The Olympic Park As an Actually-Existing Abstract Space That Mirrors the Dual Character of the Value Form
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A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Producing space and reproducing capital in London's Olympic Park: an ethnography of actually-existing abstract space Jacken Waters PhD University of Sussex April 2016 i Statement I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Jacken Waters April 2016 ii Acknowledgements Thanks to the Economic and Social Research Council for funding this PhD, and to Dimitris Dalakoglou and Simon Rycroft, for following my train of thought and keeping it grounded. Thanks also all those who proof-read; to the bakers, vicars, and friends with whom I could forget about work; and to all those with whom I talked through and solidified ideas, especially Molly. Thanks also to the Hackney Archives in the CLR James Library, the Newham Archives, and the Bishopsgate Institute for help in locating historical documents. Every effort has been made to obtain permission for image use from the copywrite holder. iii Abstract This thesis examines the relationship between the production of urban space and the reproduction of capital. Taking the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as a case study, I conducted ethnographic research during the London 2012 Olympics and the Park's first 'Legacy' year. My research proceeded from an embodied walking practice (which prompted reflection on my transgender presentation as a complicating factor), and also included interviews and archival research. My analysis centres on Henri Lefebvre, situating his work on space within a concern for the relationship between everyday life and the concrete abstractions constituted therein. Taking this relationship as essential to the reproduction of capital, I explore the production of the Olympic Park as an actually-existing abstract space that mirrors the dual character of the value form. I open my account of this production with the Olympic festival, a total social moment mobilised towards the realisation of value. I then examine each of Lefebvre's three formants of abstract space in turn. I present the construction of the Park as the materialisation of an abstractly conceived space designed to incorporate a disordered post-industrial space into a new mode of accumulation. I frame the inhabitation of the Park in its Legacy era as a temporalisation of empty space, arguing that abstract time is co-constituted with abstract space in internally contradictory everyday practice. And I address the incorporation of the Park into a set of post-industrial, anti-urban, and leisure- oriented spaces that form a representational space reflective of the movement of capital in its ascendant, financialised, form. I conclude with a discussion of the Olympic Park as 'catalyst', securing the reproduction of capital by encouraging further redevelopment, but also sharpening capital's contradictions as an abstract space in conflict with its own concrete content, predicated on the subsumption of the utopian potential of everyday life. Table of Contents Statement ..............................................................................................................i Acknowledgements...............................................................................................ii Abstract.................................................................................................................iii List of Figures.......................................................................................................1 1 - Introduction: London, the games, and Lefebvre .............................................6 1.1 - Introduction ..............................................................................................6 1.2 - Ongoing change in London's economy and built environment ...............8 1.3 - The Olympic mega-event as intervention in urban space......................13 1.4 - Lefebvre and public urban space as concrete abstraction....................19 1.5 - Thesis structure......................................................................................24 2 - Methodology: walking in the Olympic Park....................................................30 2.1 - Introduction ............................................................................................30 2.2 - The body as research tool .....................................................................32 2.3 - Studying space.......................................................................................40 2.4 - Ethnography, representation, and the place of the ethnographer ........49 2.5 - This project: walking, talking, reading, writing........................................54 3 - London's Olympic moment............................................................................63 3.1 - Introduction ............................................................................................63 3.2 - Hope, fear, and the coming mega-event................................................65 3.3 - Conceiving and representing Olympic festival space............................74 3.4 - Perceiving and practising Olympic festival space..................................81 3.5 - Living the representational space of the Olympic festival .....................87 3.6 - Producing and consuming London 2012 as experiential commodity....94 3.7 - Conclusion ...........................................................................................103 4 - Creating the Olympic Park...........................................................................107 4.1 - Introduction ..........................................................................................107 4.2 - Before the games: the Lower Lea Valley as disordered space ..........110 4.3 - Ordering space: the Lower Lea Valley as blank canvas .....................121 4.4 - The Lea Valley at the games: producing space for the mega-event . 130 4.5 - After the games: the Park in a new regime of accumulation................139 4.6 - Conclusion............................................................................................147 5 - The Olympic Park as 'living, breathing piece of the city'.............................151 5.1 - Introduction...........................................................................................151 5.2 - The Park re-opens: introducing life to empty space.............................154 5.3 - Inhabiting the Park: temporalities of leisure and reproduction ............162 5.4 - Shopping in the Park: temporalities of exchange................................169 5.5 - Working in the Park: temporalities of work and production..................178 5.6 - Conclusion............................................................................................185 6 - The Olympic Park as isotopic and representational space.........................189 6.1 - Introduction ..........................................................................................189 6.2 - The Park in its surroundings: continuities and discontinuities ............192 6.3 - The Park as a post-industrial space ....................................................201 6.4 - The Park as anti-urban space .............................................................213 6.5 - The Park as leisure space....................................................................225 6.6 - Conclusion............................................................................................234 7 – Conclusions: The Park as catalyst ............................................................239 7.1 - Introduction...........................................................................................239 7.2 - The Park as catalyst for redevelopment .............................................244 7.3 - The Park as catalyst for praxis............................................................249 7.4 - The Park as catalyst for transformation? ...........................................256 7.5 - Conclusion ..........................................................................................264 Bibliography ....................................................................................................267 Other sources referenced................................................................................280 Appendix A: Interviewee table.........................................................................288 1 List of Figures Figure 1: DG (2012a) Aquatic centre [photograph] viewed 22nd February 2016, available: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/7624516270/in/album- 72157630702110462/ Figure 2: DG (2012b) Olympic lane [photograph] viewed 22nd February 2016, available: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/7625061516/in/album- 72157630702110462/ Figure 3: DG (2012c) Victoria Park cycle hub [photograph] viewed 22nd February 2016, available: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/7625236792/in/album- 72157630702110462/ Figure 4: DG (2012d) Path closures