A case of community safety: displacing complex ‘social’ problems in Fortitude Valley Amanda Davies B Soc Sci (Soc) (Hons) Humanities Research Program Division of Research and Commercialisation Queensland University of Technology Submitted in full requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2011 Keywords Science technology studies; Actor Network Theory; translation; place management; locational disadvantage; community safety; Fortitude Valley; community participation; government policy; discourse; social problems; crime; drug use; urban renewal. i Abstract Public dialogue regarding the high concentration of drug use and crime in inner city locations is frequently legitimised through visibility of drug-using populations and a perception of high crime rates. The public space known as the Brunswick Street Mall (Valley mall), located in the inner city Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley, has long provided the focal point for discussions regarding the problem of illicit drug use and antisocial behaviour in Brisbane. During the late 1990s a range of stakeholders in Fortitude Valley became mobilised to tackle crime and illicit drugs. In particular they wanted to dismantle popular perceptions of the area as representing the dark and unsafe side of Brisbane. The aim of this campaign was to instil a sense of safety in the area and dislodge Fortitude Valley from its reputation as a ‗symbolic location of danger‘. This thesis is a case study about an urban site that became contested by the diverse aims of a range of stakeholders who were invested in an urban renewal program and community safety project. This case study makes visible a number of actors that were lured from their existing roles in an indeterminable number of heterogeneous networks in order to create a community safety network. The following analysis of the community safety network emphasises some specific actors: history, ideas, technologies, materialities and displacements. The case study relies on the work of Foucault, Latour, Callon and Law to draw out the rationalities, background contingencies and the attempts to impose order and translate a number of entities into the community safety project in Fortitude Valley. The results of this research show that the community safety project is a case of ontological politics. Specifically the data indicates that both the (reality) problem of safety and the (knowledge) solution to safety were created simultaneously. This thesis explores the idea that while violence continues to occur in the Valley, evidence that community safety got done is located through mapping its displacement and eventual disappearance. As such, this thesis argues that community safety is a ‗collateral reality‘. ii Table of contents Keywords ...................................................................................................................... i Abstract ........................................................................................................................ ii Table of contents ......................................................................................................... iii Photographs, figures and tables.................................................................................... v Acronyms .................................................................................................................... vi Statement of original authorship ................................................................................ vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... viii Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background story ........................................................................................... 2 1.2 Contesting the space ...................................................................................... 6 1.3 A change event ............................................................................................. 10 1.4 Study aims .................................................................................................... 15 1.5 Outline of chapters ....................................................................................... 17 Chapter 2: Constructing an approach: where does this project fit theoretically? ...... 22 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 22 2.2 Urban space: recent trends ........................................................................... 23 2.3 Urban space: the next wave ......................................................................... 29 2.4 What happens to urban space if the social is ‗reassembled‘? ...................... 34 2.5 Science Technology Studies (STS): points of departure ............................. 36 2.6 Translation ................................................................................................... 41 2.7 Translation is one thing—performances are another ................................... 43 2.8 What now: beyond critique .......................................................................... 45 2.9 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 3: Developing a method................................................................................ 48 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 48 3.2 Devising a case ............................................................................................ 50 3.3 Historical prerequisites ................................................................................ 52 3.4 Discursive developments ............................................................................. 55 3.5 Translating community safety...................................................................... 59 3.6 Performances: in for one, in for all ... .......................................................... 68 3.7 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 4: Producing another historical truth for Fortitude Valley ........................... 73 4.1 Introduction .................................................................................................. 73 4.2 A history of the Valley: an accumulated truth ............................................. 74 4.3 Bad people, bad places ................................................................................. 75 4.4 Reform, rehabilitate and revitalise: constructing new truths or reinforcing old ones ..................................................................................... 80 4.5 Trends in urban renewal............................................................................... 84 4.6 Fitzgerald Inquiry......................................................................................... 87 4.7 Valley mall: the spatialisation of reform ..................................................... 90 4.8 Make-up of the Valley mall: public/private space ....................................... 95 4.9 Reforming safety in the Valley mall ............................................................ 96 4.10 Conclusion ................................................................................................... 99 iii Chapter 5: The rationalities driving the order .......................................................... 101 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 101 5.2 Recent governmental artefacts ................................................................... 105 5.3 Governing the excluded: techniques of inclusion ...................................... 110 5.4 Sites of exclusion: place management ....................................................... 112 5.5 Challenges today are bigger, harder and more complex ............................ 116 5.6 Responsibilising the community ................................................................ 120 5.7 Rationalities and technologies of government ........................................... 122 5.8 Conclusion.................................................................................................. 127 Chapter 6: Translating a community safety project: tugging at threads................... 129 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 129 6.2 The sum of all parts does not make a whole: translating the Valley.......... 130 6.3 Actualising reform: the players .................................................................. 132 6.4 The problematisation: with a double movement and a sleight of hand, all things seem possible .............................................................................. 139 6.5 Inner City Place Project: forging the links ................................................. 141 6.6 Flirtations, aspirations and cross-collaboration: the honeymoon period ... 144 6.7 Success at the first hurdle: speaking with one voice .................................. 151 6.8 Negotiating the common ground: everyone must give up something........ 153 6.9 Working from the same page: the scuffle around disadvantage ................ 158 6.9.1 Overcoming the complexity of the issues: safety in numbers ............... 158 6.9.2 Sharing