Hacking Hostile Architecture : Gentle disobedience in neoliberal public space

TROTTA Alex
VUB / ULB
Brusells
sous la direction de Lucas De Melo Melgaço
2020

Abstract

Hostile architecture is part of the securitization trend currently underway in many cities, often implemented in relation to urban renewal projects and to a safe and clean discourse on the city. Its most evident aim is to avoid that specific social groups could use certain part of the cities according to their habits, but this phenomenon expressly influences the life of everyone living in the city, because the implementation of such design rises questions about the political meaning of public space, the rights to the city of different social groups, the differentiated access to the public realm imposed by authorities and the kind of control to which everyone in society is subjected. In many cities people started to react to such design strategies, fostering a discourse that challenge planning injustice, scarcity of housing and the commodification of the public realm. This research aims to investigate the evolution of a group of activists struggling against hostile architecture in Brussels, the collective Design For Everyone, in order to contribute to the academic discourse on public space, rights to the city and surveillance through design. The investigation was carried out through participatory action research and reflexive ethnography methods, as a consequence of the author’s choice to position himself critically within the academic environment as activist-scholar, to contribute to the development of the researched group in the frame of social struggles, and to recognize the researched group as an active subject. The research highlights the political meaning of public space in relation to the Lefebvrian concept of the right to the city and it tries to redefine in political terms the controversial practice of tactical urbanism implemented by grass-roots organizations, underlining the importance of shared disobedience, identified in the challenge to the normative discipline of neoliberal public space, as vector of community bonds in a fragmented society. A particular attention has been given to the methodology applied, the risks it raised and the difficulties it posed, providing reflections on the way an investigation can be conducted during direct action in the streets and on the possible role of the researcher in social movements.

Méthodologie

The investigation was carried out through participatory action research and reflexive ethnography methods, as a consequence of the author’s choice to position himself critically within the academic environment as activist-scholar, to contribute to the development of the researched group in the frame of social struggles, and to recognize the researched group as an active subject.