintain high real estate prices in


107

order to accommodate, and even support, the city’s attractiveness forhigh-income tier residents and thus salvage its revenue basis and itsstatus as a world-class metropolis. Yet, San Francisco is a reputedhaven of municipal liberalism, with social services and a century-oldethos of social inclusion and egalitarianism that has very fewequivalents—especially on that scale—in the United States.5 Thus, theCity of San Francisco is faced with an internal conflict since it has arather ambivalent attitude when it comes to balancing poor people’ssocioeconomic rights with the tax revenue generated by urbandevelopment and the resulting influx of households in the upper incomebracket.

5 In this context, an important question when it comes to garden

projects is whether they may be a way for communities besieged withever-expanding, apparently unstoppable gentrification to resist it andmake a territorial claim on their neighborhoods, or if it may actually bedetrimental and counterproductive insofar as greening contributes toturning otherwise fairly unpalatable neighborhoods into attractive areasfor 21st-century middle- to upper middle-class urban “pioneers.” Or maygarden projects actually result from gentrifiers’ desire to “improve”their neighborhood and thus succeed in enhancing that veryattractiveness? Or do these questions make sense at all? Do urbangreening initiatives have any impact whatsoever, or are themacroeconomic mainsprings of San Francisco’s changing demographicssimply out of proportions with whatever control ordinary folks canpossibly exert over their situations? Thus the issue here is not so muchhow city denizens interact—i.e. conflict or cooperate—with municipalgovernment institutions, as how residents interact with each other inseeking to grapple with broad economic and social processes thatlargely escape their control.

6 This study is based on fieldwork conducted in San Francisco in 2012

and 2013 and examines three very distinct community gardens, whichwill henceforth be referred to as “organized garden projects”—afterMary Beth Pudup—in order not to take their community-buildingdimension for granted, since this is one of the issues these examplesraise.6 The first of these organized garden projects is located in asection of the only remaining predominantly African Americanneighborhood in San Francisco, which is currently undergoing ratherfast gentrification, partly due to its location on a hillside offeringoutstanding views of the San Francisco Bay. The latter two gardenprojects studied here are located on either side of the same hill in thesoutheastern part of the city: while the north side of the hill has beengentrified since the 1990s, the south side has long been home to ahistorical public housing project largely inhabited by AfricanAmericans. As of the time of fieldwork, this housing project dating backto the 1940s was in the process of being redeveloped, that is to say torndown and built up again into a mixed-income neighborhood. I begin bypresenting and contrasting the first two cases, because they areopposites in many ways—the most evident of which being the


108

divergence between an area that is yet in the process of gentrificationand a neighborhood that has already been gentrified. I subsequentlyanalyze the third case and compare it with the former two, because itstands as a counterexample since it was not initiated from below, by theresidents, but from above, by the agency in charge of theneighborhood’s renovation. Yet, it proves to be more than a mere“control” case, since it evinces dynamics that the previous binary doesnot suffice to explain.

1. Organized Garden Projects as a Form of Resistance

7 The first example studied here is almost a textbook variety of an

organized garden project initiated in a lower-income neighborhood bytwo local residents, an older African American couple, who gained theinterest and support of their neighbors and triggered a collective,community-based initiative to plant on “little plots of dirt” on medianstrips, on unused street sides, on sloping narrow triangular plots nearintersections.7 The project was started in 2001, it has grown to have abudget of $168,000 in public grants, one full-time paid staff memberand operates 4 different gardens within a range of a few blocks. In thissense, it is not a purely informal, guerrilla-style urban-greeninginitiative: it has rules and organization.8

8 In particular, one of its rules is that before anyone can start a garden or

make significant changes to an existing one, they have to seekagreement from the collective—which means it is not so spontaneous,but this springs from a commitment to building community by gettingdecisions to be made in a communal way. This is a way to ensure thatthe residents always have a say in deciding what the spaces near whichthey live are going to look like, which is particularly poignant in acontext where the neighborhood is undergoing major change that is not

of the residents’ choosing. What makes it all the more important is thatthe City is facilitating the remodeling of such neighborhoods intransition through a “smart growth” agenda of walkable, greenneighborhoods and sustainable urbanism, an agenda that authors likeNoah Quastel and Melisa Checker, among others, have shown ischaracteristic of “environmental gentrification.”9

9 In so doing, the residents manifest that they have come to terms

with the fact that their neighborhood is going to be remodeled andchanged, but they want to have some say in how this is to be done.10

They come across as an embattled community whose members havereinforced their community ties in the past ten years in order toimprove their quality of life. Tellingly, the evil they were fighting at firstwas crime and insecurity on the block, which they addressed byfostering solidarity among neighbors, talking to each other, lookingafter each other. In this sense, they should not be characterized as abesieged community that is resistant to any sort of change. In fact,scholarship suggests that smart growth does not have to result in


109

enhanced gentrification and de facto racial segregation.11 But this low-income, predominantly African American community is now faced withgentrification—a giant that it cannot possibly defeat but which it can atleast attempt to domesticate.

10 Faced with the threat of the disappearance of the neighborhood’s

identity and history, they want to preserve it not just through artifacts,but also through practices. In addition to greening, the organizedgarden project, for example, sponsors the creation of murals thatcelebrate the community’s heritage, as in the mural dedicated to theproject’s founders. These green and beautified spaces are not just endsin themselves, but they are meant to facilitate collective practices, suchas meeting at the mural, sitting on a bench and discussing futureplanting ideas. In fact, the organization counts addressing gentrificationas one of its missions and accomplishments.12 The participants do notdelude themselves that their small-scale efforts may guarantee David’striumph over Goliath, but they offer a response that reflects both afairly sensible appreciation of the uneven balance of powers and adetermination not to give in to the adverse circumstances. In otherwords, they do not seek to fight face-on, but they do so in an oblique,indirect way, and thus generate empowerment.

2. Beautification as a Vehicle of Gentrification

11 The second case for this study is situated on the already gentrified

northern side of a hill, a residential neighborhood that is fairly remotefrom the center of San Francisco but offers a pleasant environment withfairly low density, a good choice of local stores, cafés and restaurants,and extremely picturesque views of both the San Francisco Bay and thecity. The garden project was started in 2008 on the initiative of a singleperson whose apartment overlooked a vacant plot of land on a freewayoff-ramp across the street and who just wanted to make it look less uglyby greening it. The resulting garden thus sprang from a purelyindividualistic desire to improve the appearance of a familiar urbanenvironment. It was only subsequently that the community side ofthings kicked off. Once neighbors noticed the initiative, they madeencouraging comments and supported the initiator when she decidedthat the garden was growing too big to keep under the radar. If she hadhad a choice, she would have much rather kept it not just informal, butalso as private as possible, considering that the land is public property.Interestingly, the initiator draws a very sharp contrast between herinitial move and what the garden has grown to become, namely agathering place, a connection among neighborhood residents.13

12 In a sense, there is a strong similarity between the two

organized garden projects in that both foster a bond amongparticipating neighborhood residents; in both cases the stakes are toclaim ownership of one’s environment by placing an imprint on itsphysiognomy. But there are two fundamental, corollary differences


110

between the two projects. First, the former project’s organizationfollows a bottom-up, collective decision-making process, whereas thestructure of the latter, as per the garden project initiator’s ownadmission, is essentially that two people make decisions and everyoneelse is invited to volunteer. This, she considers, makes for moreefficiency and less waste of time in lengthy discussion. With herpractical turn of mind and her great sense of individual initiative, she iskeen to ward off anything that stands in the way of the goals she has setfor herself. Second, one is a case of residents whose neighborhood isbeing gentrified and who seek to leave a physical imprint on theirenvironment so as to symbolically preserve their legacy, whereas theother consists in residents with socioeconomic privilege claimingownership of the turf they seek to improve through a beautificationinitiative.14 For example, although she is a tenant—in an area that stillhas a stable percentage of tenant-occupied housing units verging ontwo thirds, i.e. comparable to San Francisco as a whole—the initiator isa professional in the creative sector with a cosmopolitan background.She is rather representative of the neighborhood’s gentrification, asmeasured by—compared to the rest of city—a roughly twice higher,faster growing median household income, percentage of residents witha Master's degree or more, and percentage of households with anannual income of more than $150,000.15

13 Consistently, the latter organized garden project has appealed to

a 70-strong team of neighborhood residents who volunteer oneSaturday morning a month to improve the neighborhood’s aestheticstandards by creating a pleasant, relaxing environment. Both theinitiator’s discourse and the organization’s website do mention the goalof educating visitors and volunteers about botany, but the pictures onthe garden’s website emphasize an image of natural beauty andharmony, and the founder’s language enhances “an escape from thecity” over education.16 By contrast, if websites are a good indicator ofwhat organizations purport to do, the former organized garden project’swebsite shows inhabited and embodied gardens—places wherepractices represent and signify the ethnic, racial, and generationaldiversity in the make-up of the community.17 Generational transmissionis especially important in this case where preserving the memory of awaning African American, working-class heritage has become part andparcel of the project.

14 The take on gentrification at the already gentrified

neighborhood’s organized garden project is quite different. Forexample, one of the projects for developing the initiative is to addressthe dire state of disrepair of a particular block down the street from thegarden—a no-through-way block which, in the words of the garden’sinitiator, “is disgusting: there’s lots of graffiti, and dumping, andhomeless encampments.”18 As a neighborhood community association,the organization has submitted a plan to clean up the block by buildinga retaining wall and leveling out the ground in the dip where homelesspeople usually sleep because they can hide, and then planting trees to


111

separate the street from the unused plot of land below, adding asidewalk and greening it. The organized garden project’s website showsawareness of how the real estate market will respond to such animprovement: “Current homeowners can also expect their propertyvalues to rise as a result of this work: we encourage you to join in withthis project!”19 In the words of the garden’s initiator, “joining in” meansthat she and the single other main project leader “basically call theshots and reach out to professionals [living in the neighborhood] asneeded.”20 The class-inflected nature of the project and its gentrifyingintent are rather blatant. That situates this project on a different planethan the usual type of environmental gentrification where, in the wordsof Noah Quastel, “gentrifiers face systematic moral predicaments as theroles they perform in competitive housing markets undermine theirvalues.”21 Not much of a moral predicament is to be noticed here.

15 As a provisional conclusion, if we wonder whether organized garden

projects may help communities besieged with gentrification to resist it,or if they contribute to turning unattractive neighborhoods intodestinations of choice for gentrifiers, the answer should be both. That isto say, an organized garden project can imply one or the other, or it canimply both as the people in charge of the first one studied here are wellaware. This is also what Nathan McClintock has shown in his work onurban agriculture's inherent contradictions between its radical/reformist potential and its neoliberal potential.22 But if we insteadwonder what it is about a garden that determines whether it leanstoward the empowerment of a neighborhood’s current residents, ortoward their displacement, the answer would seem to be—following theinsight of Efrat Eizenberg23—that it depends on whether the garden isindividualistic in essence or communitarian. But I would argue, further,that it is also a matter of how horizontal and grassroots the decision-making process is—as at the first garden project studied here, whereconsensus-based decision-making is the rule—or vertical, top-down —asin the second case here, where one or two people “call the shots.” Athird example will help further explore this issue.

3. Top-down Greening Initiative and Bottom-upCommunity-building?

16 The third organized garden project studied here is located on the

southern side of the same hill as the previous one, which is home to two1940s housing projects that are being redeveloped into a mixed-incomeneighborhood by a private company contracted to redesign theneighborhood.24 The redesigning process included consultations withthe community to ask what type of facilities they would like included,one of which was a garden to grow vegetables. Thus, in 2010, raisedbeds were made out of wood and set up outside the housing project’sfamily resource center. Importantly, this was created as a temporarygarden, since after the redevelopment was completed a new one was


112

created one block down the hill in early 2013, so this was a first step ina work in progress. Part of the redevelopment project involved fixingthe neighborhood’s geographic isolation by restoring the perpendiculargridiron pattern of the streets in the area so as to reconnect it with therest of the city’s fabric, and particularly with the north side of the hill.Of course this is a double-edged sword, because it is undeniably anobjective improvement for housing-project residents to be connected tothe rest of the city, as many of the social issues they are faced with arecorrelated with isolation, such as lack of access to employment or tohealthy food. But reconnecting this area will also make it moreattractive, draw in higher-income residents and ultimately shoot up realestate value and rents. In this social engineering project, neighborhoodrevitalization is typically imbued with a reformist uplift ambition whichinvolves “inculcating a strong work ethic and steady work habits,” asPudup says of turn of the twentieth-century school gardens, which is anexplicit part of the interviewed Junior Community Builder’s discourse.25

17 But additionally, the social uplift endeavor consists in inculcating

healthy dietary habits and an ethos of self-help. The city’s contractor inthe redevelopment initiative presents itself as “not a service provider,”and insists that its “three full-time staff are working with communityleaders and organizations to increase their capacity to serve residentsand increase resident involvement in existing programs.” Thus variouscommunity-building “programs and projects” are underway, including a“Monthly Healthy Living Workshop” where a registered dietician“teach[es] a Healthy Living Workshop which combines healthy cookingdemonstrations, education, and exercise.”26 Such a program is notidentical with the garden project, yet it is directly connected with it,both in terms of location—the premises are contiguous—and of vision—encouraging involvement and agency through education. Theorganization thus seems to follow a rather vertical dynamic whereknowledge and skills are handed down from organizers to recipients.

18 At the same time, however, participation in the activities

triggered by the garden is real. On “garden workdays,” twice a week,residents do spend time at the garden and engage in lively, congenialsocializing. Anecdotal evidence is provided by the fact that theinterviews I recorded on location are sometimes hard to transcribe dueto the loud talking and laughing in the background.27 Residents haveindeed taken to the moveable mural-painting workshop, the Zumba andmeditation classes, the walking club and gardening sessions that areoffered by the agency created by the contractor to connect with theresidents.28 This tends to confirm one of McClintock’s insights, whichruns counter to the standard narrative that seemingly radical endeavorsaccidentally serve neoliberal interests. According to McClintock,seemingly neoliberal or neoliberal-friendly policies may inadvertentlyfacilitate or even foster more radical or subversive appropriations.29 Inthe organized garden project under study, the claim of communityownership of the neighborhood in fact resulted from the redeveloping


113

agency’s seemingly less-than-candid commitment to “broadly engagethe community in both master planning and community buildingefforts.”30

19 What is striking, though, when contrasting the dynamics around this

organized garden project with the first one in this study, is the fact thatit is built on a service-providing model, with paid staff and a presetcalendar of activities. This pattern, however, is very much in keepingwith San Francisco’s reputed model of municipal liberalism that relieson a decentralized network of localized, community-based service-providing organizations and where social welfare goes hand in handwith a democratic rhetoric of civic engagement and participation.31 Butthere is a fine line between grassroots community-building and themore top-down, missionary reformist endeavors this project represents.We may venture that the difference is not just a question of top-downversus bottom-up initiative. Heeding the insight of David Adams andMichael Hardman, attention must also be paid to the participants’motivations and interpretations of the use of space.32 In this sense, thefirst garden in this study indeed presents a much less ambiguous modelaltogether than the third one, for despite its six-digit budget, it has infact a rather light-weight organization, which is essentially an enabling

structure. That is to say it does not have a preset agenda, but an open-ended one, and the emphasis is less on the content than on the process—not on the what, but on the how.

Conclusions

20 The point of this study has not been to offer a definitive answer to the

question of whether organized garden projects counteract or encouragegentrification, for the answer to such a question has to be a mixed one.And the study’s purpose has not been to pass favorable judgment onsome projects and unfavorable judgment on others, although that ispartly unavoidable. Rather, my goal has been to better understand howapparently very similar gardens, in fact, involve very different, possiblyantithetical dynamics. The variations among the three examples I haveexamined show that whereas the second garden under study ratherunambiguously enhances gentrification, the third one stands halfwaybetween facilitating and merely accompanying it, while the first oneresists it, but mainly in a symbolical, immaterial—although by no meansinsignificant—way.

21 These differences have to do less with what kind of greening or

gardening goes on in the various projects than with the type of decision-making process and with the way the residents’ community is engaged.This is also where we can situate the difference between a service-provider-to-client relation, on the one hand, and community-empowerment, on the other. Ultimately, in order to understand whaturban gardening can really do about gentrification, it is crucial to focuson motives and meanings. Thus, beautification does not, in and of itself,


114

either enhance gentrification or fend it off. It is the meaning thatparticipants inscribe in their practice that endows, or fails to endow,organized garden projects with collective empowerment potential. This,in turn, means that low-income communities besieged withgentrification may, and do, use gardening as a weapon against theirdisappearance. Such practices can be deemed hopeless, considering thedisproportionate extent of the problem they seek to address, and indeedthey cannot actually reverse the trend of gentrification. But, like the“weapons of the weak” identified by James C. Scott, they unobtrusivelychallenge gentrification’s legitimacy and hence, symbolically, itsirresistibility.33

NOTES

1.

Rich E. DeLeon, Left-Coast City. Progressive Politics in San Francisco, 1975–

1991 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992); Stephen J. McGovern, The

Politics of Downtown Development. Dynamic Political Cultures in San Francisco

and Washington, D.C. (Louisville: University of Kentucky Press, 1998); Chester

Hartman, City for Sale. The Transformation of San Francisco (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 2002).

2. Karen Schmelzkopf, “Urban Community Gardens as Contested Space,”

Geographical Review 85/3 (1995): 364–381; “Incommensurability, Land Use,

and the Right to Space: Community Gardens in New York City,” Urban

Geography 23/4 (2002): 323–343; Christopher M. Smith and Hilda E. Kurtz,

“Community Gardens and Politics of Scale in New York City,” Geographical

Review 93/2 (2003): 193–212; Miranda Martinez, “Attack of the Butterfly

Spirits: The Impact of Movement Framing by Community Garden Preservation

Activists,” Social Movement Studies 8/4 (2009): 323–339; Sandrine Baudry,

“Reclaiming Urban Space as Resistance: The Infrapolitics of Gardening,” Revue

française d’études américaines 131 (2012): 32–48.

3. John Gallagher, Revolution Detroit: Strategies for Reinvention (Detroit:

Wayne State University Press, 2013); Yuki Kato, Catarina Passidomo, and Daina

Harvey, “Political Gardening in a Post-disaster City: Lessons from New

Orleans,” Urban Studies 51/9 (2014): 1833–1849.

4. Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class and How It's Transforming

Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

5. William Issel, “Liberalism and Urban Policy in San Francisco from the 1930s

to the 1960s,” The Western Historical Quarterly 22/4 (1991): 431–450; Philip J.

Ethington, The Public City. The Political Construction of Urban Life in San

Francisco, 1850–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); DeLeon,

Left-Coast City.

6. Mary Beth Pudup, “It Takes a Garden: Cultivating Citizen-Subjects in

Organized Garden Projects,” Geoforum 39/3 (2008): 1228–1240.


115

7. Author’s interview with the garden project’s managing director (21/07/2012).

8. Sandrine Baudry, “Les community gardens de New York City: de la

désobéissance civile au développement durable,” Revue française d’études

américaines 129 (2011): 73–86.

9. Noah Quastel, “Political Ecologies of Gentrification,” Urban Geography 30/7

(2009): 694–725; Melissa Checker, “Wiped Out by the ‘Greenwave’:

Environmental Gentrification and the Paradoxical Politics of Urban

Sustainability,” City & Society 23/2 (2011): 210–229; Carolin Mees and Edie

Stone, “Zoned Out: The Potential of Urban Agriculture Planning to Turn Against

its Roots,” Cities and the Environment 5/1 (2012): Article 7; Eliot M. Tretter,

“Contesting Sustainability: ‘SMART Growth’ and the Redevelopment of Austin's

Eastside,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37/1 (2013):

297–310.

10. Author’s interview with the garden project’s managing director

(21/07/2012).

11. Rolf J. Pendall, Arthur C. Nelson, Casey J. Dawkins, and Gerrit J. Knaap,

“Connecting Smart Growth, Housing Affordability, and Racial Equity,” in The

Geography of Opportunity: Race and Housing Choice in Metropolitan America,

ed. Xavier N. De Souza Briggs (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2005): 219–

246; Andrew Aurand, “Density, Housing Types and Mixed Land Use: Smart

Tools for Affordable Housing?,” Urban Studies 47/5 (2010): 1015–1036.

12. Garden project website, online (accessed 05/04/2014).

13. Author’s interview with the garden project’s initiator and managing director

(31/07/2012)

14. Jackelyn Hwanga and Robert J. Sampson, “Divergent Pathways of

Gentrification: Racial Inequality and the Social Order of Renewal in Chicago

Neighborhoods,” American Sociological Review 79/4 (2014): 732–734; Richard

Van Deusen, “Public Space Design as Class Warfare: Urban Design, the ‘Right

to the City’ and the Production of Clinton Square, Syracuse, NY,” GeoJournal

58/2-3 (2002): 149–158; Sonia Arbaci and Teresa Tapada-Berteli, “Social

Inequality and Urban Regeneration in Barcelona City Centre: Reconsidering

Success,” European Urban and Regional Studies 19/3 (2012): 287–311.

15. United States Census, Census Explorer, http://curvaceousness/

censusexplorer (accessed 28/04/2015); San Francisco Planning Department,

San Francisco Neighborhoods Socio-Economic Profiles, American Community

Survey 2005–2009 (May 2011). This is one of the neighborhoods in the San

Francisco metropolitan area with the highest creative class share of its

population (Richard Florida and Sara Johnson, Class-Divided Cities: San

Francisco Edition, The Atlantic Citylab, 1 April 2013, http://www.citylab.com

[accessed 28/04/2015]).

16. Garden project website, online (accessed 05/04/2014); author’s interview

(31/07/2012).


18. Author’s interview (31/07/2012).


20. Author’s interview (31/07/2012).

21. Quastel, “Political Ecologies of Gentrification”: 705.

22. Nathan McClintock, “Radical, Reformist, and Garden-variety Neoliberal:

Coming to Terms with Urban Agriculture's Contradictions,” Local Environment:

The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 19/2 (2014): 147–171.


116

23. Efrat Eizenberg, “The Production of Contesting Space: Community Gardens

and the Cultivation of Social Change,” paper presented at the “Open Space:

People Space’ conference, the OPENspace Research Centre, Edinburgh, UK,

October 27-29, online (accessed 30/03/2014); “The Changing Meaning of

Community Space: Two Models of NGO Management of Community Gardens in

New York City,” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 36/1

(2012): 106–120.

24. Author’s interview with a Junior Community Builder for the garden project

(27/06/2012).

25. Pudup, “It Takes a Garden”: 1230; author’s interview (27/06/2012).

26. Neighborhood redevelopment project’s website, online (accessed

22/02/2015).

27. Author’s interview with two garden project volunteers and one garden

project manager (27/06/2012).


22/02/2015).

29. McClintock, “Radical, Reformist, and Garden-variety Neoliberal”: 159.


22/02/2015).

31. DeLeon, Left-Coast City, 13–25; McGovern, The Politics of Downtown

Development, 33–39, 87–143.

32. David Adams and Michael Hardman, “Observing Guerrillas in the Wild:

Reinterpreting Practices of Urban Guerrilla Gardening,” Urban Studies 51/6

(2014): 1103–1119.

33. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant

Resistance, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

ABSTRACTS

San Francisco is known for its small acreage and high population density. Due to its

attractiveness, the city has been subjected to a housing shortage, skyrocketing real-estate rates,

and a steady process of gentrification over the past 20 years in particular. Access to public spaces

and deliberation, negotiation, and conflicts over the proper uses and appearance of such spaces

is one aspect of the visible, contested transformation of San Francisco. Whether and how urban

territories are appropriated or embellished can be rather contentious, for beautification may

enhance the attractiveness of otherwise disreputable neighborhoods. Traditionally working-

class, ethnic- and racial-minority areas are thus regarded nowadays as a new frontier of middle-

to upper-middle-class, mainly white residential expansion. Organized and informal garden

projects are interventions in public spaces that improve the quality of residents’ lives and hence

raise the question whether they heighten the gentrifying transformation of such neighborhoods,

or whether they may support inhabitants’ resistance to being pushed out. This question is

especially crucial since the municipal government is a strong proponent of urban greening and

the City of San Francisco has a rather ambivalent attitude when it comes to balancing poor

people’s socioeconomic rights with the tax revenue generated by urban development and the


117

resulting influx of households in the upper income bracket. This contribution examines three

significantly different garden projects in San Francisco. What in a garden project makes it lean

toward the empowerment of a neighborhood’s current residents, or toward their displacement?

Or does this question simply make sense at all? Can urban gardening have any impact whatsoever

on such large-scale socioeconomic phenomena as the city’s changing demographics? Are garden

projects even intended to address gentrification and the changing face of the city? And if so, are

they somehow effective, simply pointless, or can they actually be detrimental and

counterproductive?

INDEX

Keywords: community-building, empowerment, gentrification, resistance, San Francisco, urban

garden projects

AUTHOR

GUILLAUME MARCHE

University Paris-Est Creteil


118

Resisting the Politics ofDisplacement in the San FranciscoBay Area: Anti-gentrificationActivism in the Tech Boom 2.0Florian Opillard

1 Since Neil Smith’s works on the Lower East Side as “New Urban Frontier”1 much has

been said on gentrification processes and their contextual variations. The wide range of

scholars who draw on the concept to refer to processes of social change, displacement,

and dispossession, attests to its gains in legitimacy and applicability far beyond the

American academic field.2 Yet we need to point to the issues which this increased use of

gentrification as a lens for the study of urban processes tends to provoke. As Anne

Clerval puts it, “the voices that defend a ‘positive’ interpretation of gentrification are in

reality contributing to a depoliticization of the analyses of urban transformations, in

favor of an interpretation in moral terms.”3 Is it possible then to remain critical of

gentrification without washing the concept out of its contentious and political content?

How can critical geography produce knowledge that does not end up being

instrumentalized by the institutions it indeed denounces?

2 Along with its extended use, the word “gentrification” has become so related to San

Francisco that it has become rare to read about one without the other: San Francisco is

precisely one of the places that contributed to the spread of gentrification’s scope.

Being one of the most gentrified cities in the United States and the most expensive to

live in right before New York City,4 San Francisco is also well known today for facing a

crisis often named a “tech boom 2.0.” The recent developments, which occurred in the

past three years, mostly concern the structuring of an “anti-displacement movement”

in the city, supposedly driven by an unprecedented surge of capital through the

installation of well paid “tech workers” from the Silicon Valley. The activists who have

already fought the “first tech boom” in the late 1990’s appear today as a structuring

mosaic of individuals, anti-eviction direct action groups, artistic and mapping

collectives, and non-profits slowly building up political power and visibility.


119

3 It is precisely the building of that collective cohesion in the recent San Francisco Anti-

Displacement Coalition (SFADC) that this research seeks to explore, drawing from both

San Francisco’s hyper-gentrification context5 and its boiling political activism milieu.6

It advocates for an analysis of the city’s gentrification processes displacing the

researcher himself or herself from a distant observer to a participant observer, from a

producer of abstract and objective knowledge to a co-producer of situated and

contextual savoir-faire.7 This shift in the researcher’s position as an actor of social

movements allows this analysis to reconstruct the process of gentrification and

resistance to it from a day-to-day perspective. Therefore, gentrification and resistance

are not seen as distinct and isolated social phenomena that develop independently. In

the case of San Francisco, although they are often depicted as the two sides of a Class

War 2.0, they both shape one another through complex relations of power, including

domination, domestication or dissension,8 that materialize in both public spaces and

the public sphere. These relations of power are the battlefields that this study of

resistance to loss and displacement analyzes, concentrating on the recent emergence of

a citywide coalition.9

4 This article first describes the way in which the current entanglement of the city-scale

neoliberal policies and a strong influx of capital from the tech industry is building up

San Francisco’s Tech Boom 2.0. This context is secondly approached through the lens of

ethnographic work among two of the most active and recent activist groups in the

Tenants Movement, from their meetings to their actions in public spaces. Finally, this

article attempts to offer an overview of the movement’s political outcome along with

its scale shift from San Francisco to the Bay Area.

1. Is San Francisco’s Gentrification a Tech Boom 2.0?

5 San Francisco’s social movement has made quite a lot of noise these past months in the

local and national media. The “anti-tech” movement, as many activists and reporters

called it, seems to have gained visibility since activists started blocking Google and

Facebook private shuttles, among others. The debate over the goal of the movement –

to fight the “tech takeover” or to stop displacement – has been focused on the role that

tech corporations play in the city’s hyper gentrification. From this debate emerged the

name of the current phase of gentrification: the Tech Boom 2.0. In this section of the

article, I will first try to contextualize the debate over the role of the tech industry in

the process of gentrification in San Francisco. The first tech boom in the years 2000 will

serve as a precedent for both displacement and the organizing against the tech

industry. I will then draw attention to the differences between these two episodes and

point out the material and symbolic changes that the city is currently experiencing. I

will finally account for the politics that fuel such a process, focusing on the question of

the memory of the displacees.

1.1 A Tech Boom 2.0?

6 In many discussions between activists in meetings, around a coffee or even in the

documents written by their organizations, references to the dot-com boom in the year

2000 are very common. Not only is the dot com boom the last crisis that is still

remembered by the many who were displaced and who fought displacement, but it is


120

also a common reference called upon to measure today’s social crisis in the city. It is

thus very important to understand this first crisis as a measurement standard that

orientates the debates over the magnitude of today’s tech boom. The famous

speculative bubble that grew at the end of the 1990’s fueled much investment in the

Bay Area, and more particularly in the city of San Francisco. At the time, entrepreneurs

and computer software designers rushed to the city with the goal of making easy

money by starting an Internet company. In a city where more than 60% of housing is

renter occupied and where districts like the Mission and Chinatown concentrate low

and very low income populations,10 the sociology of these workers was quite

homogeneous and often differed from that of the people already living in the city:

young white and single entrepreneurs with no children, what the acronym Yuppies, for

young urban professionals, summed-up at the time. According to the activists’

narratives, the anger against the Yuppies grew, as the rush for easy money became a

rush for commercial space. Mostly, this space was found in the South of Market (SOMA)

district and in the Mission District, two of the remaining working-class districts of the

city. Finding space there was accomplished by a phenomenal rise in evictions of Latino

and working-class tenants who did not seem to be as profitable for landlords as the

young entrepreneurs would be. The cohabitation between old and new residents

became harder as spatial proximity highlighted the social, cultural, and economic gap.

Regardless of the actual solidarities within the existing communities, new residents

often saw the possibility of moving into the Mission as both daring and risky as they

confronted the city’s new urban frontier.11 The community’s response to these waves of

evictions is still exemplary today for its strength and visibility. In the Mission, the

building of a strong coalition called the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition is still

taken as an example of vigorous community organizing against gentrification, as it

brought together a wide variety of actors and revealed strong ties between community

organizers, local activists and artists.12

7 What, then, do the dot-com boom and the current tech boom have in common? The

1996 election of Mayor Willie Brown – a powerful businessman and free market

advocate –resonates with the election of Edwin Lee, the current Mayor, often referred

to by local activists as “one of the most pro-tech mayors that the city’s ever had.” The

parallel can also be made for the Board of Supervisors, whose political orientation was

contested in 2000 by the progressive coalition in the ballot. One of the best examples of

the current pro-tech policy of the mayor and Board of Supervisors is, undoubtedly, the

Twitter tax-break approved in 2011. It exempts Twitter from paying about 22 million

dollars payroll tax over six years13 on the condition that the corporation settles its

office space in Mid-Market. As a result, the Mid-Market and the SOMA districts

experienced dramatic changes over the past 3 years. The rapid accumulation of capital

and the installation of a residential economy around new offices forced the already

distressed, existing communities out, along with the rush of engineers brought to the

city center by their company’s private shuttle service.14 Yet, comparable as it may be to

the one in the 2000s, the current social crisis seems to differ widely when it comes to

fighting back. According to a local activist who fought the first boom:

During the first boom, things were pretty clear and straightforward: evictionsintended to find office space for a given startup using the Ellis Act, everything wason the table. Today, we’re not only facing Ellis Act evictions, but the number ofbuyouts and the strategies employed by obscure companies make it way harder tofight back!15


121

8 Resulting from an unprecedented capital influx, the rapid gentrification of the city

seems a lot harder to grasp for activists slowly building power on a local scale: tenants

simply cannot afford the time to mobilize. Another reason is the complexity of the

speculation process itself. The following sections will attempt to deconstruct this

process as well as its political implications.

1.2 The Politics of Displacement, Spatial Reinvention and Forgetting

9 There is a misinterpretation in the way that the media spread the “anti-tech”

discourse. This leads the reader to think that the gentrification process mainly sets its

origins in the rush of tech workers in the city, hence accusing them of displacing “real

San Franciscans” and implying that tech workers do not belong in the category. This

debate misleads us on both the gentrification process and the communication strategy

that the social movement produces. In San Francisco, real estate developers take

advantage of the rent gap that the surge of rich engineers participates in creating,

making a “quick buck”16 out of rent controlled housing. Instated for the apartments

built before 1979, rent control is a non-renewable resource that is often bypassed by

developers through the use of the Ellis Act, a state law that allows the owner of a

building to get out of the rental market, on the condition that they take out all of their

properties of the same building at once. The loophole in the Ellis Act – no justification

is needed to use the Ellis Act – allows corporations to buy entire buildings, Ellis Act all

the tenants, remodel and sell each apartment piece by piece as luxury “condos,” thus

exempting them from rent control. Taking advantage of the legislation, some real

estate developers have made the use of the Ellis Act their business model, entering and

exiting the rental market several times. The case of Elba Borgen, one of what the Anti-

Eviction Mapping Project calls the “dirty speculators” lightens the speculation process

through the use of the Ellis Act (Figure 1). Elba Borgen is accused, by the Anti-Eviction

Mapping Project to have used the Ellis Act 27 times under her name and under the

name of a Real Estate company to evict tenants from apartments she previously bought

since 2001.17


122

Figure 1

“A Revolving Door of Evictions.” The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s visual of Elba Borgen’s itinerary onSan Francisco’s rental market. Source: http://tenantstogether.org/downloads/Ellis%20Act%20Report.pdf

10 “The Speculator Loophole: Ellis Act Evictions in San Francisco,” a report released by the

non-profit Tenants Together and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, stresses that 79%

of the Ellis Act evictions in 2013 concerned properties that were bought 5 years earlier

or less (Figure 2).18


123

http://tenantstogether.org/downloads/Ellis%20Act%20Report.pdf


Figure 2

“Percentage of Ellis Evictions by Ownership Length, 2013” Source: http://tenantstogether.org/downloads/Ellis%20Act%20Report.pdf

11 The analysis of the speculation processes through the Ellis Act, which leads only a small

part of the total number of evictions, is nevertheless only the tip of the iceberg. The

number of owners proposing buyouts to their tenants is both harder to evaluate and

much higher, and that is a notable difference between the years 2000 and today.

Buyouts are said to have skyrocketed since 2006 with the city’s attempt to regulate the

condominium conversions following an Ellis Act. As the Anti-Eviction Mapping puts it:

Since [2006, buyouts] have skyrocketed, with landlords using the threat of an Elliseviction as a club to coerce tenants into taking a buyout. In addition, by threateningand Ellis eviction and bullying the tenant into a buyout, landlords can also avoidthe restrictions on re-rental which are attached to Ellis evictions and re-rent theapartment at a much higher rent.19

12 In this current context, gentrification is harder to objectify and therefore much easier

to depict as immanent to an uncontrollable market economy. On the contrary, and as

Smith puts it, “gentrification is not random; developers do not just plunge into the

heart of slum opportunity, but tend to take it piece by piece.” Smith describes how

these developers have a “vivid block-by-block sense of where the frontier lies,”20

making them well aware strategists for the bleaching of the city. Cleaner and whiter,

cleaner because whiter, whiter therefore cleaner, “bleaching” designates the fact that,

as Nancy Raquel Mirabal puts it referring to Chester Hartman, “urban renewal and the

politics of space are connected to the preservation of whiteness. When it comes to

gentrification, whiteness holds currency. […] In other words, creating spaces where

white bodies and desires and, most importantly, consumption, dominate and shape the

neighborhood.”21 These politics of space are well known in San Francisco as most of the

African American migrants have already been displaced out of the city, and as the

Latino community has been experiencing displacement with much violence since the

1970s. Yet, the process by which space can be made available for consumption by white

bodies is not natural either. Rather, “[f]or the collective memory of space to be


124



reconstituted, there needs to be a mutual forgetting of what came before the

constructions of new buildings, restaurants, and businesses.”22 These politics of

forgetting are systematically accompanied by politics of “spatial reinvention” along

with the promotion of the “new” over existing communities of color. In San Francisco,

the examples of spatial reinvention are very common, from the social cleansing

operation “Clean up the Plaza” in the heart of the Mission23 to the renaming of the

Mission as “The Quad – A Newly Defined Metahood” by a real estate agent.24

1.3 Old and New Landscapes of Power: The Material and Symbolic

Shifts in Gentrifying San Francisco

13 Drawing on Sharon Zukin’s notion of “Landscapes of Power,”25 this part will insist on

the way in which changes affect every dimension of everyday life in a context of hyper

gentrification. The example of the Mission District will be used to analyze the dramatic

changes that illustrate the tensions at play in the city between local cultural capital

(the Latino community), the influx of capital through urban motilities (the surge of

engineers) and global financial capital (real estate speculation strategies). These

elements contribute to shifts that can be witnessed in the landscape which embodies

the struggles over the material and symbolic appropriation and control over space.

14 There is a striking dichotomy in the Mission District that reveals at multiple scales the

progressive shift that the district is experiencing. Walking along Valencia Street, one

can point out the contrasts with Mission Street, the parallel street 50 meters away.

Valencia street is dotted with small vibrant businesses: curiosities shops, minimalist

style coffee shops,26 clothing stores that make holding a PhD a requirement for their

models,27 modern design sound system stores and concept stores. The co-owner of the

said sound system store, a young binational French-US citizen entrepreneur described

his work as “an ephemeral project. I just decided to help a friend rebuild this place for

the store to function. […] I don’t really know what I’ll be doing in 3 months: the

project’s almost over and… you know, you gotta move on.” When asked about the kind

of people who buy devices in the store, he described the clients as “mainly rich locals,

young entrepreneurs that can afford it. Tourists just stop by and take a peak, but that’s

it.”28 In this whole part of the Mission, white bodies are wandering, buying, relaxing or

bicycling. Fifty meters from there, on Mission Street and towards the south of the

Mission, one enters the Latino Mission with its taquerias, its murals glorifying the

community’s struggles for social justice, its Latino community centers, and most

importantly its dwellers’ brown bodies.

15 The making of this socio-spatial fracture happens both in an insidious and a sudden

way that punctuates everyday life. Insidious is the constant condo-conversion process

that is transforming the landscape of Victorian facades into luxury six-story secure

live-work buildings, as well as the progressive rarefaction of warehouses and working

class jobs. Along with this background noise of social shift, the rhythm of the Private

Shuttles, endlessly stopping at public stops or jamming traffic is a constant reminder of

tenants’ evictions in the making.29 Finally, the evictions,30 the controversial killing of

Alex Nieto by the SFPD in Bernal Heights on March 21, 2014,31 the arrest of activists on

the fringes of marches are the sudden cymbal crashes that shake or mobilize both the

activists and their communities. They are pieces that add up to the progressive social

cleansing and criminalization of poverty in the city, of which the current fight over


125

Plaza 16 is the most striking. This Plaza is located in the north of the Mission, at the

intersection of Mission, 16th Street and the BART. It is today subject to a debate over

the campaign to “Clean up the Plaza,” started by a coalition of merchants, business

owners and neighbors fed up with “the blight of this corner,” advocating for a “better

access to safe, clean and walkable transportation corridors.” This group came along

with a ten-story condo development project allowed by the Planning Commission. This

development is seen as a means for the city to support the displacement of poverty

along with its ugliness – i.e. the “junkies, ‘smash and grab’ thieves who prey on parked

cars, prostitutes, the mentally ill, the substance addicted, and assorted other criminals

and lost souls,”32 – which the 24/7 presence of a police car right next to the plaza has

already started doing.

2. From Chats to Discourses, from Meetings toMarches, from Bodies to Performances: Entering theActivism Milieu

16 How can one resist to such a hyper-gentrification context33? The following

developments borrow from fieldwork interviews and participant observation done with

two specific collectives that intend to fight the processes of gentrification: Eviction

Free San Francisco and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. While some of their

members participate in both groups, their functions seem distinct but complementary

and coherent with the structuring of a growing Tenants Movement.

2.1 Two Cases of Group Styles

17 The study of activism in the context of neoliberal urban policies appears key to

understanding the frames of a social movement in the making. One of these frames –

the definition, function and actions of the groups in which activism is shaped – can be

investigated through the lens of “group styles.” As defined by Nina Eliasoph and Paul

Lichterman, group styles are “recurrent patterns of interaction that arise from a

group’s shared assumptions about what constitutes good or adequate participation in

the group setting,”34 they participate in shaping individual activist trajectories, they

ground the Tenants Movement in the day to day embededness of capitalist patterns of

domination.

18 Eviction Free San Francisco (EFSF) is a mutual help and direct action group that seeks

to “hold accountable and to confront real estate speculators and landlords that are

displacing our communities for profit.”35 The meetings usually gather twenty to thirty

people. The backbone of the group is composed of five people, who created the

collective in the summer of 2013; they prepare the meeting agendas, take stacks36 in

meetings and debate on the propositions to submit to a vote. Most of them have known

each other for some time now and participate in several activist collectives and

projects. Some of them are professional organizers (e.g. working for the Housing Rights

Committee) while others are participating as volunteers. Many of them are tenants

fighting their own eviction or having fought it in the past and who are willing to give

back. The collective is open to anyone who wants to participate, and everyone

attending the meeting gets to vote on the propositions made, with the condition that


126

the discussions occurring during the meeting cannot be made public. Journalists are

therefore kindly asked to manifest themselves and leave.

19 At the beginning of each meeting, the facilitator enunciates the “meeting culture

(ground rules),” which everyone is invited to follow (Figure 3).

