2011 Molly L. Palmer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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02011 Molly L. Palmer ALL RIGHTS RESERVED URBAN CULTURE AND THE STREET: PUBLIC SPACE(S) IN CONTEMPORARY MADRID by MOLLY LAVERNE PALMER A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate School-New Brunswick Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Spanish written under the direction of Professor Yeon-Soo Kim and Phyllis Zatlin and approved by ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ New Brunswick, New Jersey January, 2011 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION URBAN CULTURE AND THE STREET: PUBLIC SPACE(S) IN CONTEMPORARY MADRID By MOLLY LAVERNE PALMER Dissertation Director: Professors Yeon-Soo Kim and Phyllis Zatlin The dissertation examines the importance of radical notions of public space and the shifts between the public and private spheres to the culture and politics of Madrid from 1975 to the present. The aperture of the physical spaces of the city following the end of Francoism was accompanied by an opening up of the public sphere of politics, where marginalized groups that had been excluded or subsumed into a universal politics of class “came out” in demand of a political voice. Questioning many recent critical assessments of Madrid’s post-dictatorship culture as apolitical, it is argued that these shifts in the relationship between the public and private are manifested in many cultural productions of the time period, thus opening up the political potential of the novels, films, and cultural movements that are analyzed. Madrid’s culture during these years offers a unique space from which to observe the vicissitudes of the public-private divide and increasing difficulty in maintaining a clear distinction between the two spheres. This trend began in Madrid with counterpublics of gender and sexuality in the 1970s and followed into coming years with the urban protests of the Okupa movement, the intimate public lives of immigrants in the city, and the public intimacy of the internet. ii Acknowledgments The following pages would not have come to fruition had it not been for the support and guidance of several people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my doctoral committee, Professors Yeon-Soo Kim, Phyllis Zatlin, and Margo Persin, not only for their time, effort, and invaluable feedback, but also for their encouragement and belief in this project and in me. I will strive as I move forward in my career to match the quality and commitment of their work as researchers, teachers, and mentors. Many thanks to my parents, Norman and Sandra Palmer, who made it possible for me to progress as far as I have in my education and as a person and have always believed that I could do anything I put my mind and heart to. Thanks as well to Silvia Font Jurado, who has supported, encouraged, and inspired me over the past three years and will continue to do so in the future. To Marta, for sharing so many conversations about literature and life. To Candace, who helped me at a difficult time along the road and convinced me to keep going. To all the graduate students at Rutgers—Melissa, Selma, Valeria, Vivi, Juanjo, Maca, Cristóbal, Sole, Ben, Mary, Pilar, and so many others that I can’t name here—thank you for the good times spent among friends that made the past five years a much more bearable experience. Finally, I extend many thanks to the professors and staff of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Rutgers as well as the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Delaware with whom I have worked as a graduate student for their encouragement and support. Research for this dissertation was carried out in 2008 and 2009 thanks to generous grants from Spain’s Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación as well as the Program for Cultural Cooperation between the Spanish Ministry of Culture and United iii States Universities run through the University of Minnesota. A summer research grant from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Rutgers University also aided in the initial research for this project. A minor portion of Chapter 4 was previously published in an article titled “Espacio de flujos, espacio de lugares: Cultura urbana española en la Era de la Información.” La ciudad en la literatura y el cine: Aspectos de la representación de la ciudad en la producción literaria y cinematográfica en español. Eds. Juan-Navarro, Santiago and Joan Torres-Pou. Barcelona: Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias, 2009. iv Table of Contents Abstract …………………………………………………………………………… ii Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………….………. iii Table of Contents ………………………………………………………………… v Introduction ……………………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1. Sex and the Street: Urban Culture and the Redefinition of Public Space in the Spanish Transition….……………………………………………………….….….. 20 Chapter 2. Redrawing the Public-Private Divide: The Okupa Movement in Madrid... 82 Chapter 3. Multicultural Madrid: Immigration and the Conflation of Public and Private ……………………………………………………………..……….…………...….. 123 Chapter 4. Spanish Cities and Cyberspace: Shifts in Public Space in the Information Age ……………………………………………………………………………….….….. 188 Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………. 239 Bibliography …..……………………………………………………………………. 244 Curriculum Vitae …………………………………………………………………… 255 v 1 Introduction With the transition to democracy in the mid-1970s, Spanish society underwent a series of important changes that included the consolidation of the urbanization that had begun in the latter years of the Franco dictatorship. In regard to this urban context, this study argues that one of the most important changes to have taken place during the Spanish democratic process is that of the shifts in the relationship between the public and private realms. Drawing on a number of examples from literature, film, and urban cultural movements, this dissertation explores the ways in which Madrid’s culture has reflected upon and responded to the increasingly blurred lines between the public and private spheres as a consequence of the democratization of the city as well as its insertion into a globalized economy. The following pages, through a recognition of the growing importance of discourses concerning public space in Spain’s capital city, analyze how urban culture engages with—and indeed contributes to—the continuously shifting notions of the public. Over the past several decades, the term public space has been held in high regard and been stressed repeatedly in fields of urban studies such as planning, architecture, and art history. Numerous scholars, politicians, and planners from all parts of the world have emphasized the need for public spaces in the city in order to promote a vibrant and active urban environment and citizenry.1 A broad range of studies explore, among other topics, the relationship between public space and the public sphere and between built environment and discursive space. At the same time, discussions concerning the public 1 In North America, some of the most influential studies are from authors such as Deutsche, Mitchell, Sorkin, and Zukin. In Spain, Jordi Borja, Zaida Muxí, and others have written extensively on the topic. In Catalonia, the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB) leads a European initiative to recognize efforts to rehabilitate public spaces. 2 must necessarily take into consideration the notion against which it is defined: the private. Indeed, so much talk about public space certainly signals a heightened awareness of the increasingly unclear relationship between the public and private spheres.2 Urban scholars decry the economic privatization of public space under the influence of late- capitalism and conservative urban discourses. Meanwhile, the original feminist battle cry that the personal is political has spread into other terrains as well, as issues previously conceived of as intimate or private are brought into the public sphere. Public Space in Madrid: Historical and Cultural Contexts This dissertation will examine how these shifts between the public and private spheres were playing out in Madrid’s cultural scene from the Transition period to the present. While recent studies of Spanish literature and culture have emphasized the urban, none has focused centrally on the question of public space and those that have touched on the subject have not done so in a comprehensive manner.3 Yet such a study is necessary, particularly due to the fact that in the years since the end of the dictatorship public space has been a defining notion in urban culture. Furthermore, the opening up of public spaces of the city in the years of the Transition laid the groundwork for the reconfiguration of progressive politics in Madrid through the broadening of the public sphere. Certainly Madrid was not the only city in Spain—or the world—where such fundamental shifts were taking place in the late twentieth century. In fact, almost all of Spain’s contemporary cities evoke strong images of public life: a lively citizenry that 2 See James Livingston, The World Turned Inside Out. 3 Malcolm Compitello and Susan Larson are two of the most recognizable names in urban cultural studies scholarship concerning Madrid. Neither explicitly deals with the question of the public and private in their focus on the ways in which capitalism shapes the city and its culture. There is in their work, however, an implicit equation of the private to the economic forces of capitalism and the public to state-related activities.