Occupying Vacant Spaces: Precarious Politics of Temporary Urban Reuse
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Occupying Vacant Spaces: Precarious Politics of Temporary Urban Reuse. Ferreri, Mara The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/8460 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] Occupying Vacant Spaces: Precarious Politics of Temporary Urban Reuse Mara Ferreri Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen Mary University of London School of Geography 2013 Declaration I declare that this thesis is my own work and that all other sources of information are cited accordingly. Signed ______________________ 2 Abstract Temporary urban projects are often portrayed as offering innovative and experimental solutions to the challenges of countering the negative perceptions associated with vacancy, and of providing rent-free open spaces for non-commercial activities in inner city areas. The political implications of temporary use, however, are controversial, being both celebrated as a form of participatory and emancipatory spatial re-appropriation and critiqued as a new frontier of experiential place marketing and a symptom of urban gentrification. This thesis aims to provide a situated investigation of the tension between the potential of re- appropriation and its wider material conditions, to discuss the precarious politics of temporary use as a form of urban action at a time of austerity. My reflections are grounded in an ethnographic approach to practices of temporary use in contemporary London and in an in-depth study of a selection of cultural and activist projects that reclaim vacant shop fronts for community uses. In this thesis I address three main issues. The first concerns the development of the discourse of temporary reuse, and particularly of pop-up shops, between 2009 and 2011. By analysing media coverage, public events and forms of self-representation of London-based practices and practitioners, I attend to official and unofficial narratives mobilised and performed by a range of urban actors. The second issue concerns the material conditions of temporary vacant shop front reuse. In order to ‘re-materialise’ temporary reuse I engage with the often overlooked questions of access, diverse economies, and labour. Lastly, my investigation is concerned with the potential of these practices to engender radically different socio-spatial relations. Drawing on recent debates around the ‘affective turn’ in social sciences, I analyse the emotionally-charged performative openness of community-oriented shop fronts as capable of creating places where meanings and subject-positions are challenged and negotiated, offering insights into their potential for transformative urban encounters. 3 Acknowledgments This thesis is the result of countless encounters and conversations, and as such owes much in its form and content to the many individuals and collectives with whom I have been fortunate to share these last few years. These acknowledgments are but a brief list of those to whom I am grateful. I would like, first of all, to thank all the practitioners and activists who shared their thoughts and experiences with me. I hope to have been able, in my interpretations and narrations, to honour some of the richness of their knowledge and understanding. For their brilliant guidance I would like to thank my supervisors David Pinder and Jon May, who have offered constant encouragement and critical commentary. I am also indebted to the stimulating and challenging environment of the School of Geography, and to the generous world of urban geographical scholarship in London and internationally. During my research I have found support and comradeship in my PhD colleagues, in particular Evelyn Owen, Olivia Sheringham, Kate Hardy, Claire Thompson, Natalie Savona, James Scott, Eilidh Reid, Erica Pani and Camille Aznar. My political reflections would not have been possible without the collective intelligence of groups such as Isola Art Center, the Carrot Workers Collective, the Precarious Workers Brigade, RampArt, the OffMarket collective, the Elephant Amenity Network, Southwark Notes Archives Group, Countermapping QMary and Nanopolitics. Lastly, I would have never been able to bring this research to completion without the unfailing support of my family and friends, abroad and in London. These include (but are not limited to): Rakhee Kewada, Manuela Zechner, my parents, Susan Kelly, Janna Graham, Adrian Glasspool, Bue R. Hansen, my brother Andrea, Celine Kuklowski, Polly Rodgers, Veronique Follet, Chris Jones, Jasper McKenzie, Alberto Pesavento, Rebecca Suner, Gabriella Alberti, Nelly Alfandari, Rastko Novakovic, Valeria Graziano, David Latto and, needless to say, Kim. 4 Table of contents Declaration..................................................................................................................2 Abstract.......................................................................................................................3 Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................4 Table of contents ........................................................................................................5 List of figures..............................................................................................................7 Introduction Temporary use as a form of urban action ...............................................................9 Appropriating urban spaces: between neoliberalisation and autonomy ............................12 London 2009-11: a situated approach................................................................................15 Chapter 1 Questioning the alterity of temporary vacant space reuse...................................20 New ways of urban acting .................................................................................................20 A focus on practices ..........................................................................................................23 Artistic trajectories of temporary reuse .............................................................................28 A legacy, rebranded: temporary reuse as place marketing ................................................32 Culture-led regeneration in the UK ...................................................................................35 The nexus between vacant spaces and alternative practices..............................................38 Power entanglements.........................................................................................................41 Vacant spaces as the temporal frontier of gentrification ...................................................44 The DiY entrepreneurial ‘mystique’..................................................................................46 Flexibility, precarity and neo-bohemianism......................................................................49 Diverse economies and projective logic............................................................................51 Experiential economies......................................................................................................54 Performative public encounters .........................................................................................57 Spaces of intensity.............................................................................................................60 Towards researching temporary practices of vacant shop reuse........................................63 Chapter 2 A fleeting field of practices: researching temporary vacant space reuse............66 Approaches to the study of temporary vacant space reuse ................................................66 Research logic and politics................................................................................................70 Performative research encounters......................................................................................73 An emerging research design: the ‘field’..........................................................................75 Mapping and diagramming................................................................................................80 Analysing a contested discursive field ..............................................................................88 Re-materialising practices of temporary reuse ..................................................................95 Performative and emotional public encounters ...............................................................103 Chapter 3 Competing discourses of temporary vacant space reuse....................................115 A discursive field.............................................................................................................115 Pop-up retail: a pre-recessional urban strategy................................................................117 Countering recessional perceptions.............................................................................120 Creative fillers.............................................................................................................125