Figure 3

Eviction Free San Francisco’s meeting Ground Rules and Meeting Culture, April 2014. Credits: FlorianOpillard.

20 These rules specifically show the group’s preoccupation with the reproduction of

society’s intersectional structures of domination (race, sex, and class) within the group.

They invite structurally dominated and silent minorities to step up. The willingness to

challenge structures of domination within the group itself makes it necessary to clearly

define the meeting agenda, the time devoted to each item and to take stacks. Such a

structure creates a safe and designated space for structurally oppressed and silenced

minorities to take up their own right to speech. It is not rare to witness harassed

tenants both describe the symbolic violence which they face every day and express

their gratitude towards the group. Unlike Eliasoph and Lichterman, who point to the

existence of “Language of Expressive Individualism” and “Active Disaffiliation” in civic

groups,37 I argue that the EFSF is best characterized by the language of individual

restraint and group celebration, along with a discrete but active affiliation. In each

meeting, group celebration is expressed on two occasions: at the beginning of each

meeting when the group comments on the past actions, and at the end of the meeting,

when each participant gets to express their own feelings about the group. For that

matter, while this moment could be the peak of individual expression, people tend to

shirk their own interest and declare their willingness to help for the benefit of the

group.


127

21 The second group that this research focuses on differs in its organization and its aims.

The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AMP) is a “data-visualization, data analysis, and

digital storytelling collective documenting the dispossession of San Francisco Bay Area

residents. The project seeks to de-isolate those displaced and act as a tool for collective

resistance.”38

22 The collective rarely gathers all of its members in one place. It is composed of

approximately sixty people in total, many of whom occasionally give a hand, grant an

interview, help encoding or organizing the collected data. The bonds between the

participants are therefore difficult to capture, and often maintain blurry as a strategy.

The group and its activities revolve largely around its main figure, Erin McElroy, an

experienced activist close to the anarchist circles who dedicates her time and energy to

the cohesion of the collective’s branches and communication with universities,39 city

institutions or the press. The division of labor is, therefore, fairly easy to read: while

“the tech guys” encode the website or make the maps at the SudoRoom40 in Oakland,

another group generally meets in the Tenants Union’s building to discuss ongoing

projects. While the EFSF is composed of many tenants with low economic capital, the

AMP comprises mostly highly educated and politicized young activists, all of them

aware of both the part they play in the gentrification process and the ways to fight it.

23 Unlike the EFSF, the meeting culture in the AMP is not stated at the beginning of each

meeting. Once again, it is very rare to witness people putting their individual interests

before the ones of the group: people are invited to propose their skills to the group, be

it encoding, networking, mapping, distributing surveys. Yet, “negative experiences”41

are not unheard of: during a meeting, a 45-year-old white man who expected to be

given some interesting work to do as a cameraman explained: “I just want to say right

away that I feel like this project is not going the way I think would be profitable for me,

because some people are calling dibs. I don’t want to have to deal with the leftovers.”

By expressing his frustration, this person put himself before the group and felt the

pressure of the others, all agreeing on the fact that both the primary frame (conducting

a meeting) and the secondary frame (building political tools and raising awareness)

were broken: this “white privileged male who has a high idea of himself and of his

work,” as described by a member of the meeting, interrupted it by transgressing the

speech norms.

2.2. Repertories of Contention

24 Along with the analysis of group styles, the analysis of the repertories of contention42 of

the two organizations reveals the groups’ complementarity: while the AMP blows the

whistle on “dirty landlords and serial evictors,” the EFSF focuses on their direct

targeting and “public shaming.” The circulations of activists in both groups and their

close relationships might explain their working together. Yet, it seems that, although

six people are consistently participating in the work of both collectives, they belong to

distinct activism patterns and traditions.

25 As a direct action group, the EFSF exemplifies anti-capitalistic community activism,

which is deeply rooted in the city’s political history since the 1950s.43 Rebecca

Gourevitch, an activist working for the Tenants Union and the EFSF, explained the

influence of the Occupy movement, from which many of the current collectives in the

Bay Area derive. The EFSF “first meetings started just like Occupy,” in 2013, as the Anti-


128

Displacement Coalition fought the eviction of Mrs. Lee’s family a 74-year-old Chinese-

speaking lady, who became the very icon of the movement.44 The fight over cases of

evictions mostly revolves around three modes of action: protesting in public spaces,

rallying, and publicly denouncing “greedy” landlords and speculators. Protesting is

probably the most common and the least specific action that the EFSF implements. The

group holds several meetings prior to the protest in the Tenants Union’s house on Capp

Street, setting date and time, banners and signs, itinerary and speakers. The march

organized on April 12, 2014, “To End Displacement of San Francisco’s Educators”45 is a

great example of the logistics of such a protest. Noting that more and more teachers

were coming to the group to report their own eviction, the group decided to combine a

Google Bus blockade with a march making several stops to highlight cases of eviction in

the Mission. In this case, the activists employed spatial strategies to direct the media

attention to the bus blockade and the march. The discussions in the preparation

meetings insisted on space as both a frame and a strategic tool for the activists to

master: the knowledge of the streets, the limitation of their visibility prior to the

blockade and the necessary occupation of space with enough bodies to block the street

revealed a necessary control over public space. Along with protests, the EFSF’s more

specific mode of action consists in launching campaigns to publicly discredit “greedy

landlords” responsible for the eviction of tenants by giving out their names, addresses,

phone and fax numbers, and encouraging activists to drive out to their home and talk

them out of evicting. This mode of action is often considered radical by the local media,

since the publication of names and addresses points fingers at individuals who are not

considered responsible for their company’s policies.

26 Despite its actions, the group has not so far dealt with significant police pressure,46

although the protests in public spaces are never made official. Rather, the itineraries

are often negotiated on site with police officers in charge, making it possible for the 300

people to protest and block the streets.

27 The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s modes of action correspond to the pattern of tech

activism, specific to the Bay Area, and most of its activities are implemented by the

activist milieu of the East Bay. Using technology as a tool to implement and empower

community activism, the group makes maps, using both their own collected data and

the available data on evictions and housing ownership. The first and most visible

project that the group implemented was the No-Fault Evictions and the Ellis Act

Evictions Maps.47 Erin McElroy insists on the use of maps as tools to “show a chronology

and an accumulation of evictions [,] to be able to say: ‘what does this represent over

time in terms of the destruction of our neighborhood.’”48 In fact, the two maps below

have had a great resonance in the Tenants Movement. They identify areas that are

being struck the most by the displacement of tenants (Figure 4).


129

Figure 4

San Francisco Ellis Act Evictions map by the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project. Source: http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/ellis.html.

28 Along with the mapping, the group investigates landlords who “make evictions their

business models,” as claimed repeatedly during the protests. The group has edited

three main lists of “dirty landlords”: the Dirty Dozen – Worst Evictors, Dirty Thirty –

Evicting the Disabled and Elderly and the Dirty 2.0 – Tech Evictors. These lists mobilize

the volunteers to research the practices of landlords and companies that evict for

profit, collecting personal and professional information and spreading their photos in

the media. Giving a face to the processes of evictions – a tactic shared by the EFSF –

contributes to deconstructing the anonymity of the state and corporate apparatuses,

which dissolve and fragment political responsibility. Lastly, the group distributed more

than two hundred surveys to get in touch with displaced tenants and build the Oral

History Project. Those who were willing to go further were contacted to tell more about

their eviction and be recorded. Prior to the interviews, the volunteers in the group

attended a workshop on oral history held by an activist and trained oral historian from

the CUNY Graduate Center. The “Narratives of Displacement and Loss” map collects

and geolocalizes oral stories of evictions; it aims to grasp the emotional and memorial

thickness of space and place,49 and to fight the politics of renaming evoked earlier.50

29 Both collectives appear as two components that bring their own activist culture and

their group style to the growing San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition. They bring

small victories and participate in building a common political discourse over spatially

fragmented fights. In the last section of this article, the analysis of the structuring of

this coalition will lead to a scale shift from San Francisco to the Bay Area.


130

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/ellis.html

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/ellis.html

3. Political Outcome of a Growing Political Coalition

30 In what ways can the above description of two of the most recent and dynamic groups

of the forming coalition shed light on both the recent turns in the gentrification

processes and the local communities’ responses? According to Rachel Brahinsky, “The

“Google bus,” which is what people in the Bay Area call the mass of private, tech

commuter buses that fill the rush-hour streets, is not essentially the problem. In fact, it

may be the seed of the solution.”51 Precisely because it is provocative, Brahinsky’s

assertion might be the key to an analysis of the current situation: the community

response to the political, material and symbolic processes of dispossession that tenants

are facing, despite its micro-scale fights, has gained significant power and coverage in

the latest months.

3.1 The Building of the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition

31 On February 7, 2014, after a series of Neighborhood Tenants Conventions, the

Tenderloin Community School hosted the biggest Citywide Tenants Convention that

the city had seen in years. Many important figures of the now official “Tenants

Movement” spoke on the microphone, some of them obviously at ease in front of such a

big audience, like Erin McElroy, or Ted Gullicksen, director of the Tenants Union. After

some organizers spoke about the importance of continuing the fight to stay in their

homes, came Mrs. Lee’s time to speak, who claimed that she would not go away and

would rather be taken out of her home by the sheriff in person. Six of the eleven city

supervisors were present: Calvin Welsh, a famous figure of the tenants’ fights since the

70’s; Randy Shaw, the director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic; and other political

figures and journalists, including a French and a British team. The outcomes of this

convention were discussed through the vote on the propositions that the Anti-

Displacement Coalition could pass on to the Board of Supervisors. One of them, called

the Real Estate Sales Tax, was likely to gain support among the activists in the

forthcoming months, “and if the board doesn’t vote it, then we’ll pass it through the

ballot in November!” said Sara Shorts, the executive director of the Housing Rights

Committee. This convention appears to have laid the first stone of a complex and

hierarchized structure, the San Francisco Anti-Displacement Coalition, which gathered

tenants on many occasions: it rallied to Sacramento to push Mark Leno’s bill in State

Assembly (February 18), pushed David Campos’ Relocation Bill for victims of the Ellis

Act (March 17), marched to denounce the police murder of Alex Nieto in Bernal Heights

(March 29), or marched in the Mission to fight Benito Santiago’s eviction (April 2nd).

This coalition, although it benefits from the experience accumulated by both the

organizing and the activism milieu, is not per se a territorial organization. It is rather

composed of distinct groups which converged in the political fight for Proposition G

(real estate sales tax) in the ballot initiative, and which are planning to do so on

November 2015’s ballot.

32 The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and Eviction Free San Francisco are a part of this

coalition; both are based in the Mission district, where the fight against loss and

displacement is historically strong. The Tenants Union, whose famous fighter for

tenants rights and former Director Ted Gullicksen passed away in November 2014, acts

as one of the main territorial resources of many gravitating groups: it offers a


131

workspace, material and technical support (mainly to the EFSF and the AMP) in the

Mission district, legal resources by editing the Tenants Handbook and volunteer

tenants counseling. The Housing Rights Committee, another “housing clinic,” provides

space for direct action meetings, sign making and tenants’ legal support, backs the

Tenants Union in its missions. More than that, these two organizations appear as a

crucible for young housing activists and organizers who learn from years of fighting

experience and political fights by gravitating in these sociability circles. Other

organizations like Our Mission No Eviction and Causa Justa: Just Cause handle work that

is more specifically directed towards and led by black and Latino residents, while the

Chinatown Community Development Corporation actively supports the Chinese

community. Before the campaign for Proposition G on the Ballot, the coalition rarely

appeared as a united front on punctual marches or rallies. Rather, each organization

would individually take on their own part and coordinate with each other, making the

coalition a communicational and juridical entity heading the fight in City Hall and on

the Board of Supervisors.

3.2 From Public Spaces to the Public Sphere: Debates in the Media

through the Political Agenda

33 The tenants’ fight in City Hall, on the Board of Supervisors and in the streets is

precisely what has been drawing so much media and political attention in the past

year. Starting with the Occupy movement in 2011, from which many of today’s activist

sociability networks emanate, the fight over loss and displacement continually grew as

both the number of evictions, buyouts and tenant harassment cases exploded, and as

the tech shuttles became a crystallizing fight. The first bus blockades in November

2013, organized by Heart of the City Collective, rapidly spread the word of

transnational corporations such as Google or Facebook targeting the Bay Area. They

also contributed to the construction of an “anti-tech” discourse along with the

spreading of the icon of the “techie,” an image of the self-centered libertarian tech

employee making the Bay Area their playground. This term has nevertheless been

challenged for its lack of complexity, a reproach some of the members of the movement

have acknowledged by participating in encounters52 between employees of tech

companies and the main organizations described here. These encounters were at first

rarely mentioned in the media,53 since the need for a loud and clear political message

fuels the construction of reified categories. It is only after some of leading activists

started publishing pieces in the media that the discourse started to complexify,54 and,

along with it, the political fights at the city and state level.

34 In San Francisco, David Campos, supervisor of the Mission district, is at the front of the

fight for tenants’ rights. Through the support of Tenants Organizations, he introduced

a bill at the Board of Supervisors in April 2014 that proposed to increase the relocation

fee for any tenant evicted through the use of the Ellis Act. The board voted on this

proposition after Scott Weiner, supervisor of the Castro, insisted on making sure that

the fee would not have a dissuasive effect on what he called “mom and pop” landlords.

In fact, this measure is meant to help tenants who are being evicted with a short-term

notice face the cost of eviction, although Campos clearly states that Limited Liability

Corporations which use the Ellis Act as a tool for speculation would not have a hard

time bypassing the measure.


132

35 The November 2014’s Ballot Initiative is another example of the political outcome of

the SFADC’s organizing. Proposition G emerged after a series of Tenants Conventions

held in 2014. This proposition intended to dissuade speculators from flipping

properties by taxing the profits of each real estate sale,55 a measure that Harvey Milk

had already introduced in 1978. Although the proposition was defeated in the Ballot

(No: 53.91% ; Yes: 46.09%), a much bigger fight the fight over proposition G gave a clear

image of the political forces battling over San Francisco’s housing crisis as it

crystallized progressive forces in the city. Maria Zamudio, organizer at Causa Justa: Just

Cause and strong advocate for Proposition G, states that “While it did not win this year,

Prop G was a part of a larger progressive narrative that did win.”56 This movement may

actually have achieved more than simply the creation of a progressive narrative, or

maybe the narrative itself has material effects that activists are currently witnessing.

Gen Fujioka, in the online journal 48Hills, released on January 5, 2015, provides an

analysis 57 of the Ellis Act evictions showing that while the number of evictions had

been increasing dramatically from 2010 to 2013, the number of units withdrawn from

the rental marked through the use of the Ellis Act significantly slowed down during the

last months of 2014 (Figures 5 and 6).

Figure 5

Annual rate of rental units officially withdrawn under Ellis Act – 2010-2013. Source: http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/04/facing-eviction-threat-tenants-push-back-slow-ellis-evictions-2014/


133

http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/04/facing-eviction-threat-tenants-push-back-slow-ellis-evictions-2014/


Figure 6

Annual rate of rental units officially withdrawn under Ellis Act – 2013-14. Source: http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/04/facing-eviction-threat-tenants-push-back-slow-ellis-evictions-2014/

3.3 From San Francisco to the Bay Area

36 The fight against the Ellis Act, and more generally against displacement in San

Francisco, is nevertheless not limited to the city itself, and through the year 2014, a

series of political fights crystallized progressive forces and indicated a scale shift in

their organizing from the city of San Francisco to the Bay Area and the State of

California. Two of the fights that put San Francisco on the state scene are the fight over

California’s seventeenth state assembly district and Mark Leno’s bill to reform the Ellis

Act in State assembly. Although both fights ended up as defeats for progressives, they

both indicate the importance of the recent organizing and activism pushed by what

James Tracy called “organizations […] that resuscitated the art of disruptive action in

confronting displacement,”58 among which are the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project and

Eviction Free San Francisco. In the fight over a State Assembly’s seat, another democrat

joined David Campos in the race: David Chiu, President of the Board of Supervisors.

Whereas David Campos was largely supported by labor organizations (second source of

donations after small Real Estate developers), the AMP has shown that David Chiu

received 26% of his donations from “large Real Estate developers” and “problematic

donors”59 and raised twice as much in campaign donations. The fight was, therefore,

presented as the one of David against Goliath. The maps drawn by Professor Corey Cook

from the University of San Francisco60 reveal the territorial dimension of the vote

(Figures 7 and 8):


134



Figure 7

June 2014 Primary Election map – David Campos

Figure 8

June 2014 Primary Election map – David Chiu


135

37 Along with the clear orientation of the endorsers, the geography of the vote reveals

that the stakes of this battle over State Senate are clearly marked between real estate

developers in downtown San Francisco and the housing advocates voters in the

Mission, the Haight and the Tenderloin. The same goes for the fight in the State Senate

for Mark Leno’s Bill that intended to allow the city of San Francisco to locally reform

the Ellis Act, making it impossible for landlords to evict tenants through the use of the

Ellis Act in the 5 years following the purchase of a given property. An important local

campaign allowed Mark Leno’s bill to go to the State Senate, mobilizing many

organizing and activist groups, along with statewide organizations such as Tenants

Together or the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE). One of

the big points of this campaign was certainly the Renters day of Action on February 19,

2014, a rally that brought more than 500 tenants to State Capitol in Sacramento,

including renters from “Merced, Fresno, Sacramento, Concord and Oakland.”61

Although this piece of legislation concerned San Francisco, the regional aspect of this

fight confirmed San Francisco as the political showcase for progressive politics. It

seems clear that housing issues in San Francisco cannot be limited to the city itself.

Rather, as Brahinsky puts it, “We need to stop talking about San Francisco and start

talking about the San Francisco Bay Region.”

38 To start talking about the San Francisco Bay Region implies a major change in the

analysis of embedded patterns of racial and class segregation, “This means that […] the

region needs to be respected. Oakland is not a playground, a new frontier, or a place of

last resort; it is a place with a history and a present.”62 As a matter of fact, this scale

shift can already be observed in local activism. For example, Causa Justa: Just Cause is

an influent non-profit which focuses specifically on the racial processes at stake in

gentrification, while its members are for the most part Latino or black. Its actions

mostly take place in Oakland, where the fight over racial and class discrimination is

strong in the context of the emergence of Oakland as the new frontier for gentrified

San Franciscans. In terms of organizing, a growing part of the work is now being done

outside of San Francisco, and the relocation of 2014 and 2015’s Anarchist Book Fairs at

the Crucible in Oakland where a panel on gentrification reunited activists from the

whole urban region, or the creation of an activist group called Defend the Bay Area in

March 2014, including activists mostly from Oakland and San Francisco, prove that

social scientists are missing the reality of gentrification, displacement and the

resistance to it by only focusing on San Francisco. That weakness is common and

simple to enunciate: research on gentrification generally deals with urban change

rather than with the displacees, urban policy rather than the process of displacement,

gentrified areas (San Francisco) rather than the displaced people. Thus, those who are

pushed out disappear from the social landscape; they simply do not fit in the new

symbolic and political landscapes of power that replace them. Social science research

does play a role in this odd silence: many researchers, usually white and middle-class,

feel much more comfortable dealing with, for example, young white middle class

couples than with the recently arrived illegal immigrants who barely speak the

language.


136

Conclusion

39 In the past year, activism in San Francisco has proved particularly dynamic. Private

Shuttle blockades, street protests or strong pieces of legislation passed by the Board of

Supervisors evoked some of the most active years of city scale coalitions like the

Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition in the years 2000. The “techies” seem to have

replaced the “yuppies,” the dot-com 2.0 replaced the first wave of gentrification.

Nevertheless, the ethnographic lens advocates for a more complex and detailed

analysis of the construction of these artificial categories. A closer look at the two

collectives, which highly contributed to the surge of media attention, allows us to

better situate both historically and geographically this moment as the yet un-

institutionalized response to almost entirely institutionalized speculation practices on

housing. Focusing on these groups provides a better understanding of how the activism

context not only disrupts tech buses from working, it also contributes to the design of

legislation within the realm of political opportunities that, despite being rejected by a

majority of the 200,000 voters, compose strong moments of cohesion and construction

of local and statewide progressive politics.

NOTES

1. Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (New York: Routledge,

1996), 288. In his book, Neil Smith describes the way in which Manhattan’s Lower East Side is

being fought over and seen by real estate developers as an urban territory to take back from the

working class. In these struggles over land occupation, the image of the “frontier” is often

conveyed, making the Lower East Side the new frontier to be conquered and civilized.

2. Loretta Lees, Tom Slater and Elvin Wyly, The Gentrification Reader, (New York: Routledge, 2010),

648; Anne Clerval, “La gentrification à Paris intra muros: dynamiques spatiales, rapports sociaux et

politiques publiques, Thèse de doctorat (Université Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne, 2008), 602.

3. Anne Clerval, “‘Gentrification or Ghetto’: Making Sense of an Intellectual Impasse,”

Métropolitiques, 29/01/2015, http://www.metropolitiques.eu/Gentrification-or-ghetto-

making.html.

4. Tracy Elsen, Tuesday, “For the Fourth Month Straight, SF's Median Rent Tops NY's”, Curbed

San Francisco, last modified December 2, 2014, http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2014/12/02/

for_the_fourth_month_straight_sfs_median_rent_tops_nys.php.

5. Loretta Lees defined super-gentrification in the Journal of Urban Studies in 2003 as the

“transformation of already gentrified, prosperous and solidly upper-middle-class neighborhoods

into much more exclusive and expensive enclaves,” For more see Lees, “Super-gentrification: The

Case of Brooklyn Heights, New York City,” Urban Studies 40, no. 12 (November 2003): 2487-2509.

Hyper-gentrification is a term used to describe the wide-spread gentrification of already

gentrified urban areas as an equivalent to Neil Smith’s “gentrification generalized” or “third-

wave gentrification.” The blog Vanishing New York published an article describing this process:

Jeremiah Moss, “On Spike Lee & Hyper-Gentrification, the Monster that Ate New York,” Jeremiah’s

Vanishing New York, 3 March 2014.


137

http://www.metropolitiques.eu/Gentrification-or-ghetto-making.html.

http://www.metropolitiques.eu/Gentrification-or-ghetto-making.html.

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2014/12/02/for_the_fourth_month_straight_sfs_median_rent_tops_nys.php.

http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2014/12/02/for_the_fourth_month_straight_sfs_median_rent_tops_nys.php.

6. Setting its reality into published words may appear as a form of betrayal of the constantly

evolving, multi-layered and not yet enfolded reality of what a social movement can be. This

paper is not to be understood as a rigid analysis of what this mobilization is, but rather as a

contextual description of its structuration process.

7. Michael Burawoy, “The Extended Case Method,” Sociological Theory 16, no.1 (March 1998): 4-33.

8. Catherine Neveu, “Démocratie participative et mouvements sociaux : entre domestication et

ensauvagement?,” Participations, De Boeck Supérieur, no.1 (2011/1): 186-209.

9. This article borrows from the author’s PhD in the making: “A Comparative Ethnography of

Anti-gentrification Activism in Two Neoliberal Urban Contexts (San Francisco, United-States –

Valparaíso, Chile),” School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, 2013-2016, Paris.

10. The city of San Francisco started releasing in 2009 data through the Housing Elements,

revealing that in districts like the Mission in 2014, 80% of the inhabitants were renters, while the

average rent for a two bedroom apartment was approximately four times higher than what a

very low income (VLI) family makes per month. Very Low Income families make between 0 to

50% of the Area Median Income, whereas Low Income Families make 51 to 80% of the Area

Median Income. Housing Elements can be found here: http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?

page=3899, last accessed June 8, 2015.

11. Smith, The New Urban Frontier,288.

12. Karl Beitel, Local Protest, Global Movements: Capital, Community, and State in San Francisco

(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2013), 220.

13. See the tax-break by the numbers at Eve Batey in News on Jun 24, 2014 (10:53 am), “San

Francisco's Mid-Market Tax Break By The Numbers,” Sfist, http://sfist.com/2014/06/24/

san_franciscos_mid-market_tax_break.php.

14. The debate over the political decision regarding the Private Shuttle Program would also

exemplify the power of the tech industry over local politics. More about this debate in this

article: Tim Redmond, “Investigation: SF gave the Google buses a “handshake” pass for years.

Now will the violators finally get tickets?,” 48hillsonline, last modified February 20, 2014, http://

48hillsonline.org/2014/02/20/investigation-sf-gave-the-google-buses-a-handshake-pass-for-

years-now-will-the-violators-finally-get-tickets/, and in this one: Joshua Sabatini, “Emails show

‘handshake agreement’ for tech buses using SF transit stops,” The Examiner, last modified

February 25, 2014, http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/emails-show-handshake-

agreement-for-tech-buses-using-sf-transit-stops/Content?oid=2715002.

15. Anti-eviction Mapping Project’s meeting, San Francisco Tenants Union, February 2014.

16. Description of the group Eviction Free San Francisco on their Facebook page: https://

www.facebook.com/EvictionFreeSummer/info?tab=page_info.

17. Ellis Act Report by the San Francisco Tenants Union. http://tenantstogether.org/downloads/

Ellis%20Act%20Report.pdf.

18. Ellis Act Report.

19. See also the map that accompanies this explanation at http://

www.antievictionmappingproject.net/buyouts.html.

20. Smith, The New Urban Frontier, 23.

21. Nancy Raquel Mirabal, “Geographies of Displacement: Latina/os, Oral History, and the

Politics of Gentrification in San Francisco’s Mission District,” The Public Historian 31, no.2 (May

2009): 7-31.

22. Ibid.,17.

23. See the Internet website: http://cleanuptheplaza.com/, accessed June 8, 2015.

24. See Jennifer Rosdail’s website for a description of the “quadsters” at Jennifer Rosdail, “The

quad – A Newly Defined Metahood”, accessed June 8, 2015 http://jenniferrosdail.com/the-quad-

is-born/.


138

http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=3899,

http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?page=3899,

http://sfist.com/2014/06/24/san_franciscos_mid-market_tax_break.php.

http://sfist.com/2014/06/24/san_franciscos_mid-market_tax_break.php.

http://48hillsonline.org/2014/02/20/investigation-sf-gave-the-google-buses-a-handshake-pass-for-years-now-will-the-violators-finally-get-tickets/,



http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/emails-show-handshake-agreement-for-tech-buses-using-sf-transit-stops/Content?oid=2715002.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/emails-show-handshake-agreement-for-tech-buses-using-sf-transit-stops/Content?oid=2715002.

http://www.facebook.com/EvictionFreeSummer/info?tab=page_info.

http://tenantstogether.org/downloads/Ellis%20Act%20Report.pdf.

http://tenantstogether.org/downloads/Ellis%20Act%20Report.pdf.

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/buyouts.html.

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/buyouts.html.

http://cleanuptheplaza.com/,

http://jenniferrosdail.com/the-quad-is-born/.

http://jenniferrosdail.com/the-quad-is-born/.

25. Sharon Zukin, Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World (Oakland: University of

California Press, 1993), 338.

26. The coffee shop Four Barrel is one of the only coffee shops to benefit from so much space

facing its front door, allowing it to have seats and bike racks on the sidewalk. You do not need to

be a consumer to sit. In other words, everyone can theoretically wander in front of it.

Paradoxically enough, the mostly black population living in the projects facing Four Barrel does

not wander; they generally do not even walk on the same side of the street.

27. Betabrand, on 780 Valencia Street: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/03/

san-francisco-clothing-retailer-betabrand-makes.html.

28. Interview, Valencia Street, February 21, 2014.

29. A Berkeley study by Alexandra Goldman analyses that rents have gone up 20% around bus

stops: Alexandra Goldman, The “Google-Shuttle Effect”: Gentrification and San Francisco’s Dot Com

Boom 2.0, Professional Report, Master of City Planning (Berkeley: University of California, Spring

2014). The Anti-eviction Mapping Project has revealed that evictions have risen by 69% within

four blocks of the bus stops between 2011 and 2013: http://

www.antievictionmappingproject.net/techbusevictions.html.

30. To carry the metaphor further, see the movie Boom, the Sound of Evictions, available online at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=9FfOHVu_noY&list=PLOEIqpRJkeOB5EPygX6Y6d5z_Cx11RkUq, last accessed June 8, 2015.

31. This website gathers information about Alex Nieto’s murder: http://justice4alexnieto.org/,

last accessed June 8, 2015.

32. Julia Carrie Wong, “The Battle of 16th and Mission: Inside the Campaign to “Clean up” the

Plaza and Build Luxury Housing,” 48hillsonline, last modified March 18, 2014, http://

48hillsonline.org/2014/03/18/battle-16th-mission-inside-campaign-clean-plaza-build-luxury-

housing/.

33. Lees, Slater, and Wyly, Gentrification,344.

34. Nina Eliasoph and Paul Lichterman, “Culture in Interaction,” American Journal of Sociology 18,

no. 4 (2003): 735-794.

35. See the group’s website: https://evictionfreesf.org/?page_id=5, last accessed June 8, 2015.

36. This expression is used in meetings to designate the list of speakers created to facilitate the

meeting. See “Taking Stacks (Meeting Facilitation Technique),” Cultivate.coop, last accessed June

8, 2015, http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Taking_Stack_%28Meeting_Facilitation_Technique%29.

37. Eliasoph and Lichterman, “Culture in Interaction,” 735.

38. See the group’s website: https://antievictionmap.squarespace.com/about/, last accessed

June 8, 2015.

39. Stanford students made a San Francisco Eviction Story Map with the collaboration of Erin

McElroy: http://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/?appid=0c0a337c534146c2bf6f2fab1932eaef, last

accessed June 8, 2015.

40. This group defines itself as an “open membership hackerspace. . . . interested in and working

toward positive social change.” See their website: https://sudoroom.org/wiki/Welcome, last


41. Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York: Harper

and Row, 1974), 586.

42. Tilly’s “repertoires of contention” refer to a set of contextual tools that groups and

individuals use within social movements. Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York:

Addison-Wesley, 1978), 349.

43. Beitel, Local Protest,220.

44. Interview with Rebecca Gourevitch, March 22, 2014.

45. For a complete description of the event, see the group’s website: https://evictionfreesf.org/?

p=1531, last accessed June 8, 2015.


139

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/03/san-francisco-clothing-retailer-betabrand-makes.html.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/03/san-francisco-clothing-retailer-betabrand-makes.html.

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/techbusevictions.html.

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/techbusevictions.html.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FfOHVu_noY&list=PLOEIqpRJkeOB5EPygX6Y6d5z_Cx11RkUq,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FfOHVu_noY&list=PLOEIqpRJkeOB5EPygX6Y6d5z_Cx11RkUq,

http://justice4alexnieto.org/,

http://48hillsonline.org/2014/03/18/battle-16th-mission-inside-campaign-clean-plaza-build-luxury-housing/.



http://cultivate.coop/wiki/Taking_Stack_%28Meeting_Facilitation_Technique%29.

http://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/?appid=0c0a337c534146c2bf6f2fab1932eaef,

46. Although a significant increase in police presence was felt during the march after the police

murder of Alex Nieto, on March 21, 2014.

47. All the maps referred to are available on their website, at https://

antievictionmap.squarespace.com/.

48. Interview with Erin McElroy, February 18, 2014.

49. Yi-Fu Tuan, “The City and Human Speech,” Geographical Review 84, no. 2 (Apr.1994): 144-151.

50. The interactive map was released in May, 2015, http://

www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html, last accessed June 8, 2015.

51. Rachel Brahinsky, “The Death of the City? Reports of San Francisco’s Demise Have Been

Greatly Exaggerated,” Boom: A Journal of California 4, no. 2, Issue title: “San Francisco Matters”

(Summer 2014): 43.

52. A description of one of them can be found in SF Gate’s report: http://www.sfgate.com/

technology/article/Tech-workers-housing-activists-clash-at-happy-5270076.php.

53. Reports are often twisted and focus on the issues rather than the bridges that already exist

between the tech world and activism in San Francisco: Ellen Huet, “S.F. Tech Workers, Housing

Activists Clash at Happy Hour,” SF Gate, Updated 8:45 pm, Wednesday, February 26, 2014, http://

www.huffingtonpost.com/rolla-selbak/sf-tech-worker-and-an-act_b_4870767.html.

54. See Erin McElroy’s publications: Erin McElroy and Kelsey Gilmore Innis, “Tech Workers and

the Eviction Crisis,” Model View Culture, last modified February 25, 2014, https://

modelviewculture.com/pieces/tech-workers-and-the-eviction-crisis and Jim Edwards, “Meet the

Woman at the Heart of San Francisco's Anti-tech Gentrification Protests,” Business Insider, last

modified May 25, 2014, http://www.businessinsider.com/erin-mcelroy-and-san-francisco-anti-

tech-gentrification-protests-2014-5?IR=T. For a straightforward deconstruction of the anti-tech

dimension of this movement, read Erin McElroy and Tim Redmond, “There Was Never an Anti-

tech Movement in SF,” 48hillsonline, last modified February 17, 2014, http://48hillsonline.org/

2015/02/17/never-anti-tech-movement-sf/.

55. See description of the proposition here: http://ballotpedia.org/

City_of_San_Francisco_Transfer_Tax_on_Residential_Property_Re-

Sold_in_Five_Years,_Proposition_G_%28November_2014%29, last accessed June 8, 2015

56. Gen Fujioka, “Who Really Won the SF Election?” 48hillsonline, last modifiedNovember 11,

2014, http://48hillsonline.org/2014/11/11/real-winners-losers-nov-4-election/.

57. Gen Fujioka, “Facing the Eviction Threat: Tenants Push Back and Slow Ellis Evictions in

2014,” 48hillsonline, last modified January 4, 2015, http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/04/facing-

eviction-threat-tenants-push-back-slow-ellis-evictions-2014/.

58. James Tracy, Dispatches against Displacement: Field Notes from San Francisco’s Housing Wars

(Oakland: AK Press, 2014), 150.

59. Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s website, http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/

chiu.html, last accessed June 8, 2015.

60. See Professor Corey Cook’s Twitter account: https://twitter.com/CoreyCookUSF/media, last


61. Randy Shaw, “Rally at State Capitol Ignites Ellis Act Teform,” Beyond Chronicle, last modified

February 19, 2015, http://www.beyondchron.org/rally-at-state-capitol-ignites-ellis-act-reform/.

62. Brahinsky, “The Death of the City?,” 50.


140

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html,

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html,

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Tech-workers-housing-activists-clash-at-happy-5270076.php.

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Tech-workers-housing-activists-clash-at-happy-5270076.php.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rolla-selbak/sf-tech-worker-and-an-act_b_4870767.html.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rolla-selbak/sf-tech-worker-and-an-act_b_4870767.html.

http://www.businessinsider.com/erin-mcelroy-and-san-francisco-anti-tech-gentrification-protests-2014-5?IR=T.

http://www.businessinsider.com/erin-mcelroy-and-san-francisco-anti-tech-gentrification-protests-2014-5?IR=T.

http://48hillsonline.org/2015/02/17/never-anti-tech-movement-sf/.

http://48hillsonline.org/2015/02/17/never-anti-tech-movement-sf/.

http://ballotpedia.org/City_of_San_Francisco_Transfer_Tax_on_Residential_Property_Re-Sold_in_Five_Years,_Proposition_G_%28November_2014%29,



http://48hillsonline.org/2014/11/11/real-winners-losers-nov-4-election/.

http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/04/facing-eviction-threat-tenants-push-back-slow-ellis-evictions-2014/.

http://48hillsonline.org/2015/01/04/facing-eviction-threat-tenants-push-back-slow-ellis-evictions-2014/.

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/chiu.html,

http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/chiu.html,

http://www.beyondchron.org/rally-at-state-capitol-ignites-ellis-act-reform/.

ABSTRACTS

Drawing from an ongoing ethnographic work in the Tenants Movement in San Francisco, this

article seeks to analyze both the gentrification context and its activist response during the year

2014. After a wave of evictions that the city has had to face in the years 2000, now called the first

tech-boom, signs indicate that in 2013 and 2014, a strong influx of capital through companies of

the tech industry has driven the phenomenal surge of evictions, buyouts and tenants harassment

in the city. Focusing on two of the activist collectives and organizations that intend to fight this

now called “tech-boom 2.0”, I describe the practical ways in which organizing collectively from

weekly meetings, marches, rallies leads to the design by a city-scale coalition of pieces of

legislation that crystalize and structure the progressive forces in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

INDEX

Keywords: anti-gentrification activism, tech boom-2.0, Tenants Movement, San Francisco Bay

Area

AUTHOR

FLORIAN OPILLARD

École des hautes études en sciences socials (EHESS)


141

“Meet de Boys on the Battlefront”:Festive Parades and the Struggle toReclaim Public Spaces in Post-Katrina New OrleansAurélie Godet

Introduction: Katrina and the Disruption of PublicSpace

1 Katrina did not just kill hundreds of Louisiana residents when it made

landfall in August 2005,1 it also fundamentally altered the geographyand demography of its largest metropolitan area. In the wake of thehurricane, about half of New Orleans homes – 108,371 dwellings –suffered flooding at least four feet deep.2 Thousands of communitymembers were displaced as a result, leaving entire neighbourhoods,such as the working-class Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans Eastdistricts, empty.3 The urban renewal schemes that were unveiled andimplemented six months after the disaster to remedy “a housing crisisof historic proportions”4 clearly accelerated the pace of gentrification:under the guise of reconstruction and disaster clean-up, the inner citygot rid of its impoverished neighbourhoods and of its oldest healthcareproviders, including Charity Hospital, which provided the onlysubsidized health and trauma care in the city. Public spaces were eitherprivatized to maximize consumption or policed more actively.5 Ratherthan striving to recreate the services that enabled residents to functionin daily life (day-care facilities, public transportation, public schools,etc.), municipal authorities focused on tackling the city’s “culture ofviolence.” The need for safety became of greater concern than theeffects of a long history of race and class oppression,


142

deindustrialization, suburbanization, and neoliberal social andeconomic politics involving cuts in education, health care, and welfare.

2 Drawing on a substantial (and growing) literature on public

spaces and democratic rights,6 New Orleans’s parading culture7 and thecity’s post-Katrina mood,8 this article wishes to study how, outside theframework of party politics and representative democracy, socially,racially or politically marginalized New Orleanians have relied on localfestive practices to reclaim the streets of New Orleans since August2005.

3 The first part of our analysis will introduce a three-pronged

typology of parades in the Crescent City based on a historical overviewof New Orleans’s parading culture. We will then proceed to considerhow the place-making practices of carnival krewes, social aid andpleasure clubs, and Mardi Gras Indian tribes have all reflected andinformed citizens’ responses to displacement after Katrina. Drawing onAbdou Maliq Simone’s conceptualization of people as infrastructure –which emphasizes “collaboration among residents seeminglymarginalized from and immiserated by urban life”9 and a series of threecase studies, this section of the article will refocus the discussion on therebuilding of New Orleans around its citizens, taking the embodiedfestive practices of New Orleanians as a lens through which to examinethe politicization of public space in post-Katrina New Orleans. Finally,we will reflect on the relationship between parades and democracy andshow how contemporary celebrants are expanding and redefiningpolitical discourse by eschewing formal rational dialogue aiming atconsensus.

1. History and Typology of Parades in New Orleans

4 To the extent that New Orleanians consider processional rituals to be

an essential part of their lives and continually invent new excuses totake to the streets, New Orleans can undoubtedly be called theparading capital of the United States.10 The history of parading in NewOrleans actually dates back to the 18th century and is rooted in Africanand Caribbean religious and festive practices11 as well as Europeantraditions, including the medieval tradition of the royal entry12 and theinformally organized public revelry of the Parisian carnival of the 1830s.13

5 In the 18th century, the focal points of the parading geography in

New Orleans were the Place d’Armes (today’s Jackson Square) andCongo Square. The Place d’Armes (or Plaza de Armas, as it was calledfrom 1762 to 1803) was laid out by Louis H. Pilié in 1721 as an open-airmarket, a site for the public execution of disobedient slaves, and amilitary parade ground. Congo Square, located just outside theramparts of the original French settlement, was set aside for use byenslaved Africans and people of African descent as a market and socialgathering place14 Little documentation about Congo Square festive


143

rituals has been preserved,15 but it seems that Africans from disparateareas of West Africa all practiced their various drumming and dancingstyles (calinda, bamboula, and congo) there, and spoke and sang indifferent tongues simultaneously. The tradition possibly began as earlyas the 1750s and ended in the 1880s.16 In 1845, a municipal ordinanceprohibited outdoor music and dancing without permission from themayor. After Reconstruction, the New Orleans City Council renamed thesquare after the Confederate general P. G. T. Beauregard, and, likemany other public places, it was reserved for white use and remainedso until the 1960s.

6 In the 1880s, public street processions for religious holidays and

fraternal organizations’ anniversaries, energized by the syncopatedmusic of marching bands, extended the festive traditions cultivated inCongo Square to the entire city. Meanwhile, all-white, elite carnivalorganizations such as the Mistick Krewe of Comus, the Knights ofMomus, the Krewe of Proteus, and Rex appropriated Creole Mardi Grascustoms to stage a modern form of Mardi Gras spectacle parade meantto project cultural prestige as much as political power.17 Under theirinfluence, carnival became a major civic event and part of a municipalmarketing strategy meant to attract out-of-town businessmen and, soon,international tourists.18

7 Today, despite the great diversity of its forms (St. Patrick’s Day

parades, St. Joseph’s Day parades, Halloween parades, jazz funerals,commemorating processions such as the Maafa,19 or the semi-organizedfoot parades of the Jefferson City Buzzards, Fountain’s Half-FastWalking Club and the Joan or Arc Project),20 public parading in NewOrleans takes three main forms.

1.1. Mardi Gras Krewe Parades

8 Best known are probably the annual spectacle parades associated with

Mardi Gras. Staged by predominantly white social organizations, or“Mardi Gras krewes,” these parades feature tractor-driven, thematicallydecorated floats interspersed with high-school marching bands. Eachkrewe perpetuates a narrative of aristocracy, with its honorees actingas kings, queens, princesses, dukes, maids, etc. Masked club membersand their guests ride high above street level on the floats, throwingbeads, doubloons, stuffed animals, or other tokens to the cheeringcrowds that line the streets of New Orleans. For a parade to be featuredon the “official” Mardi Gras schedule, it must apply for a municipalpermit. Traditionally, the New Orleans Municipal Code allowed for 34parade permits to be issued to non-profit carnival organizations toparade during the two weeks prior to and on “Fat Tuesday.” Under newrules passed by the New Orleans City Council in 2014, that number hasbeen brought down to 30 – though any organization granted a permit inthe prior carnival season will be able to hold onto its permit if it meetsthe minimum participation requirements.21


144

1.2. Second-Line Parades

9 Another popular form of procession is the semi-structured, quasi-weekly

second line parades held by social aid and pleasure clubs (SAPCs).22

Choreographed by predominantly black working-class clubs,23 suchparades are built around a narrative of “fictive nouveau riche”24: clubmembers dress up in bright-coloured three-piece suits with matchinghats, wear silk-embroidered sashes across their chests, birds otherornaments on their shoulders, and carry fans, walking canes, orumbrellas. Escorted by the police, club members dance along a pre-planned route – almost entirely through African-Americanneighbourhoods like Treme, Central City, Carrollton –followed by abrass band of ten to twenty musicians and a “second line” ofparticipants, including dancers, chanters, percussionists, and walkingcommunity members.

1.3. Mardi Gras Indian Tribe Parades

10 Related to the second line tradition are the Mardi Gras Indian tribe

parades. Orchestrated by black or biracial (African/Native American)men, women, and children, they keep up a fiction of Indian royalty whilestrolling through the backstreets of the city on Mardi Gras day, St.Joseph’s night and “Super Sunday” (the Sunday nearest to SaintJoseph’s Day). A tribe generally includes a spy boy, a flag boy, a bigchief, and a big queen,25 each dressed in elaborate, hand-stitched“Indian suits” of beads and feathers. They are followed bypercussionists and chanting choruses of neighbourhood and familysupporters. While the holiday spectacle parades and the Sunday secondline parades are officially authorized, Mardi Gras Indian processions arenot. Tribes today maintain the historic practice of parading alongunplanned routes without a city permit.

2. The Politics of Parading in New Orleans

11 Parading is not an isolated, one-time event in New Orleans. The

activities involved in the production of parades extend to almost everyaspect of daily life. The physical and sonic presence of paradeparticipants must thus be interpreted as a way of inhabiting the time-space of the city, of transforming the abstract space (or bureaucraticallyshaped space) of the streets into a lived space (or concrete space) – touse Henri Lefebvre’s terminology.26

12 By the same token, parading has never been a purely festive

practice in the Crescent city. The collective agency of the crowd, whichLSU anthropologist Helen Regis primarily locates in the corporeal, thevisual, and the spatial,27 has repeatedly provided opportunities to claimsocial, economic, and political power and/or disrupt the racial ordering


145

of urban public space. For the white business or professional elite of thecity, late 19th-century parades were a way to project prestige as well assatirize the racial order deriving from Radical Reconstruction.28 For the20th-century black working class, occupying the streets of the Treméneighbourhood with music was a way to fight invisibility and thusarticulate a “right to the city.” Thomas Brothers thus writes that thepre-civil rights era second line parade, as a “public display of AfricanAmerican vernacular culture,” could be interpreted as a “symbolic actof resistance to Jim Crow.”29

13 Though discernible since the mid-19th century, the convergence of

parades and urban politics has, we believe, become even clearer in NewOrleans since Katrina. Regularly taking to the streets with messagessuch as “We are New Orleans” or “This is our city,” parade participantsseem more intent today on showing that they are “owners” of publicspace and that the city is consubstantial with its residents’ culturaltraditions.

14 Among dozens of examples gleaned from press cuttings, academic

articles, and our own experience of carnival in New Orleans, weselected three cases we deem representative of the city’s paradingculture and post-Katrina ethos: a controversial jazz funeral processionin honour of tuba player Kerwin James (2007), a surprisingly strife-freeMardi Gras Indian St. Joseph’s night procession (2012), and a chaoticKrewe of Eris Mardi Gras parade (2011). Our hope is that, takentogether, these samples will provide insights into both black and whitecitizens’ responses to displacement after Katrina and will illuminatefundamental aspects of the politicization of public space in post-KatrinaNew Orleans.

3. Reclaiming Public Space in New Orleans sinceKatrina: Three Case Studies

3.1. The 2007 Jazz Funeral Procession in Honour of Kerwin James

15 As Helen Regis has convincingly demonstrated since 1999, second lines

are sources of empowerment for New Orleans’s black working-classpopulation. “The majority of participants in the second-line tradition arenot owners of homes, real estate, or large, public businesses. Yetthrough the transformative experience of the parade, they becomeowners of the streets,” she notably observed in 2001.30 During the longhours of Sunday second lining, neighbourhoods are mobbed withparticipants singing, dancing, walking. Traffic is halted as paraders – adiverse cohort of marchers, dancers, and second liners often numberingfrom 1,000 to 5,000 people – come out of the door and funk up four orfive miles of bad New Orleans road. Streets temporarily become vibrantpublic squares defined by subaltern groups who design their own use ofthem. “Shut that street down… I’m coming through here. That’s what itfeel [sic] like,” a Prince of Wales Social Aid and Pleasure Club member


146

explains.“The tourists … be trying to see what’s going on, they takingpictures, but we own the streets that day,” proclaims another.31

16 Despite the defiant, self-centred tenor of such declarations, those

designs are inclusive and participatory. Dancing, as well as tuba-and-drum call and community response,break down the barriers betweenaudience and performers. Unlike float riders in Mardi Gras, who glidealong the parade route perched high above following onlookers, thecelebrants of second line parades exist on the same plane as theobserving crowd, only set apart physically by a rope.32 The format of amoving stage as the structuring element reinforces the expectation ofcollective participation. Insofar as second liners fashion a distinctive,egalitarian public square, they illustrate Don Mitchell’s observation: “What makes a space public – a space in which the cry and demand forthe right to the city can be seen and heard – is often not its preordained“publicness.” Rather, it is when, to fulfil a pressing need, some group orother takes space and through its actions makes it public.”33

17 In making a space public, second liners make a democratic move.

For that reason, the first parades sponsored by social aid and pleasureclubs that took place after Katrina (the Black Men of Labor Social Aidand Pleasure Club paraded on November 26, 2005, and the Prince ofWales Social Aid and Pleasure Club followed on December 18) wereembraced as signs of the city’s cultural and political recovery.

18 On January 15, 2006, four and a half months after the storm, a

coalition of 32 social and pleasure clubs came together to put on an“All-Star Second Line.” Participants wore black T-shirts bearing theslogan “ReNew Orleans” on the front and their club’s name on the back.The event drew 8,000 people from across the socioeconomic spectrum –including more middle-class blacks and whites than usual, partlybecause, as the first big post-Katrina second line, it was embraced byeveryone seeking evidence that New Orleans’s black cultural traditionsand the city itself were back. It also drew large numbers of displacedNew Orleanians. Thousands of them drove or flew in from Baton Rouge,Houston, Dallas, and Atlanta (and some from as far away as SanFrancisco, New York, and Portland) to participate in the parade, tocheck on their homes, neighbourhoods, friends, and family, andarticulate publicly an intention, and perhaps a right, to return to thecity. The second line’s route made note of the destruction of AfricanAmerican neighbourhoods before and following the flooding and spoketo the hope of rebuilding those areas.34

19 Tragically, what was supposed to be an ode to renewal was

marred by a shooting near the Zulu Club headquarters on Broad Streetand Orleans Avenue that wounded three residents. New Orleans PoliceDepartment (NOPD) Superintendent Warren Riley used the incident asan excuse to bulk up the numbers of officers assigned to every secondline and to raise parade permit fees from approximately $1,250 per club(right before the hurricane) to $4,445.35 Considering this decision as anattempt to drive most clubs off the street, Prince of Wales president Joe


147

Stern and New Orleans Bayou Steppers president Michele Longinoformed a coalition of local parading groups that challenged the feeincrease in court. The American Civil Liberties Unions (ACLU), whichfiled the lawsuit on its behalf, argued that the new fees threatened thevery existence of the tradition by denying paraders the right to freeexpression under the First Amendment. The complaint also alleged thatFourteenth Amendment protections had been compromised because thepolice escort and bonding requirements imposed on the clubs wereunreasonable and excessive. Attorneys for the police argued, on theother hand, that second lines were lightning rods for violence and thatthey were private events, distinct from public holiday parades protectedunder the city’s Mardi Gras Code (chapter 34 of the Municipal Code),thus allowing the city to set fees at its discretion. Ultimately, the ACLUwas successful, and in May 2007 the NOPD settled, agreeing to returnthe fee to its original level and give the paraders an hour on the streetafter the parade to socialize.36 The judgment paved the way for weeklysecond lines to play their cathartic role in the renewal of black working-class neighbourhoods and of the city.37

20 On October 6, 2007, the streets of Tremé filled with sound again,

this time for an impromptu jazz funeral in honour of the New BirthBrass Band tuba player Kerwin James, who had died of complicationsfrom a stroke several days earlier. As dozens of musicians played thehymn “I’ll Fly Away,” the police showed up and told the mourners todisperse. When the musicians continued playing, officers waded intothe crowd, physically quieting the musicians. They ended up arrestingdrummer Derrick Tabb and his brother, trombonist Glen DavidAndrews, for disturbing the peace and parading without a permit. Afternegotiations between community organizations and the NOPD, theprocession continued the following night under permit.38

21 Like the debate about fee increases, the Kerwin James funeral

incident gave New Orleanians the opportunity to discuss issues ofviolence and gentrification as well as the city’s dissimilar treatment ofNew Orleans’s black and white cultural traditions. One prominentconcern was the right of community members to control public space.There was disagreement among Tremé residents as to whether themourners should have agreed to parade with a permit the followingnight. Some argued that to do so actually meant giving up claims toboth space and tradition. Others hinted that applying for a permit was away to legitimize a cultural practice and, more practically, obtainwelcome protection from delinquents who might disrupt the event.Commentators also puzzled over the NOPD’s general tendency toenforce or ignore official municipal regulations depending on thecontext. In response to a police statement according to which thecelebrants had broken the law and the city tolerated no exceptions tothe ordinance that prohibited playing music on the street after 8 p.m.,some people pointed out that exceptions to city ordinances were madeall the time for Mardi Gras parades and other touristy events in theFrench Quarter – the city’s “Creole Disneyland.”39 Others noted that


148

police intervention had come at the request of some of the newerresidents of the gentrifying Tremé, interpreting the incident as proofthat the latter’s “right to the city” was taking precedent over that of thelong-time working- or lower- middle-class residents of theneighbourhood. The irony of seeing newcomers trying to regulateTremé’s cultural life when they had precisely been drawn to the area byits rich cultural history was not missed, and led to renewed debate overthe city’s future in the local and the national media.

3.2. The 2012 Mardi Gras Indian St. Joseph’s Night Procession

22 Our second case study, although still revolving around the question of

parading without a permit, features different actors – Mardi Gras Indiantribes instead of social aid and pleasure clubs. Its outcome(appeasement, after decades of friction) also deviates from the courseset by the Kerwin James incident.

23 Mardi Gras Indian rituals in New Orleans have always been

associated with resistance since their appearance in the 1890s. ReidMitchell thus maintains that masking Indian was a shared politicalmeaning among African Americans to which whites did not have access,“a form of black protest that claimed ritual space in a Jim Crow NewOrleans.”40 Tribes, whose names tend to blend Native American andAfrican influences with New Orleans geography (Creole Wild West, WildSquatoolas, Wild Tchoupitoulas, Eighth Ward Hunters, MandingoWarriors, Congo Nation, Guardians of the Flame, Yellow Pocahontas,Wild Treme and many others) would claim control of theirneighbourhoods through masking, parading, and fighting. These toolswere hardly the panoply of formal, representative democracy, and therewas an exclusionary character to the tribes that the fighting exhibited.Still, masking and parading were expressions of self-governance inblack neighbourhoods.

24 Over time, physical violence yielded to artistic rivalry.41 Lisa

Katzman’s 2007 film, Tootie’s Last Suit, documents the competition thatAllison “Tootie” Montana, former big chief of the Yellow Pocahontastribe, had with his son, Darryl, over who was the “prettiest” Indian.42

Katzman conveys the seriousness of purpose involved in the Indians’creations. Enormous amounts of skill, time and dedication go intomaking the complex feather-and-bead costumes that are donned onMardi Gras and St. Joseph’s night – a sort of mi-carême, or Mid-Lentenbreak.

25 During the fall and winter leading up to Mardi Gras, members of

the tribes practise their dancing and singing in African Americansections of the city. Through these weekly rehearsals, children arenurtured in musical and dance traditions. Michael Smith observes that“certainly the most significant aspect of the Black Indian tradition arethe tribal organizations and friendships, which continue all year long,and the ‘practices’ on Sunday evenings […] where the dancing,


149

drumming, and communal traditions are continued.”43 For the tribes andtheir neighbourhoods, all this activity contributes to community, fostersa distinctive public life for African Americans, and provides constructiveresponses to crime and violence in the city. In Katzman’s documentary,Darryl Montana alludes to troubles he used to have; it is clear that hehas left them behind to embrace the life-affirming traditions of AfricanAmerican masking.44 There is a clear recognition among Black Indiansof how involvement in the tribes’ parades directs people’s attentions toconstructive and culturally meaningful connections in New Orleans’sblack neighborhoods.

26 Some actually argue that “Mardigridian” parading constitutes a

form of “democracy without (or rather despite) government,”45 insofaras it displays a self-consciousness about using the streets in spectacularand inclusive ways to articulate African American traditions. Thispolitical self-consciousness is about resistance, resilience, sharedenergy, community spirit, and support for a participatory AfricanAmerican public space. As Ned Sublette states, “The Indians embodyresistance. You can sum it up in four words: ‘We won’t bow down’.”46

27 Since Mardi Gras Indians tribes have always refused to ask for

parade permits, they have long been confronted to threats of arrest orpolice harassment. Police-Indian relations reached a low point on March19, 2005 when the NOPD raided a gathering of hundreds of Indians atA. L. Davis Park in Central City on St. Joseph’s Night, ordering them toremove their Indian suits or be arrested, as recounted in a 2005 Gambit

article by Katy Reckdahl.47Indians, who take pride in policingthemselves, sanctioning members who engage in or advocate violence,were naturally outraged. The incident resulted in a City Council hearingin June 2005 (two months before Katrina made landfall) that endedabruptly when Allison “Tootie” Montana collapsed at the podium from afatal heart attack as he was discussing the police brutality that he hadexperienced during his fifty-two years of participating in the tradition.In the wake of the hurricane, police intimidation continued, with policeofficers regularly demonstrating antagonism toward gatherings ofIndians and disrupting ritualistic meetings of prominent Big Chiefs in2009, 2010, and 2011.48

28 In 2011, however, a Sound Ordinance Task Force put together by

Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer proposed a revision to the edictlimiting music on the streets that a member of the mayor’s staffdescribed as “more enforceable for police, and more respectful tomusicians.”49 Then, at a City Hall meeting of the City Council’sGovernmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Councilwoman SusanGuidry, police and Indians sorted through issues that had long dividedthem. At the meeting, attended by every NOPD district commander,Deputy Superintendent Kirk Bouyelas announced that the New OrleansPolice Department would no longer arrest Indians or use sirens andlights to force them off the streets. Bouyelas said that the departmentwould also require most officers patrolling Indian parades to be on foot


150

rather than inside squad cars and that they would be taught at a districtand academy level to have a “positive attitude” toward the centuries-oldtradition. When police suggested that Indian tribes should get permitsto parade the streets, Jerome Smith, founder of the Tambourine and Fanyouth organization which teaches children about New Orleans culture,including the Mardi Gras Indian tradition, said “You cannot police abird. The streets belong to the people.” Susan Guidry subsequentlymade it clear that that suggestion was no longer on the table. As aresult of these extensive negotiations, the St. Joseph’s Night parade in2012 was the first in years not to involve dust-ups between police andMardi Gras Indians.50

Figure 1

Posters bearing Jerome Smith’s quote were put up in Uptown New Orleans in anticipation of St.Joseph’s Night 2012. Image courtesy of Anthony Turducken DelRosario.

29 Such a detente may of course be interpreted as yet another sign

that Mardi Gras Indian traditions are becoming more mainstream,sanitised, and domesticated as they find new audiences.51 The odds ofthat happening seem low, however. Interest in the Indian masks andsuits may spread, but the culture itself cannot really be reproducedelsewhere, for it is entirely in and of New Orleans. Its heart lies not inthe public performances, dramatic though they are, but in the traditionspassed down in song and in the countless hours spent alone in a roomconjuring history with a needle, some thread and thousands of sequins,feathers and beads.


151

3.3. The 2011 Krewe of Eris Parade

30 Our last case study veers away from the field of black performance

traditions and deals with a (mostly) white carnival group. Carnivalkrewes are often portrayed as bastions of privilege, whiteness andmasculinity.52 While many organizations do conform to this description,the world of Mardi Gras in New Orleans is far more complex than thesesources let on. Traditional organizations (be they “old-line krewes” suchas Comus, Proteus, Momus, and Rex, or “super-krewes” such asBacchus, Endymion, and Orpheus) have always been challenged byalternative parades with differing definitions of revelry and conceptionsof public space. In the 1910s, Zulu lampooned the wealthy “big shots”who paraded around on Mardi Gras in expensive and extravagantcostumes. Its members’ uniform (blackface and grass skirts) was meantto ridicule the demeaning portrayal of their African Americanneighbours by poking fun at the minstrel stereotype. Zulu has sincebeen incorporated into the licensed festivities, to the point that it closesthe official parade schedule together with Rex. In 2000 the Krewe ofMuses decided to challenge the male-dominated carnival by organizingan all-female parade, complete with girlie throws such as decoratedshoes, lighted necklaces, purses. It is now one of the most popularparades of the carnival season. An up-to-date list of alternative paradeswould include such krewes as ‘Tit Rex (which parades with miniaturefloats to denounce the escalating costs of Mardi Gras), Krewe Delusion(the Big Easy’s newest satirical parade, from which a dozen“innerkrewes” emanate), the science-fiction-themed Intergalatic Kreweof Chewbacchus, as well as the Krewe of Eris.

31 Named after the Greek goddess of discord, Eris is a foot parade

that both honours and transgresses New Orleans parading traditions.Its founders, Ms. Lateacha and Lord Willin, used to participate in NewOrleans’s downtown-based, punk Krewe du Poux, until they decided toexperiment with another aesthetic in 2005. Their original aim was to“give back” to the city where they wintered every year. “I wanted tocontribute and give something back to New Orleans instead of justtaking and absorbing culture,” Latachea explained in a 2011 interview.53

By choosing to incorporate a brass band (the Eris band), original tunes(the triumphant “Eris Anthem,” written by a musician called JR whoteaches would-be band members to play in the weeks leading to theparade) and by selecting a different theme every year (“Planet Eris” in2007, “The Swarm” in 2008, “Mutagenesis” in 2011, “Eris Dawns” in2013), Latachea and Lord Willin paid homage to indigenous festivetraditions – what they call “the roots of Carnival” in New Orleans.54 Eris,however, deliberately went against the grain by advocating an explicitlyanti-authoritarian perspective. Inspired by James Gill’s book about thehistory of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Lords of Misrule, its founderssought to bring something rowdier to the contemporary parades. “Eventhe first year, it was just an open call for creative chaos,” Lord Willinexplains.55 While other carnival organizations are prohibitively


152

expensive to join in, or simply closed to new members, Eris is free,open, and the costumes and floats are all designed and made byparticipants. Furthermore, although all krewes are required by law toobtain a permit in order to march, Eris has consistently refused to evenapply for one, preferring instead to express its freedom by marchingwithout permission.

32 Katrina was a turning point for the krewe, as it was for so many

of New Orleans’s residents. The krewe’s theme that year was “NoveauxLimbeaux,” a phrase meant to “capture the mood of uncertainty thatwas pervading the city” after the levees broke.56 The founders of Eriswere not sure whether they should parade at all, but they did so to senda message of hope as well as to reclaim public space. “I like[d] the ideaof having a beautiful parade,” says Victor Pizzaro, a 40-year-oldmember of the krewe who takes a dim view of the post-Katrina influx ofdo-gooders from New England and the Pacific Northwest. “And this was[also part of] a greater conversation about what’s happened with NewOrleans since the storm. […] Ultimately, it’s about empowerment, it’sabout getting people to be able to create.”57

33 The 2006 parade took two hundred brightly costumed artists and

activists from the 1892 site where Homer Plessy, a black shoemakerfrom the Tremé, had been removed from a “whites only” car on an EastLouisiana Railroad train, to Bywater (part of the city’s Ninth Ward),with its shiny paraphernalia of gentrification (art galleries, cafés), inorder to protest attacks on free space, the abrupt inflation of rent inpoor neighborhoods, and the razing of hundreds of houses for a newupper-end hospital, all of which stemmed from “an effort to […]homogenize the city’s culture.”58

34 In the years leading to 2011, the parade’s embrace of

decentralization became more patent. “[Originally, Latachea and I] putin a lot of long hours bottom-lining Eris. […] Then […] we quit being incharge and Eris became a group decision-making process.”59 A sideeffect of that structurelessness was the emergence of discord within theranks. In 2010, following repeated conflict with the New Orleans PoliceDepartment, members debated whether they should occupy JacksonSquare or continue following their usual route through the Marigny andFrench Quarter. Lateacha clearly favoured the second option:

[Jackson Square] is a very controlled space. Last year the cops were arrayed therewaiting for us. New Orleans police hold grudges, and these days they figure outahead of time when we’re happening. We used to have the advantage that theywere all at Bacchus, but now they’re ready. Even if we ‘liberated’ Jackson Square, itwould only be for five minutes. That doesn’t seem worth what it would cost. I thinkEris reclaims enough space through movement, and keeping moving is a big part ofEris. By focusing on taking a single space, you sacrifice continuing feelings ofliberation for a single moment of liberation. There are times when that’s worth it,but as someone who believes in the longevity of Eris, I don’t think this is one ofthem.60

35 To some, it seemed as if the krewe was not quite living up to its

revolutionary or insurrectionary, inspirational beginnings. “So Eris is


153

the goddess of chaos,” one krewe member named Peter explained in2012. “[T]o me it actually does mean a lot. You summon that and you’rebegging to overturn the social order. […] You have to stand behind whatyou say. If you’re saying, ‘I want to see chaos,’ you know? Sometimesthat’s people doing things you don’t expect and that’s going to end upin a little bit of a battle.”61

36 When Latachea expressed her desire to see the krewe be more

active beyond just the yearly parade and compared the possibility of anexpanded Eris to the way traditional social aid and pleasure clubsoperate, helping build community spirit and sponsoring regular socialor fundraising events, people like Peter decided to bring in moreanarchistic-minded friends to the parade, which led to renewed conflictwith the NOPD.

37 On the night of March 6th, 2011 (known as “Sunday Gras”), the

parade was re-routed, avoiding Decatur Street in the French Quarterand Jackson Square. The year’s theme, “Mutagenesis,” was meant as asatire of corporate contamination and state collusion as illustrated bythe BP oil spill. The krewe’s open-ended call for a “creative response”was answered by a joyous group of about 250 Erisians dressed as thefish, shorebirds, and other Gulf creatures whose ecosystems had beendisturbed by the April 2010 environmental disaster (much like Katrinahad disrupted theirs in 2005). The 2011 parade, however, also attractedparticipants who wished to not just dance wildly in the streets but toleap on top of cars, throw residential dustbins about, and paintphalluses on random objects. As the spectacle neared its end, Eris wasmet by members of the New Orleans Police Department’s Fifth District.A skirmish ensued. As often in these circumstances, reports go frompure, unprovoked police brutality, to reckless vandalism from krewemembers. It does seem, however, that revellers were tased, batoned,and pepper-sprayed, that brass instruments were crushed, and thatphones and cameras documenting the raid were destroyed. In the end,twelve arrests were made.62 A few days later, on Ash Wednesday, theNOPD shut down the ARC, a warehouse space that had for years beenhome to Plan B Community Bicycle Shop and the Iron Rail Library andBookstore, for lack of permit. As it happens, the founder of Plan B wasalso a member of the Krewe of Eris. Clearly, this raid was more thanmere revenge on the police’s part. It was a way of making sure that thecity’s definition of public and private space would prevail over that of itsmore nonconformist residents.

38 Since the ill-fated 2011 parade, Eris has become even more

clandestine, refusing interviews and corresponding with its membersvia text messages only. In 2012, it gathered at a secret address for 127minutes before parading without a permit through the city’s Ninth Wardwhile the city-sanctioned Mardi Gras went about raging uptown.63 Theparade was shut down quickly, and the future of the krewe is nowuncertain, with some of its members advocating a return to leadership,the limitation of its ranks to a more carefully defined body, and the


154

initiation of a courteous dialogue with the city of New Orleans on issuesof reconstruction and gentrification,64 and others recommending acontinuation of the anarchic approach revolving around the illegaloccupation of the city streets.65 “My fear is that if there is a permit, thepolice will be with us the whole time and I personally don’t like beingaround police,” one krewe member explained in 2012. “I don’t likebeing around cops. I want to have a certain level of freedom. I’m notlooking to fuck up someone’s car or break someone’s window, but I amlooking to have that experience, that existential experience of freedomthat the police rob you of with their immediate presence.”66

39 To people like Peter, Eris is a political gesture meant to

foreground an alternative to the prevailing vertical model, or “thepyramid,” which they argue curbs creativity and pits people againsteach other. They suggest that “anything from a farm to a factory to aparade to a movement” could be organized according to a “horizontalmodel” and that the results would be much better for the city of NewOrleans and the world at large.67

Conclusion: Democracy in the Crescent City’s Streets

40 The parades discussed in this paper have been central to the post-

disaster recovery of the city, not only because of their ability tostimulate economic activity or to appeal to tourist interests, butbecause of the meaning they have for participants. Partakers in theserituals have created “mytho-poetic spaces rich with reinvented symbolsof the past”68 that have allowed them to negotiate their identities in theface of adversity. While outsiders may be struck by the resilience of thecity and its culture, insiders emphasize the enduring power of ritualisedcollective effervescence. The perpetual calendar of parades69 provides astable reality within a complex, fragmented, and unpredictable world.Individual identities associated with such a culture extend into everydaylife and sustain the meaning of the experience.

41 Writing about Johannesburg, Abdou Maliq Simone suggests that

one way to think about an urban area after “the policies and economiesthat once moored it to the surrounding city have mostly worn away” isto consider people as “an infrastructure – a platform providing for andreproducing life in the city.”70 It is the residents of the city who findways to reconnect, to build new ways of interacting with meaningfulplaces in their lives – even if they have been dramatically transformed.These meaning-filled experiences help to explain how the impetus toparade can, even momentarily, upstage the work of rebuilding a city.

42 What these three case studies also make clear, however, is that

parading in post-Katrina New Orleans cannot be reduced to a festive,communal practice. Debates and commentary about parading fees andparade safety provide a window onto disputes and conflicts involvingthe right to residency in the city, the ownership of its culture, and theuse of public space.


155

43 Like other scholars before us, we see parades as “mobile public

spheres,”71 constituted in real time, but also as events that open up abroader, ongoing space for reflection on key issues pertaining to thefuture of urban areas. In that sense, parades are “battlefields ofcontention,”72 displays of power through which parade participantsmake claims on contested spaces.

44 Parades do not intrinsically create “deep” or full emancipatory

democracy because they are often disconnected from major centres ofpower. Instead of discursive forms found at marches with an explicitlypolitical program (signs, banners, and speeches), parade participants inNew Orleans “speak” through practices linked to black and whiteperformance traditions. Second lines, Mardi Gras Indian processions,and carnival parades do not explicitly or directly speak to changingspecific public policies, and so they are not part of formal governmentalpolicy determination.73

45 Still, under conditions of substantial inequality and government

disregard of the disempowered, parading is a public activity thatrecognizes lack of access to formal political power and improves thequality of life. In other words, parades constitute a form of “democracydespite government.” They allow the disempowered anddisenfranchised to claim a public place and to give voice to theircultural and political beliefs. Anarchist Mardi Gras parades like thoseorganized by the Krewe of Eris function at least in part as populistreclamations of space rooted in New Orleanian cultural practices.Second lines and Mardi Gras Indian parades also provide opportunitiesfor an egalitarian, open, and participatory discourse. They memorializepast events and foster hope for the future. Their brand of politics maynot be immediately operational, but it can overtly speak to local, state,or federal government oppression.

46 Parades, therefore, challenge the character of public space and

the terms of political discourse. They reject the privatisation andinstrumentalisation of public space and call for its communal andexpressive use. They seek to expand political discourse beyond formalrational dialogue aiming at consensus and to extend that discourse intocivil society. They open spaces for alternative modes of expression,reminding us that “because civil society is heterogeneous, so too shouldbe what counts as politically relevant dialogue or expression.”74

47 In the future, our research will look at how New Orleans’ local

parading culture has influenced and benefited from the rise of globaldemocratic performance. Political scientists, social movement theoristsand cultural geographers have made us aware of forms of micro-political resistance that have challenged the corporatisation andsecuritisation of the city. An increasing tactical feature of suchresistance has been the deployment of leisure practices to challenge thedominant norms and ideologies governing the use of urban space.75Bycomparing the festive reclaiming of the city with other forms of urbanmobilization such as the 2011-2013 Occupy NOLA actions and the 2009


156

Reclaim the Streets “protestival” (protest + carnival) that marked the10th anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle and ended in six arrestsby New Orleans police, we intend to show that the boundary betweenestablished festive organizations and newer grassroots urban socialmovements is slowly eroding in New Orleans (to wit the birth of theanarchist Guise of Fawkes Krewe in 2014) and that such erosion pointsto a more global merging of the carnivalesque with the political inurban settings. In the wake of Katrina New Orleans’s civic life may betransitioning from practices anchored in “genealogies of performance”76

derived from Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean to new forms of publicintervention derived from an international, globalized culture of urbanprotest.

NOTES

1.

The 2008 official death toll lists one fatality in Kentucky, two each in Alabama,

Georgia, and Ohio, 14 in Florida, 238 in Mississippi, and 1,577 in Louisiana. It

is estimated that some three-quarters of Louisiana’s Katrina-related deaths

occurred in New Orleans, where about 70 percent of the victims were age 60

and older. See Peter Katel, “Rebuilding New Orleans: Should Flood-Prone Areas

Be Redeveloped?” CQ Researcher16.5 (2006): 97-120. http://www.cqpress.com/

product/Researcher-Rebuilding-New-Orleans.html.

2. Bring New Orleans Back Commission, “Action Plan for New Orleans: The

New American City.” Urban Planning Committee, 2006.

<www.bringneworleansback.org>. The water did not recede until late

September.

3. By 2010, the city’s population was still only 71 percent of what it was in

2000. By 2012 it was back up to 369,250 – 76 percent of what it was in 2000.

See Melissa Schigoda, “Hurricane Katrina Impact,” Greater New Orleans

Community Data Center, August 19, 2011 http://www.hurstvillesecurity.com/

images/page_uploads/Recovery%20-

%20Hurricane%20Katrina%20Impact%20Fact%20Summary%20%28GNOCDC%29%20%28Aug%202011%29.pdf

Allison Plyer, “Facts for Features: Katrina Impact,” Data Center Research, 2014

http://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact/.

4. Sheila Crowley, “Where Is Home? Housing for Low-Income People After the

2005 Hurricanes,” in Chester W. Hartman and Gregory D. Squires, eds, There Is

No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina (New

York: Taylor and Francis, 2006), 121.

5. See John Arena, Driven from New Orleans: How Nonprofits Betray Public

Housing and Promote Privatization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota

Press, 2012); George Lipsitz, “Learning from New Orleans: The Social Warrant

of Hostile Privatism and Competitive Consumer Citizenship,” Cultural

Anthropology 21.3 (2006): 451-468; Siri J. Colom, “The Politics of Visibility:


157

http://www.cqpress.com/product/Researcher-Rebuilding-New-Orleans.html




http://www.hurstvillesecurity.com/images/page_uploads/Recovery%20-%20Hurricane%20Katrina%20Impact%20Fact%20Summary%20%28GNOCDC%29%20%28Aug%202011%29.pdf






http://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact/

http://www.datacenterresearch.org/data-resources/katrina/facts-for-impact/

Contentious Struggle over Public Housing in Post-Katrina New Orleans,”

Conference presentation, Annual Meeting of the American Sociological

Association, New York City, 2013; http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/

p650211_index.html; Paola Branciaroli, “Public Spaces in New Orleans Post

Katrina. Plans and Projects as Instruments for Urban and Social Revitalization,”

Italian Journal of Planning Practice 3.1 (2014): 93-109; Renia Ehrenfeucht, “Art,

Public Spaces, and Private Property along the Streets of New Orleans,” Urban

Geography 35.7 (2014): 965-979.

6. Marcel Hénaff and Tracy B. Strong, Public Space and Democracy

(Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press, 2001); Don Mitchell, The

Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New York:

Guilford Press, 2003); Mark Purcell, Recapturing Democracy: Neoliberalization

and the Struggle for Alternative Urban Futures (New York: Routledge, 2008);

Kevin Mattson, Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban

Participatory Democracy During the Progressive Era (University Park, PA: Penn

State Press, 2010); Lisa Keller, Triumph of Order: Democracy and Public Space

in New York and London (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013); Nancy

S. Love and Mark Mattern, Doing Democracy: Activist Art and Cultural Politics

(Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2013).

7. Samuel Kinser, Carnival American Style: Mardi Gras at New Orleans and

Mobile (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); George Lipsitz, Time

Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture (Minneapolis, MI:

University of Minnesota Press, 1990); Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-

Atlantic Performance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Wesley

Shrum and John Kilburn, “Ritual Disrobement at Mardi Gras: Ceremonial

Exchange and Moral Order,” Social Forces 75.2 (1996): 423-458; Reid Mitchell,

All On a Mardi Gras Day. Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999); Helen A. Regis, “Second

Lines, Minstrelsy, and the Contested Landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole

Festivals,” Cultural Anthropology 14 (1999): 472-504; Marcia G. Gaudet and

James C. McDonald, Mardi Gras, Gumbo, and Zydeco: Readings in Louisiana

Culture (Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississippi, 2003); Rachel Breunlin

and Helen A. Regis, “Putting the Ninth Ward on the Map: Race, Place, and

Transformation in Desire, New Orleans,” American Anthropologist 108.4

(2006): 744-764; Cynthia Becker, “New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians: Mediating

Racial Politics from the Backstreets to Main Street,” African Arts 46.2 (2013):

36-49.

8. Clyde A. Woods, “Do you Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans? Katrina,

Trap Economics, and the Rebirth of the Blues,” American Quarterly 57 (2005):

1005-1018; Nine Times Social Aid and Pleasure Club, “Coming Out the Door for

the Ninth Ward” (New Orleans, LA: Neighborhood Story Project, 2006); Matt

Sakakeeny, “Resounding Silence in a Musical City,” Space and Culture 9 (2006):

41-44; Bruce Boyd, “‘They’re Tryin’ to Wash Us Away’: New Orleans Musicians

Surviving Katrina,” Journal of American History 94.3 (2007): 812–819; Michael

White, “New Orleans African American Musical Traditions: The Spirit and Soul

of a City,” in Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke, eds., Seeking Higher

Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race and Public Policy Reader (New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 87-106; Chelsey Louise Kivland, “Hero,

Eulogist, Trickster, and Critic: Ritual and Crisis in Post-Katrina Mardi Gras” in

Manning Marable and Kristen Clarke, eds., Seeking Higher Ground: The


158

http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p650211_index.html




Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race and Public Policy Reader (New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2008), 107-128; Rachel Breunlin, Ronald W. Lewis, and Helen A.

Regis, “The House of Dance and Feathers: A Museum by Ronald W. Lewis”

(New Orleans, LA: UNO Press/Neighborhood Story Project, 2009); Joel

Dinerstein, “Second Lining Post-Katrina: Learning Community from the Prince

of Wales Social Aid and Pleasure Club,” American Quarterly 61 (2009): 615-637;

Eric Porter, “Jazz and Revival,” American Quarterly 61.3 (2009): 593-613; R. E.

Barrios, “You Found Us Doing This, This Is Our Way: Criminalizing Second

Lines, Super Sunday, and Habitus in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” Identities 17

(2010): 586-612; Catherine Michna, “Hearing the Hurricane Coming:

Storytelling, Second-Line Knowledges, and the Struggle for Democracy in New

Orleans” (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston College, 2011); Rachel Carrico, “On

Thieves, Spiritless Bodies, and Creole Soul: Dancing through the Streets of New

Orleans,” TDR: The Drama Review 57.1 (2013): 70-87; John O’Neal et al.,

“Performance and Cross-Racial Storytelling in Post-Katrina New Orleans:

Interviews with John O’Neal, Carol Bebelle, and Nicholas Slie,” TDR: The

Drama Review 57.1 (2013): 48-69; Matt Sakakeeny,Roll With It: Brass Bands in

the Streets of New Orleans (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013);

Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker, Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas

(Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2013); Romain Huret and

Randy J. Sparks, Hurricane Katrina in Transatlantic Perspective (Baton Rouge:

Louisiana State University Press, 2014).

9. Abdou Maliq Simone, “People as Infrastructure: Intersecting Fragments in

Johannesburg,” Public Culture 16.3 (2004): 407.

10. For the sake of convenience, we will henceforth adopt Diane Grams’s

definition of parading as “a processional activity sponsored by a

nongovernmental social or cultural organization, taking place on city streets,

and involving costumed performers and live music from marching bands, brass

bands, or percussionists with chanting choruses.” Diane M. Grams, “Freedom

and Cultural Consciousness: Black Working-Class Parades in Post-Katrina New

Orleans,” Journal of Urban Affairs 35.5 (2013): 502.

11. Lipsitz, Time Passages, 1990; Cherice Harrison-Nelson, “Guardians of the

Flame: Upholding Community Traditions and Teaching with Art in New

Orleans,” In Motion Magazine (1996); Roach, Cities of the Dead, 1996; Henry

Schindler, Mardi Gras: New Orleans (New York: Flammarion, 1997); James Gill,

Lords of Misrule: Mardi Gras and the Politics of Race in New Orleans (Jackson,

MI: University Press of Mississippi, 1997); Regis, “Second Lines, Minstrelsy,

and the Contested Landscapes of New Orleans Afro-Creole Festivals”; Arthur

Hardy, Mardi Gras in New Orleans: An Illustrated History, 1st edition (Metairie,

LA: Arthur Hardy Enterprises, 2001); Gaudet and McDonald, Mardi Gras,

Gumbo, and Zydeco.

12. Rosary O’Neill, New Orleans Carnival Krewes: The History, Spirit and

Secrets of Mardi Gras (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2014), 34-42.

13. Kinser, Carnival American Style.

14. Freddi Williams Evans, Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans

(Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press, 2011). New Orleans

was not the only city that had a place for slaves to freely gather. There was a

place in Philadelphia, for example, where slaves met during the colonial period.

That space, also called Congo Square, is now called Washington Square.


159

15. Early references to Congo Square almost all come from notes taken by city

outsiders, especially American European travellers such as Christian Schultz

(1808), Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1819), and James Creecy (1834). Locals did

not seem to find it worthy of documentation, except in arrest records. Indeed,

some of the best evidence of African creative practices in New Orleans comes

from the laws that were intended to control or prohibit them. See Jerah

Johnson, “New Orleans’s Congo Square: An Urban Setting for Early Afro

American Culture Formation,” Louisiana History 33.2 (1993): 117-57; Joseph

Roach, “Carnival and the Law in New Orleans,” TDR: The Drama Review 37.3

(1993): 42-75; Evans, Congo Square.

16. Gary A. Donaldson, “A Window on Slave Culture: Dances at Congo Square in

New Orleans, 1800-1862,” Journal of Negro History 69.2 (1984): 63-72.

17. Kinser, Carnival American Style; Roach, Cities of the Dead; Gill, Lords of

Misrule; O’Neill, New Orleans Carnival Krewes.

18. Kevin F. Gotham, Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, Culture, and Race in the

Big Easy (New York: New York University Press, 2007); Paul Spindt and Toni

Weiss, “The Economic Impact of Mardi Gras Season on the New Orleans

Economy and the Net Fiscal Benefit of Staging Mardi Gras for the City of New

Orleans” (New Orleans, LA: Carnival Krewe Civic Fund, 2009). http://

www.rexorganization.com/Downloads/2009/MardiGrasStudy.pdf.

19. From a Kiswahili word meaning “great tragedy,” the Maafa (pronounced

“mah-AH-fa”) is a procession held every July since 2000 in memory of the

transatlantic slave trade. It begins at Congo Square and ends at the Algiers

ferry landing.

20. The City of New Orleans’s current parade permit application form even

includes “foot races/marathons/walkathons” in its list of parades. City of New

Orleans One Stop Permits and Licenses, “Special Event Permit Guide and

Applications,” NOLA.gov, 2015. http://www.nola.gov/getattachment/Cultural-

Economy/Special-Event-Guide.pdf/.

21. New Orleans City Council, “Regular Meeting News Summary,”

NOLACityCouncil.com, 24 April 2014. http://www.nolacitycouncil.com/news/

meetingsummary.asp?id={A94D6270-0F39-4B23-B5B1-FAAD83071990}.

22. Since Katrina the annual second line schedule has grown to include about

45 clubs, parading on 39 Sundays between the last Sunday in August and

Fathers Day in mid-June. Weekends that do not have a second line parade

include: Sundays that fall in the heat of summer (end of June through August),

two weeks before Mardi Gras, and the last weekend in April and first in May

when the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival takes place. During Mardi

Gras many SAPC members mask Indian; during Jazz Fest, many clubs and tribes

are paid to parade through the festival grounds. See Joel Dinerstein, “Rollin’

Wid It. 39 Sundays: Second-Line Season,” in Solnit and Snedeker, eds., New

Orleans: Unfathomable City, 107-115.

23. Social aid and pleasure clubs were originally established to provide

economic assistance and proper burials for those without means. Recreational

activities soon complemented the mutual aid functions of the fraternal groups.

24. Grams, “Freedom and Cultural Consciousness,” 502.

25. Mardi Gras Indian culture used to be an exclusively male preserve – “a

warrior culture” – but it appears to be slowly changing. Cherice Harrison-

Nelson has been masking as the Big Queen of the Guardians of the Flame since

1996. See Harrison-Nelson, “Guardians of the Flame”. While many groups start


160

http://www.rexorganization.com/Downloads/2009/MardiGrasStudy.pdf




http://www.nola.gov/getattachment/Cultural-Economy/Special-Event-Guide.pdf/




http://www.nolacitycouncil.com/news/meetingsummary.asp?id=%7BA94D6270-0F39-4B23-B5B1-FAAD83071990%7D




their parades from bars or taverns, her gang, which includes several other

women and a number of children, got permission in 2011 to leave from St

Augustine’s, a beautiful Catholic church in Tremé built by free black people in

the early 19th century.

26. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Malden, MA: Blackwell

Publishing, 1991). Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith.

27. Regis, “Second Lines, Minstrelsy, and the Contested Landscapes of New

Orleans Afro-Creole Festivals”; Helen A. Regis, “Blackness and the Politics of

Memory in the New Orleans Second Line,” American Ethnologist 28.4 (2001):

752-777.

28. The 1877 carnival, for example, celebrated the violent end of

Reconstruction in Louisiana and the re-establishment of white rule. The Krewe

of Momus took as its theme, “Hades – A Dream of Momus” and offered a

virulent caricature of local, state, and national Reconstruction leaders,

including President Ulysses S. Grant, who was portrayed as Beelzebub, and

General William Tecumseh Sherman, who was mocked as Baal. Other prominent

Republicans who came under fire included James G. Blaine and Frederick

Douglass. The final float showed the entire ship of state going up in flames. The

satire was so outrageous that some Louisiana Republicans suggested that the

organizers should be arrested. If the message were not clear enough, Comus’s

parade, which closed the season, celebrated the superiority of “The Aryan

Race.” See Gill, Lords of Misrule, 125-128.

29. Thomas D. Brothers, Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans (New York: W.W.

Norton, 2006), 22.

30. Regis, “Blackness and the Politics of Memory in the New Orleans Second

Line,” 756.

31. Quoted in Joel Dinerstein, “39 Sundays,” 111.

32. Carried by four celebrants (two in front and two in back) to keep the

dancing second line off the moving stage, this is the only structuring device that

controls the movement of the crows.


34. Katy Reckdahl, “The Price of Parading,” Offbeat Magazine, 1 November

2006. http://www.offbeat.com/articles/the-price-of-parading/.

35. That number was later reduced to $2,220, until another shooting brought it

back up to $3,760 in March 2006.

36. Lewis Watts and Eric Porter, New Orleans Suite: Music and Culture in

Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013), 42-43.

37. The debate on parade fees has nevertheless left its marks: the present day

fee of $1,985 has forced some clubs to pool their resources and stage a single

parade involving several clubs, each having their own division and their own

brass band.

38. Matt Sakakeeny, “Under the Bridge: An Orientation to Soundscapes in New

Orleans,” Ethnomusicology 54:1 (2010): 16.

39. Jonathan Mark Souther, New Orleans on Parade: Tourism and the

Transformation of the Crescent City (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University

Press, 2006): 159.

40. Mitchell, All on a Mardi Gras Day, 116.

41. Historian Samuel Kinser explains that Indian masking gradually

“substitute[d] aesthetic for fighting prowess.” Kinser, Carnival American Style,

160.


161

http://www.offbeat.com/articles/the-price-of-parading/

http://www.offbeat.com/articles/the-price-of-parading/

42. Lisa Katzman, Tootie’s Last Suit (New York: Lisa Katzman Productions,

2007).

43. Michael P. Smith, Spirit World : Pattern in the Expressive Folk Culture of

Afro-American New Orleans (New Orleans, LA : New Orleans Urban Folklife

Society, 1984), 85.

44. Katzman, Tootie’s Last Suit.

45. Peter G. Stillman and Adelaide H. Villmoare, “Democracy Despite

Government: African American Parading and Democratic Theory,” in Love and

Mattern, Doing Democracy, 485-99.

46. Neil Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to

Congo Square (Chicago, IL: Chicago Review Press, 2008), 294. “We won’t bow

down/On that dirty ground” is a couplet that is at the centre of the most famous

Mardi Gras Indian chant, “Indian Red.”

47. Katy Reckdahl, “St. Joseph’s Night Gone Blue,” Gambit, 29 March 29 2005.

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/st-josephs-night-gone-blue/Content?

oid=1244049.

48. On March 19, 2010, for instance, a squad car with its siren blasting

disrupted nearly twenty Indians fanned out along St. Bernard Avenue during a

ritualistic meeting of two prominent leaders, Big Chief Victor Harris from Spirit

of FiYiYi and Second Chief David Montana from the Yellow Pocahontas. See

Katy Reckdahl, “New Orleans Police Handling of Mardi Gras Indian Events

Draws Praise/Criticism,” Times-Picayune, 20 March 2010. <http://

www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/03/new_orleans_police_handling_of.html>.

On Mardi Gras Day 2011, police broke up a meeting of the Red Hawk Hunters

and 9th Ward Hunters. See Watts and Porter, New Orleans Suite, 52.

49. Larry Blumenfeld, “Beyond Jazzfest, Ruffled Feathers in New Orleans,”

Village Voice, 22 June 2011. http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-22/music/

beyond-jazzfest-ruffled-feathers/2/.

50. Katy Reckdahl, “Crackdown a Decade Ago Touched Off Powder Keg,” The

New Orleans Advocate, 19 March 2015. http://

www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/11880449-123/decade-after-st-josephs-

day.

51. Pointing to Indian performances at mainstream events such as Jazz Fest or

to museums displaying used Indian outfits (the custom used to be to burn them

after St Joseph’s night), critics are quick to point out that what used to be an

underground art form is becoming “an ethnic commodity that symbolizes black

New Orleans.” Becker, “New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians,” 49.

52. Jennifer Atkins, “Setting the Stage: Dance and Gender in old-Line New

Orleans Carnival Balls, 1870-1920,” Ph.D. dissertation (Tallahassee: Florida

State University, 2008);Diane M. Grams, “Community parading and Symbolic

Expression in Post-Katrina New Orleans” in Horace R. Hall, Cynthia Cole

Robinson, and Amor Kohli, Uprooting Urban America: Multidisciplinary

Perspectives on Race, Class & Gentrification (New York: Peter Lang, 2014),

287-300; O’Neill, New Orleans Carnival Krewes.

53. Quoted in Jules Bentley, “Interview with the Krewe of Eris Founders,” The

Raging Pelican 2 (2011). http://ragingpelican.com/interview-krewe-of-eris-

founders/. Very few interviews of this founding couple exist, as Eris – like many

anarchist organizations in New Orleans – cultivates secrecy.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.


162

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/gambit/st-josephs-night-gone-blue/Content?oid=1244049




http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-06-22/music/beyond-jazzfest-ruffled-feathers/2/




http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/11880449-123/decade-after-st-josephs-day






56. Ibid.

57. Ibid.

58. Ibid.

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Adam Chandler, “What the Occupy Movement Can Learn From a New

Orleans Subculture,” The Atlantic, 24 April 2012. http://www.theatlantic.com/

national/archive/2012/04/what-the-occupy-movement-can-learn-from-a-new-

orleans-subculture/256281/.

62. Eight of the cases were eventually resolved – including four with plea deals

and one with dropped charges – while the Orleans Parish district attorney’s

office moved three others to municipal court. One arrestee, William Watkins III,

was given a jail term of 45 days. Two failed to appear for court hearings. See

John Simerman, “Krewe of Eris Prosecutions in Scuffle with Police Produce

Mixed Results,” Times-Picayune, 28 September 2011. http://www.nola.com/

crime/index.ssf/2011/09/krewe_of_eris_prosecutions_in.html. We were unable to

find out what happened to Damien Weaver, who was charged separately from

the other eleven because he faced the only felony counts in the group – battery

of a police officer with injury and attempt to assist an escape.

63. Chandler, “What the Occupy Movement Can Learn From a New Orleans

Subculture.”

64. These authority-minded members half-jokingly refer to themselves as “Eris

Alpha.”

65. In 2012, most of the latter joined a splinter group called “The Krewe of

Witches” that set a boisterous course through the streets of New Orleans one

night before the Eris parade.

66. Quoted in Chandler, “What the Occupy Movement Can Learn From a New

Orleans Subculture.”

67. Ibid.

68. Grams, “Freedom and Cultural Consciousness,” 509.

69. According to Diane Grams, the total number of parades has grown from

near thirty in the parade season following Katrina’s landfall (September 2005-

mid-June 2006) to about 150 in 2011. Ibid, 526.

70. Simone, “People as Infrastructure,” 411, 408.

71. Watts and Porter, New Orleans Suite, 33.

72. Gotham, Authentic New Orleans, 200.

73. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule. On August 31, 2009, for

example, a coalition of social aid and pleasure clubs organized a parade to

protest the destruction of Charity Hospital (which provided two-thirds of the

care for the uninsured in NOLA until 2005) in the face of plans for a new

medical centre that would require demolition of parts of Mid-City New Orleans

rebuilt since the storm.

74. Stillman and Villmoare, “Democracy Despite Government,” 328.

75. Paul Gilchrist and Neil Ravenscroft, “Space Hijacking and the Anarcho-

Politics of Leisure,” Leisure Studies 32.1 (2013): 49-68.

76. Roach, Cities of the Dead, 25.


163

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/what-the-occupy-movement-can-learn-from-a-new-orleans-subculture/256281/






http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/09/krewe_of_eris_prosecutions_in.html




ABSTRACTS

New Orleans has been the parading capital of the United States for close to two centuries. Since

Hurricane Katrina, parades have become more important than ever, as many residents have

called festive organizations home to reclaim urban space and say “We are New Orleans” or “This

is our city.” This article will consider how the place-making practices of Mardi Gras Indian tribes,

social aid and pleasure clubs, and carnival krewes have all reflected and informed citizens’

responses to displacement after Katrina. Drawing on Abdou Maliq Simon’s conceptualization of

people as infrastructure and a series of three case studies, it will refocus the discussion on the

rebuilding of the Crescent City around its citizens, taking the embodied festive practices of New

Orleanians as a lens through which to examine the politicization of public space in post-Katrina

New Orleans.

INDEX

Keywords: carnival, gentrification, Katrina, Mardi Gras Indians, New Orleans, parades, public

spaces, right to the city, second lines

AUTHOR

AURÉLIE GODET

Paris-Diderot University


164

PART TWO Sustainability and theCity: America and the Urban World

EDITOR'S NOTE

Edited by Theodora Tsimpouki


165

Introduction: How (Can) Cities WorkTheodora Tsimpouki

1 “What is a City?”1 So begins the collection of essays in therecently published Cambridge companion to The City inLiterature (2015). “Why Cities” 2 is the opening line ofanother recent publication edited by Robert Inman, andentitled Making Cities Work (2009). While the firstquestion concerns the origins of social and political life, thesecond views cities as the main source of global economicgrowth and productivity. To these overriding questionspertaining to the urban enigma, I would like to poseanother one: “How (can) Cities Work?” Although the impactof urbanization in recent decades and the key role thatcities play in “sustainable development” have been widelyacknowledged, sustainability discourses have remained forthe most part theoretical, and pertaining to the globalrather than the specific and the local. By sustaining thequestion of how cities can work, this collection of essaysattempts an opening toward diverse approaches toindividual cities both as geographical realities and spaces ofcreative intervention and artistic intertextuality.

2 This Special Issue originated from a Salzburg GlobalSeminar held in September 2013, under the title“Sustainability and the City: America and the Urban World.”The volume brings together six interdisciplinary essays thatall address the contemporary process of urbanization. Theydo so by challenging abstract models of sustainability, aswas the Brundtland Report,3 and focusing instead onspecific practices, policies or interventions that promote thebuilding and well-being of local communities. I hope thatthe readers of EJAS will recognize the passionate


166

commitment of its contributors whose engaging experienceand academic expertise inform their formidable thinking. The volume would not have reached its completion withoutthe exemplary guidance and support of Ana Manzanas. Special thanks go to the general editor of EJAS, JenelVirden, for her patience and enthusiasm for the project.

NOTES

1. Antonis Balasopoulos’s “Celestial Cities and Rationalist Utopias,” in The City

in Literature, ed. Kevin R. McNamara (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2015): 17.

2. Robert P. Inman “Introduction: City Prospects, City Policies,” in Making

Cities Work: Prospects and Policies for Urban America, ed. Robert P. Inman

(Princeton and Oxford: Princeton UP, 2009):1.

3. The Brundtland Report included the “classic” definition of sustainable

development: “development which meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The

term, sustainable development, was popularized in the Brundtland report, also

known as Our Common Future report, published by the World Commission on

Environment and Development in 1987.

AUTHOR

THEODORA TSIMPOUKI

University of Athens. Theodora Tsimpouki is Professor at the Faculty of English Studies,

University of Athens. She studied at the University of Athens, the Sorbonne and at New York

University from where she received her Ph.D. Her research has centered on American literature

and culture, gender studies and theories of space. She is editor of the EJAS Book Review section

since 2000.


167


Real Cities


168

Infrastructures of the Global:Adding a Third Dimension to UrbanSustainability DiscoursesBoris Vormann

1. A More Sustainable City

1 Hopes for cities to solve the social, environmental, andeconomic problems of the early 21st century loom large overdiscourses on sustainability in the United States. On arapidly urbanizing planet, it is often argued, the globalchallenge of creating a more sustainable kind of living canbest be tackled in cities and by urban actors. Besides thewidespread notion of an emerging urban era, this focus oncities can be explained by the common assumption thatthese are the points of origin of environmental destructionand climate change as well as the best-suited locales fortheir potential contestation. Unsustainable processes ofindustrialization, congestion, and sprawling spatial livingarrangements are associated with processes of urbanization—as are the seemingly more sustainable counterstrategies:downtown revitalization, green urbanism, and smart cityprojects.

2 In this dynamic debate about sustainable cities, twobroader paradigms are dominant. One camp emphasizesthe need for technological improvements to design betterand more efficient cities. Adherents of this school ofthought assume that urban competition and commercialexchange foster scientific innovation and technological


169

progress which, in turn, will help reduce greenhouseemissions and increase efficiency. Others, by contrast,highlight that cities need to build better spaces for humaninteraction. Planning greener, more dense, and more livablecities will contribute to a better social life—one thathappens to also be more sustainable. As I argue in thisarticle, both these views—which I call the triumphant cityand the beautiful city lines of argumentation—are short-sighted. As I will show, both debates have historicalprecedents that do not bode well for an actually moresustainable urban future.

3 Definitions of sustainability commonly consist of anenvironmental, a social, and an economic component.Sustainable development is seen as that overlappingpolitical space, where these three elements are inequilibrium. This implies more generally that the objectiveof environmental friendliness needs to be complemented byconcerns for social justice and economic growth. Evenmeasured against its own principles, this mainstreamnormative horizon is not accounted for in currentdiscussions about urban sustainability.

4 This article formulates an immanent critique ofexisting discourses on urban sustainability, and provides athird analytical perspective that seeks to shed light onproblematic blind spots in these debates. As I detailthroughout this paper, whereas urban planners anddesigners in the United States put their hopes for asustainable city in technological innovation and a renewalof the public realm, these approaches are based on a two-dimensional account of sustainability that either ignoressocial relations altogether or shrinks them down toimmediate face-to-face interactions in the city. Instead, Ipropose to address questions of urban sustainabilitythrough the lens of infrastructure, thereby shifting thefocus to social relations that transcend, but at the sametime, are necessary to sustain urban agglomerations.

5 I will make this argument in three steps. In the twosubsequent sections, I will present and critique the logic ofexisting urban sustainability discourses identified above. Inso doing I also point out historical parallels to the early-20th

century city-beautiful and city-efficient movements, whichworked along similar argumentative lines and which camewith similar pitfalls and shortcomings. Most notably, thefocus on efficiency and aesthetics largely ignores socialquestions, which is equally true for today’s sustainable city


170

debates. In a third step, I will add a third dimension tosustainability discourses. In taking an infrastructuralperspective that transcends aesthetic and technologicalconcerns, we can shed light on the benefits and costs ofsustainable urban development and repoliticize debatesabout urban sustainability.

2. The Triumphant City: Making the City More Efficient

6 One school of commentators in today’s debates onurban sustainability expects cities to be the loci forprogressive change because of their potential for innovationand efficiency increases. As is argued in this debate—whichI call the triumphant city debate in reference to what isperhaps the most well-known publication in this context,Edward Glaeser’s book Triumph of the City (2011)—one ofthe key features of cities are agglomeration effects. Citiesare sites where politicians, entrepreneurs, and researchersmeet and closely interact. For that reason, cities are seen asthe sites where innovations are made; innovations that aresupposed to help us lead more efficient and productive livesand render our societies more sustainable, or so theargument goes.

7 This line of argumentation is not at all as new as itmight seem at first glance. Its locus classicus is AdamSmith’s oft-cited book The Wealth of Nations. For Smith,too, spatial proximity and close interaction were the keys tosocial progress. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith arguesthat the division of labor, the “extent of the market,”determined the degree of labor specialization and therebythe advancement of society. In cities, where transportationand communication is safe and cheap, markets can extend,labor can specialize, and productivity is increased (21-22).Commercial exchange, in turn, also produces“improvements of art and industry” and “cultivation” (23).In short, in facilitating interaction between merchants—thepredecessors of today’s entrepreneur, that Smith saw as thereal agents of wealth and economic growth (Blyth 107)—cities are the nodal points of social progress.

8 This 18th century view of urban progress was, ofcourse, embedded in the thought and rhetoric of theenlightenment era, and part of a larger political argumentfor markets and for “capitalism before its triumph”(Hirschman). It was expounded and repeated by liberalcommentators in the course of the 19th century in order to


171

legitimate the expansion of markets into all spheres of lifeand, more precisely, to give sense to the social upheavalsproduced by the industrial revolution. Indeed, US cities atthe time provided a perfect illustration of what Karl Polanyilater described as the dangers of “disembedded” markets:Commodifying the environment, labor, and capital—therebyturning them into “fictitious commodities”—underminedsocial cohesion and endangered social reproduction.

9 The reactions that the multiple urban crises ensuedanticipate some of today’s arguments a hundred yearsbefore the concept of the “sustainable city” becamefashionable. It is important to note, in this context, thatcities in the United States were somewhat distinct fromtheir European counterparts because of the significance ofmarket-centered growth regimes in the 19th century. Thecentral goal of state and civil society actors was to increasethe competitiveness of their city—with little considerationfor its social effects. This pronounced orientation towardthe market and a lack of regulatory institutions on the localscale boosted urban growth with drastic social andenvironmental effects. In addition to rampant inequalities,freewheeling market rule led to severe environmentaldegradation. Moreover, the unprecedented expansion ofurban populations across existing jurisdictional boundariesled to a mismatch between political capacities andresponsibilities (Brenner “Decoding”). At the beginning ofthe 20th century it became obvious that the institutionalapparatus to guide growth was severely lacking. Cities andmunicipal institutions needed to be reorganized andreformed.

10 Between 1900 and 1930, economic elites of Chicago’sand New York City’s metropolitan region—most affected bylabor’s crisis of reproduction—attempted to develop growthplans for the entire metropolitan region. The Plan ofChicago (1909) and the “Regional Plan of New York and itsEnvirons” (1929) bear witness to these attempts of creatingmore efficient cities by modernizing infrastructures andtaking new approaches to urban growth on a regional scale(Fishman). While Smith’s argument had been one for theextension of markets to foster progress and improvement,the city-efficient movement was an attempt to hold on tothis rationale in the light of a radically successful market—one so radically successful that it undermined its ownconditions of possibility.


172

11 The city-efficient movement of the early 20th century, aprecursor of the triumphant city argument, then, can beregarded as part of a “double movement”—to stick withPolanyi’s terminology—to try and cope with the negativeoutgrowths of unfettered industrialization processes. Urbaneconomic and political elites in the two leading US cities ofthe time, New York City and Chicago, argued for moreefficient uses of resources. Based on Taylorist forms ofscientific management, the adherents of the city-efficientmovement called upon specialized technocrats and expertsto guide economic growth and to do away with inefficientand wasteful practices.1 In developing the right types oftechnology and design, they argued, and in creating leanerpublic governance structures, urbanization processes couldbe optimized in a way to foster business and render citieseven more competitive and productive.

12 Today’s debates about sustainability mobilize similartropes of the efficient city. Again, these propositions aremade against the backdrop of multiple crises. Over thecourse of the past thirty years, given a drastic expansion ofmarkets in all arenas of social life, inequalities have steadilyincreased, the environmental crisis has turned global, andjurisdictional problems are no longer limited to theboundaries of the city but extend to the regional, and, as wewill see, even to the planetary scale. And again economicand political elites see cities not just as the sites wherethese crises unfold, but also where they can be tackled.

13 The contemporary rendition of the triumphant city

discourse is powerful; it is a strong discourse that isreflected in strategy papers and reports of institutions suchas UN Habitat or the World Bank, in newspaper articles andmore conversational pieces by urban economists andpublicists. Its general arguments as to why cities will makeus healthier, greener, and more productive are hence notlimited to specialized academic discourse but reach a massaudience and have a strong impact on political decision-making.

14 Echoing Adam Smith’s thesis that cities were the hubsof civilizing progress, contemporary proponents of thetriumphant city believe that exchange between elite actorsand decision-makers will benefit from their physicalproximity and urban dynamism—from the possibility ofmatching research with capital and business-friendlypolicies—to come up with and implement smart technologyand share best practice models through inter-city networks


173

and thereby find solutions to render cities more sustainable.In this vein, Bruce J. Katz and Jennifer Bradley believe thata “metropolitan revolution” will lead to the technologicalinnovations necessary to meet the environmentalchallenges of the 21st century. Like them, Edward Glaeserbelieves that cities are—and have been since at least theirrenaissance—sites of “innovation explosions” (8). Lettingthe free market and innovative entrepreneurs take overurban development, this is the subtext of this argument,will create a more efficient and thereby more sustainablecity.

15 This hope is coupled with a firm belief in technologicalprogress. Notably, big data analyses are supposed toimprove resource allocation and diminish congestion incities. Smart technology and a more accurate calculation offlows of humans and cargo are seen as a way to facilitatebetter land utilization and a more efficient use of scarceresources. Corporations such as Siemens or IBM, forinstance, have pioneered the developments of telematicstechnologies to optimize urban processes.2 Othersemphasize the role of architecture and the builtenvironment in creating a more efficient city. Architecturalinnovations are seen as bearing enormous potential forfuture urban living since they allow for a more efficient useof space. Technological innovations in interior designpromise feasible solutions for adaptable, multipurposehomes and shared use accommodations which will rendercities denser and will enable urban residents to use theirprivate spaces in multiple ways (e.g., Larson).

16 Agglomeration effects, the market mechanism, andtechnological improvement are the three hopes of thetriumphantcity debate—but the salutary role of technologyis central to all of them. Evgeny Morozov has coined theterm “technological solutionism” to describe the credulousoutlook with which many discourses on social progressapproach the potential of technological innovation. What heemphasizes is that “technological solutionism” offerssolutions for problems that had not existed before theircure. But there is a more dangerous aspect to thetechnophile approach as well and we see it mostprominently in the triumphant city debate: “technologicalsolutionism” obscures social relations and depoliticizesdebates about social development. Similar to the city-efficient movement in the early 20th century, this type ofdiscourse relegates technical questions to specialized


174

experts and technocrats, thereby impoverishing publicdebate. Its moot point is its obsession with more efficienttechnologies that leaves more deep-seated causes ofunsustainable development such as economic and politicalinequalities or tendencies of urban splintering and the moreindirect effects of globalization on urban developmentunaddressed.

3. The Beautiful City: Hopes for a New Public Sphere

17 If the city-efficient movement was one reaction to thecrisis of reproduction in US cities of the early 20th century,it was not the only one. Its sole focus on efficiency and itslack of a reform perspective was indeed criticized by asecond movement that gathered momentum at around thesame time: the city-beautiful movement. Proponents of thismovement equally sought to attenuate the miserableconditions of the urban labor force and to address theenvironmental crisis in the cities. They were inspired by thereform movement of the late 19th century and the gardencity movement and sought both smaller scale urbanarrangements under a regional institutional umbrella andthe beautification of cities through the construction ofparks, esplanades, and monumental buildings (Wilson).

18 Advocates of the city-beautiful movement held that thistype of reform also had a political dimension. Thebeautification of cities would restore social peace and resultin a more harmonious social order that would increase thequality of life for urban residents. Arguably, one reason whythis movement was able to leave an imprint on politicaldecision-making—also on the above-mentioned plans forChicago and New York City—was that it resonated with theinterests of urban business elites. They, too, sought forstrategies to reproduce the labor force and to pacify socialrelations. But it was precisely this convergence that madethe potential political thrust of the city-beautiful movementvulnerable for cooptation. This is why both the city-efficientmovement and the city-beautiful movement have comeunder attack for ignoring questions of actual social reform(Schönig).

19 A similar argument can be made for today’s version ofthe city-beautiful movement. The paradigmatic site to makesuch an argument about depoliticized aestheticdevelopment strategies in US cities is the post-industrialwaterfront. In the US context, owing to historical patterns


175

of colonial expansion along the rivers and coasts,waterfront revitalization has been more extensive thanelsewhere (Tunbridge 88). By the 1990s, waterfrontredevelopments had become a “seemingly ubiquitousprocess in urban North America” (Sieber 120), granting itthe status of a new planning paradigm. Like the city-beautiful movement, architects and urban planners whopushed for waterfront redevelopments over the course ofthe past three decades have sold it as a countermovementto the negative outgrowths of industrialization. Indeed, thistype of real-estate development is until today evenunderstood by many as the complete reversal ofindustrialization: where once manufacturing industries andshipyards soiled the ground and polluted air and water,today livable waterfront parks and esplanades seam theshorelines of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles(Vormann Global Port Cities).3

20 Waterfront developments have become a global tool tosecure capital investments in inner-city neighborhoods andto attract a new clientele of residents and visitors to theseformerly “abandoned” and “unsavoury, run-down andneglected areas” (Hoyle 14). As in the early 20th century,the hope is that revitalized parkland will lead to civicvirtues—and even to a new public sphere. “These sites,being adjacent to water, now offer us unique opportunities,”argues Richard Marshall, former professor of Urban Designat the Harvard Design School in an essay about urbanspace-making on the water’s edge (7). Concurring withMarshall’s assessment, and with the assessments of manyother city planners and landscape architects, President ofthe Friends of Hudson River Park, Albert K. Butzelconcludes that “[a]fter one hundred fifty years, thewaterfront has become the public’s domain again—and anextraordinary one” (5-6). In addition to being more visibleand more representative of the city, Raymond Gastil evenmaintains that the post-industrial waterfront, as the“paradigmatic site for the future of public life,” forestallsdevelopments to come; they are an integral part of the“history of the future” (19, 192).

21 But these discourses, like their early 20th centuryantecedents, are incomplete and flawed. To be certain, onecan validly argue that industrial waterfronts were highlypolluted, that hiring practices on the docks of the 1950sand 1960s were corrupt, and that corruption on these siteshad a tendency to breed crime (Vormann Global Port


176

Cities).4 Yet, if we think that contemporary American globalcities are more sustainable, less corrupt and less dangerous—or, put differently, that the pathologies of the industrialcity have been overcome—we fall victim to a fallacy. Putprovocatively, even if the post-industrial waterfront werenot only commercially successful, but also sustainable,equitable, and open, a perspective limited to the post-industrial waterfront as a litmus test for the socialdevelopment of the entire city (as which it is oftenpresented in the urban sustainability debate), is stillinadequate. We have to move beyond and beneath existingsustainability discourses in order to grasp wider materialprocesses that facilitate urban development.

22 Debates on the so-called open city are a first step inthe direction of a more socially just city, but they displaysome of the same weaknesses of the beautiful city ideology.The notion of the open city, which stands in the tradition ofJane Jacobs, is one of a “system in unstable evolution”(Sennett 2006). This emphasis on the becoming and on theprocessual nature of cities constitutes an attempt toovercome urban planning traditions dominated by over-determined forms and closed systems. As Richard Sennett,this position’s most articulate proponent, argues, “theclosed system has paralyzed urbanism, while the opensystem might free it” (2008). Closed systems that serve onlyone specific function, in this logic, need to be opened upinto multifunctional systems so as to unleash the potentialfor interaction, spontaneity, and the democratic use ofpublic spaces.5 Open cities, in this sense, might besustainable in a different way, as Sennett goes on to argue:

Buildings left incomplete, partially unprogrammed are structureswhich can truly be sustainable in time; the flexible building wouldhelp end the current wasteful cycle which marries construction anddemolition. Asserting the value of incomplete built forms is apolitical act because it confronts the desire for fixity; it asserts, insteel, glass, and fiber-optic cable that the public realm is a process.(n.p.)

23 This valid critique of dominant sustainabilitydiscourses highlights the process-character of cities.6 Incontrast to triumphant city discourses, it shifts the focusfrom technology to questions of social justice and the publicrealm. Conceding more importance to social relations,proponents of the open city seek to uncover the conditionsof possibility for spatial change to yield more emancipatorysocial outcomes. Nonetheless, however, the open citydebate has elective affinities with the beautiful city


177

paradigm. Ultimately, like the beautiful city paradigm, itfocuses on individual spaces and changes in the builtenvironment as a reform strategy—and thereby tends toneglect social relations that transcend the immediatelylocal all the while buttressing it.

24 Whereas the notion of the open city constitutes amuch-needed corrective for mainstream “technologicalsolutionism” in that it critiques the inner contradictions ofsustainability discourses, then, the focus on individual sitesand projects similarly tends to limit the view from broadersocial relations that are much less sustainable. Moreover, Isee a fundamental problem in the convergent notions of theopen, evolutionary system, and the market as a tool forresource allocation. The open city can easily be co-optedinto market-led approaches, because it is mostly directedagainst central planning. Its critique of rigidity resonateswith a plea for marketization. Consequently, the opennessthat such a regime would grant is not one of individuals onequal footing, meeting in a non-hegemonic space, butessentially skewed long before these individuals enter thepublic realm. Finally, and perhaps most problematically inthe context of urban sustainability debates, the notion of anopen system defers all political decision-making: to valuethe incomplete nature of urban processes opens up spacesfor participation, but if taken at face value it also bears therisk of relegating all questions political to the future or toother orders.

4. Beneath and Beyond: The Infrastructural City

25 Cities are not algorithms. Urban sustainability debatesare steeped in social relations and cannot be fully capturedor improved by mathematical models. Neither will societiesbecome more sustainable in the full sense of the term, ifindividual sites are beautified. So far, I have argued thatboth the triumphant city and the beautiful city debate missthe point. These lines of argumentation are mobilized intoday’s dominant urban sustainability debates as thoughthey were innovations. But, as I have tried to show, theyhave historical antecedents and, like them, they neglect animportant dimension of sustainable development. Byfocusing on technological efficiency, urban design, andmarket-led private entrepreneurialism, these approacheslack a social dimension. The open city debate provides uswith a helpful critique of dominant sustainability discourses


178

but has its limitations. Nonetheless, the open city debatehas been productive in another way. It resonates withongoing attempts to open up the debate of what a cityreally is and what, in turn, urban sustainability can mean.This can be the starting point for a new discussion that wealready see forming in different contexts. As I would like toargue before concluding, this new debate needs to gobeyond and beneath existing urban sustainabilitydiscourses.

26 I am certainly not the first one to argue that cities aremore than a dense agglomeration of people in one place.Saskia Sassen, for instance, builds on the process-basedunderstanding of the open city to criticize “an ‘urban focus’limited to individuals and households” and tendencies to“leave out global economic and ecological systems that aredeeply involved, yet cannot be addressed at the level ofhouseholds or many individual firms” (251). Her ensuingcall for multi-scalar governance frameworks to address theecological crisis through a “global regime centered incities” (239) is warranted, because it mobilizes urbancapabilities beyond parochial local concerns. Sassen’sperspective echoes recently emerging research paradigmsin urban political economy that generalize this concern.Hillary Angelo and David Wachsmuth (2014), for example,have very convincingly criticized the perspectivalshortcomings of methodological city-ism; that is, of limitingour urban (sustainability) analyses to the city-level only. Inan era where urbanization processes are no longer orientedtoward the horizon of the city, but to the regional (Soja 679)and the planetary7 we need new analytical tools. The sameapplies to our understanding of urban sustainability. Thefact that cities are nodes of different types of flows—onwhich the city depends and which are facilitated in it—implies that we have to extend our notion of what a city isin order to conceptualize it as more than just a boundedentity. Debates on urban sustainability need to take theseflows and metabolisms that go beyond the jurisdictionalboundaries of the city into account.

27 What I am proposing here is in line with this recentdebate on planetary urbanization. Urban sustainabilitydebates need a dimension that transcends local immediacy—a dimension which both triumphantcity and beautiful citydebates lack. In this respect, I am very sympathetic to theidea of “blasting open” the container of the city as ananalytical framework (Brenner 2011). But I see a


179

methodological problem in doing so if this theoretical moveis not qualified. The danger of reframing “urbanization” asall processes related to the maintenance of cities, is thatthis concept becomes indistinguishable from the old-fashioned notion of “civilization.” To be fair, the moment ofexplosion—to use Henri Lefebvre’s term—is related to amoment of implosion: cities and flows are not arbitrary butfunction according to specific spatial and social logicswhich stand in a dialectical relationship. But to harness thepotential of this insight and to capture the precise sociallogics which determine the dynamics of these moments, weneed to be more specific. A debate on urban sustainabilityworthy of that name needs to go not just beyond but alsobeneath the city. What I am suggesting then, is that aperspective that turns our attention to the structures thatenable social relations can help us link the two“moments”—of agglomeration and flow, of implosion andexplosion—while at the same time raising questions ofsocial justice.

28 It might seem curious and perhaps overly specific topoint our attention to infrastructures as an analyticalsolution to the methodological city-ism of dominantsustainability debates. But these structures are literally“the underlying foundation” and “basic framework” ofsocial systems.8 Infrastructures are physical, durablestructures that create social patterns and that enable andconstrain social processes. Infrastructures are crystallizedsocial relations, already incurred, sunk costs, that createcertain path dependencies for how cities and societiesdevelop (Angelo and Calhoun). As such, they are not justneutral technological assemblages, but both theiremergence and their effects are political. In them areinscribed certain social power relations—and, in turn, theyreproduce these relations. Two brief examples that addressthe beautiful city and the triumphant city’s main tenetsfrom an infrastructural perspective should help clarify thetype of research program that I have in mind.

29 To be sure, post-industrial waterfronts in the UnitedStates might seem to validate the assumptions of thebeautiful city proponents. If we restrict our field of vision tothese spaces—as the beautiful city paradigm does—it is truethat they are more environmentally sustainable today thanthey had been only three or four decades ago. But thisperspective ignores wider social processes that have madethe post-industrial waterfront possible in the first place and


180

that we can only grasp by shifting our view from thesuperficial spaces to their underlying infrastructures. Thepost-industrial waterfront has arisen as a utopian site fromrearrangements in global production networks:containerization and related technological and politicalinnovations led to a spatial rearrangement of US cities inwhich derelict old harbor sites could be redeveloped asutopian sites of a post-industrial era. At the same time thatthe post-industrial waterfront made its ascent as“paradigmatic site for the future of public life” (Gastil 19),then, the social and environmental costs of the new, post-Fordist goods-moving economy—shipping pollution fromcontainer vessels, diesel fumes from outdated port trucks,flexible working conditions for supply chain workers andother industries, to name but a few—have been imposed onthe public. On the post-industrial waterfront “thepostmodern façade of cultural redevelopment” has becomea veritable “carnival mask which covers the decline ofeverything else” (Featherstone 107). The newinfrastructural fix that enables production and consumptionon a global scale is neither sustainable nor socially just (as Iargue in more detail elsewhere9) but it is the socio-technological pillar on which the beautiful city rests.

30 An infrastructural perspective helps us understandhow urban beautification is not only a question of makingsome places greener and more sustainable than others:these places are part of a larger infrastructural fix in whichcosts are externalized and spatially relocated. A secondexample addresses a question which remains perhaps moreimplicit in the context of global logistics infrastructures. Ifwe aim for more efficient flows to allocate resources withinthe city, we need to question the finality of thatoptimization: Efficiency, for what and for whom? Aninfrastructural perspective, again, helps us to addressrelated questions with a view to social relations.

31 Urban infrastructures are object to political struggle,although their technocratic appearance might suggestotherwise. What we tend to ignore, if we only addressquestions of efficiency, is that technological innovations andinfrastructural changes through the market mechanism“enroll some people and some places to premium status”and, more than that, these restructurings “oftensimultaneously work systematically to marginalize andexclude others from access to even basic services”(Graham and Marvin 288). For instance, high-speed rail


181

connections between exurban airports and revitalizeddowntowns provide certain segments of the global middle-classes with seamless transportation, but exclude poorerpopulations in neighborhoods along the tracks from access.Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin’s work on splinteringurbanism illustrates how the privatization of urbantransportation infrastructure creates such “premiumnetwork spaces” that allow better off populations seamlessmobility at the detriment of other marginalized andsegregated segments of society. “Such ‘disfigured urbanspaces’ thus tend to remain excluded and largely invisiblewithin the contemporary metropolis, beyond the secured,well designed and carefully networked premium ... spaces”(287). This means that we cannot simply argue, as thetriumphant city discourse does, that entrepreneurialinnovations in the market place will help us make citiesmore efficient and thereby more sustainable, withoutspecifying who benefits and who loses. Efficiency alonedoes not address questions of social justice.

32 Whereas the triumphant city debate focuses only ontechnological efficiency gains and agglomerationeconomies, and the beautiful city planners call for greenerurban design, both these lines of thinking narrow ourperspective on urban sustainability to individual sites. Totake an infrastructural perspective means to shed light onhow social processes are linked over different scales andspatial distances. By examining the infrastructures that arenecessary for the production of (isolated) post-industrialand seemingly more sustainable places in US cities, we cansee how social and environmental costs are shifted to otherplaces and externalized through mechanisms that cannot becaptured by a mono-scalar and uni-spatial urban analysis.Ultimately, what this means is that what we tend to call asustainable city today rests on systemic costs that are muchless sustainable than refurbished industrial parks,remediated brown fields, and green waterfronts esplanadesmight suggest.

5. Re-politicizing Urban Sustainability Debates

33 I have argued that two dominant lines ofargumentation in debates about urban sustainability—thetriumphant city and the beautiful city discourses—haveproblematic blind spots and are analytically skewed. Thesediscourses, reproduced by powerful political actors and


182

institutions, seem to offer new solutions to our globalchallenges of the 21st century. But they are not as new asthey suggest. Like their historical antecedents, the city-beautiful and the city-efficient movement, these discoursesare limited. If sustainability has an environmental, a social,and an economic component, current urban sustainabilitydiscourses fail to address these dimensions. They put toomuch hope in technological solutions for social problems,they focus on aesthetic questions without questioningunderlying social relations, and they limit their analyticalscope to the immediately local.

34 Advocates of the open city and planetary urbanization,per contra, offer us ways to get beyond methodological city-ism and use an analytical framework that is moreappropriate to capture urbanization processes in thecurrent conjuncture. This article has argued that aninfrastructural perspective extends our analytical grip, andoffers us a new perspective that goes beyond and beneathexisting debates on urban sustainability. This infrastructuralperspective reveals the systemic conditions that defer costsfrom one set of places to other, less visible ones. Therelocation of social and environmental costs is very much apolitical project, emanating from political decisions onvarious scales—and not, as current planning and designdiscourses tend to emphasize, the consequence ofinexorable economic processes. In this sense, a moreholistic approach to sustainable urban development isequally a political endeavor that cannot fully fall back ontechnological and architectural improvement.

35 Not only were the city-efficient and city-beautifulmovements of the early 20th century not particularlysuccessful: They also depoliticized debates about urbandevelopment, leaving urban change to technocrats andexperts, while at the same time distancing politicaldecision-making from urban constituencies. Moreover, theexclusive focus on the built form and the immediately localto create a better society—either through more efficiency ormore beautiful spaces—did not and does not address largersocial contexts. An infrastructural perspective re-politicizesdebates about urban sustainability. Using infrastructure asan analytical lens helps us to overcome the fetish of theimmediate and to pose the central question: who benefitsand who loses from sustainable urban restructuring?


183

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angelo, Hillary and Craig Calhoun. “Infrastructures of the Social: An Invitation to Infrastructural

Sociology.” April 2013. TS. NYLON Group, Berlin.

Angelo, Hillary and David Wachsmuth. “Urbanizing Urban Political Ecology: A Critique of

Methodological Cityism,” Implosions / Explosions. Towards a Study of Planetary Urbanization. Ed. Neil

Brenner. Berlin: Jovis, 2014. 372-385.

Blyth, Mark. Austerity. The History of a Dangerous Idea. Oxford and New York: Oxford University

Press, 2013.

Brenner, Neil. “Theses on Urbanization.” Public Culture 25 (2013): 85-114.

_____ . “The Urbanization Question, or, the Field Formerly Known as Urban Studies.” The Harvard

GSD, Inaugural Lecture, 2011. Online video clip. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=IK0_CY499Kg.

_____ . “Decoding the Newest ‘Metropolitan Regionalism’ in the USA: A Critical Overview.” Cities

19 (2002): 3-21.

Butzel, Albert K. “Foreword.” Lost Waterfront: The Decline and Rebirth of Manhattan’s Western Shore.

Ed. Shelley Seccombe. Bronx, NY and New York: Fordham University Press, 2007. 5-6.

Featherstone, Mike. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London and Newbury Park, CA: Sage,

1991.

Fishman, Robert. “The Metropolitan Tradition in American Planning.” The American Planning

Tradition. Ed. Robert Fishman. Washington, D.C.: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999. 65-85.

Gastil, Raymond W. Beyond the Edge. New York’s New Waterfront. New York: Princeton Architectural

Press, 2002.

Glaeser, Edward Ludwig. Triumph of the City. How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter,

Greener, Healthier, and Happier. New York: Penguin Press, 2011.

Graham, Stephen and Simon Marvin. Splintering Urbanism. Networked Infrastructures, Technological

Mobilities and the Urban Condition. London and New York: Routledge, 2001.

Harvey, David. “Megacities Lecture 4: Possible Urban Worlds.” Twynstra Gudde Management

Consultants, Amersfoort, The Netherlands, 2000. Web. 8 June 2015. <http://www.kas.de/upload/

dokumente/megacities/MegacitiesLectur4Worlds.pdf>.

Hirschman, Albert O. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its

Triumph. 1997. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013.

Hoyle, Brian S. “Development Dynamics at the Port-City Interface.” Revitalising the Waterfront.

International Dimensions of Dockland Redevelopment. Ed. Brian S. Hoyle, David Pinder, and Sohail

Husain. London and New York: Belhaven Press, 1988.

IBM. “Smarter Cities.” IBM, 2014. Web. 8 June 2015. <http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/

smarter_cities/overview>.

Katz, Bruce and Jennifer Bradley. The Metropolitan Revolution. How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our

Broken Politics and Fragile Economy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2013.


184

Larson, Kent. “Brilliant designs to fit more people in every city,” TEDxBoston 2012. Web. 6 May

2015. <http://www.ted.com/playlists/29/our_future_in_cities.html>.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: U of Minnesota P, 2003.

Marshall, Richard. “Contemporary Urban Space-Making at the Water’s Edge.” Waterfronts in Post-

industrial Cities. Ed. Richard Marshall. London: Spon, 2007: 3-14.

Morozov, Evgeny. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York:

Public Affairs, 2013.

Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. 1944.. Boston,

Mass.: Beacon Press, 2001.

Sassen, Saskia. “A Focus on Cities Takes Us Beyond Existing Governance Frameworks.” The Quest

for Security: Protection Without Protectionism and the Challenge of Global Governance. Ed. Joseph E.

Stiglitz and Mary Kaldor. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013.

Schönig, Barbara. Pragmatische Visionäre: Stadtregionale Planung und zivilgesellschaftliches

Engagement in den USA. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Campus, 2011.

Sennett, Richard. “The Open City.” London: Urban Age, Cities Programme, London School of

Economics and Political Science, 2006.

_____ . “The Public Realm” Richard Sennett, Quant, 2008. Web. 7 June 2015. <http://

www.richardsennett.com/site/SENN/Templates/General2.aspx?pageid=16>.

Sieber, Timothy R. “Waterfront Revitalization in Postindustrial Port Cities of North America.”

City and Society 5 (1991): 120-136.

Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Pennsylvania State

University, 2005 [1776]. Web. 6 June 2015. http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/adam-smith/

wealth-nations.pdf.

Soja, Edward. “Regional Urbanization and the End of the Metropolis Era.” The New Blackwell

Companion to the City. Ed. Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson. Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-

Blackwell, 2011. 679-689.

Taylor, Frederick Winslow. The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper, 1911.

Tunbridge, John. “Policy Convergence on the Waterfront? A Comparative Assessment of North

American Revitalisation Strategies.” Revitalising the Waterfront. International Dimensions of Dockland

Redevelopment. Ed. Brian S. Hoyle, David Pinder, and Sohail Husain. London and New York:

Belhaven Press, 1988. 67–69.

Vormann, Boris. Global Port Cities in North America: Urbanization and Global Production Networks.

London and New York: Routledge, 2015.

_____ . “Toward an Infrastructural Critique of Urban Change. Obsolescence and Changing

Perceptions of New York City’s Waterfront,” CITY 19, 2-3 (2015): 365-64.

Vormann, Boris. “Infrastrukturen der globalen Stadt. Widersprüche des urbanen

Nachhaltigkeitsdiskurses am Beispiel Vancouvers. ” Zeitschrift für Kanadastudien 34 (2014): 62-86.

Wilson, William H. The City Beautiful Movement. Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins

University Press, 1989.


185

http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/adam-smith/wealth-nations.pdf




NOTES

1. I would like to thank Margit Mayer and Stefan Höhne for their helpful

comments on earlier versions of this essay and the reviewers and editors for

their support and feedback during the publication process.

Frederick Winslow Taylor’s The Principles of Scientific Management starts out

with a reference to President Roosevelt, arguing for increased efficiency to

improve environmental conservation. I thank James Dorson for calling my

attention to this point.

2. IBM’s globally visible “Let’s build a smarter planet”-campaign aims at

“collecting and analyzing the extensive data generated every second of every

day.” In so doing, IBM’s tools are supposed to “coordinate and share data in a

single view creating the big picture for the decision makers and responders

who support the smarter city” (2014).

3. See in particular Chapter 5.

4. Ibid. Chapters 3 and 4.

5. It is helpful to quote this passage at some length in order to drive home the

central contradiction: “We might imagine a sustainable environment to be

harmoniously balanced and for all its parts to fit together efficiently; we would

thus define sustainability in terms of equilibrium and integration. In the use of

natural resources like petrol and water these seem only sensible standards. But

in social systems they are not. […] Equilibrium in a social order can sacrifice

dissent for the sake of harmony. […] both the values of harmony and integration

can become instruments of repression. Seen in this light, balance and

integration are the correlates of over-determined form; rigid rules and

structures promise to deliver them” (Sennett 2008).

6. On the important distinction between spatial and process-based (urban)

utopias and their limitations see David Harvey’s lecture on “possible urban

worlds” (2000).

7. Neil Brenner (2013) argues that “the geographies of urbanization, which

have long been understood with reference to the densely concentrated

populations and built environments of cities, are assuming new, increasingly

large-scale morphologies that perforate, crosscut, and ultimately explode the

erstwhile urban/rural divide” (87). Therefore his interest lies not on ‘regional’

but on “planetary urbanization.”

8. Merriam-Webster definition of “Infrastructure,” <http://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/

infrastructure>.

9. For the cases of Vancouver and New York City see Vormann 2014 and 2015

(“Toward an Infrastructural Critique”) respectively.

INDEX

Keywords: City-beautiful Movement, City-efficient Movement, Infrastructure, Open city,

Planetary Urbanization, Sustainability


186

AUTHOR

BORIS VORMANN

Freie Universität BerlinBoris Vormann is a lecturer in political science and urban political

economy at Freie Universität Berlin’s John-F.-Kennedy-Institute for North American Studies.

Vormann is also the coordinator of the Einstein research group NYLON Berlin and associated

researcher at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Published with Routledge (2015), Global Port

Cities in North America: Urbanization Processes and Global Production Networks is his second

monograph. His most recent book publication is a co-edited handbook on politics and policies in

the United States (Handbuch Politik USA, Springer 2015).


187

Dealing with the Past Spatially:Storytelling and Sustainability inDe-Industrializing CommunitiesJulia Sattler

1. Introduction

1 At the latest since the so-called “spatial turn” in the humanities and

the respective “narrative turn” in urban planning, cultural and literarystudies and urban planning have been interested in each other asdisciplines. Such interdisciplinary dialogue is helpful to recognize, forexample, how cultural factors contribute to the failures or successes ofa plan, or why the readership of a plan matters and is useful to take intoaccount. It may potentially lead to more successful plans, but also to apractice based on the recognition that planning is constitutive; that it isnot only a response to certain community needs, but rather, that it is animportant factor shaping and literally building communities andcultures. For the literary and cultural studies, this particularinterdisciplinary link opens up new ways of reading urban spaces andshapes a better understanding of the practices of representation andthe role of narratives and scripts in the urban experience.

2 In his study Planning as Persuasive Storytelling. The Rhetorical

Construction of Chicago’s Electric Future, James A. Throgmortonattests to the important role of language, discourse and rhetoric inplanning practice, making evident that planning is not neutral, but thatit impacts and shapes the past, present and future of the city. Definingplanning as “persuasive and constitutive storytelling within a web ofrelationships” (xix), he makes clear that attention to stories andnarratives is crucial in the creation of sustainable and livableenvironments in our cities. As an Americanist interested in transatlantic


188

relations and in such practices of persuasive storytelling, I amparticularly fascinated by the similarities and differences that areprovoked in perceiving, but also in planning the city by way ofnarrative. Having lived in de-industrializing regions all my life andhaving been confronted with oftentimes diverging ideas as to what is tobecome of formerly industrial sites as a citizen, studying the storytellingaspect of de-industrialization promises to be an interesting researchproject in order to understand better how cultural factors and storiesimpact the process of dealing with the past spatially.

2. Sustainability and the Post-Industrial City

3 “Sustainability” has long become a buzzword in planning

discourses around the world. Oftentimes, this discussion about creatinga sustainable way of life is centered on questions of the environment: itrelates to the ecological footprint of our cities, to providing access toalternative, renewable energies, and to ensuring quality of life forfuture generations inhabiting our communities. In more than one way,thinking about sustainability for the future thus also relates to dealingwith the legacies of the past. With regard to how this discussion isbeing led across the Northern hemisphere, this is especially true for de-industrializing cities, where past land uses have led to the creation ofbrownfields and other excess spaces—oftentimes industrially shapedand not easily reusable for non-industrial purposes due to theirdegraded soil. In post-industrial cities, the word “sustainability” comesup in negotiations about the re-use of former industrial facilities thathave lost their purpose, in the attempt to re-develop whole housingprojects originally built for industrial workers, and in the question ofwhether parts of cities might be returning to their rural origins as moreand more homes and factories are left to demise.

4 In addition to the physical difficulties of dealing with the

industrial legacies, de-industrializing communities are confronted withseveral additional layers of history that pose a challenge now and forthe future. Even thoughin public discourse, the processes affectingthese communities—the North American “Rust Belt,” the German RuhrValley, the French Pas-de-Calais-Region, just to name a few examples—are oftentimes subsumed under unspecific headers such as“globalization,” “transformation of the workplace” or simply “de-industrialization,” the situation on the ground is much more complexthan such descriptions express. The ongoing transformations in formerRust Belts pose a narrative challenge to planners and citizens alike. Atthe turn to the post-industrial age, an identity shift or re-definition is ofneed, responding to existing stories, but simultaneously building newones.

5 The places mainly referred to in this article, the German cities of

the Ruhr Valley and the U.S.-American Detroit, serve as representativefor a whole set of cities across the Northern hemisphere which grew


189

significantly through their industries, identified strongly throughindustrial production—hence their nicknames, the “Coal Pit” for theRuhr and the “Motor City” for Detroit—and are now confronted with thechallenge of re-invention. At the same time, these places are veryspecific: Different from each other and different from all others due totheir specific micro-histories. The Ruhr and Detroit are especiallyimportant industrial cities and linked to each other in important waysdespite the very different industries they became known for. Certainly,the Ruhr—in its physical design, in its industrial production processes—was heavily shaped by the Fordist principles established in Detroit. Butthe connections go further than that: Not only is Detroit part of theregion that sometimes used to be nicknamed “American Ruhr,” but boththe Ruhr and Detroit were, and maybe still are, the bellwether of theirrespective countries’ economies, the canaries in the coalmine, so to say.Industrial work was important both to keep the cities growing andgoing, and to provide a stable income and identity for the inhabitants:For many generations, the future was clear—now, these are citiesliterally “on the verge” and the path to the future is not fixed yet.

6 What is oftentimes referred to simply as the “crisis” both are

confronted with nowadays has been a long time in the making: Lookingback, it was already clear in the 1950s that the eternal growth theseplaces were built for was not going to last forever. Almost ironically, oneof the Ruhr’s strategies of cushioning the emerging crisis of itsindustries—coal, iron, steel—was establishing a new focus on car-production: the assumption was that people would always need cars,especially in a region that is as sprawled as the Ruhr. The company thatfinally settled in Bochum in the Ruhr Valley roughly 50 years ago wasGeneral Motors from Detroit. The company is known in Germany underthe name of Opel—and it has closed its Bochum production site in late2014. This plant closing is expected to lead to the loss of up to 45.000workplaces in the Ruhr Region and beyond, such as in other industriesassociated with auto production. In the Ruhr, despite the rather strongGerman economy, unemployment is notoriously high, and with the lossof the Opel/General Motors plant it is not the first time “globalization”takes its toll. The coal mines, the coal cokeries, the steel plants have byand large disappeared as sites of industrial production; the more recentlosses of Nokia1 and Opel make evident that in a time of crisis andchange, sustainability cannot come by way of work alone. Finding a newpath ideally needs public dialogue. This dialogue is likely not going tobegin on its own though: Art has proven to be a powerful initiator ofsuch dialogue in the Ruhr.

3. How love could be: Staging Motown in the Ruhr

7 Artistic practice, much like narrative practice, is more than just

a tool in urban development. It can highlight previously invisible layersand dimensions of a site, and create new links. It can also help to


190

extend the scope of a site—both in order to be able to recognize site-specific factors and characteristics, and to see economic and otherdevelopments across a larger scale. In the context of urbandevelopment, it can open up a dialogue between the past and thepresent, and point out, even enable, several potential futures. Ideally, byhelping create a new narrative about a site which picks up on theexistent ones, new conversations about a place are facilitated.

8 In April 2014, an LED installation by the British artist Tim Etchells was

lit on top of a former shaft tower that today is part of theDeutschesBergbaumuseum in Bochum, a museum devoted to thehistory of mining and the mining of resources around the world. Thisinstallation, in red capital letters, and visible from many different pointsin the city of Bochum, reads four words: “How love could be,” astatement that can also be understood as a question. The installation isquoting the third line of a 1961 Motown song by The Miracles, “BadGirl.” Its lighting was celebrated with a “Motown BBQ,” a get-togetherof city and state officials and citizens of Bochum and the surroundingcities for food and Motown music. The installation creates a visible (andin that sense, audible) link between Detroit and the (post-) industriallandmarks of the Ruhr, between one “Motown” and another, so to say.


191

Figure 1

Tim Etchells, “How love could be”

9 Etchells’s installation of “How love could be” is part of a larger

artistic project happening in 2013-14 that became known as the“Detroit-Project” and that established a slogan in Bochum and in theRuhr that I find ambivalent for its apparent lack of solidarity with thecitizens of Detroit: “This is not Detroit.” While the slogan can be read asironic—it is obvious that Bochum is not Detroit, but that it is indeedBochum—it highlights that GM cannot do to the citizens of Bochumwhat it has done to the citizens of Detroit. At the same time, it builds abarrier between the two cities: Detroit is not what Bochum wants to be.


192

The “Detroit-Project,” creating yet another—albeit highly problematic—link between the Ruhr and Detroit, is carried out by the Bochum theaterand the organization “Urban Arts Ruhr,” a publicly funded associationaiming at creating a sustainable and culturally rich urban landscape inthe Ruhr. It is also financially supported by the German Federal CulturalFoundation and the Arts Foundation of North-Rhine Westphalia.

10 The project has the goal to establish a transnational dialogue

about urban sustainability and the future of the city of Bochum—andother “Motowns,” cities on the international scale associated with theauto industry—through art. As quickly becomes evident from theprogram, the “Detroit-Project” itself is not so much about anything thatis happening in the city of Detroit, but it rather uses “Detroit” as abuzzword to highlight the potential failure of urban transformation. Thisis much in tune with a lot of other contemporary media using “Detroit”as a template for urban crisis, and represents yet another instancewhere the city’s condition is brought up “as basis for opportunistic self-aggrandizing” (Herron, “Detroit” 668): Negative stories about Detroit“sell,” and make one’s own misery appear a little less, it seems.

11 Love, of course, could be different, and hopefully would be different.

Love would be more respectful, would recognize the specificities thatlead to difference and appreciate what could be learnt from them. Lovecould carefully analyze how Detroit—if its name is already evoked in theproject title—is dealing with the changes and how “learning fromDetroit” could be a strategy of coping with the transition at hand inBochum: A bit of Detroit might do good things in Bochum.

4. Sustaining on Stories

12 In de-industrializing communities, storytelling is important to

keep the integrity and the solidarity of the citizens despite the ongoingchallenges. It also contributes to the sustainability aspect in thesecommunities, specifically also via establishing boundaries between oneplace and another (Eckstein 13), something that also becomes evidentin the “Detroit-Project:” Cities in crisis do not necessarily like to becompared to each other. Certainly, the people of Detroit would rathersee their city as a “new Berlin” than as a “new Oberhausen” or “newGelsenkirchen,” two of the Ruhr cities known for their notoriousunemployment, high poverty index, communal debt, and all the troublesarising out of such a situation.

13 Barbara Eckstein and James A. Throgmorton have published a

volume on Story and Sustainability. Planning, Practice, and Possibility

for American Cities, arguing that the telling and understanding ofstories is important “in the recognition, agreements, andresponsibilities necessary to create and maintain sustainable cities”(4). In his own contribution to the volume, Throgmorton goes on toshow how unseen layers of the city impact the creation of sustainablecommunities: Drawing heavily on the literary critic Lawrence Buell, he


193

argues that “places are continually shaped and reshaped by forces fromboth inside and outside; they have histories and are constantlychanging” and that “any one place contains its residents’ accumulatedor composite memories of all the places that have been significant overtime” (“Imagining” 45). The claim here is that the history of a place isimportant with regard to its future: in order to become sustainable forthe future, and sustainable not only in terms of environment, but also interms of social justice and opportunity, cities need to work with theirpasts in one way or another.

5. Dealing With the Past Spatially: From the 1980sOnwards

14 Creating a sustainable city for the future means building it onto

a steady foundation. Both in the Ruhr and in Detroit this means dealingwith the industrial legacy and the ongoing absence of industrial work.An analysis of how these communities are dealing with their industrialpast spatially will help understand not only in how far the industrialpast is still part of the contemporary conception of these cities, but alsoin how far the future(s) will be determined by this layer of history.Certainly, this analysis will also make evident the cultural differences inhandling the transition to the post-industrial age as well as thedimension of public policy in the creation of sustainable urbanenvironments. This is not a new challenge, of course: By the 1980s,both the Ruhr and Detroit felt increasing pressures to determine howtheir industrial heritage could be dealt with in the “post-industrial” age.

15 The Ruhr reacted to this challenge by suggesting an alternative use of

the former sites of industrial production. The International ArchitectureExhibition “Emscher Park/ Workshop for Industrial Regions” tried tobridge the gap between industrial production and the post-industrialeconomy. It took place in several Ruhr cities between 1989 and 1999,and focused on change without growth. Its implementation made“conservation of the industrial heritage ... a cornerstone of the area’seconomic, social and spatial restructuring” (Raines 184). With thistypically social-democratic agenda, it tried to make the unavoidabledeparture from the industry and the loss of jobs more bearable to thepopulation in the region, and open the Ruhr for tourism. In moreconcrete terms, this meant that industrial sites, but also worker’shousing and the urban structures from the industrial age, in many caseswere preserved in order “to retain the spatial identity, to give points oforientation, and to explain the history of the region, as well as to givethe next generation the opportunity to interpret their heritage forthemselves” (Ganser,2 qut. in Raines 195).

16 According to this principle, industrial sites were re-invented as sites of

cultural activity, as parks, museums and event centers: theInternational Architecture Exhibition, so to say, “saw a millionopportunities in the ruins of industry—in fact, it wished to dance on its


194

grave” (Raines 200). Many projects in the context worked with aparadigm that is best described as metamorphosis without destruction(Barndt 272), and points to the layered histories of the region. As theRuhr came to terms with the fact that land was no longer needed forindustry or new investment, nature can take back what the factoriesand smokestacks once took, leading to, for example a coking plantturning into what Raines has described as “garden of abandonment”(198) that is open to visitors free of charge year round, the LandscapePark Duisburg-North. The creation of “playgrounds” in formerlyinaccessible facilities has established a new relationship between thepeople and the (post-industrial) landscape, and offers a platform foridentification and for thinking about the past, present and future ofthese places.

Figure 2

Landscape Park Duisburg-North

17 Certainly, the Architecture Exhibition’s attempts to redevelop

the region had its flaws: It did not create the new jobs it promised, forexample. Also, even though one goal of the project was to achieve anincreased democratization of the planning process itself, this does notmean that all voices were heard on equal terms—when exploring thepreserved sites (including their museum sections) today, one will haveto search far and wide until one encounters the voice of a migrant—in aregion shaped by different waves of migration throughout 150 years.The same is true for women: the narratives surrounding these sitesmainly focus on male white industrial workers’ voices. On the brightside, the grand achievement of the IBA was that it gave the region


195

something to identify by and with: it contributed to a regional identitywhich built on local/ regional specificity (albeit with a dominant focuson some groups and not others) and the Ruhr’s unique urbanity(sometimes referred to as Ruhr-banity in more recent projects). In theRuhr of the 1980s and 1990s, several factors combined that led to thisachievement: The emerging cooperation between the 53 cities in theregion, the fact that state support was available, and the ability toconnect to grassroots movements going on in the population at thistime: In the case of Duisburg’s Landscape Park, for example, citizensfrom the area stopped the demolition of the industrial plant andstrongly supported the installation of a new type of park. Nevertheless,while the process of preservation developed very well in many sites,preserving this high a density of (post-)industrial markers—literally,hundreds of sites—may have led the Ruhr to a romanticization of itsindustrial past, and smokestack nostalgia; an idealization of the pastthat makes it hard to move on to a different future.

18 While the Ruhr hosted the International Architecture Exhibition,

Detroit chose a different route. This does not mean that people do notreflect about Detroit’s past: They spend “a good deal of timeremembering and writing about its past in local newspapers andmagazines; this is a great place for nostalgia,” but the city is not a place“that the majority of metropolitan residents feel good about visiting”(Herron, “Postmodernism” 66). While the automotive productionlandscape had a strong presence in Detroit’s neighborhoods, thepreservationist imperative was not as strong as in the Ruhr. As Brent D.Ryan and Daniel Campo have shown, “since the 1980s, Detroit’s historicbuilding stock of automotive manufacturing facilities has mostlydisappeared” (95). Thus, the sites of industrial production were mostlyeither demolished and/or possibly replaced with “vacant lots, surfaceparking, office parks and fortress-like industrial complexes” (127), orjust left to themselves. The remains of structures like the Packard Plant,the world’s largest abandoned factory, for example, have gained worldfame. Every few weeks, an idea for its re-development will pop up onthe internet, but its ultimate chances of re-use are unclear.


196

Figure 3

Packard Plant, Detroit

19 Certainly, there is a variety of reasons for not taking action and

preserving the industrial heritage as it was done in the Ruhr. One isthat is that in Europe, quite simply put, public money was madeavailable at the time in order to ease the effects of the transformation tothe post-industrial age. Another is that Europe has a tradition of


197

“industrial culture” and preservation that does not have as many ardentsupporters in the United States. A third is the ownership structure: Acomprehensive public redevelopment of multiple former plants,comparative to the Ruhr’s “route of industrial culture” would mean thatthese would have to be publicly owned to begin with. This is usually notthe case with such facilities in Detroit. The fact that preservation didnot occur in a concerted effort is certainly also related to the idea thatnew investors would rather like to buy up large portions of free landthan a set of partly redeveloped parcels: For the longest time, Detroit’sfuture was to remain industrial—today, industrial ruins oftentimesattract tourists and others to the city. These outsiders who admire andcelebrate the “ruins,” also in the form of photographs, often do not takeinto account that the daily experience of Detroit is radically different:The abandoned structures are oftentimes understood to be painfulreminders of the past—and of a future that never came.

20 In Detroit, additionally, a number of site-specific factors come into play:

the fall of industrial production coincided with race rebellions and thefollowing “white flight” to the suburbs. This makes regional approachesrather difficult, as the suburbs define themselves versus the city ofDetroit. Even within the city of Detroit, the past is decidedly moreopenly contested; it is the root of distrust between different groups whohave a history with the city: “If whites remember a city of sturdyworking-class neighborhoods, ethnic festivals, and steady work in theauto plants, black Detroiters remember a very different place. For the85 percent of the current population that is black, old Detroit was a cityof bitter housing segregation, white neighborhood protectionassociations, and racist mayors” (Eisinger 89). As an almost singularexample within the city of Detroit, the Heidelberg Project captures thisambivalence and—albeit in a disturbing manner—establishes some sortof continuity between past and present story (Sheridan). TheHeidelberg Project, with its layers, and layers and yet more layers ofhistory, “visually captures the story of a residential community comingundone” (Walters 64), creating something that is inclusive of multiplestories and that tries to capture the ongoing transformation of Detroit,all the while posing critical questions about the future of the city, themeaning of poverty in a throw-away society, and the role of art inabandoned spaces.


198

Figure 4

Heidelberg Project, Detroit

21 In the United States, where the incentive is to look toward the future

instead of dwelling on the past, and specifically in Detroit, where thisfuture has been and was going to be fabricated, the recognition that theexpected version of the future did not arrive is specifically hard to


199

handle. In his article “Detroit: Disaster Deferred, Disaster in Progress,”Jerry Herron describes how the industrial city of Detroit has been basedon the creation of sameness: During the industrial age, Ford’s initiationtactics focused on the assimilation of recent immigrants to the city, andon the claim that the only history that matters is the history of today.The city itself, with its importance for the creation of standardized massculture “becomes an assembly line of forgetting machines” (676).Herron goes on to explain that in the process of de-industrialization andabandonment, “(t)he city becomes a junkyard of no-longer-relevantforgetting machines—the department store and the old hotels, the greatdowntown office buildings and the train stain, the old neighborhoodsand public parks. The ‘problem’, then is getting over the memory ofthings that once were necessary, which stand now for the way we were,not for the way we aspire to be” (676). To re-connect with this heritagewould mean having to deal with a painful past.

22 As becomes evident, different strategies of dealing with the industrial

past are a result not only of different investment strategies, but also ofdifferent narrative processes and stories about the meaning of the pastfor the present. In fact, the investment strategies may be the result ofstories: Had people in the Ruhr not opted for the preservation of theDuisburg steel plant, which they considered vital for their city’s identity,efforts at preservation may have been much more difficult. This is in noway to say that one strategy is “better” than another, but rather, it helpsexplain why situations that may seem rather similar to the outsider canlead to very different outcomes. Projects that have proven sustainableappear to be those that can easily “attach” themselves to ongoingnarratives, thus, those that are locally specific and inclusive of existingstories. This also makes a lot of sense, since such projects remain read-able in their original context.

6. Facing the Global Frontier

23 It seems all the more surprising, then, that more recent

approaches to dealing with the industrial heritage of the Ruhr regionand Detroit in the 2000s are more similar to each other than they usedto be. In his article “Reimagining Detroit” (2003), Peter Eisinger haspointed out that when political or financial leaders speak of the“rebirth” of Detroit in the 2000s, they not only reject the complex raciallegacies that are part and parcel of the city, but that indeed “they arereimagining a new city, guided by three different templates: Detroit as aworld class city, Detroit as a tourist destination, and Detroit as the vitalcenter of a prosperous metropolitan area” (85). In recent years, similartemplates have become more and more prominent in the publicdiscussion about what is to happen in the Ruhr.

24 This is certainly also a result of narratives about excess spaces and

abandoned sites that have emerged in de-industrializing regions: Due tothe rather prominent discourse of the “creative city” since the late


200

1990s, an immediate connection is made between “creativity” andurban development. In post-industrial cities, where new jobperspectives are desperately needed, such discourse is especiallyprominent. In theory, the post-industrial city becomes a new type offrontier where the new settlers find ideal conditions for artistic andother creative practice: Space is available and, most importantly,affordable. Thus, a narrative connection is produced betweenabandoned industrial and other facilities, and artistic production as thenew engine for development. These concepts go hand in hand with theproposition that post-industrial cities are similar to an “empty canvas”(or a wilderness) that can be cleared of its legacy and inscription, andon which newcomers can leave their mark, as there is supposedly noobligation to deal with either the past, or with the native population.

25 This narrative is not only an oversimplification. It can also potentially

become a threat to the local population that is no longer visible in thisnarrative. Of course, one can ask if a debate about whethergentrification is happening in shrinking cities in desperate need ofinhabitants and tax-payers even makes any sense, but at the same timethe sense of displacement that becomes evident in the story of the“creative class” needs to be taken seriously (Elliott). Instead of activelyestablishing a continuity between past and present, these newerprojects are carefully curated and accumulate “placeless, meaningless,and cultureless” (Raines 201) landscapes producing a linearity that isnot part and parcel of the original narrative or of post-industrialurbanity at large, an urbanity marked by multi-layeredness and intensecontradictions.

26 These new developments, that cannot only be seen in the Ruhr

or Detroit, but everywhere around the globe, are usually steered byoutside actors and work with powerful slogans of “reinvention” and“creative cities” being built for a newly emerging “creative class.” This“creative class” can be defined as a group of knowledge workers(usually white) coming to these post-industrial cities in order to begin,finally, a process of economic uplift that the current, local populationcannot achieve. With regard to the Ruhr, this development has veryrecently been described as a shift from “industrial culture to culturalindustry.” These newcomers are supposed to bring capital—economicand cultural—to post-industrial regions and to provide new hope. Sincethe idea to rebuild the “old Detroit” has been rejected by the citizensthemselves (Eisinger 90), it is somewhat understandable that such anarrative could gain momentum in Detroit; it is quite astonishing to seethe same kind of development in the Ruhr.

27 This development, that threatens the resilience and sustainability of

grown communities, points to the pressure to put oneself on the “map”in the global competition for the best minds and highest funding, butalso to larger trends in contemporary city building in which a highlyidealized present and future of post-industrial spaces is projected in thecontext of booster campaigns which political leaders tend to want for


201

outsiders— possible investors or future residents—to see (Eisinger 93).This means that at a time when affordable housing solutions are needed(e.g. due to the lack of jobs), luxury condominiums are constructed tostimulate positive development. Recently, for example, the replacementof a steel plant with a lake including luxury housing along the shore hasprovoked a lot of discussion in Dortmund, another Ruhr city being facedwith difficulties to retain its tax-base: Who was going to be living there,in a city with 13% unemployment? According to Thomas Pedroni,“neoliberal urbanism involves a process of creative destruction thatremakes the city physically and discursively. In the process, a differentkind of city emerges—a city imagined by someone else, and not for thepeople who remain there” (206). The new construction, as McGrawevaluates for Detroit, changes the outlook of the city, but in the longrun, such success stories do not overcome, but rather mask the overalldecline happening in these places (291). The developments threaten tocreate a “tale of two cities” with a prosperous and a poor and neglectedpart—in the case of the lake in a city that prides itself in its strongsocial-democratic tradition. The environment that is newly created inthese areas is sterile and not locally specific—rather, it looks likeanywhere else. The new facilities form an enclave within the overallcontext of the post-industrial city: Stories about new opportunitiesemerging out of the rubble in these places stand right next to stories ofdespair, never ending loss and decay, creating new spatial unevennessand new borders between people living in the same city.


202

Figure 5

New developments

28 Certainly, there are counter-initiatives in the Ruhr and in Detroit.

Neighborhood involvement groups that are locally organized andfinanced, and informal artistic activity around such places as thePackard Plant and the iconic Michigan Central Station should bementioned as well as research-based projects that try to build on and


203

extend the long-term legacy of what the International ArchitectureExhibition has done in the Ruhr: With an increasing focus on culturalpluralism and looking toward comparative urbanism to contest thepowerful discourse of the “creative” imperative. At the same time, theseprojects are oftentimes not where the funding goes because they gobeyond the established schemes, and they are not as “glamorous” asluxury housing. But they focus on people who have made these citiestheir homes. This is important, and this counters the threat behind thestory of the “new frontier:” That the supposed frontier-space is treatedas an empty arena instead of a landscape full of stories that are alreadythere.

7. Conclusion

29 While much more could be said about how the places discussed

here –Germany’s Ruhr and Detroit, Michigan– deal with their industriallegacies spatially, my article has hopefully shown that the role ofstorytelling in creating sustainable communities for the future cannotand should not be underestimated. While certainly, in a “global” age,global developments play into local affairs, urban sustainability is firstand foremost to be thought on the local level, thus, taking into accountthe different historical legacies and layers a place might offer. Urbanplanning and American Studies can work together in uncovering someof the hidden layers these sites have to offer and contribute to a moreinclusive vision of a sustainable post-industrial city.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Web. 1 Sep. 2014. <http://www.thisisnotdetroit.de/>.

Web. 31 Aug. 2014. <ttp://en.landschaftspark.de/the-park/evolution>.

Web. 1 Sep. 2014. <http://www.schauspielhausbochum.de/spielplan/how-love-could-be/>.

Web. 1 Sep. 2014. <http://www.schauspielhausbochum.de/spielplan/das-detroit-

projekt-2013-2014/>.

Barndt, Kerstin. “‘Memory Traces of an Abandoned Set of Futures’: Industrial Ruins in the

Postindustrial Landscapes of Germany.” Ruins of Modernity. Ed. Julia Hell and Andreas Schönle.

Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010. 270–93.

Eckstein, Barbara. “Making Space: Stories in the Practice of Planning.” Story and Sustainability:

Planning, Practice, and Possibility for American cities. Ed. Barbara J. Eckstein and James A.

Throgmorton. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 2003. 12–36.


204

Eckstein, Barbara, and James A. Throgmorton. “Introduction: Blueprint Blues.” Story and

Sustainability: Planning, Practice, and Possibility for American cities. Ed. Barbara J. Eckstein and James

A. Throgmorton. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 2003. 1–8.

Eckstein, Barbara J., and James A. Throgmorton, eds. Story and Sustainability: Planning, Practice, and

Possibility for American Cities. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press, 2003.

Eisinger, Peter. “Reimagining Detroit.” City and Community 2.2 (2003): 85–99.

Elliott, Meagan. “We need to ask: Is gentrification happening in Detroit?” December 13, 2011.

Web. 1 Sep. 2014. <http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/gentrifyfeature1211.aspx>.

Ganser, Karl. “Eine Bauausstellung in hübsch-hässlicher Umgebung.” Forum Industriedenkmalpflege

und Geschichtskultur 1 (2009): 15-19.

Hell, Julia, and Andreas Schönle, eds. Ruins of Modernity. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,

2010.

Herron, Jerry. “Postmodernism Ground Zero, or Going to the Movies at the Grand Circus Park.”

Social Text 18 (1987): 61–77.

_____ . “Detroit: Disaster Deferred, Disaster in Progress.” South Atlantic Quarterly 106.4 (2007):

663–82.

McGraw, Bill. “Life in the Ruins of Detroit.” History Workshop 63.1 (2007): 288–302.

Pedroni, Thomas C. “Urban Shrinkage as a Performance of Whiteness: Neoliberal Urban

Restructuring, Education, and Racial Containment in the Post-industrial, Global-niche city.”

Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 32.2 (2011): 203–15.

Raines, Anne B. “Wandeldurch (Industrie) Kultur [Change through (industrial) culture]:

conservation and renewal in the Ruhrgebiet.” Planning Perspectives 26.2 (2011): 183–207.

Ryan, Brent D., and Daniel Campo. “Autopia’s End: The Decline and Fall of Detroit’s Automotive

Manufacturing Landscape.” Journal of Planning History 12.2 (2012): 95–132.

Sheridan, David M. Making Sense of Detroit. University of Michigan Library, 1999. Web. 1 Sep. 2014.

<http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.act2080.0038.301>.

Throgmorton, James A. Planning as Persuasive Storytelling: The Rhetorical Construction of Chicago's

Electric Future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

_____ . “Imagining Sustainable Places.” Story and Sustainability: Planning, Practice, and Possibility for

American Cities. Ed. Barbara J. Eckstein and James A. Throgmorton. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press,

2003. 39–61.

Walters, Wendy S. “Turning the Neighborhood Inside Out: Imagining a New Detroit in Tyree

Guyton’s Heidelberg Project.” TDR: The Drama Review 45.4 (2001): 64–93.

NOTES

1. From 1988 to 2008, the city of Bochum was home to a Nokia production

plant. In 2008, Nokia closed the plant and moved its production to Romania.

This led to the loss of about 2000 jobs and caused significant public attention.

2. Karl Ganser is a German geographer and urban planner. He was the

executive director of the International Architecture Exhibition “Emscher Park/

Workshop for Industrial Regions” (1989-1999).


205

INDEX

Keywords: de-industrialization, Detroit, Ruhr Region, Storytelling, urban transformation

AUTHOR

JULIA SATTLER

TU Dortmund University Julia Sattler teaches American Studies at TU Dortmund University in

Germany’s Ruhr Region. Her research focuses on Urban Cultural Studies, Storytelling in

American Culture and the cultural history of Rust Belt. Combing American Studies and Urban

Planning, her post-doctoral project is reading the Ruhr Region and Detroit in dialogue. From

2012 to 2015, she directed an international PhD program on “Urban Transformations in the USA”

at the UA Ruhr funded by the Mercator foundation. In addition to research and teaching, Julia

Sattler has worked on multiple urban redevelopment projects in the Ruhr. She was a visiting

scholar to the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning in

2013 and to the University of Iowa’s School of Urban and Regional Planning in 2015.


206

The Implementation of the URBANCommunity Initiative: ATransformative Driver towardsCollaborative Urban Regeneration?Answers from SpainSonia De Gregorio Hurtado

1. Introduction1

1 At the end of the 80s and during the 90s, different theoretical and practical

contributions (e.g. Davidoff, Friedmann, Forester, Healey, Innes) developed an

approach to urban matters that was characterized by participative/communicative

practices. During that period this approach pushed for the adoption of certain policy

instruments in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the context of the

European Community, the experience developed in the United Kingdom exerted a

relevant influence on the construction of the communitarian approach to the urban

domain. In fact, the British experience would make an important contribution to the

policy instruments for urban regeneration to be launched by the European Community

in 1994: The URBAN Community Initiative.

2 The development of the theoretical and practical contributions mentioned above

took place in a complex context in which questions of the legitimacy of traditional

planning processes became central. The situations of injustice and conflict, in which

local communities could not have their say on urban transformation processes that

affected directly their neighborhoods, were increasing as a result of the presence of a

number of different social groups sharing the same urban spaces, and in respect to

their growing capacity to organize themselves to express their disagreement. Urban

planning processes, which had hitherto avoided the issue of participation and diversity,

started to take local communities into account. In this context, the above-mentioned


207

contributions served as a source of intellectual input. Although each of those is

characterized by the ideology and the professional activity of the authors, all of them

developed alternatives to the “traditional” planning processes (those in use in the

period following the Second War World in Europe and the United States) which

proposed the representation of all the relevant stakeholders in the decision-making

processes through the development of a communicative and inclusive approach.

3 In 1997, Patsy Healey published Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented

Societies. The book argues that the involvement of all relevant actors in a planning

process can lead to the transformation of governance (the ways or processes through

which matters of common interest are managed by political communities), resulting in

the construction of institutional capacity of those places. The author assigns to the

planning process a role in the transformation of places towards collaborative

governance models. For her, planning becomes part of a process that has the capacity

to build up relations and discourses through which links between networks are

constructed in order to address matters of shared concern at different scales

(neighborhoods, towns and urban regions). Through this alternative approach in urban

planning it is possible to overcome conflicts that characterize urban decision-making

in which divergent interests and expectations come together. These processes are

developed through the construction of forums for dialogue, where active discussion

takes place. One of the strengths of this approach is the potential to develop a

transformative work able to establish new ways of organizing and new relational

networks (61).

4 In the framework of this work, the concept of Collaborative Planning is applied in

the context of instruments for urban regeneration. Through the implementation of

participatory regeneration processes, that involve devolution of power to the local

community and their responsibility in urban decision making and implementation

(empowerment), it is possible to develop institutional capacity. It also entails the

evolution towards collaborative models of governance that, apart from making possible

the dialogue between different stakeholders, leads to the transformation of local and

multi-level governance. The inclusion of the collaborative dimension in planning

involves the consideration of the knowledge of the local community (not expert

knowledge) as well as expert knowledge, and therefore the use of both in order to

better identify the causes of urban deprivation and define more effective regeneration

strategies. Finally, the collaborative approach involves encompassing a strategic

planning vision in the inclusive understanding of the problem and the design and

implementation of action measures.

5 The proposal developed by Healey has been set as conceptual framework for the

analysis undertook in this work because in Collaborative Planning the participation of the

different stakeholders takes place within the institutional structures that constitute

the planning framework. From this perspective, the regeneration programs

implemented under the two rounds of the URBAN Community initiative are considered

to be the instruments that could not only transform local governance through dialogue

but alter urban policy governance systems. This study reviews the collaborative

approach assumed by the programs of urban regeneration implemented under the

URBAN and URBAN II in Spain in order to understand how the theoretical assumptions

and the practical objectives that were adopted by this Community Initiative were

transposed to the Spanish urban scenario. The objectives are to identify if the


208

programs could transform local governance in the urban areas where they were

implemented, encouraging local capacity. The outcomes are proposed as a

contribution to the urban agenda that is being discussed in the framework of the EU at

the moment.

2. Method

6 The methodology that has been used to achieve the above-mentioned objectives

is based on the next steps and tasks:

7 a) Review of the urban policy of the EU (its background and theoretical

contributions) from the beginning of the 80s to the present, and

characterization of the URBAN and URBAN II Community Initiatives as

collaborative tools for urban regeneration.

8 b) Study of the development of the collaborative dimension of the URBAN

Community Initiative in Spain. This part undertakes an analysis of the 29

programs implemented in the country.

9 c) Study of the development of the collaborative dimension of the URBAN II

Community Initiative in Spain. This part undertakes an analysis of the 10

URBAN II programs of urban regeneration implemented in the country. In order

to achieve an in-depth knowledge on how the collaborative dimension was

developed,the study examines the URBAN II program according to which the

collaborative approach was implemented in a more sustained and coherent way

(Pamplona), applying the guidelines provided by the European Commission

regarding collaborative regeneration processes.

10 d) Analysis of results of b) and c) under the light of the tradition of urban

regeneration in Spain. This part presents the aspects that have fostered or

hindered the transformation of local governance in the Spanish cities where the

URBAN II programs of urban regeneration developed.

11 e) Identification of conclusions and recommendations to be considered in the

actions to be taken for the continuation of the URBAN II Community Initiative in

the country under the urban policy of the EU. The recommendations are

relevant as well for a consideration of the urban agenda that is taking place at a

EU level.

3. The construction and launching of a collaborativetool for urban regeneration (URBAN) in the context ofthe European Union

12 In the early 90s the European Commission accepted the request presented by

certain cities, some institutions, and agencies for direct intervention of the Structural

Funds in deprived urban areas of the European Community through the development

of a new and specific instrument of urban regeneration. This demand was based on the

awareness regarding the structural crisis faced by many cities in Europe and the

specificity of urban problems. Based on the experience gained through the

development of the Regional Policy during the 80s, the European Commission, The


209

European Parliament and the governments of the Member States began to embrace

gradually a framework for urban development in the European Community. This work,

together with the previous experience of the Urban Pilot Projects (PPU) launched in

1989 by the European Commission, led in 1994 to the presentation of the URBAN

Community Initiative.

13 URBAN was influenced by the urban regeneration policies that had been

developed previously by different Member States of the European Union and

particularly by the United Kingdom, in whose national context had begun to operate

the City Challenge program in 1991. The URBAN Community Initiative adopted many of

the methodological issues of this tool. City Challenge was a result of the process of

consideration that took place in the British framework in the end of the 80s on the

limited outcomes of the initiatives that had been put in place during the previous years

in the field of urban revitalization (i.e. Urban Development Corporations, Inner City

Enterprises, City Grant). The new program aimed to overcome the main difficulties

faced by those tools through the adoption of an integrated approach in which local

authorities and other local stakeholders had to play a significant role in the

regeneration processes. The integrated approach to tackling social inclusion at the

local level constituted a turning point in the British scenario and corresponded to

what, in the early 90s, M. Stewart called “new localism,” that amounted to a review of

the British urban policy towards the devolution of power to the local level, thus seeking

to achieve desired policy objectives. The communicative and collaborative contribution

influenced the search for alternatives at that moment. In fact, Mark Tewdwr-Jones and

Philip Allmendinger point out that the concept of Collaborative Planning seems to have

evolved as a reaction to the planning experience developed during the 80s, and

particularly from the debates that took place at the end of the 20th century as a

response to the neoliberal puzzle of anti-planning regulations in the 1980s.

14 During the same period (early 90s) the European Commission (through its

Directorate General for Regional Policy) requested Michael Parkinson (from the

European Institute for Urban Affairs of Liverpool) to design a draft for a Community

Initiative aimed to regenerate urban areas. Parkinson counted on a deep knowledge of

the tradition of urban programs that had been launched during the 80s in his country

and on the ongoing discussion on urban revitalization. On this basis, he prepared and

presented to the Directorate General for Regional Policy a proposal for a Community

Initiative to face urban decline that was highly influenced by City Challenge (De

Gregorio, 2012). After a quite complex process,2 the Community Initiative was officially

launched by the European Commission in 1994 under the name of URBAN.

4. The collaborative method for urban regeneration inURBAN

15 URBAN integrated in its methodology many of the elements of City Challenge,

but assuming a more social approach, as a result of the integration of the British

experience and other urban traditions present in the European Context (mainly the

urban social tradition of France and the participatory experiences that had been

developed in Northern countries). By launching URBAN, the European Commission

aimed to introduce innovation in the field of rehabilitation of degraded neighborhoods

and to promote the transformation of the governance structures of the planning


210

systems of EU’s Member States (Reiter). These goals would be achieved through the

implementation of the URBAN regeneration programs based on a collaborative

approach. URBAN was one of the 13 Community Initiatives of the EU during the period

1994-1999. The Community Initiative was used by the European Commission as an

instrument to act in policy areas where it was considered that direct action at

Community level was more effective than action through the Community Support

Frameworks agreed by the Commission and the Member States (highly influenced and

limited by national priorities). The European Commission understood URBAN as a

bridge between innovative small-scale urban projects and wider actions funded under

the Structural Funds. It should create synergies between them in order to initiate a

multiplier effect in the long term that could result in the mainstreaming of the URBAN

approach.

16 The main elements of the URBAN methodology to regenerate urban areas were

the following:

Area-based approach that focused on concentrating financial and technical resources in a

limited deprived urban area during a period of 6-8 years.

Strategic approach based on a vision of urban development integrated with the local and

regional strategies of urban and territorial development.

Integrated approach through the inclusion of measures of economic, social, environmental

and management nature, able to give a holistic answer to the problems of degradation.

Involvement of all actors with interests in the area of the regeneration process with the aim

of building local capacity. This collaborative approach included the involvement of the

different levels of government (local, regional, national and communitarian) and

interdepartmental collaboration at a horizontal level.

Competitive selection process based on the quality of the proposal, co-financing capacity,

innovative vision adopted, etc. (De Gregorio, “Iniciativa Comunitar”).

17 The URBAN Community Initiative was launched by the European Commission

officially through the Communication to the Member States laying down guidelines for

operational programmes under the Community initiative concerning urban areas (URBAN)

(European Commission, 1994a). This communication set out the scope, objectives,

eligible areas, measures to be implemented, and conditions for funding of the

programs. Each of the programs had to be structured along a number of axes that were

instrumental to the implementation of the strategy of urban regeneration. The axes

contained different measures and, in turn, the measures contained a set of individual

actions that had to be developed during the period 1994-1999. As established in the

Communication of the European Commission and in the official documents, the urban

regeneration programs implemented under URBAN aimed at involving the local

community in the development of a strategy of urban regeneration, giving place to an

integrated approach through the collaboration of all the relevant departments of the

Municipalities through a holistic vision (acting in the environmental, economic and

social dimensions of urban decline).

18 The collaborative vision of the instrument was not familiar to many of the

Member States of the EU. At that moment, only few had developed urban policies at a

national level and many had no previous experience in the implementation of a

collaborative approach in the context of urban policies. This explains why the

Communication by the Commission advised the integration of the collaborative

approach but, neither it, nor any of the other documents that established the

•

•

•

•

•


211

normative guidelines, pointed it out as compulsory. As a result, the Initiative was

transformed in each national context, influenced by the urban regeneration practice

traditionally implemented. Consequently, the potential of transformation of the

collaborative methodological elements of URBAN in the Member States was limited by

the inertia of their urban planning systems.

5. URBAN in the Spanish scenario: introducinginnovation and dealing with inertia

19 Initiatives on urban regeneration in Spain have been developed mainly during

the last two decades. In fact, when in 1994 the European Commission launched URBAN,

some Member States of the EU had a consolidated experience on urban rehabilitation of

deprived neighborhoods, implemented through specific legislative and policy

frameworks, while in Spain the experience was shorter and there was no comparable

initiative on a national scale. The main reasons that explain this situation are

historical: The isolation and conservative ideology that characterized the dictatorial

period left the country outside the debates on urban renewal that had taken place at a

European level. The profound State reform that was implemented since the

Constitution of 1978 influenced the way in which urban policies would evolve in the

next decades: the responsibility on planning issues, that so far had been in the hands of

the Central Government, were transferred to the regions (Autonomous Communities)

and the cities. From then on, institutional action on urban issues evolved towards a

fragmented institutional scenario, where collaboration between different levels of

government became difficult. At the same time, the social and institutional

transformation that took place during the next decades resulted in the consolidation of

an urban planning tradition in which local communities were almost excluded from the

decision-making processes. Institutions adopted a paternalistic vision while, after a

participatory momentum under the Urban Social Movements during the late 70s and the

early 80s, the request for participation by citizens and associations was greatly

reduced. As a result, in general, urban transformation was implemented in the country

on the basis of instrumental rationality, limiting the participation of local

communities. It is worth pointing out as well that, by the arrival of URBAN in 1994,

urban regeneration in the country was characterized by a sectoral approach in which

the transformation of public space prevailed over the transformation of the social and

economic dimensions of decline.

20 The afore-mentioned situation, together with the lack of experience in the

implementation of collaborative instruments in the field of urban policies, resulted in

that major goals were not attained and URBAN programs in Spain3 did not succeed in

transforming governance in the context of the urban regeneration strategies (De

Gregorio, 2012). In fact, during the first round of the URBAN Community Initiative

(1994-1999) the programs reproduced the traditional approach to urban

transformation, showing a lack of integration of non-institutional actors in the

definition and implementation of the strategies with the continuation of the sectoral

approach (where the focus on environmental transformation still prevailed). Within

this general scenario, just a few programs managed to implement the integrated and

participatory methodological dimensions of the URBAN Initiative. In these cases,

program limitations led to strategies that slightly improved urban environments but


212

were not successful in achieving major transformative results. None of the programs

was able to implement a wide and consistent participative process. Only the program

of Huelva partially reached its goal toward an inclusive process of urban

transformation, while most of the programs developed processes of “participation”

that consisted only in spreading information in the local community. However, one

should not underestimate what was achieved in the first round of URBAN in Spain

which translated mainly in the knowledge and experience gained by both practitioners

and institutions. An understanding of the novelty of the methodology proposed by

URBAN was eventually introduced in the academic circles (even if it exerted less

influence than in other countries of the EU). All this resulted in a penetration of the

URBAN methodology at a theoretical level, which, in turn, contributed to essential

practical outcomes in the next round of the Initiative (URBAN II 2000-2006) (De

Gregorio, 2012).

6. URBAN II in Spain: achieving concrete results andtrying to overcome persisting inertia

21 The second round of URBAN was launched by the Communication from the

European Commission to the Member States laying down guidelines for a Community Initiative

concerning economic and social regeneration of cities and of neighborhoods in crisis in order to

promote sustainable urban development (URBAN II) in 2000 (European Commission, 2000).

It maintained the approach and objectives of the first round, focusing on the

promotion of innovation and the dissemination of best practices.

22 In Spain 10 programs were integrated in the URBAN II Community Initiative.4 The

way in which the collaborative dimension was embraced and implemented in some of

these programs shows a relevant evolution if compared with those developed during

1994-1999, but at the same time it demonstrates how local tradition and inertia

continued hindering the implementation of “real” collaborative strategies. It is worth

pointing out that, even if the outcomes of the programs run under URBAN (1994-1999)

highlighted the problems the municipalities had faced in order to implement the

collaborative approach, there was no initiative process at the national level. As a

result, the programs continued to face problems in implementing this methodological

dimension in the Spanish context. Only those municipalities with more resources,

experience and political will were able to overcome limitations.

23 The lack of experience of Spanish municipalities in implementing collaborative

visions in urban policies explains why, in most cases, the URBAN II programs equated

the participatory processes with dissemination of information to citizens and

consultation processes (in the context of strategies already defined by local

institutions). Nevertheless, the analysis identifies two cases (Pamplona and Gijón)

where the URBAN II programs were able to launch processes in which an interaction

between stakeholders took place (De Gregorio, 2012). The URBAN II program of

Pamplona constitutes the example in which the collaborative vision was implemented

in a more consistent way. The strategy of urban regeneration designed by the

Municipality included a structured process of participation organized with the support

of facilitators (experts from the University of Navarra) in which all the stakeholders

were invited to participate in the design of the strategy, the implementation of some of

its actions and the monitoring of the process. The next part of this essay focuses on the


213

case of Pamplona, in order to examine the conditions on which the city developed the

participatory process and the limitations that had to be faced as the process evolved.

a. The case of URBAN II in Pamplona

24 The URBAN program developed in Pamplona acted on the historic center of the

city and the neighborhood of Rochapea, a mixed-use area with small industrial

activities and residential blocks (Fig. 01). The total surface area was 1.7 km2 and the

resident population approximately 30,000 (16% of the total population in 2000). Since

the 70s, both neighborhoods had suffered depopulation, poor housing conditions, lack

of public facilities and public space, and problems of social integration. In addition,

they were characterized by the decline of economic activity and urban environmental

deterioration. A reversal of the depopulation trend started by the late 90s. In order to

counteract the degradation, the Municipality started in the case of Rochapea the

construction of public housing projects in 1988. At the time of the implementation of

URBAN, the area was being reconverted from a mixed-use to a residential one.

Figure 1

Area of the URBAN II program in Pamplona (Rochapea area: North to River Arga; Historic center:South to River Arga) (source: developed by the author on a base of Google Maps)

25 The Municipality of Pamplona chose the historic center and Rochapea to implement

URBAN II after an analysis of the situation of the different districts of the city. The

main reasons that entailed the decision were:

The poor socio-economic indicators.

The problems of urban functionality posed by the physical barriers between the historic

center and the Rochapea area (wall and river).

•

•


214

The need to promote commercial activity.

The need of more public facilities and public spaces.

The urgency from the part of institutions to address the sustained efforts of citizens, social

actors and local agencies to revitalize the area.

26 The URBAN program of Pamplona adopted from the beginning a collaborative and

integrated vision. In fact, from the beginning the Municipality considered the

existence of a social participative substrate as an important basis on which “[to] build

new and deeper ways of participation”able to increase the solidness and strength of the

program and improve its dissemination at a local level (Ministerio de Hacienda, 2001).

This vision enabled the Municipality to understand the collaborative approach of

URBAN as an opportunity for the city, making it an essential part of the strategy. As a

significant component of the program and taking advantage of its transformative

potential, the collaborative approach was introduced to reinforce urban regeneration

strategies: “To create enduring structures of participation and management based on

consensus-building and able to undertake and make possible the change and the

regeneration that the URBAN area needs” (ibid.). The analysis of how the collaborative

vision was encoded in the program’s documents of 2001 shows that it aimed to

construct effective institutional capacity through participation-learning, resulting in

citizen input into agency decision-making and management. In order to facilitate the

participation of all the relevant and interested actors in the regeneration program, the

Municipality published an invitation in the newspapers. Afterwards, a protocol was

signed with the stakeholders in order to start a process of social participation able to

monitor the project and integrate proposals by social actors and individuals. The

protocol set the procedures for participation as well as its deadlines, and anticipated

the creation of the Management Committee, a body which would coordinate the

different arenas of participation (URBAN Forums) and would guarantee the smooth

evolution of the process.

27 The Management Committee was composed of various local and institutional

actors (City Council, technicians of the URBAN program, representatives of

organizations of the historic centre and Rochapea, etc.). It represented the core of the

participative process, as it engaged all stakeholders as equal contributors in dialogue

and negotiation. The participative process counted on the technical assistance and

expertise of INSONA (Institute of Social Studies of the University of Navarra).

28 Discussions of the measures to be implemented took place in the context of the

URBAN Forums. During 2001, eight Forums were created, in which different measures

were discussed. At first, the Forums played an informative role on the rules of URBAN,

giving participants the opportunity to become familiar with this method of urban

regeneration. INSONA acted as a facilitator when conflicts arose in the course of

discussions, in order to make different positions converge into an acceptable proposal

for all. The participation process lasted three years. Once defined and agreed, the

measures moved to a body called Mesa URBAN which was chaired by the Mayor and

was comprised of stakeholders, technicians from the City Hall (particularly the

technicians involved in the development of the URBAN program) and representatives

of all the political parties with representation in the Municipality Plenary Sessions.

The Mesa URBAN studied the proposals of the Forums. It had the authority of

accepting or rejecting them. Nevertheless, it exercised its decision-making authority

respecting what had been decided in the Forums, proposing changes in the case of the

•

•

•


215

measures that were considered very complex from a technical point of view. Some of

the measures selected were: Improvement of sports facilities; connection of the Paseo

de Ronda to surrounding streets and improvement of adjacent streets; refurbishment

of Palacio del Condestable; construction of centre for local associations and NGOs;

access to the Internet available to all; improvement of accessibility; low emissions

public transport; installation of solar panels; services for entrepreneurs; tools and

services for the creation of SMEs; creation of Environmental Education Center;

promotion of crafts and arts incubator; integration of immigrants; support for older

people. The participative nature of the URBAN program of Pamplona diminished as the

implementation progressed, when the Municipality started developing measures

differently from what had been agreed in the participative process.5 This circumstance

led to frustration and dissatisfaction of citizens who were engaged in the policy making

process. Despite the discomfort born around the final realization of some activities and

the recognition that the process of participation lost strength over time, the

stakeholders contacted6 considered that the process was very positive, not only because

it allowed the introduction of particular measures in the final strategy that otherwise

would not be carried out by the Municipality, but because the path initiated by URBAN

led to the transformation of local governance through the inclusion of the local

community in the regeneration of the city.

b. Results of the participative process

29 The development of the described process resulted in measures that improved

significantly the strategy of the program. All stakeholders who were interested in

getting involved were integrated in the participatory Forums. In particular, citizens

and associations of the area (historic center and Rochapea) were well represented. The

participatory process led to a high degree of consensus regarding the strategy to be

implemented to revitalize holistically the historic center and the Rochapea area. The

actual participation in the Forums allowed a large number of citizens and other actors

to familiarize themselves with the URBAN method and acknowledge the EU interest

toward urban regeneration. It provided them experience on more democratic decision

making processes in the field of urban matters at a local level. Despite the difficulties,

it should be noted that the participative approach was considered positive by local

associations, the Municipality and other stakeholders. It was also assessed positively by

the European Commission in 2003.7 This shows that the inertia and traditional

limitations that characterized the Spanish context of urban regeneration at that

moment could be overcome with political and technical commitment. In the case of

Pamplona, the commitment of the technicians of the Municipality responsible for the

implementation of the URBAN program with the participative process was a key factor

in order to overcome the problems that arose before and during the implementation.

Nevertheless, with the decrease of political commitment the participative process

declined and the results achieved so far were only partially preserved.


216

7. Lessons from the experience of URBAN and URBANII in Spain

30 The observation of the collaborative dimension in the URBAN and URBAN II

programs shows that it was only partially introduced in the Spanish case, which

reduced the transformative capacity of the processes of urban regeneration put in

practice. This is explained by the tendency to reproduce traditional practices and the

hesitancy to introduce new methodological elements in the domain of urban

regeneration. The experience reviewed in this work, and particularly the case of

Pamplona, shows that these limitations can be overcome when technical and political

commitment supports the collaborative and integrated approach, and when the

collaborative dimension is understood as an opportunity to improve the local

management of urban issues and the development of local capacity. Political will and

commitment emerge as crucial factors to sustain a process of participation aimed to

develop local capacity. In addition, the Spanish experience shows the fragility of

participative processes when they are still at an early stage and not fully implemented.

31 The difficulties involved in implementing the collaborative potential of the

URBAN method in Spain highlights once again the necessity of fostering this

methodological aspect in the programs for urban regeneration launched in the context

of EU’s urban policy.8 The analysis shows that municipalities need more support and

knowledge to understand the potential of participation in order to construct effective

and sustained collaborative frameworks for urban regeneration. Member States are

defining at the moment the instruments through which they will implement the

Cohesion Policy of the EU during the current budget period (2014-2020). In this

context, it is particularly important to reinforce the participative approach for urban

regeneration, so that it can effectively contribute to the transformation of local

governance, the empowerment of local communities and the consideration of the real

needs and demands of local citizens.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davidoff, Paul. “Advocacy and Pluralism in Planning.” Journal of the American Institute of Planning

31.4 (1965): 331-38.

De Gregorio Hurtado, S. “Urban Policies of the European Union from the perspective of

Collaborative Planning. The URBAN and URBAN II Community Initiatives in Spain”. Diss.

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 2012.

_______. “La Iniciativa Comunitar URBAN como factor de transformación de la práctica de la

regeneración urbana: aproximación al caso español.” Ciudad y Territorio 180 (2014): 253-275.


217

European Commission. Communication to the Member States laying down guidelines for

operational programmes under the Community Initiative Concerning Urban Areas (URBAN). COM

(94) 61 final. Brussels: EC, 1994a.

______. The Future of Community Initiatives Under the Structural Funds. COM (94) 46 final 2.

Brussels: EC, 1994b.

______. Communication from the European Commission to the Member States laying down

guidelines for a Community Initiative Concerning Economic and Social Regeneration of Cities and

of Neighborhoods in Crisis in Order to Promote Sustainable Urban Development (URBAN II). COM

(2000) 1100. Brussels: EC, 2000.

______. Cooperación con las Ciudades. La Iniciativa Comunitaria URBAN. Brussels: EC, 2003.

Forester, J. “Critical Theory and Planning Practice.” Journal of the American Planning Association

46:3 (1980): 275-86.

_______. Planning in the Face of Power. Berkeley, CA:U of California P, 1989.

_______. The Deliberative Practitioner: Encouraging Participatory Planning Processes. Cambridge and

London: The MIT Press, 2000.

Friedmann, J. Planificación en el Ámbito Público. Madrid: Ministerio para las Administraciones

Públicas, 2001.

______. Insurgencies: Essays in Planning Theory. London and New York: Routledge, 2011.

Healey, Patsy. “Towards a ‘Social Democratic’ Policy Agenda for the Cities.” New Horizons in British

Urban Policy. Ed.Craig Johnstone and Mark Whitehead.Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. 159-72.

_____ . Collaborative Planning: Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. 1997. London: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2006.

Innes, Judith. “Planning Theory’s Emerging Paradigm.” Journal of Planning Education and Research

14.3 (1995): 183-89.

Innes, J. and D. Booher. “Consensus building and complex adaptive systems: A framework for

evaluating collaborative planning.” Journal of the American Planning Association 65. 4 (1999): 412–23.

______. Public Participation in Planning: New Strategies for the 21st Century. Berkeley: Institute of

Urban and Regional Development, U of California, 2000.

______. Collaborative Dialogue as a Policy-Making Strategy. Berkeley: Institute of Urban and Regional

Development, U of California, 2000.

______. “Reframing Public Participation: Strategies for the 21st Century.” Planning Theory and

Practice 5. 4 (2004): 419-36.

______. “Consensus Building: Clarifications for the Critics.” Planning Theory 3.1 (2004): 5-20.

INSONA. Proyecto URBAN: Centro histórico-Rochapea de Pamplona. Informe Evaluativo Final.

Pamplona: Ayuntamiento de Pamplona, 2002.

Ministerio de Hacienda. Programa Iniciativa Comunitaria URBAN Pamplona 2001-2006. Madrid:

Ministerio de Hacienda, 2001.

Ministerial Meeting Urban Policy: “Cities empower Europe. Conclusions Dutch Presidency 2004.”

Web of Regional Policy of the European Commission. European Commission, n.d. (2004). Web. 10 June

2014.


218

Parkinson, M. “Urban Policy in Europe: Where Have We Been and Where Are We Going?”

European Metropolitan Governance: Cities in Europe-Europe in Cities. NODE Project. Ed. E. Anatalovsky,

J.S. Dangschat & M. Parkinson. Vienna: Node Research, 2005. 7-32.

Reiter, R. “The ‘European City’ in the European Union. Comparing the implementation conditions

for the EU’s urban development agenda in Germany and France.” The Re-creation of the European

City. Governance, Territory & Policentricity. Ed. R. Atkinson, & C. Rossignolo. Amsterdam: Techne

Press, 2008. 17-38.

Stewart, M. “Between Whitehall and Town Hall: The realignment of urban regeneration policy in

England.” Policy & Politics 22. 2 (1994):133-145.

Tewdwr-Jones, M., and P. Allmendinger. “The Communicative Turn in Urban Planning:

Unravelling Paradigmatic, Imperialistic and Moralistic Dimensions.” Space and Polity 6.1 (2002):

5-24.

Tortola, P.D. “Federalism, the State, and the City: Explaining ‘City Welfare’ in the United States

and in the European Union.” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 43. 4 (2013): 648-75.

NOTES

1. Post Doctoral Research Fellow in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The article is related to

the research work developed by the author in the context of her PhD Thesis (De Gregorio, 2012)

and in the line of research on integrated urban regeneration in the European Union that she is

currently developing.

2. See (De Gregorio, 2014; Tortola, 2013; Parkinson, 2005).

3. 29 programs were developed in Spain under URBAN: Albacete, Avilés-Corvera, Badajoz,

Badalona, Barakaldo, Cádiz, Cartagena, Castellón, Córdoba, Huelva, La Coruña, Langreo, León,

Madrid, Málaga, Murcia, Palma de Mallorca, Pontevedra, Sabadell, Salamanca, Santa Coloma de

Gramanet, Santander, Sevilla, Toledo, Telde, Valencia, Valladolid, Vigo and Zaragoza.

4. Cáceres, Gijón, Granada, Jaén, Orense, Pamplona, San Adriá de Besós, San Sebastián-Pasaia,

San Cristóbal de la Laguna and Teruel.

5. In particular, the Municipality changed the use of the refurbished Palacio del Condestable and

the location of the centre for local associations and NGOs, devoting both buildings to activities

that were not considered of social interest by the local community.

6. In the context of the research were contacted: the Municipality of Pamplona; the Asociación

Gaztelán; the Asociación Alter Nativas; and INSONA.

7. It was included in the document “Cooperation with Cities: The URBAN Community Initiative”

(European Commission, 2003: 17) as an example of urban participatory processes together with

those of the URBAN II programs of Rotterdam, Clyde Waterfront and Graz.

8. URBAN has not been launched from 2007 as a Community Initiative, but its lessons and its

method are to be mainstreamed in the context of the EU policy, particularly in the initiatives and

programs funded under the Structural Funds.


219

INDEX

Keywords: collaborative approach, innovation, Pamplona, participative process, planning,

Spanish experience, URBAN and URBAN II, urban regeneration

AUTHOR

SONIA DE GREGORIO HURTADO

Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Sonia De Gregorio Hurtado is a Post Doctoral Research

Fellow Sonia is postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Urban and Spatial Planning of the

Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic University of Madrid –UPM-. She has developed her

professional activity as practitioner in architecture and urban planning in Europe, North Africa,

Asia and Center America, in Chapman Taylor Architects and L35. She has a sustained research

activity as research fellow in CEDEX (Ministry of Public Works) and UPM. She has been a visiting

researcher in the European Institute for Urban Affairs (Liverpool) and in Boku University

(Vienna), and a lecturer in UPM. She participates frequently in high-level conferences and

publishes research in Spanish and English journals. Her work focuses on the analysis of the

urban dimension of the EU policy, integrated urban regeneration, local climate change and

mobility, and the gender dimension of urban policies.


220


Imaginary Cities


221

Urban Figures, Common Ground: JRand the Cultural Practices ofPerceptionPetra Eckhard

The most political decision you make is where

you direct people’s eyes.

In other words, what you show people, day in and

day out, is political.

Wim Wenders

1 The stern gaze of monstrous eyes and the sudden provocative

presence of grimacing faces have added a new and astonishing form ofdécor to the bleak and characterless walls of Downtown Los Angeles. Inan uncompromising gesture, the gigantic photographic portraits whichspread over entire walls of multiple stories buildings, garage doors,rooftops, fire walls or industrial corridors consume both the city’spublic wall space and the immediate and absolute attention of the(mostly motorized) passers-by. Beautiful and threatening at the sametime, their smart symbiosis with the city’s architecture signals apreviously unseen form of urban monumentality which, in terms ofreception aesthetics theory, would fall into the category of the sublime.1

“What exactly are they advertising?” one might ask, but the larger-than-life black and white portrait posters lack a commercial purpose. Theposters’ contents disturb the observer’s eye since what is prominentlyat display is not the stars and starlets of Hollywood’s dream factory butthe wrinkled faces of Carl, Michael, Tuangpet, Robert and John—elderlyAngelenos who would usually fall into the category of the un-famous. Sowould the architectonic structures upon which the portraits had beenpasted: Bleak industrial halls and undecorated sheds reveal their ageand un-glamorousness through the sun-bleached and fading colors oftheir once brightly painted frontages. The portraits seem to have


222

entered a silent and intimate dialogue with the city, which, upon deeperreflection, brings to mind Robert E. Park’s famous assertion that thecity is “a product of human nature,” a space first and foremost definedby “the people who compose it” (1).

Figure 1

JR, “Michael Downtown” from “The Wrinkles of the City,” Los Angeles, 2012 (c) JR

2 Faces on facades are currently experiencing a revival as tools of

social critique and commentary. Since 2005 Parisian street artist andurban activist JR,2 who positions his work at the intersection betweengraffiti and photography (thus referring to himself as a“photograffeur”),3 has made visible urban conflicts around the globethrough the display of the people who are most directly involved: Therioting immigrant youngsters of the Parisian suburbs (Portrait of a

Generation, 2004-2006), Israelis and Palestinians on both sides of theWest Bank Barrier (Face to Face, 2007), female victims of war, rape orother side-effects of political extremism in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro,the slums of Cambodia, and the shantytowns of Kenya and India(Women are Heroes, 2008-2010), the ageing population of the poorareas of Shanghai, La Havana, Cartagena, Berlin and Los Angeles (The

Wrinkles of the City, 2008-2013), with each individual coming topersonify a part of the city’s history. JR positions the portraits wisely sothat their location in urban space becomes part of the socialcommentary itself.

3 Especially JR’s early projects were realized without permission, a

strategy which allowed him to occupy the most relevant architecturalspaces in terms of social and aesthetic impact. For his first project—Portraitof a Generation (2004-2006)—the portraits of grimacingteenagers living in the poor suburbs of Paris were placed strategically


223

not only in the very center of Clichy-sous-Bois4––to make sure they don’tescape the journalist’s eyes–– but also across Central Paris’ posharrondissements to remind the wealthy public about the class conflict’sbiased media-coverage. For his Women are Heroes project in Kenya’sKiberia slum, JR used the photographs of local women to cover 2000square meters of rooftops, thus providing a water-resistant layer to thefragile shacks. At the same time, to anyone passing the village by planeor helicopter, the large eyes and faces transform the slum into a spatialstatement prominently declaring the local women’s existence andsurvival in a world of gender-based violence and discrimination. Inaddition, the installation also includes the paste-ups of women’s eyes onsix train cars, which when in movement complete three other oversizedportraits pasted on the slope below the railway tracks. In Morro deProvidencia, one of the most dangerous favelas in the hills of Rio deJaneiro, the paste ups show large pairs of eyes belonging to the favela’sfemale residents. The visual axis is provokingly directed to Rio deJaneiro’s fancy center and glamorous water-front drives: An ironic re-interpretation of Orwell’s 1984, with the female gaze constantlyreminding of the ongoing drug war and the city’s destructive classhierarchies.

4 Having been awarded the TED prize5 in 2011 at the age of 27, JR

has now become famous on a global scale also exhibiting his works ingalleries such as the MOCA Museum Los Angeles, the Centre PompidouParis, the Tate Modern London or the Magda Danysz Gallery inShanghai. His most recent project, financed with the $100.000 awardmoney provided by TED, is even more participatory in nature: Inside

Out invites people to upload their own portraits which are thentransformed by JR into large-scale posters and sent back to their clientsenabling them to paste them at locations relevant to their individualprojects. In North Dakota, 60 portraits were placed in the StandingRock Reservation by the representatives of the 7th generation of theLakota tribe to make visible that they still exist. In Parroquia Guangaje,Ecuador, the Kichwa Indians pasted 23 portraits in order to react totheir political invisibility and exclusion in the country. 51 portraits wereplaced in front of Russian Embassies across Europe to stand up againsthomophobia. In Caracas, Venezuela the walls of shacks are decoratedby the faces of 220 women who all have lost their children because ofviolence.

5 These examples help to understand why JR’s works are classified

as “relational art,” i.e., art that establishes a firm connection betweenthe artist, the work, its socio-cultural context, and the spectator.According to Nicolas Bourriaud, who coined the term in 1998, works ofrelational art “takF0

5BeF05D as [their] theoretical horizon the realm of human

interactions and its social context rather than the assertion of anindependent and private symbolic space” (14). JR’s projects doboth:they emerge from and motivate human relationships. According tothe artist, every project starts with a conversation prior to the photo-session, so that the individual life stories always influence the portrait’s


224

message: “Some preferred simply to be, silently, in front of the camera,allowing one to read the past in their eyes. Others accepted, playingsupermodels one day and turned, in a matter of seconds, from quietsadness to uncontrollable laughter” (JR 9). As soon as the portraits areup on the wall, JR usually disappears from the scene to make sure thatjournalists get in touch with the local population and listen to their

stories. “Part of the work is the conversation that follows,” JR confirmsin an interview with The New York Times (Wood n.p.). Critics havestarted to call JR “the Robin Hood of the art world” (Ferdman 13).

6 JR refuses to call his work political, even though his projects are,

as he himself points out, intended to raise questions about differentmanifestations of social misery around the globe. “I would call it art,”he insists (Michaud 3). His exhibitions at the world’s most distinguishedart galleries as well as the availability of his works in the form oflithographs, posters, and photo collections via JR’s homepage,6 confirmhis official status as an “artist” and hence his affirmed place within theglobal art market. At the same time, however, JR’s projects clearly fallinto the category of street art, a discipline concerned not only withwhat is written or displayed on a wall, “but also fundamentally F0

5BwithF05D

reading what is already there” (McCormick 24). In the 1970s graffitiemerged as the unofficial language of Black and Hispanic youngsters inNew York’s poor neighborhoods and as a response to the unequaldistribution of resources and property. In similar terms, JR’s portraits,in their strategic figure-ground relationship with the city, localize social,political, and economic inequalities through visual language. Eventhough distancing himself from a political motivation of his works, JR’sbalancing on the very edge of photographic art and illegal streetactivism alone puts his work in the very center of, what David LeviStrauss has called “the documentary debate” (3), a debate whichconcerns the distinction between aesthetics and propaganda and at thecenter of which stands the question: Should social misery beaestheticized by photographic art, and if so, who should have the rightto do so?

7 JR’s relational aesthetic invites a short detour into the history of

social documentary photography which, in the early U.S.-Americantradition, was considerably shaped by the works of Jacob Riis, Lewis W.Hine and Dorothea Lange. Jacob Riis is considered the pioneer of socialdocumentary (as well as the inventor of magnesium flash photography),who in 1887 first shed light onto “how the other half F0

5Bof the worldF05D

lives,”7 a phrase synonymous for the disastrous living conditions in thesqualid slums of New York’s East Side. Similar to JR’s work, his blackand white photographs of poor immigrant families packed intotenement houses were aimed at effecting social change by makingvisible the problematic constellation of poverty, migration, and theurban environment. However, Riis was not interested in capturing theimmigrant’s stories behind the image and preferred to leave as soon ashehadshot his flash cartridges (Bogre 46). Still his documentary workconvinced Fiorello LaGuardia to pass a constitutional amendment in


225

1938 which regulated New York’s housing policies in favor of the poorand homeless. Similarly, Lewis W. Hine’s investigative images of childlabor, putting into focus the harsh conditions in America’s factories,mills and mines to which children were exposed at the beginning of the20th century, led to the passing of the Keating-Owens-Act, a law whichregulated standards about age and working hours (53). During the1930s, Dorothea Lange, in documenting the despair of the ruralpopulation during the Great Depression for the FSA (Farm SecurityAdministration),8 used photography to expose the hardships of the ruralpopulation throughout America. Especially the visual rhetoric anddramatic composition applied by Riis and Lange proved to besuccessful: Showing the anonymous poor in dirty rags, crouchingpositions, downcast facial expressions, frowns or emotionless blankstares, the pictures clearly communicated a rigorous hierarchalrelationship not only between the photographer and the photography’ssubject(s), but also between the photograph’s subject(s) and the greaterAmerican public looking at them. As Abigail Solomon-Godeau hasobserved, in Riis’ case, the visual as well as textual dramaturgydepicting the poor individuals in a subaltern position also served thefunction to soothe the public fear of the immigrant other so thatphotography became a tool for their surveillance and control. InLange’s case, the rural poor were displayed strategically as dignifiedsubjects (most famously “Migrant Mother”) suggesting that thesuffering was a result of individual misfortune rather than of a largerpolitical and economic crisis originating from the nation state. At thesame time, Lange’s photographs published in newspapers subliminallypromoted the New Deal policies as the most effective solution to theproblem. In the U.S., early ethnographic photography thus produced,what Solomon-Godeau has called, “a double act of subjugation: first, inthe social world that has produced its victims; and second, in theregime of the image produced within and for the same system thatengenders the conditions it then re-presents” (176). Documentaryphotography, in its early days, was rather a tool for moralism than forrevolutionary politics. In the 1960s, Leonard Freed’s documentary workon the Civil Rights Movement surveyed protest events such as the 1963March on Washington in that he captured the many different facets ofthe life of a cultural community which had been shaped by racism andhad suffered the impact of trauma on their lives. Freed’s evocativesnapshots of different moments in the urban cultural milieu of African-Americans subtly counteracted the destructive one-dimensionality ofthe black/white or oppressor/victim binary paradigm of race whichdominated documentary reports up to the 1960s.

8 In similar, but more radical and abstract terms, Martha Rosler’s

1974/75 photo-text installation “The Bowery in two inadequatedescriptive systems” represented a critical reaction to the many formsof social portraiture in which the human subject had been reduced tothe personification of poverty serving a larger national political battle ofcharity propaganda. To undermine the usual “victim photography”


226

approach, Rosler’s representation of the Bowery’s fallen people wascommunicated through their very absence. Instead of putting in front ofher lens the poor drunkards or mentally confused, their status as a“subculture” was communicated through the Bowery’s architecturealone, i.e., the dreary facades, shabby doorways and empty bottles infront of them. “The photos here are radical metonymy,” Rosler explainsher project, “with a setting implying the condition itself” (325).

9 This brief historical review of social activist photography in the

U.S. shows that the discipline, from its very beginning onwards,involved a complex system of visual codes that was built upon differentsubject and object positions in space. Since these early days ofethnographic photography, a lot has been written about spectatorshipand the organization of the visual, for example, about the power ofphotographic mise-en-scenes, camera positions, perspectives, frames orviewpoints but also about the politics of the gaze, the look, voyeurism,fetishism or surveillance. By now, it is almost a commonplace that theway a photograph is staged, placed, and distributed, also influences theway it is consumed and interpreted. Furthermore, new aestheticdecisions made by photographers often indicate importanttransformations of social and cultural codes which organize urban life.While Riis’ realist mode, for example, lends expression to the fact thatthe city at the turn of the century was considerably transformed by newimmigrant populations, Rosler, by deconstructing the conventionalmodes of victim photography, also made a statement about New York’ssocio-economic situation during the 1970s, which saw a heavy decreaseof low-rent housing and the deinstitutionalization of mentally disabledpeople from state hospitals.

10 Considering this historical context, JR’s work marks another

transition in the history of social documentary photography. Whatdistinguishes him from other photojournalists is that his visualaesthetics subvert the established rules of spectatorial desire in thatthey aesthetically evoke the empowerment of the dispossessed subject.This empowerment, as I will show in the following, is due to a taxonomyof visual strategies which effect a substitution of the subjects’connotations from “pathetic” and “powerless” into “self-possessed” and“superior.” The fact that the (photographic) image, in our age of visual(or rather virtual) culture, has become suspicious and unreliable, invitesan analytical reading of JR’s work through the lens of perception theory,hence shedding light onto the complex taxonomy involving urban space,social criticism/activism and the empowerment of the subject.

Surfaces

11 With JR’s visual language, the space of the city becomes the

picture plane of the portrait. This is nothing unusual if we think of theflood of print and digital advertisements which have become a naturalfeature of cityscapes around the world. Similar to the image use in print


227

media, JR’s posters, upon first sight, can hardly be distinguished fromadvertising campaigns placed in the urban fabric. As Bertie Ferdmanrightly argues, JR’s works “walk a fine line between images (for art’ssake) and advertising, alluding in a way to the very Warholian notion ofart as marketing, the very ‘marketing’ of his project seems implicitlypart of the work” (21). JR’s aestheticsare based onmarketing9 strategies,communicated by the poster’s monumental size and their strategicplacement in the urban environment. This act of integrating theportraits into the city thwarts conventional representations of the urbanpoor which rather than effecting charitable action reinforce the “us”versus “them” divide. As David Levi Strauss explains: “The politics ofimages, the way they are organized, has changed, and this has acted toerode their effectiveness, and their power to elicit action…. Images ofsuffering and misery elsewhere in the world are used as reminders ofwhat we are free from. They operate in the greater image environmentof consumption to offset images of contentment, to provide thenecessary contrast” (81). The visual documentary of poverty or socialand political injustice (i.e., all those realities which are largely invisibleto the Western world), however, involves the radical exposure of theprivate sphere of the poor (desolate housing, war zones, etc.) to thepublic, while at the same time neglecting “the social function ofsubjectivity” (97). JR, however, subverts this visual strategy ofvictimization in that he makes the dispossessed subject invade publicspace. Rather than staging (or aestheticizing) the urban poor withintheir “typical” environments of poverty or war, JR’s portraits arereduced to facial close-ups, which are only added a physical backdropwhen pasted onto the city’s architecture.

12 With the city acting as a frame (with a boundary only on the

inward side), the portraits are placed within a specific context whichdictates how the image/subject should be read. Rather thanphotographs which downscale the human face in a picture frame or in agallery space, JR’s faces and eyes stand in direct relation with its urbansurroundings. Hence, the spatial dynamics which result from thisinteraction between portrait and buildings also have an impact on thevisual communication between the pedestrian who performs the lookand the person on the portrait who is looked at. The visual rhetoricupon which this communication is based entails an aesthetic effect,which philosophers and perception theorists (most famously Longinus,Burke, Kant, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Adorno, Lyotard) have called thesublime—and which is most generally defined as a sensation of bothawe and terror. While early theorists limited the aesthetics of thesublime to objects of phenomena of greatness in nature (i.e., thevastness of the ocean or the monumentality of the Alps), philosophers ofthe 20th century defined it in more abstract and culture-specific terms.For Lyotard, for example, the sublime is the expression of all that whichis unrepresentable. In his famous essay “What is Visual Culture,”Nicholas Mirzoeff has used Lyotard’s definition of the sublime not onlyto describe the effects generated by the postmodern omnipresence of


228

the visual but also to link sublime effects triggered by the visual toethics: Quoting Lyotard, Mirzoeff writes: “Because the sublime isgenerated by an attempt to present ideas that have no correlative in thenatural world—for example peace, equality, or freedom—‘theexperience of the sublime feeling demands a sensitivity to Ideas that isnot natural but acquired through culture’”(9).

13 It is within this theoretical frame of the sublime that JR’s work

has to be approached. The sublime, as an aesthetic effect which refersto the unrepresentable dimension of cultural practices or phenomena, isat work whenever his vast black and white posters suddenly pop upwithin a city’s environment. JR’s positioning of posters in so called“heaven spots” ––urban spaces which are, due to their height orinaccessibility usually hard to reach (rooftops, freeway signs, etc.)–– notonly ensure the poster’s visibility from many different perspectives inthe city, they also contribute to the effect of the sublime in the poster’sreception aesthetic process. JR’s portraits confuse the conventionalorganization of photographic images in public urban space in that theycome in even bigger dimensions than usual advertisements, forcing theurban public to partake in a visual dialogue with the subjects displayed.The sublime effect resulting from the scale of the posters is also basedon the confusion between figure and ground. Usually, in a visualcomposition, the ground is larger than the figure, which makes it easyto distinguish between the two categories. However, in JR’s posters, thefigures take on almost the same size as the ground so that the subjectand the city, the face and the surface, operate in the same dimensions.It is through this blurring of figure and ground that both the humanbody (as figure) as well as the city (as ground) can no longer work as aconventional frame of reference and as such provoke a perceptualdisequilibrium of the visual urban order. It is this initial disturbance ofthe visual order wherein the evocative power of JR’s portraits lies andthrough which his challenging of power structures operates. A closerexamination of his projects reveals JR’s reciprocal ideologicalperspective: the urban poor should be made visible as individuals. Atthe same time, these individuals want to see their urban reality indifferent terms. This act of monumentalization puts the dispossessedindividual in an elevated position, so that it can look at the (urbanworld) from a “heavenly” perspective, a point of view usually reservedfor those in power. With the dispossessed subject looking down onto theurban public, JR counteracts the “suppression of the social function ofsubjectivity” (Berger 100) which, as David Levi Strauss points out,results from the way photographic images are used today (97) . Whatconstantly resonates in JR’s work is the need for urban redevelopment.

14 Also JR’s choice to use the photographic genre of the portrait

contributes to the empowerment of the individual. As Richard Brilliantremarks, the practice of portraiture—representing the shift from theprivate to the public persona—is always an expression of individualpresence and social identity:


229

The very fact of the portrait’s allusion to an individual human being,actually existing outside the work, defines the function of the artwork in the world and constitutes the cause of its coming into being.This vital relationship between the portrait and its object ofrepresentation directly reflects the social dimension of human life asa field of action among persons, with its own repertoire of signalsand messages. (8)

15 Being a medium formally reserved only for the privileged (aristocracy,

artists, politicians, important thinkers or scientists, etc.), the portraithas always been the carrier of a person’s individuality and character.However, unlike the painterly portraits of earlier centuries, which werecollected in galleries,10 museums, or aristocratic residences, JR’s visualbiographies do not remove the photographed subjects from their socialorigin, but place them literally onto the social and cultural space fromwhich they originate. What is established is a firm relation between theface and the facade, a liaison also inherent in the term’s etymologicalhistory. Deriving from Roman “facies,” the term facade directly relatesto the words figure and face, hence connecting the parts of a humanbody (the face) to a building’s skin. (Hohmann 15)11 Similar to abuilding’s facade, our skin represents the borderline between theinternal and the external body. This etymological connection is also atthe root of JR’s work, in which the social space of origin (=the city)therefore becomes the frame through which the subject must be lookedat in the first place. To understand the subject, one also has tounderstand the space in which it is situated. In this way, thephotographs contribute to a readability of the city which is determinedby the reciprocal relationship in which the subject is shaped by andsimultaneously shapes the urban milieu.

16 Many of the individuals captured on JR’s camera have been

asked to perform funny faces, a compositional strategy which enablesthose people usually unseen and unheard in political discourse toperform a gesture of empowerment. JR’s portraits are characterized bythe subject’s direct look into the camera, and in so doing, communicatean active (rather than a passive) subject, a subject full of life. Just like amoment of comic relief in drama, the images of grimacing facessuddenly pop up amidst the harsh realities of war zones and in urbanareas of extreme poverty. JR’s most well-known funny-face portraits arethose wallpapered on both sides of the Israeli West Bank Barrier in2007 displaying three men of Palestinian and Israeli origin face to face.A party of three having a blast.From Bakhtin we know that laughter orcomic spectacle can present “an element of victory not only oversupernatural awe, over the sacred, over death; it also means the defeatof power, of earthly kings, of the earthly upper classes, of all thatoppresses and restricts” (92). Even though Bakhtin’s theory of thecarnivalesque applies to the context of Medieval and Renaissance socialsystems, it also helps to understand the significance of the grimace as atool of political resistance in JR’s works. Medieval ideology12 consideredthe comic as a category belonging to the “non-official,


230

extraecclesiastical and extrapolitical aspect of the world, of man and ofhuman relations” (6). Since the Middle Ages, the carnivalesque, oftenexpressed via grotesque body imagery (e.g. in the form of masks) wasconsidered a liberation from the restrictive and hierarchal medievalsocial order. Bakhtin writes:

The serious aspects of class culture are official and authoritarian; they arecombined with violence, prohibitions, limitations, and always contain an element offear and of intimidation…. Laughter, on the contrary, overcomes fear, for it knowsno inhibitions, no limitations. (90)

17 It is only during carnival, that the established social order can be

turned upside down and the social codes of hierarchal distancing can bedeclared invalid. Fool and king can freely change their roles. It is due tothe wearing of masks (or grimaces) that spectators can no longer bedistinguished from the actors. Victims can no longer be distinguishedfrom their offenders. In this sense, JR’s portraits also provide agrotesque alternative to the everyday imagery of war, violence, anddeath, as they use laughter on both sides (the actor and the spectator)to confront the everyday fears and horrors experienced in war zones.“Even though F0

5Bthe Women are Heroes project F05D did not change the

world,” JR explains, “sometimes a single laughter in an unexpectedplace makes you dream that it could” (1). As a reanimation of desolateurban spaces, the portraits temporarily eliminate hierarchal barriersbetween people and, at the same time, motivate a questioning of theflood of distorted and one-sided images (of either victims or criminals)produced by the media.

18 JR also alludes to the homonymy of the word “eye”/”I” in that he

sometimes also reduces the abstracted body to the display of a subject’spair of eyes. Especially in places notorious for their high crime rate, JRseems to prefer the display of eyes thus hinting at the necessity, asfamously articulated by Jane Jacobs, to have “eyes upon the street, eyesbelonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street”(35). With JR’s work, however, Jacob’s demand for the presence ofonlookers to provide safety on the sidewalks has deeper implicationsbecause the authoritative gaze of the dispossessed also symbolizes theauthorities’ look away from the corruptive forces operating in urbancrime zones.

Conclusion

19 JR’s portraits have transformed cityscapes around the globe into

contemporary portrait galleries whose reception works againsttraditional readings of the city. JR’s works are, in many ways, a gestureof an anti-neoliberalist urbanism in the sense that they represent avisual counter-narrative to the global city whose visual rhetoric isdominated by messages of consumer-capitalism. By granting thoseurban subjects living in poverty prominent spatial positions within thepublic urban sphere, JR also subverts the strategies of mainstream


231

media usually criminalizing the urban poor. JR’s unmasking of the socialmiseries through the empowered and autonomous subject, is a radicalantithesis against the dominant mode of “victim photography” whichplaces the dispossessed subjects in a subaltern position. The sublimeeffect, the strange coexistence of the feelings of awe and terror,resonating from the eyes and portraits also communicates a kind ofmonumentality that works against the amnesia of a mainstream culture.Each of JR’s portraits, therefore, also represents an urban monumentand thus also the repressed aspects of an individual urban reality.

20 JR’s participatory principle, most effectively performed by the project

Inside Out, becomes a vital tool through which different manifestationsof social misery can be made visible not only in the urban but also in thevirtual sphere. As Bertie Ferdman remarks: “By taking the literal (andphysical) space of the street into the virtual commons, a space wherewe can all upload our images and then see the myriad interventionsthat have taken place, Inside Out produces new frameworks by whichothers can create and reclaim their cities. The art belongs to no one andeveryone” (21). While for Inside Out, the artist’s role is reduced to theprinting subject, it is urban individuals who can decide where to placetheir posters, thus claiming their right to the city. While not every workof (street) art might change the world to the better, JR’s postersdefinitely challenge our perceptual patterns in and of urban space. Eventhough JR rejects his role as a political urban activist, his works clearlynegate the distinction between art and propaganda. In fact, theaesthetic and participatory impact of his larger-than-life posters makesthis very distinction seem irrelevantly small.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and his World. Bloomington:Indiana UP, 1984.

Berger, John. Another Way of Telling. New York:Vintage, 1982.

Bogre, Michelle. Photography as Activism: Images for Social Change. Waltham, MA:Focal Press, 2012.

Borghini, Stefania et. al. “Symbiotic Postures of Commercial Advertising and Street Art: Rhetoric

for Creativity.” Journal of Advertising 39.3 (2010): 113-126.

Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les Presses du Reel, 1998.

Brilliant, Richard. Portraiture. London: Reaction Books, 1991.

Ferdman, Bertie. “Urban Dramaturgy: The Global Art Project of JR.” PAJ 102 (2012): 12-25.

Freed, Leonard. Black in White America. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1969.

Hohmann, Hasso. Fassaden mit Gesichtern. Graz: Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz, 2014.


232

Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House, 1961.

JR. “2004-2012 Sommaire.” JR-Art. PDF file.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement. Trans. Werner S. Pluhar. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.

McCormick, Carlo. “The Writing on the Wall.” Art in the Streets. Exhibition Catalogue MOCA.

Organized by Jeffrey Deitch. Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 2011.

19-25.

Michaud, Debbie. “JR Faces Atlanta.” Interview with JR. Creative Loafing Atlanta. 15 Aug. 2013. Web.

10 June 2015.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “What is Visual Culture?” The Visual Culture Reader. Ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff.

London/New York: Routledge, 1998. 3-13.

Orvell, Miles. American Photography. Oxford/New York: Oxford UP, 2003.

Park, Robert E. “The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban

Environment” F05B1925F05D . The City.Ed. Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and Roderick Duncan

McKenzie. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.1-46.

Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York. New York: Penguin

Books Ltd., 1890.

Rosler, Martha. “In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On Documentary Photography).” Martha Rosler.

Decoys, Disruptions: Selected Writings 1974-2001. Cambridge, MA:The MIT Press, 2004. 151-206.

Strauss, David Levi. Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics. New York: Aperture, 2003.

Solomon-Godeau, Abigail. Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions, and

Practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991.

Wenders, Wim. The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations. London: Faber & Faber, 1997.

Wood, Gaby. “Supercolossal Street Art.” The New York Times. 24 February 2011. Web. 10 June 2015.

NOTES

1. Etymologically speaking, the Latin term sublime means “set or raised aloft, high up,” thus

establishing a connection between a sensation of both awe and terror and an object of physical

greatness. For the definition of the sublime along the lines of greatness see, for example,

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Judgement.

2. The acronym JR refers to the artist’s initials.

3. See Gaby Wood, “Supercolossal Street Art” The New York Times, Feb. 24, 2011. In the 1980s

Sidney Janis has introduced the term “post-graffiti” to denote the emergence of new techniques

of visual art in the public urban sphere, for example, by means of stickers, stencils or paste-ups.

4. Clichy-sous-Bois is one of the most isolated suburbs of Paris which due to its high

unemployment rate and criminal activity has been labeled one of the “urban problem areas” by

the French authorities. In 2005 it became the center of the riots following the death of two young

boys of Malian and Tunisian descent who were escaping the police and whose deaths sparked the

dissemination of the conflict to other French towns. Clichy-sous-Bois has therefore become

synonymous with the fight against social and economic exclusion and racial discrimination in

France.

5. TED (an acronym standing for Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a New York based non-

profit organization which annually awards $100.000 to an individual “with a creative and bold


233

vision to spark global change” (See http://www.ted.com/participate/ted-prize). According to

TED, “JR embodies the many characteristics TED looks for in a winner: creativity, vision,

leadership, and persuasion. His work is not just stunning. It is innovative, using collaborative

storytelling techniques, which move the art of photography in a new and exciting direction. His

work is about unlocking the power of possibility, revealing our true selves to those who live

around us and then sharing those stories far and wide”(ibid).

6. See http://www.jr-art.net/

7. Jacob Riis’ photographs were initially taken to illustrate his book How the Other Half Lives:

Studies among the Tenements of New York, a reformist treatise in which the grim realities of

immigrant life in New York’s slums were documented.

8. The FSA was established in 1935 as one of the programs of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal,

intended to support poor farmers throughout America. The FSAemployed photographers to

visually document the effects of the Great Depression.

9. For an elaborate discussion of street art and its effect on commercial advertising see Stefania

Borghini et al. “Symbiotic Postures of Commercial Advertising and Street Art: Rhetoric for

Creativity.”

10. It is in the public daguerreotype galleries of the 19 th century where American celebrity

culture began, as Miles Orvell recounts, quoting a contemporary observer: “‘Suspended on the

walls, we find Daguerreotypes of Presidents, Generals, Kings, Queens, Noblemen—and more nobler

men—men and women of all nations and professions’” (28).

11. Hasso Hohmann’s recent publication Fassaden mit Gesichtern (2014) offers a thoroughly

researched and well documented history of the use of faces on the facades of residential

buildings throughout the world.

12. “The very contents of medieval ideology—asceticsm, somber providentialism, sin,

atonement, suffering, as well as the character of the feudal regime, with its oppression and

intimidation—all these elements determined this tone of icy petrified seriousness. It was

supposedly the only tonefit to express the true, the good, and all that was essential and

meaningful” (Bakhtin 73).

INDEX

Keywords: JR, photojournalism, relational art, social documentary photography, street art,

visual aesthetics

AUTHOR

PETRA ECKHARD

Graz University of TechnologyPetra Eckhard is Assistant Professor at the Institute of

Architectural Theory, Art History and Cultural Studies at Graz University of Technology.

Previously, she taught at the Department of American Studies at Karl-Franzens University in

Graz and was a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Roehampton, Pécs, and Joensuu. She

studied English and American Studies as well as Media Studies in Graz, Bern and New York and

received her doctorate in 2010. Her current research explores “Architectures of the Ex-Centric,”


234

their cultural implications as well as practices of architectural writing. She is the author of

Chronotopes of the Uncanny: Time and Space in Contemporary New York Novels (2011) and, since 2012,

has been the co-editor of Graz Architecture Magazine (GAM).


235

Space Over Time: The Urban Spacein William Gibson’s Techno-thrillerNovelsAnna Krawczyk-Łaskarzewska

In Gibson’s fiction, to see oursouls, look at our cities.

Lisa Zeidner

1. Introduction

1 This article will examine ways in which big cities areenvisioned in William Gibson’s three techno-thriller/speculative noir novels: Pattern Recognition (2003), SpookCountry (2007)and Zero History (2010),1 frequently referredto as Blue Ant trilogy, after the name of the fictionaladvertising agency whose founder, Hubertus Bigend, playsa pivotal role in the books. More specifically, the functionsof the urban settings in the respective stories will be brieflycommented upon, taking into account the symbolic qualityof the described locations and spaces as well as theirthematization vis-à-vis the incrementally chaotic narrativesand the limited agency of the increasingly disempoweredprincipal characters.

2 In his attempt to capture the spirit of the early 21st

century, a period of growing connectivity, Gibson essentiallyfocuses on the urban realities of the networked societies he“fantasized” about in his earlier, science fiction novels. Thebig, “global” cities featured in the Blue Ant trilogy, such as


236

New York, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Moscow, orVancouver, have their apparent, real life counterparts, yetthe thoroughly mediatized nature of the cityscapesfashioned by Gibson makes it difficult to establish a clear-cut boundary between the real and the imagined, thestrange and the familiar, the authentic and themanufactured.

3 While the semiotic excess in the fictionalized cities isusually structured and interpreted mainly using capitalismas a point of reference, Gibson’s literary representation ofall things urban tends to rely on juxtaposing the quasi-psychogeographic experiences and reflections of hisfictitious protagonists with spatial navigation tools, such asGPS, Google Earth, Google Maps, Wikipedia, socialnetworking media, etc. However, even those instantlytrackable and seemingly explicit settings retain theirenigmatic instability, very much in accordance with theevents taking place in them.

4 In what follows, I will attempt to clarify two points.Firstly, in Gibson’s more recent literary oeuvre cities appearto be unknowable and socially unsustainable, especially asregards the inhabitants’ chances of gaining power toinfluence and transform their urban habitats. Secondly, hisprotagonists’ inability to fully make sense of cities resultsfrom the fact that they are constantly dealing with theiratemporal representations. 2 In other words, although I donot intend to question the assumption that spatial thinkingis “a general human tendency” and “spatial elements playan important role in fabulas” (Bal 215), nevertheless, Icontend that Gibson tends to privilege space over time formore sinister reasons: The urban environment he describesand filters through his protagonists’ minds

is apparently not the end-result of an historical process,but one which seems ready-made, defined andhomogenised through the corporate logo, with any sense

of contextualising this process denied through thefossilisation of history that is a result of ‘heritage’. Inthis environment we do not encounter man the maker,but man the consumer. This is not a world that isbrought into being by Gibson’s narrative, but which isalready there, already ‘made’ and described in terms ofthe brand names which have made it. (Skeates 8-9)3


237

2. Sustainable Cities and Binaries

5 Although the problems with distinguishing the modern-day city and “the urban non-spaces of postmodernity”(Skeates 6) is beyond the scope of the present analysis, itseems necessary at this point to hint at some consequencesof thinking about cities in terms of their sustainability orlack thereof. Of specific interest to me is the discordancebetween various definitions of sustainability in terms of howthey employ the frame of space and time. To illustrate thisdiscordance, Matthias Berger invokes the most frequentlycited approach to sustainability, according to which“[s]ustainable development is development that meets theneeds of the present without compromising the ability offuture generations to meet their own needs” (365).4 Thispopular definition privileges growth in time, rather than inspace, whereas in the case of cities a more static definitionwould probably make more sense. For instance, one such“space-friendly” definition characterizes sustainability as“the ability to be sustained, supported, upheld, orconfirmed,”5 while others might prevent us from conflatingsustainability and self-sufficiency by treating the city as “ametabolism, as exchange of stocks flows, not asaggregation of individuals’ behavior; yet embedded withinsomething larger, alternatively either seen as hinterland,habitat, nation or planet Earth” (Berger 367-8).

6 There are several other issues worth mentioning in thecontext of sustainability. To begin with, as Berger rightlyobserves, sustainability is “essentially a binary concept—meaning that either something is sustainable or it is notsustainable” (370); such a binary opposition might betroubling and unsatisfactory especially in fiction, whichfavors more nuanced distinctions. Furthermore, Bergerargues that “by definition, cities are the counterparts to thehinterland, and thus they axiomatically should be and areunsustainable” (365, 366). Additionally, he reminds us that“[u]nsustainable cities have been studied for many decades,even from different perspectives, but almost entirely as anexpression with negative connotation” (366), a conclusionshared by Leif Jerram:

While occasionally we see ‘urban’ being used to denote‘cool’ and ‘sophisticated’, ‘liberal’ and ‘progressive’,‘free’ and adventurous’, too often our cities , over thelast hundred years, have been used as a shorthand forour defects, our failures, and our disappointments.


238

When it comes to our cities, we have the self-esteem ofa battered wife. (Jerram 386)

7 There is, naturally, a larger context for issuesconnected with sustainability. For the sake of brevity, I willmention only cursorily the problem of definitions which suitparticular agendas. For example, environmentalists claimthat the Brundtland Report definition is flawed as iteschews ecological responsibility while extolling the socialdimension of sustainability: Instead, they “definesustainability as the ability to continue a defined behaviorindefinitely…because if environmental sustainability…is notachieved, then none of the zillions of other types ofsustainability matter.”6 Of greatest relevance to me,however, is the fact that Gibson never found it entirelyfeasible to examine cities in processual terms, as entitiesdeveloping across specific time frames.

3. Troubling Timelessness

8 The rationale for Gibson’s consistent atemporality isexpounded on, among other characters, by HubertusBigend, an enigmatic, highly influential mogul whoorchestrates the events in each of the three novels, and whooffers a general observation on the possibility of registeringa more or less linear growth in the era of rapidly shrinkingfuture:

“Of course,” he says, “we have no idea, now, of who orwhat the inhabitants of our future might be. In thatsense, we have no future. Not in the sense that ourgrandparents had a future, or thought they did. Fullyimagined cultural futures were the luxury of anotherday, one in which ‘now’ was of some greater duration.For us, of course, things can change so abruptly, soviolently, so profoundly, that futures like ourgrandparents’ have insufficient ‘now’ to stand on. Wehave no future because our present is too volatile.” Hesmiles, a version of Tom Cruise with too many teeth, andlonger, but still very white. “We have only riskmanagement. The spinning of the given moment’sscenarios. Pattern recognition.” (PR 57)

9 Bigend is a character whose arc develops consistentlyand with an inexorable logic, if to the probable detriment ofthe humanity: he wants more information and moreinfluence, and in the course of the trilogy he not onlybecomes more and more controlling, but is also able tocontrol his employees more efficiently. However, themogul’s greed does not make him oblivious to the


239

consequences of living in accelerated times. For instance,Bigend’s remark that “[e]verything, today, is to some extentthe reflection of something else” (PR 68) spells out asignificant problem with describing the 21st century world,namely the absence of any genuine novelty and the ubiquityof corporate-friendly, generic, smug blandness. Because ofthe effective insidiousness of coolhunting, even the growthof subcultures is no longer spontaneous, unaffected by viralmarketing and other commercial strategies.

10 Coupled with the fact that “the spatialisation of theworld takes precedence over chronological orderings oftime” (Grierson 6) is the sense of reaching a thresholdbeyond which our civilization cannot progress anymore. Afew years ago Bruce Sterling defined the situation as one of“growing disorder”: “Historical narrative . . . is simply nolonger mapped onto the objective facts of the decade” and“[t]he maps in our hands don’t match the territory,” andthus we are doomed to mere “attempts at sustainability.”He went as far as to compare living in an “atemporalnetwork culture” to “moving into a new town,” where thecreative artists have learned to “take elements of past,present, and future and just collide ‘em together” in an actof some “Frankenstein mashup.” Sterling’s insistence onrefusing “the awe of the future” and “reverence to the past”sounds like an opportunistic, but rational contingency plan:the only way to go in an atemporal world, where future hasalready arrived, is to reduce the past and the future evenfurther and to focus on living-in-the-moment. Thealternative is not exactly encouraging: History “flatten[ed]into serviceable narratives, from records of financial data—a credit check database returns the information that acharacter has “zero history”—to brand-formation andmarketing strategy” (Purdon).

4. Tough Cities

11 In the mid-seventies of the 20th century JonathanRaban published Soft City, a quasi-documentary collectionof essays which focused on the nature of experiencing themodern-day city. The blurb on the cover of the bookintroduced an interesting and valid distinction between thesubjective perception of urban settings and their objective,quantifiable functioning. Raban’s soft city “as we imagine itis as real, maybe more real, than the hard city that we canlocate in maps and statistics. The soft city is a private place;


240

everyone lives in his or her own soft city.” In the firstchapter of the book a reciprocal connection is establishedbetween cities and the people inhabiting and/or visitingthem. The city

goes soft; it awaits the imprint of an identity. It invitesyou to remake it, to consolidate it into a shape you canlive in. You, too. Decide who you are, and the city willagain assume a fixed form round you. Decide what it is,and your own identity will be revealed. (9)

12 Compared to “the soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration,nightmare” (Raban 2), Gibson’s cities seem to be locatedsomewhere in-between, in a liminal space where hardnessand softness are intertwined. In spite of clearly definedspace and time coordinates, those urban mazes oftenbecome almost unrecognizable and are experienced inintensely personal ways. Moreover, the highly subjectivegeographies so alluringly described by Raban are expandedby Gibson in a rather ambiguous fashion. Depending on hiscosmopolitan protagonists’ backgrounds and obsessions,the cities portrayed in the Blue Ant trilogy often function assimulacra of simulacra and as zones of both privilege anddestitution; as repositories of meaningful symbols andempty signifiers; as sites where “obsolescent artefacts”become “semiotic phantoms” (Aguirre 126), at the sametime as citizens are affected by very real constraints.Ultimately, toughness is what both the soft and the hardcity have in common, but Gibson’s pessimism brings tomind early 20th century treatises whose authors—philosophers, scholars, sociologists—shared the convictionthat “the city fundamentally corrodes every form of realcommunity and fulfilling human relationship altogether”and that it is “ultimately an agent of disintegration ofhuman relationships and atomization of the human psyche”(Jerram 392).

13 The common motifs and themes in the trilogy are easilydiscernible. Each of the novels is set around a nodal eventhappening in the real world and exerting a significantinfluence on the protagonists, but whether it is the 9/11tragedy, the 2003 invasion of Iraq or the financial crisis of2008,7 the main characters’ quests are accompanied by thedrive to decipher urban reality. Each object of each of thequests turns out to be somewhat ridiculous, a Macguffinwhose sole purpose has been to drive the plot. It is theguessing game on the part of the protagonists and theirpeculiar ways of responding to the incomprehensible, “ill-defined, semi-public, vulnerable…illegible and threatening”


241

urban environments that matter the most (Meades 174).The perverted flânerie Gibson is toying with is hardlysurprising in cities perceived as overflows of products andimages.

14 As regards narrative patterns, the story in Pattern

Recognition is seen largely through Cayce Pollard’s mind,Spook Country braids into three main plotlines, whereas inthe case of Zero History we are following two characterswhose task is to find a mysterious creator of a newbrilliantly designed product. However, whereas coolhunterCayce was able to retain anonymity and independence aftercompleting her mission, neither the artistically inclined andunconventionally thinking Hollis nor the recovering ex-addict and translator Milgrim can enjoy a sense of agency.They turn out to be pawns on the chessboard, in a gameconfigured and controlled by Bigend. Needless to say, thewinner (Bigend) takes it all; he is able to outmaneuverevery single competitor, from government agents to armsdealers and mobsters.

5. Pattern Recognition

15 In Pattern Recognition, members of a web chat groupobsess over mysterious film clips which are available onlineand referred to as “footage.” One of those members isCayce Pollard, a freelancer who has a very special ability,namely, she quickly detects first symptoms of somethingthat might become a trend or a new fashion. Paradoxically,in spite of her unusual skills she suffers from anxietyattacks caused by the surplus of logos, and suspects almosteveryone of conspiring against her. Hired by her rich boss,the already mentioned Hubertus Bigend, to track down thecreator of a series of anonymous, artistic film clips via theinternet, Cayce travels to various big cities and whileroaming about London, Moscow, New York and Tokyo, sheexperiences confusion and sadness (her father, a retiredC.I.A. man, was in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, and ispresumed dead). Only after meeting the person whocreated the clips, she is reminded of the redeeming powerof art and is able to shake off her emotional detachment,create new personal patterns, and achieve a degree ofclosure.

16 Naturally, Cayce’s presence in the above mentionedcities is very much a result of belonging to a privileged eliteand her urban experience is limited, dictated by the socially


242

and economically confined nature of the locations (e.g., theonly way she will finally see Tokyo is through the windowsof her hotel, and in the hotel fitness center). Additionally,Cayce’s sense of dislocation might stem from filtering thereality through her Americanness. For example, London isnearly always featured as a place refracted by the prism ofAmerican urban spaces: relational, never quite autonomous—simply a mirror-world, and perhaps aptly so, consideringthe logic of the world in which simulacra prevail.

17 Even more exotic cities do not encourage Cayce todrop the habit of gazing and interpreting them like aWesterner. That is why, having found herself on Moscow’sArbat, she immediately compares it to Oxford Street (PR310), although the location does not look like Oxford Streetat all. Moscow is one of the global cities and yet Cayceusually perceives it as having no individual, idiosyncraticpresence, even though it cannot be reduced to the positionof a mirror-world in her imagination. It is possible to know,describe and maybe even understand Moscow mostlythrough US-specific, movie clichés. The irony of thesituation is quite striking: A symbol of an empire is depictedby means of symbols forever associated with anotherempire. The following “pale simulacra” quotation onlyconfirms the overall impression that we learn nothing aboutMoscow. After 9/11 (but also after the Cold War) nothing isthe same, even the ways of simulating past and foreigncultures:

The lounge has the October theme in spades, haystack-sized arrangements of dried flowers flanking leaf-strewnsideboards piled with pale simulacra of gourds,worryingly skull-like. Much brownish mirror, darklyveined with gold. The girl with green boots is here, though not wearingthem; Cayce recognizes the snakeskin flames, deployedto maximum advantage atop a barstool. At least a dozenof this one’s colleagues seem to have negotiatedsecurity as well, this evening, and attend to a clienteleconsisting entirely of large, clean-shaven, short-haired,remarkably square-headed men in dark suits. Like somelost America, down to blue strata of cigarette smoke andthe completely unironic deployment of the FrankSinatra, through both of which the gestures of thesemen are carving out the shapes of triumph and empire,defeat and frustration. (PR 312-13)

18 Cayce’s father, Win Pollard, used to work in Moscow, butthe city “never seemed like a real place” to her, “more afairy tale” (PR 265). When she arrives in Moscow for


243

professional reasons, she notices its ugly, bombasticarchitecture and general dilapidation, and drivers changinglanes “in a way that gives her little confidence” (PR 269).Her Moscow is merely an instance of the imaginary, unrulyEastern European other.

19 Gibson’s fiction has been said to occupy a “borderlandterritory between unlikely truths and likely falsehoods”; hisis “a disorientating world of nouns, mirroring our ownworld, where nouns—things, that is—are dizzyinglyparamount” and that world of nouns or things “eats itselflike an ouroboros” (Thomas). However, the concludingscenes of Pattern Recognition demonstrate Cayce’sreadiness to question comforting binary oppositions:

Cayce looks from Sergei to Marchwinska-Wyrwal toBigend, then to Parkaboy, feeling much of the recentweirdness of her life shift beneath her, rearrangingitself according to a new paradigm of history. Not acomfortable sensation, like Soho crawling on its ownaccord up Primrose Hill, because it has discovered thatit belongs there, and has no other choice. But, as Winhad taught her, the actual conspiracy is not so oftenabout us; we are most often the merest of cogs in largerplans. . . . .It occurs to her then that the meal has been entirelyfree of toasts, and that she's always heard that amultitude of them are to be expected at a Russian meal.But perhaps, she thinks, this isn't a Russian meal.Perhaps it's a meal in that country without borders thatBigend strives to hail from, a meal in a world wherethere are no mirrors to find yourself on the other sideof, all experience having been reduced, by the spectralhand of marketing, to price-point variations on the samething. (PR 341)

20 Cayce’s inability to read Russian has interestingconsequences: It alleviates her logophobia, makes herimmune to the excessive commercialization of the citydistricts and, paradoxically, able to see more. At thebeginning of the Moscow episode, her experience seems tobe delimited by the Lonely Planet view of the city. Oncompleting her mission she is at least able to re-inventMoscow, frame it in a larger context, although this moreglobal outlook means paying less attention to what mightmake the city unique, different.


244

6. Spook Country

21 Out of the three intersecting plotlines that dominateSpook Country, the most important one concerns HollisHenry, once a popular rock vocalist and now a musicjournalist. The task she is given by Bigend consists infinding and interviewing a fashionable artist BobbyChombo, who specializes in locative art and, additionally, isan expert in military navigation systems. While trying tokeep track of a shipping container whose destination andcargo are revealed in the final chapters of the story, Holliswill have to travel to several cities.

22 The urban world in the second instalment of Gibson’strilogy seems to have become even more unfamiliar andincomprehensible. Art, marketing and all things militaryconverge here with frustrating efficiency, and theknowledge gained by the characters will be used tofacilitate crime, rather than redemption. The maincharacters are constantly spied upon, yet in a sense theyhave already come to terms with the surveillance. They areunder no illusion that they can change things for the better,either. The deliberately ambiguous title of the novel refersto covertness as a dominant modus operandi as well as tothe spectral presences populating the urban environment.The good old-fashioned flânerie, even in its pervertedversion, is practically absent here; it is replaced by Systemaalertness: the readiness to fight and be in absolute controlof emotions at the same time.

23 Los Angeles, where locative art makes it possible torecreate things which no longer exist (yet anotherdecontextualizing, atemporal gesture), albeit for verylimited, privileged audiences, is also a place whereanything can become a reality. It functions as a settingcompletely emptied of meanings. The possibilities of thingshappening there are limitless precisely because LA isunreal by default:

The air was full of the dry and stinging detritus of thepalms. You are, she told herself, crazy. But that seemedfor the moment abundantly okay, even though she knewthat this was not a salubrious stretch for any woman,particularly alone. Nor for any pedestrian, this time ofthe morning. Yet this weather, this moment ofanomalous L.A. climate, seemed to have swept anyusual sense of threat aside. The street was as empty asthat moment in the film just prior to Godzilla’s firstfootfall. Palms straining, the very air shuddering, and


245

Hollis, now hooded blackly, striding determinedly on.Sheets of newspaper and handouts from clubs tumbledpast her ankles. A police car whizzed past, headed inthe direction of Tower. Its driver, slumped resolutelybehind the wheel, paid her no attention. To serve, sheremembered, and protect. The wind reversed giddily,whipping her hood back and performing an instant redoon her hair. Which was in need of one anyway, shereminded herself. (SC 13)

24 Spook Country offers a modified concept of space, too:It is neatly tagged, URL-dependent, GPS-described,bracketed by Augmented Reality technology, with thepotential to be divided into an endless number of channels,to suit the needs of its fragmented communities andgrowingly paranoid citizens. The real life counterparts ofsuch separate spaces include ghettos for the masses andenclaves for the obscenely rich, where CCTV cameras,gates, nets, and barbed wire make access difficult andepitomize the Deleuzian paradigm of “societies of control.”Taking into account these disparate points of reference, it iseasy to understand why even the main character in thenovel is unable to form a coherent picture of urbanrealities, not to mention reality as such:

Hollis Henry is, in essence, a modernist character in apostmodern novel, a person seeking definitive answersin a world surfeit with information. Even though in theend she finds the information she seeks—that is, thelocation of the shipping container filled with U.S.currency—she cannot know its significance, beyond thefact that it is part of a shell game of sorts in whichmeaning is endlessly deferred. (Henthorne 27)

7. Zero History

25 The very first paragraph suggests that the motifs ofquest, atemporality and flattening of history will beexplored in great detail:

Inchmale hailed a cab for her, the kind that had alwaysbeen black, when she’d first known this city. Pearlescentsilver, this one. Glyphed in Prussian blue, advertisingsomething German, banking services or businesssoftware; a smoother simulacrum of its black ancestors,its faux-leather upholstery a shade of orthopedic fawn.(1)

26 Cabinet, a hotel/club in Portman Square, London, is the firstlocation described in detail: a site of privilege, but mostly a


246

part of the mirror world. A sense of disorientation prevails,which ties in consistently with the gradual loss of agencyfor the protagonists of the novel. The city is a text/patternwhich is growingly difficult to decode. On his route fromHeathrow, having entered Euston Road, Milgrim pondersover the enigmatic nature of the cityscape:

Like entering a game, a layout, something flat andmazed, arbitrarily but fractally constructed frombeautifully detailed but somehow unreal buildings, itsorder perhaps shuffled since the last time he’d beenhere. The pixels that comprised it were familiar, but itremained only provisionally mapped, a protean territory,a box of tricks, some possibly even benign. (ZH 37)

27 Hubertus Bigend hires, separately, Milgrim and Hollis, theprotagonists of Spook Country. The former is supposed togain access to and photograph a piece of rare militaryclothing, while the latter’s task involves tracking theidentity of the person who designed the Gabriel Hounds, yetanother mysterious brand which fascinates the head of BlueAnt.8 Having experienced the consequences of the financialcrisis, Hollis is forced to accept the job: “the world hasbecome a place in which choice—ethical and otherwise—isa luxury to which few have access” (Henthorne 61), butthen, the world she is living in is “a world where nearlyeveryone is losing control of their lives” (62). If SpookCountry read like a drug-induced memoir of a very paranoidperson, Zero History is striking for the disjointed nature ofmemories and a permanent sense of dislocation. As usual,the nomadic lifestyle of the protagonists is not conducive tomaking sense of the cities.

28 Characteristically enough, the cities Gibson describesin Zero History cannot even be perceived in isolation, asself-contained, unique entities: Everything in themresembles something or mirrors something; each locationbrings associations with an alternative universe, ratherthan with its own past and present. Gibson’s protagonistsoften have the impression that the urban setting they aredealing with is only superficially autonomous. For example,at some point Holly realizes that her memories of touringwith her band have little to do with the reality of the citiesshe visited. The chaotic way in which she frames herexperience further reflects the impossibility of grasping theessence of an Australian city:

Her Melbourne was a collage, a mash-up, like aCanadianized Los Angeles, Anglo-Colonial Victorianamid a terraformed sprawl of suburbs. All of the larger


247

trees in Los Angeles, Inchmale had told her, wereAustralian. She supposed the ones in Melbourne wereas well. The city in which she was imagining Clammynow wasn’t real. A stand-in, something patched togetherfrom what little she had available. She felt a sudden,intense urge to go there. Not to whatever the realMelbourne might be, but to this sunny and approximatesham. (ZH 77-8)

29 However, what makes Zero History really worthattention is how the old paradigm of flânerie getsrepurposed, transformed into an all-encompassingmetaphor. For example, Meredith, a perfunctory character,recalls her “[i]ntensely nomadic” (ZH 117) experience as ayoung model working in various cities and having to walkeverywhere because of her meagre income. After she quitmodelling, she decided to become a designer herself andthe first thing she designed was a pair of sneakers thatwere both good-looking and didn’t fall apart, but that wouldbe “somehow…untainted by fashion” (ZH 119).

What my friends and I were going through as modelswas just a reflection of something bigger, broader.Everyone was waiting for their check. The whole industrywobbles along, really, like a shopping cart with amissing wheel. You can only keep it moving if you leanon it a certain way and keep pushing, but if you stop, ittips over. Season to season, show to show, you keep itmoving. (ZH 118)

30 In order to understand things better (in this case thehistory of shoes and their cultural significance) Meredithenrolled in a fashion college in London. She moved to theUK capital, or rather in her own words, “simply stoppedmoving. In London” (119). It would be difficult not to seethe irony of juxtaposing a reluctant nomad and the modern-day city, which is “in constant movement” (Rykwert 265): Asuccessful shoe designer seems no longer interested inmaking good use of her product because, after all, “[t]owalk is to lack a place” (de Certeau 103).

31 Interestingly, it turns out one of Meredith’s Americanfriends used to wear a jacket which was to become theHounds brand, and which was designed by someone fromChicago. It is strongly implied in the novel that CaycePollard may have been that person. The story of themysterious designer-hobbyist makes Meredith realize thatshe is on the right track, that the sneakers she designed arethe real thing precisely because they are not tied to aparticular time frame: “Things that weren’t tied to the


248

present moment. Not to any moment, really, so not retroeither” (ZH 120).

Similarly, not walking, or rather, notwalking at all is crucialin the case of Milgrim: Milgrim had never liked the City. It had always seemed toomonolithic, though to some older scale of monolith. Too few hidingplaces. A lack of spaces in between. It had been turning its back onpeople like himself for centuries, and made him feel like a ratrunning along a baseboard devoid of holes. (ZH 255)The heels of Milgrim’s Tanky & Tojo brogues, as he sat astride thehigh, raked pillion of Benny’s Yamaha, didn’t quite touch the cobblesof this tiny square. Something about the angle of his feet recalledsome childhood line-drawing from Don Quixote, though whetherthose feet had been the knight’s or Sancho Panza’s, he didn’t know.(ZH 361)

32 For Milgrim, who makes a living as a translator andinterpreter, the only truly reliable way to know the city, tounderstand it, is via media:

He looked down at the screen, the glowing map. Saw itas a window into the city’s underlying fabric, as thoughhe held something from which a rectangular chip ofLondon’s surface had been pried, revealing a substrateof bright code. But really, wasn’t the opposite true, thecity the code that underlay the map? There was anexpression about that, but he’d never understood it, andnow couldn’t remember how it went. The territorywasn’t the map? ZH (370)

33 Like Hollis, Milgrim is an outsider, but not a cosmopolitanas she is. “What he discovers as he becomes a more fully-rounded person is that the world itself has flattened, thedifferences between London and Paris, for example,becoming almost negligible, being occupied by the samesorts of people doing the same sorts of things” (Henthorne83). When in the final chapter of the novel Milgrim becomesaware of the fact that for some time he has been givenplacebo treatment, there is a sense that he has also beencured of illusions.

8. Conclusion: The Creatives’ Complicity

34 In Pattern Recognition we are provided with numerousopportunities to assess the female protagonist’s state ofmind, but only once in the course of the story Cayce seemsto be experiencing remorse for the privileged lifestyle shehas embraced:

Leaving Neal’s Yard and the Pilates studio, she tries tobecome just another lost tourist, though she knowsshe'll never be one. Like Magda going out to spread


249

whatever shabby micromeme her Blue Ant subsidiaryrequires her to, Cayce knows that she is, and has longbeen, complicit. Though in what, exactly, is harder tosay. Complicit in whatever it is that gradually makesLondon and New York feel more like each other, thatdissolves the membranes between mirror-worlds. (PR

194)

35 Even if, in retrospect, the first novel of the Blue Anttrilogy seems reasonably optimistic (after all, Caycemanages to find the maker of the mysterious footage and istransformed spiritually thanks to Nora’s art), neverthelessit sows the seeds of inevitable failure. It is the so-calledcreatives, installation/digital media artists, designers,coolhunters, rock musicians, filmmakers, painters who savethe day. But these talented creatures are also vulnerable tocooptation, and their complicity has the potential of turningthe world into a nightmare.

36 Bigend’s motivation in Zero History is truly ambitiousand perplexing at the same time: To find “the order flow,” toknow the future or at least “a very tiny slice of the future”(ZH 401). Ironically, he gets what he wants thanks to thebrilliance of an artist (the order flow is revealed to himinadvertently by Chombo), rather than his limitless financialresources. The end of the Blue Ant trilogy leaves no illusionas to the way things are turning out; the creatives are, invarying degrees, selling out to parasitic corporate America,not bothering too much about those less privileged.

37 In a way, Gibson’s novels constitute, perhapsinadvertently, a depressing, if not wholly unexpected,postscript to the work of American urban studies theoristRichard Florida, who in 2002 predicted “the rise ofcreativity as a fundamental economic driver, and the rise ofa new social class, the Creative Class” (vii), and expressedthe conviction that “the dawning of the Creative Age hasushered in a newfound respect for livability andsustainability” (x). Florida defended himself againstcriticisms that his vision of sustainability privileges theCreatives over other classes, by stating that the mostimportant task ahead is “to unleash the creative energies,talent, and potential of everyone—to build a society thatacknowledges and nurtures the creativity of each and everyhuman being” (xi):

a shared and sustainable prosperity that improveshuman well-being and happiness and restores meaningand purpose to life. We must shift from a way of life thatvalorizes consumption, in which we take our identities


250

from the branded characteristics of the goods wepurchase, to one that enables us to develop our talentsand our individuality, to realize our truest selvesthrough our work and other activities. Our fledglingCreative Economy needs to give way to a fully CreativeSociety, one that is more just, more equitable, moresustainable, and more prosperous: our economic futuredepends on it. (Florida xiv)

38 Volker Kirchberg and Sacha Kagan argue that “Florida’semphasis on the creative class (and the ‘super-creativecore’) is tainted by implicit demands for an unsustainableurban development” (137), leading to further polarizationand homogenization of the urban environment (138). Greatglobal cities might seem “unprecedentedly desirable,” butthey are also “socially bifurcated” (Abbott 125) andresemble “elite citadels,” “turning into vast gatedcommunities where the one per cent reproduces itself”(Kuper).

39 Obviously modifying Lefebvre’s idea of “the right tothe city,” wherein urban renewal “cannot but depend on thepresence and action of the working class, the only one toput an end to a segregation directed essentially against it”(Lefebvre 154), and repurposing Robert Merton and ElinorBarber’s 1958 study The Travels and Adventures ofSerendipity (which highlighted the importance of accidentaldiscoveries in science), Kirchberg and Kagan propose “theright to serendipity” (141), where the possibility of chanceevents is taken into account, which, coupled with“sustainable creativity” and resilience might prevent theneo-liberal model of economy from being the sole factorinfluencing urban development.

40 The Blue Ant trilogy presents a vision of the globalizedworld in which little is left to chance and highly advancedtechnology does not necessarily improve the cause ofdecent living conditions for all. On a more spiritual andemotional plane, “[a] doom-laden idea that everything maybe connected persists even while individuals are striving,and often failing, for personal connections amid atechnological wonderland” (Taylor). The fictionalizedcosmopolitan wanderers traversing big cities in the 21st

century, and losing sight of the bigger picture, are a sign ofthe times. Perhaps they mark a necessary transition stagebetween the old “analog system” and the more anarchicand more participatory network culture (Sterling). PerhapsSterling is right in claiming that atemporality “has a built in


251

expiration date. It’s not going to last forever. It’s not aperfect explanation, it’s a contingent explanation forcontingent times.” Meanwhile, we are left with pockets ofresistance which, like small parallel universes, mightbecome a remedy to the atemporal power takeover. Spaceover time, indeed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbott Carl. “Cyberpunk Cities: Science Fiction MeetsUrban Theory.” Journal of Planning Education and Research27 (2007): 122-131.

Aguirre, Peio. “Semiotic Ghosts: Science Fiction andHistoricism.” Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, andEnquiry 28 (Autumn/Winter 2011): 124-134.

Bal, Mieke. Narratology. Introduction to the Theory ofNarrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Berger, Matthias. “The Unsustainable City.” Sustainability 6(2014): 365-374.

De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life, trans.Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,1984.

Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on Control Societies.” Negotiations. Trans. Martin Joughin, 177–182. New York:Columbia Univ. Press, 1990.

Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class, Revisited.

10th Anniversary Edition. New York: Basic Books, 2012.

Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. New York: Berkley,2005.

_____. Spook Country. New York: Berkley, 2009.

_____. Zero History. New York: Putnam, 2010.

Grierson, Elizabeth M. “From Cemeteries to Cyberspace:Identity and a Globally Technologised Age.” Working Papersin Communication (December 2001): 1-12.

Henthorne, Tom. William Gibson: A Literary Companion.Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland, 2011.


252

Jerram, Leif. Streetlife. The Untold History of Europe’sTwentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2011.

Kilian, Eveline. “Review of Imagining London, 1770–1900.”Journal for the Studies of British Cultures 12.1 (2005):88-90.

Kirchberg, Volker and Sacha Kagan. “The Roles of Artists inthe Emergence of Creative Sustainable Cities: TheoreticalClues and Empirical Illustrations.” City, Culture and Society4 (2013): 137–152.

Kuper, Simon. “International Cities Are Turning Into ‘EliteCitadels.’” The Financial Times 1 June 2013.

Lefebvre, Henri. “The Right to the City.” Henri Lefebvre –Writing on Cities. Translated and edited by EleonoreKofman and Elizabeth Lebas. Oxford, Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. 147-159.

Meades, Jonathan. “Postmodernism to Ghost-Modernism.” Museum Without Walls. London: Unbound, 2013. 170-184.

Purdon, James. “Zero History by William Gibson.” Guardian12 Sept. 2010.

Raban, Jonathan. Soft City. London: Flamingo, 1984.

Rykwert, Joseph. The Seduction of Place. The History andFuture of the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Skeates, Richard. “The Infinite City.” City 2.8 (1997): 6-20.

Sterling, Bruce. “Atemporality for the Creative Artisttranscript.”Wired.com 25 Feb. 2010.

“Sustainability.” Thwink.org 2014.

Taylor, Art. “Book World: William Gibson’s Zero History.” The Washington Post 11 Sept. 2010.

Thomas, Scarlett. “Networking.” New York Times 8 Sept.2010.

Zeidner, Lisa. “Pattern Recognition: The Coolhunter.” TheNew York Times 19 Jan. 2003.

NOTES

1. Henceforth, all references to novels under discussion will be

abbreviated by using the initial capital letters of the respective titles:

PR, SC, and ZH,

2. See also Kilian 88.


253

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2010/02/atemporality-for-the-creative-artist/









3. Skeates made this comment in reference to Gibson’s first science

fiction trilogy and short stories, but the generalization holds true for the

writer’s non-science fiction novels as well, perhaps to an even larger

extent.

4. To be exact, the above definition of sustainable development comes

fromOur Common Future report (known also as the Brundtland Report),

by the World Commission on Environment and Development, issued in

1987.

5. See the definition at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/

sustainability.

6. http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/Sustainability.htm.

7. As per Gibson’s statements on his blog and in numerous promotional

interviews. See also Henthorne 126.

8. Ironically, in real life Lucinda Trask designed a clothing line based on

the works of WG. She called it Hounds. See http://like-clothing.biz/ and

http://like-clothing.biz/pdf/like-hounds-lookbook.pdf. Every page of the

brochure has an insert with a photo of a cityscape.

INDEX

Keywords: atemporality, city, flânerie, locative art, mediatization, mirror-world, simulacra,

space, sustainability.

AUTHOR

ANNA KRAWCZYK-ŁASKARZEWSKA

University of Warmia and MazuryAnna Krawczyk-Łaskarzewska is teaching at the University of

Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn. She published articles and edited volumes devoted to film and TV

adaptations, book illustrations and other pop/visual culture phenomena, as well as William

Gibson’s prose and cultural representations of the city. Her current research focuses on the

theoretical and practical aspects of reimagining and repurposing iconic literary characters.


254

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sustainability




http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/Sustainability.htm

http://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/Sustainability.htm

http://like-clothing.biz/

http://like-clothing.biz/

http://like-clothing.biz/pdf/like-hounds-lookbook.pdf

http://like-clothing.biz/pdf/like-hounds-lookbook.pdf

Stanley Park, Literary Ecology, andthe Making of SustainabilityGeorg Drennig

1. Introduction

1 The study of urban systems and the role of cities in debates about sustainability

is a fashionable topic in numerous fields in academia, with the need for

interdisciplinary research being a much-voiced aspect of such academic interest. Yet

the contributions of the humanities and the study of culture to these debates stay

within the respective disciplines of studying literature and popular culture. In the

following reading of Timothy Taylor’s 2001 novel Stanley Park, I intend to explore an

avenue that offers some way of making literary studies relevant to the discussion of

sustainable cities and the future of urbanity. Following a brief discussion of the possible

contributions of literary studies to a better understanding of urban sustainability, the

specific ways in which literature can do cultural work within the social setting of the

city shall be investigated. Hubert Zapf’s triadic model of the novel’s function in a

cultural ecology—fully developed in his 2002 book Literatur als kulturelle Ökologie—will be

discussed and brought to bear on Taylor’s 2001 Vancouver novel Stanley Park. This

reading will investigate Taylor’s engagement with questions of urban sustainability,

and then briefly explore the question of how such a book can play a role in fostering

urban sustainability.

2. Literary Studies and Questions of Urbanity

2 The current academic debate about cities, the ways to study them and to make

the insights gained thusly useful for practitioners seems mostly to take place among

the hard sciences, fields related to engineering and urban planning, and sociologically

inclined disciplines. Cultural phenomena such as street art, especially, are

acknowledged, yet dealt with as symptomatic of other phenomena such as

gentrification, and thus in turn not approached from an angle that cultural and literary


255

studies would explicitly be called to contribute to. A similar dynamic applies in the case

of studying urban complexity, which has become increasingly prominent in recent

years; the fact that otherwise hard-to-obtain insights could indeed be added to the field

by calling upon the humanities to contribute has so far been barely recognized, though

literary scholars are beginning to explore urban complexity from their perspective.1

Indeed, the challenge of fostering a transdisciplinary dialogue that goes further than

simply acknowledging or adapting the insights of different fields—the reframing of

concepts from life-sciences in literary ecocriticism comes to mind—has been

recognized, and steps have been taken in the humanities to address the lack of

approaches that put the needs of the object of study before disciplinary constraints.2

3 Still, the humanities have not yet produced a coherent set of methods that are

explicitly geared towards making a contribution to the debate about urban

sustainability in the 21st century and beyond, nor are other disciplines yet sufficiently

aware of what additional—and needed—understanding literary and cultural studies

could add. As Hubert Zapf argues, “literary culture … probably has a special potential

for the reintegration of different areas of cultural knowledge that are kept separate in

other forms of discourse” (“Literary Ecology” 850). In her dissertation, Maia Joseph

writes in a statement more specifically concerned with understanding urbanity, that:

Literary texts are…the carriers of a certain kind of knowledge—subjective,experimental, affective, interactive, often reflexive; this is knowledge that manyplanning scholars and practitioners value, but that can be difficult to articulate andintegrate into planning and development discourse. (6)

4 Indeed, the humanities and especially ecocriticism have the tools to excavate

said knowledge; though the ways and means to make this knowledge useful to others

seem to be missing, there are clear contributions that have been made and have a

theoretical and methodical foundation.

5 The best recognized and most-often stated contribution that literature and its

study make to understanding urbanity is through the role of the writer as a cultural

diagnostic. As Jens Gurr and others have argued,3 quantitative approaches to questions

about the city cannot account for their affective, sensual dimension. Literature of and

about the city can transcend the technological language of planning discourse as well

as draw attention to issues and questions that, as they are not quantifiable, evade the

grasp of statistical analysis. Zapf’s statement that “the narrative mode is necessary to

provide a medium for the concrete exemplification of ethical issues that cannot

adequately be explored on a merely systematic-theoretical level” (“Literary Ecology”

853) can thus be adapted to urban studies. Urban systems theory and the disciplines

that draw upon it are inherently unable to explicate or make insights available to the

much more amorphous mode of literary representation and its study. Neil Evernden’s

proposition that “[t]he artist makes the world personal—known, loved, feared, or

whatever, but not neutral… . Perhaps it is a cultural simulation of a sense of place”

(100), therefore points to the specific and unique role that culture can take in the urban

debate. It can serve as an arena of exploration, diagnosis, and speculation, and in the

process, make knowledge accessible that would otherwise be missing from the study of

urbanity.

6 This becomes somewhat ironically evident in the study of complex urban

systems, which is, at first sight, clearly a matter for hard sciences and mathematical

modeling. Several salient features of urban complexity that also make it subject of


256

mathematical interest and quantitative study—such as emergence, nonlinearity,

heterogeneity and hybridity4—are not only also of interest to the study of culture:

complexity in its non-linearity can be made understandable through “nonlinear forms

of knowledge” (Zapf “State” 53, cf. Zapf Literatur 50). Those are precisely what

literature excels at producing and representing, and what literary studies—as Zapf

argues, especially in their ecocritical inflection—are well-equipped to investigate.

7 Though the relationship of the study of culture to investigations into urban

complexity and methodologies are still in the making, more general theories about

cultural imaginaries are easily adaptable to the question of what literature actually

effects within urban culture. Drawing upon Wolfgang Iser and Winfried Fluck’s work on

cultural imaginaries, Zapf, in his theoretical work on literary ecology, conceives of

culture as an ecological system, in which literature then acts as a life force that brings

renewal and regeneration to a system that would otherwise be moribund. He allows a

special role for fiction, or imaginative literature, and considers it “an ecological

principle or an ecological energy within the larger system of cultural discourses”

(“State” 55). In their turn, Jens Gurr and Martin Butler apply this general idea of

culture as an ecological system to cities, and read cultural work—including imaginative

literature but not limited to it—as force fields that shape the way readers and audiences

perceive, and thus participate in the shaping of their own urban environment (cf.

85-85). Culture, from this point of view, can become a factor in shaping the ideas of

urban agents about what places their cities are, and more importantly, what they could

be. While this essay views the concept of culture as a “life force” skeptically and to be

approached with caution lest urban practitioners can too easily dismiss literary studies

approaches as overly esoteric, the following considerations do take seriously the notion

of literature’s power to motivate, inspire, and inform the actions of city dwellers and

decision makers.

8 The following considerations will neither provide clear instructions on how to

apply literary insights to urban planning, nor will they exhaustively explore possible

methodological approaches to better doing so. Reading the novel Stanley Park through

the lens of Zapf’s triadic model of the function of literature in cultural ecological

systems, however, sheds light on the ways fiction can negotiate cultural diagnosis with

the imaginative potential closed to non-fictive ways of writing. This model of literature

as a cultural intervention that offers critical cultural diagnosis, stages the repressed,

and suggests ways of bringing seemingly opposite discourses together, makes sense in

both a rather close reading of the novel and when putting the work into the larger

context of urban change in Vancouver. Hopefully, this may provide an example of how

a novel makes sense of urban issues on its own terms, and indeed can be a factor in

shaping the understanding that city dwellers have of their own environment. Stanley

Park indeed offers ideas of sustainability that continue to resonate in Vancouver’s

spatial practice. While it did not necessarily cause such things into being—after all, this

article argues that writers engage in diagnostics—it did bring ideas to a larger public

awareness, also due to the fact that the novel did gain some local prominence after its

publication.


257

3. A Triadic Reading of Stanley Park

9 In the triadic model of Hubert Zapf, there are three functions imaginative

literature can fulfill in the larger cultural ecosystem5: novels can do the work of

providing a critical metadiscourse, offer an imaginative counterdiscourse, and, through

a re-integrative interdiscourse, effect a reconciliation of seeming opposites, and

transcend the binary of meta- and counterdiscourse. In the critical metadiscourse,

literature makes the aforementioned cultural diagnosis and larger social critique by

representing systemic deficits, injustices, and the way hegemony destroys cultural

vitality. By staging the culture’s repressed elements, literature then offers a different

model of social relations and practices in the mode of an imaginative counterdiscourse

or a plural of those, which—and in his considerations, Zapf somewhat overburdens the

idea of a cultural life force—derives special power from aesthetic effects unique to

literature. In a re-integrative interdiscourse, novels can then attempt to reconcile their

critique of cultural reality with their own imagination and, through images of

revitalization, bring culturally separate phenomena and discourses together.

10 In Stanley Park, this discursive triad works in two different ways. In the story of

the protagonist Jeremy Papier’s failure as an independent restaurateur bought up by an

international business mogul, his subsequent experiences cooking for, and learning

from, the homeless of Vancouver’s Stanley Park, and his grand gesture of secretly

bringing foraged foodstuffs to an elite audience in the restaurant he is forced to work

for, all of Zapf’s modes are represented. A first reading of the novel will therefore be

primarily interested in the themes of rootlessness and alienation, artfulness and craft

as opposing forces, and chef Jeremy’s final prank as a re-integrative interdiscourse. On

a somewhat different level, however, the plot’s movement in and out of different social,

economic, and culinary spaces of Vancouver negotiates a triad that directly addresses

its urban setting. The urban change, collective memory, and guerrilla placemaking that

the second reading of the novel’s triadic structure will investigate can be understood to

resonate with the themes addressed previously. It is then on this contextualized plane

on which the novel can be read as a piece of engaged and interventionist writing that

may yield insights about, and suggest ways of improving urban sustainability, and

provide something of an antidote against an alienated and placeless mode of urbanity.

11 It is this issue of placelessness and alienation that Stanley Park’s critical

metadiscourse attacks through the voice of its protagonist and his approach to cooking.

Chef Jeremy Papier, distinguishes between two culinary modes, the names of which are

borrowed from gang culture: Blood, which is a traditional cuisine of place, and the

globalized postnational Crip approach, which from Jeremy’s perspective, is placeless,

ignorant, and incoherent. This notion is extended to the provenance of ingredients—

and here the issue of sustainability already becomes relevant—as in the case of Jeremy’s

aversion against farmed salmon:

The fish in such a pen lived independent of geography, food chain, or ecosystem.These salmon were perfectly commodified as a result, immune to the restrictions ofplace. There was no where that these fish were from. (171)

12 Yet his creditor, Dante Beale, is the owner of the deeply placeless Inferno Coffee

chain, and as Jeremy’s restaurant The Monkey’s Paw fails, his only option for fiscal

survival is to become chef of the deeply Crip restaurant Gerriamo’s, in which Beale’s

successful approach is one of a cuisine ignorant and uncaring of its location or any


258

tradition. Jeremy’s moral indictment of this—economically more successful—way of

dealing with food shines through in a sarcastic statement he gives to a food journalist

about Gerriamo’s culinary vision: “This is not fusion. We are the restaurant of no place.

We belong to no soil … to no culinary morality. We only belong to those who can reach

us and understand us and afford us” (364).

13 Set against this critique of culinary business culture, and by extension, society,

which is ignorant of place and roots, are Jeremy’s restaurant The Monkey’s Paw and his

notion of Blood cuisine, as well as the anthropological work of his father in Stanley

Park. For chef Jeremy, “Blood Cooks were respectful of tradition … interested in the

veracity of things culinary, … linked to a particular manner and place of being” (33).

The Monkey’s Paw is thus conceived as a “restaurant other chefs would go to. Local but

not dogmatic. It wasn’t a question of being opposed to imported ingredients, but of

preference, of allegiance, of knowing what goodness came from the earth around you”

(51). Jeremy’s father, in the novel referred to as the Professor, echoes his son’s

concerns. An anthropologist working on, and in what he calls a participatory approach,

living with the homeless people sheltering in the park, the Professor articulates

concerns similar to his son. He constantly draws attention to how his son’s culinary

allegiance and application of rooted skill and his own work of studying the craft of

sheltering in the park are both “about how people relate to the land on which they

stand” (136).

14 These two positions then meet in the novel’s imaginative counterdiscourse when

Jeremy becomes jobless after his business fails and he begins to cook for the homeless

of the park in impromptu potluck dinners. There, the skill of the homeless urban

hunter and forager represented by the character Caruzo, meets the chef’s French

training, leading to the communion of eaters and the transformation of ingredients

considered abject by most of urban society:

As had become their practice, they snared squirrels for dinner, two reds and a grey,and Jeremy roasted them, spread-eagling the gutted carcasses on Caruzo’s grill[improvised from an upturned shopping cart]. He sent Caruzo off to gatherhuckleberries and dandelion greens and combined these with roasted potatoes … .Nobody observed that the squirrels, with their sinewy flesh spread unevenly overbony carcasses, had been perfectly roasted. That the beer marinade he’d appliedduring cooking had caramelized into a mahogany brown. (249)

15What results from Jeremy’s proverbial time in the wilderness is an even stronger

appreciation of the essential function of food and the way it can provide a sense of

community. Yet the skill of all three, the chef, the professor, and the homeless, and the

potluck dinners that are repeatedly described in the novel, are still relegated to the

economic and spatial margins of urban society. It is then in the mode of a re-integrative

interdiscourse that Taylor constructs the novel’s climax, in which Jeremy takes the

lessons learned in the park and brings them to an elite audience of gourmets and

successful entrepreneurs.

16 As part of the deal that saves Jeremy from financial ruin but also spells the end

of The Monkey’s Paw, Dante Beale employs Jeremy as the chef of his own restaurant

venture Gerriamo’s. It is in Jeremy’s performance on opening night that the novel then

provides an unexpected image of vitality that works against the placelessness of Dante

Beale’s market-researched mode of doing business. Though the menu of Gerriamo’s

opening night is deeply Crip—exotic but unrelated international ingredients brought

together in an affected display of creativity—Jeremy secretly sources many of the


259

foodstuffs from Stanley Park. Thus, the foraging and hunting skills of the homeless

provide the basis for a deeply rooted and local mode of cooking.

There was a bucket of dandelion greens and fiddleheads, as well as a garbage bagfull of salal, salmon and huckleberries. A dozen plump Canada geese, a dozen greyrock doves, six canvasbacks, four large rabbits, sixteen squirrels (greys, fatter andmore plentiful than reds) four huge raccoons and a swan. (355-356)

17 It is through this dinner—though the guests are unaware of the nature of the

ingredients, as they are camouflaged by the fake names of items on the menu—that

Jeremy makes his grand statement, providing in his view “messages about knowing the

earth’s bounty … where one stood, understanding the loyalty and sanctity of certain

soil” (389). In spite of this performance being half-hidden, Jeremy is convinced that he

has provided the kind of vital impulse or “life force” that Zapf’s triad conceives of as

coming from the re-integrative interdiscourse (cf. Joseph 226):

[T]he celebrants, he found himself thinking … had been fed. Fed well. Fed goodnesslike they never had been fed. And they had eaten it, been delighted, were nowsatisfied and strengthened and full of unknowable joy. Sanctified by his efforts. Itwas possible … to briefly feel messianic. Like he had done a truly great and lastingthing. (402)

18 In this sense, Stanley Park’s climactic dinner literally infuses a “life force” into a

subculture—Vancouver’s gourmet and business elite—that has become moribund and

alienated.

19 Taylor, however, inserts into his novel a critical awareness of the fleeting nature

of such an action, and repeatedly questions both Jeremy’s Blood allegiance and Dante

Beale’s construction as unfeeling and even infernal capitalist. Not only does Jeremy fail

as an entrepreneur and commits fraud in the process—which Taylor is probably more

critical of than most of his readership6—but the problematic nature of his ideology of

Blood cooking is several times hinted at. His co-chef Jules Capelli’s comment that he is

something of “the Pacific Northwest’s pre-eminent Food Nazi” (181) can be read as

humorous, yet it does draw attention to the way it echoes, (especially German)

discourses of blood and soil, which eventually became a pillar of European fascist

ideology. On a more explicit and less academic level, the novel’s scenes at a festival

dedicated to local food point to the privileged aspect of Blood cuisine that is primarily

consumed by affluent gourmets (262), Stanley Park’s imaginative counterdiscourse of

practices in urban parklands notwithstanding. The book's critical metadiscourse is also,

to a degree, subjected to questioning. Though Dante Beale is repeatedly and explicitly

imbued with infernal attributes—Jules’ and Dante’s dislike of each other is compared to

that of “Gabriel and Belzebub” (65)—even Jeremy’s godson jokes about the overly

simplistic view implied by this playing with names and symbols (cf. Mason ft 87).

20 In contrast to the way Stanley Park often ironically deconstructs its own

ideological dichotomies or draws attention to their shortcomings, its spatial discourses

leave less room for ambiguity. In the context of the novel’s Vancouver, the triad of

cultural criticism, stage for the repressed, and reconciliation and rejuvenation provide

literary space for a more trenchant critique. Dante’s Inferno Coffee becomes a

homogenizing agent that reshapes the cityscape, while Stanley Park and The Monkey’s

Paw offer only precarious spatial alternatives, though the park becomes the site of the

book’s intervention in the urban memory. The space of re-integration, Jeremy's final

project Food Caboose, then, though firmly in the mode of guerrilla placemaking, offers


260

only a degree of escape from the Post-Fordist urban restructuring that has so

prominently shaped Vancouver over the last few decades.

21 In the novel’s critical metadiscourse, Inferno Coffee—an obvious sibling to the

Starbucks Coffee chain—becomes a force of homogenization and de-localization,

actively erasing spaces that are different. The novel uses, for example, Jules’ views to

make this homogenizing effect explicit. In her opinion, “Inferno was polluting the city

with sameness. Inferno was a cost model, an exercise in scale. Inferno was a celebration

of everything they [The Monkey’s Paw] were not” (66). While The Monkey’s Paw is host

to a display of urban diversity, a “multicultural client base that nobody could

consciously target” (52), Dante’s business model relies on clearly structured

neighborhoods that offer a base of:

consumer types to whom Dante felt confident he could sell, always sell, reliably sellevery morning and lunch, to the extent that there was a business case for theinvestment in blond wood, canned music, and barista training. (63)

22 Yet urban change works against the diversity of The Monkey’s Paw and replaces

it with Gerriamo’s, just as the restaurant’s neighborhood changes in a brutal mirroring

of the reality of the Vancouver neighborhood that the novel uses as a setting. Thus,

Inferno Coffee gains a foothold “around the corner in the space that had been Fabrek’s

falafel stand” (294). Such displacements are not limited to the diverse neighborhood of

Crosstown, but noted by Jeremy even in the affluent West End on the border to Stanley

Park, where he remembers an “aging co-op resident” who had kept “a nail-hold on the

land that held so much of her” (110) against a major developer restructuring the urban

space.

23 If this instance of remembering urban change and displacement is a familiar

story, the space of Stanley Park’s imaginative counterdiscourse stages a much more

strongly repressed element. During one of his nightly visits to the park, Jeremy

observes a First Nations family that dwell there. As his father explains in full

professorial mode:

These people are taking a last stand. Homing in on a place that cannot be takenfrom them. You see, their language belongs to this land…the land itself cannot betaken…. It can’t be expropriated, built up, paved over, strata-titled. These speakersof an ancient tongue, their actions are the sociolinguistic equivalent of takingsanctuary in a church. (135)

24 The problematic equation of naturalness with aboriginal peoples that Taylor

constructs in these few scenes notwithstanding, the novel here does important cultural

work. It reminds readers of a historical First Nations presence which had been erased

both physically and from the memory of Vancouverites (cf. Barman). Though the

book’s potential romanticization of homelessness can also be seen as problematic, it

does link skill to the urban fabric, and raises the issue of knowledge and individual

usage of space. Jeremy himself undergoes a process from helplessly stumbling through

the park at night to where a visit “felt like coming home …. Jeremy walked the trails

with certainty, knowing exactly where he was relative to his destination” (346). As the

Professor claims, this way of skillfully navigating the urban territory is at least

marginally a means of claiming ownership of urban space otherwise subject to a regime

of real estate interest, or at least fighting alienation and a sense of placelessness: “A

farmer touches the earth in his fields. He thinks, this land is mine. A person in the city,

too, they walk their favorite streets, they visit their favorite parks” (117).8


261

25 From the point of view of a spatialized reading, Stanley Park’s re-integrative

interdiscourse does not reconcile these concerns of memory and resistance to capital-

driven urban change with the dominant order. Jeremy’s final restaurant project that

follows his work at Gerriamo’s, the Food Caboose, however, does use a space forgotten

or ignored by the real estate industry, and at least allows his work as an independent

restaurateur to continue. Located on the southern fringes of Chinatown, the Food

Caboose is an unregistered establishment that needs an otherwise marginal space to

remain undetected by authorities. Taylor lays out this setting as follows:

In more recent years the colorful community of vegetable stalls and butchers, spicevendors and the sellers of ancient cures had contracted into a few square blocksaround Main Street to the northeast. The beachhead of condo development to thesouthwest had stalled in its advance this direction. Buildings had been torn downand not replaced. The area stopped being part of any neighborhood at all. (419)

26 The guerrilla restaurant that allows Jeremy to pursue his culinary vision outside

of the system depends on an unstable spatial setup that is under constant threat by

possible changes in the real estate market. How precarious this position is, also

becomes clear by Taylor’s use of words from a military register such as “advance” and

“beachhead” of development. If the Food Caboose can be read as a space of re-

integrative interdiscourse, then it is a highly unstable one. Also, in a twist that reveals

the compromise at work when imaginative counter discourse meets “reality,” it is

subject to mechanics of social and spatial exclusion. As Maia Joseph states in her

reading of Stanley Park:

Jeremy seems to have trouble bringing his new understanding of urban communityout of what we might describe as the dream-space of Taylor’s Stanley Park andapplying it to his work as restaurateur. (250)

27 Gaining entrance to the Food Caboose is radically different from the relative

openness and diversity that marked The Monkey’s Paw. Instead, guests have to be

referred by already established list members, and then undergo a highly complicated

reservation process in order to eat there. Chef Jeremy may have, through this appeal to

secrecy and exclusiveness, and through escaping the vagaries of the real estate market,

established a financially viable enterprise that allows him and Jules Capelli to keep

going with their project of serving local bounty; it does, however, come at the cost of

social exclusion and the acknowledgment of a capitalist logic, and therefore shows the

limitations of bringing the experience of communion through place-aware food to

“celebrants” on a regular basis.

28 Nevertheless, Stanley Park provides both critical cultural diagnosis and makes a

clear argument for ways to live differently in the city. Its critical metadiscourse links

urban change fueled by a logic of capital investment to both literal and metaphorical

displacement, and to a culture that becomes homogenized and amnesiac at the same

time. Jeremy’s place-aware restaurant project becomes removed—or displaced—by the

logic of capital that cannot be concerned with the intricacies of art and skill of being in

place, exactly those things that Blood cuisine and the Professor’s studies represent. In

the space of imaginative counterdiscourse, Taylor’s novel then stages numerous tactics

that apply knowledge and rootedness to the urban fabric. Obtaining something as

essential as one’s sustenance from urban surroundings,9 celebrating community

through food, learning to make one’s way and actively map one’s surroundings, or even

simply remembering the indigenous presence in the park are all acts that allow Jeremy

and the other characters to engage with their urban setting differently. These acts may


262

be fleeting, and by their nature be marginal, but the novel articulates them as worthy

endeavors nevertheless, that may help contribute to a larger cultural awareness which

in turn may change the larger material urban fabric after all.

4. Ways Towards a Conclusion

29 Though a basic argument about how a novel such as Stanley Park can play a role

in making cities more sustainable can be easily made—and the novel itself does so—,

this article intends to build on Zapf’s argument about the special resources available to

imaginative literature. This leaves the more problematic question of how the study of

literature itself can play a role in such a process. The following considerations will first

look at the specific reception of Stanley Park, then turn once more to the question of a

“life force” in culture, and then briefly remark on the role of aesthetics and specific

modes of representation only available to fictive writing. None of this yields a blueprint

for how to engage urban practitioners and scholars from outside the humanities,

though some final remarks will hopefully indicate starting points for this necessary

process.

30 The city that provides the setting for the novel, and arguably features as a

character itself, reacted positively to the book. In 2003, it was featured by the

Vancouver Public Library’s citywide reading initiative, it was nominated for the Giller

Prize, and in the experience and analysis of local scholar and expert Maia Joseph

centrally “contributed to the ‘shaping’ of the conversation about local culture and

community” (221). It thus clearly made its critique and ideas enter a larger urban

conversation, a notion mirrored in the novel itself: Jules Capelli claims that one of the

functions of The Monkey’s Paw in the Vancouver culinary scene is to fuel people’s

imaginations, so that “in the great, culinary meme-pool, their ideas were now loose”

(210). The placemaking tactics suggested in the novel’s imaginative counterdiscourse

absolutely resonate with what can be called the “meme-pool” of alternative and

arguably sustainable methods of gathering food in cities—from urban foraging and

harvesting over guerrilla gardening to freeganning and the practice of locavore-ism—

that were even featured as part of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s We: Vancouver exhibition

on the occasion of the city’s 125th anniversary (cf. Drennig).

31 The “meme-pool” of Jules Capelli is in the context of this paper a different way

of referring to the cultural imaginary or what Zapf calls the cultural ecology. The

notion that the cultural articulation of ideas can make certain ways of doing things

thinkable and thus possible as they become part of a widely shared imaginary (cf. Zapf

Literatur 59, Fluck 20-21, Charles Taylor 24-28) is central to literature’s potential in

fostering sustainability. What Zapf frames as the vital force in a cultural ecology is

then, colloquially framed, the injection of new ideas into the larger pool of things

considered possible and feasible within a culture. As has been shown above, Stanley Park

clearly provided such an injection or bolstering of ideas into Vancouver’s public

conversation about itself and the practices possible in the city. Even though this article

has announced a degree of skepticism about the “life-force” metaphor for literature’s

role in the public conversation that is culture, it does argue that literature may play a

special role in such processes.

32 What literature has to offer in comparison to other modes of cultural

articulation—which, in their turn, have distinct advantages of their own, as street art


263

clearly demonstrates (cf. Gurr and Butler)—is the way it can handle allusion and

different perspectives and voices. Zapf indeed argues that an understanding of fictive

literature as a “life force” needs to account for literary aesthetics and their impact

(Literatur 5, 46). In Stanley Park, Taylor makes use of different voices that allow for

varied articulations of similar themes, potentially broadening their appeal to readers.

The imaginative counterdiscourse therefore becomes something to be thought of in the

plural, as the Professor, Jeremy, and numerous other characters have different takes on

what exactly constitutes their alternative practices and the meanings and motivations

behind them, whether that is Jeremy’s allegiance to Blood cuisine, Jules’ strong dislike

of corporate homogenization, or the Professor’s search for a deeper understanding of

rootedness in the late-capitalist metropolis. In contrast to other forms of cultural

critique and articulation of alternatives, the multiple narrative voices available to

literature allow a larger variety of affective responses and create a playing field for

ideas within one work. Though leaving more space for ambiguity in the criticisms

voiced by a number of voices instead of one narrator, and though in this case making

the characters’ ways of engaging with their urban setting mutually exclusive, this

multi-faceted approach is more open to its audience’s uses and adaptations; staying in

the metaphor of the cultural ecology, this would then mean that the “life-force” unique

to literature can foster a unique and broad biodiversity of ideas and practices of

sustainability.

33 Yet, as this article has argued at its outset, it is not enough for the literary

studies scholar to point at the value of books in creating a culture of urban

sustainability. One step is to direct our attention to works, such as Stanley Park, which

themselves are explicitly or implicitly dealing with practices of sustainability and can

provide an urban ecocritical pedagogy that is not too overtly didactic or bound up in

generic constraints (cf. Gersdorf 38). Especially if, as is the case in Taylor’s novel, these

novels do not fall into any current research paradigm.10 Our analyses then need to be

accessible beyond the bounds of our disciplines. Whether Zapf’s11 concept of cultural

ecology may have appeal outside of the humanities because of its accessibility, or

reinforce an image of unscientific and evasive thinking, it is worth considering how our

models and interpretive lenses may allow us to enter our voices into the debate.

Finally, and admittedly on an unrelated note, it is important that we, scholars of the

humanities, acquire a better understanding of how other fields investigate the city,

create their understandings of it, and arrive at the questions they ask. Urban

sustainability is a concern that will stay with the academia for a while. The humanities

have a contribution to make; for this to be sufficiently heard, however, there is still

work ahead.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

11. Barman, Jean. “Erasing Indigenous Indigeneity in Vancouver.” BC Studies 155 (Autumn 2007):

3-30.


264

Brandt, Stefan L., Winfried Fluck, and Frank Mehring, eds. Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of

Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. REAL – Yearbook of Research in English and American

Literature 26 (2010).

Davis, Mike. Dead Cities. New York: The New Press, 2002.

De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Transl. Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: U of

California P, 1984.

Drennig, Georg. “Cities of Desire: Ecotopia and the Mainstreet Cascadia Imaginary.” Brandt et al.

145-58.

Evernden, Neil. “Beyond Ecology: Self, Place, and the Pathetic Fallacy.” The Ecocriticism Reader:

Landmarks in Literary Ecology. Eds. Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm. Athens, GA: The U of

Georgia P, 1996. 92-104

Fluck, Winfried. Das kulturelle Imaginäre: Eine Funktionsgeschichte des amerikanischen Romans

1790-1900. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997.

Gersdorf, Catrin. “Nature in the Grid: American Literature, Urbanism, and Ecocriticism.”

Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment. Ed. Brandt et al. REAL –

Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature 26 (2010). 21-40.

Gurr, Jens Martin. “‘Urban Complexity’ from a Literary and Cultural Studies Perspective: Key

Cultural Dimensions and the Challenges of ‘Modeling.’” Understanding Complex Urban Systems:

Multidisciplinary Approaches to Modeling. Ed. Christian Walloth, J.M. Gurr, J.A. Schmidt. Heidelberg,

New York: Springer International, 2014. 133-150.

Gurr, Jens Martin, and Martin Butler. “On the ‘Cultural Dimension of Sustainability’ in Urban

Systems: Urban Cultures as Ecological ‘Force-Fields’ in Processes of Sustainable Development.”

Generative Process, Patterns, and the Urban Challenge: Fall 2011 International PUARL Conference. Ed. Hajo

Neis, G. Brown, J.M. Gurr, J.A. Schmidt. Portland, OR: PUARL P, 2012. 77-86.

Joseph, Maia. “Urban Change and the Literary Imaginary in Vancouver.” Diss. University of

British Columbia, 2011.

Mason, Travis. “Placing Ekphrasis: Paintings and Place in Stanley Park.” Canadian Literature 194

(Autumn 2007): 12-32.

Rhys-Taylor, Alex. “The Essences of Multiculture: A Sensory Exploration of an Inner-City Street

Market.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 20.4 (2013): 393-406.

Steel, Carolyn. Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives. London: Vintage, 2008.

Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2004.

Taylor, Timothy. Stanley Park. Vintage Canada Edition. Toronto: Random House, 2001.

Vancouver Art Gallery. We: Vancouver. Exhibition. Vancouver: 2011.

Zapf, Hubert. Literatur als kulturelle Ökologie: Zur kulturellen Funktion imaginativer Texte and Beispielen

des amerikanischen Romans. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002.

_____ . “The State of Ecocriticism and the Function of Literature as Cultural Ecology.” Nature in

Literary and Cultural Studies: Transatlantic Conversations on Ecocriticism. Eds. Catrin Gersdorf and

Sylvia Mayer. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006. 47-69.

_____ . “Literary Ecology and the Ethics of Texts.” New Literary History 39.4 (Autumn 2008):

847-868.


265

NOTES

1. For a thorough discussion of this problem, see especially Gurr 134-137.

2. See the collection Transcultural Spaces: Challenges of Urbanity, Ecology, and the Environment, for an

attempt to provide steps toward this direction.

3. See Gurr’s work for a literary studies perspective, or sociologist Rhys-Taylor’s essay “The

Essences of Multiculture: A Sensory Exploration of an Inner-City Street Market.”

4. For a full list of phenomena that characterize complexity and are of interest to scholars from

the humanities, see Gurr’s contribution in Walloth et al.

5. This is a synthesis of considerations laid out by Hubert Zapf in his book Literatur als kulturelle

Ökologie, and the articles on “The State of Ecocriticism” and “Literary Ecology and the Ethics of

Texts” respectively, with a focus chosen by me for the purposes of the following argument.

6. As Taylor stated in a personal conversation in Vancouver on May 4th, 2011.

7. I am indebted to Glenn Deer at the University of British Columbia, whose class on global

foodways in literature (Spring 2011) informed this discussion. In the session concerned with

Stanley Park, the novel was compared to a medieval morality play. Indeed, the references to Dante

Beale’s demonic character are numerous and are made on a variety of levels, as are angelic traits

of other characters. Still, I would argue in agreement with Travis Mason that the novel

deliberately complicates such a reading and indeed makes fun of it.

8. This suggests a reading of navigational skills as a placemaking tactic in the sense of Michel De

Certeau, an avenue this paper cannot explore for reasons of focus and space.

9. Though it is a marginal space, Stanley Park in the novel is not constructed as oppositional to

urbanity; the animals that inhabit it and that provide the basis for the potluck dinners in the

park and during the grand opening at Gerriamo’s are distinctly urban species. See Mike Davis

thoughts on the natural history of urban wastelands for a deconstruction of the dichotomy of

urbanity and wilderness that can be applied beyond brownfield sites (Davis 361-399). See also

Carolyn Steel’s Hungry City for how radical—and utopian—the idea of a city feeding itself actually

is.

10. Stanley Park does not fall into any “post”-classification of writing; a presentation of this novel

at a conference on material culture was coolly received in part because of the book’s lack of

appeal as either sufficiently artistic or having pop-cultural standing.

INDEX

Keywords: culinary culture, Hupert Zapf’s triadic model, literary ecology, Timothy Taylor,

Vancouver

AUTHOR

GEORG DRENNIG

University of Duisburg-EssenGeorg Drennig studied North American Studies at the University of

Vienna, Austria, and Georgetown University, U.S., and is now a PhD candidate in the Advanced

Research in Urban Systems program at the University of Duisburg-Essen. There, he works on


266

Environmental Imaginaries of Vancouver and the cultural production of space. His main interests

are spatially-turned Cultural Studies, “stone-kicking-realist” Ecocriticism, and discourses of

urbanity in popular culture, including comics. He has published essays on topics ranging from

Poison Ivy and urbanity in Batman comics and films, Joy Kogawa’s Obasan, and Eminem’s

rejection of Ruin Porn, to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and the WTO riots in Seattle.


267

European journal of American studies, 10-3

Documents

Transcript of European journal of American studies, 10-3