Staging London: Participation and Citizenship on the Way to the 2012 Olympic Games

Abstract

This article examines Rimini Protokoll’s 100% London and Occupy LSX as two performances of citizenship that took place in London in the build-up to the 2012 Games. Drawing on ideas of the ‘urban commons’ (David Harvey), ‘agonistic citizenship’ (Chantal Mouffe) and the ‘civic transnational’ (Michael McKinnie), we interrogate how our examples articulate transnational urban communities and the ways in which representations of the ‘polis’ are in dialogue with dominant rhetorics on participation and belonging. We specifically ask whether the dramaturgies of participation and citizenship which emerge in both examples transgress commodified and consensual notions of participation and create symbolic spaces where the ‘possibility of disorder’ might propose a ‘conflictual consensus’ and an agonistic practice of citizenship. We propose that while Occupy LSX encourages an agonistic mode of participation in the urban fabric, 100% London participates in forging ‘civic transnational’ subjects as a desirable practice of citizenship that assuages conflicts between the citizen and the state.

Notes

2. The six Olympic boroughs are Hackney, Greenwich, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Barking and Dagenham. These boroughs played a crucial role in the Olympic legacy agenda pursued by both the previous Labour government, which led and won the Olympic bid, and the current coalition Conservative and Liberal Democrat government. The Olympic legacy plans include ‘promoting community engagement’ and ‘exploiting to the full the opportunities for economic growth offered by hosting the Games’. Department for Culture, Media and Sport, ‘Plans for the Legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games’ (December 2010), p. 1, in Gov.uk, <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/78105/201210_Legacy_Publication.pdf> [accessed 1 July 2013].

3. Other examples include 100% Berlin (2008), Ο Προμηθέας στην Αθήνα [Prometheus in Athens (2010)], 100% Vancouver (2011), En Folkefiende i Oslo [An Enemy of the People in Oslo (2012)], 100% Melbourne (2012), 100% Cork (2013). More information about Rimini Protokoll’s city-specific productions can be found at the company’s website: Rimini Protokoll, <http://www.rimini-protokoll.de/website/en/index.php> [accessed 2 July 2013].

4. The practices of Occupy LSX are closely linked to OWS (Occupy Wall Street, September 2011), the movement of the indignados (Spain, May 2011), the movement of the squares (Greece, May 2011), and the occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo during the protests against Hosni Mubarak in Egypt (January 2011). Each movement is, nevertheless, different as the local socio-political and economic conditions vary considerably between regions and nations.

5. For more on the post-2008 financial crises in the United States and the European Union (EU) see, for instance, David Harvey, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (London: Profile Books, 2010) and Alex Callinicos, The Bonfire of Illusions: The Twin Crises of the Liberal World (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010).

6. Wendy Brown, ‘We Are All Democrats Now…’, in Democracy in What State?, by Giorgio Agamben and others, trans. by William McCuaig (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 44–57 (p. 44).

7. Ibid.

8. For a comprehensive discussion on the Olympic Games and branding, see Iain MacRury, ‘Branding the Games: Commercialism and the Olympic City’, in Olympic Cities: 2012 and the Remaking of London, ed. by Gavin Pointer and Iain MacRury (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 43–72.

9. Brown, ‘We Are All Democrats Now…’, p. 45.

10. Chantal Mouffe, On the Political (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 3.

11. Ibid., p. 9.

12. Ibid., p. 3.

13. Ibid., p. 121.

14. We here follow Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the polis as a ‘space of appearance’ that ‘lies between people’ as discussed in Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 198. This concept has been revisited by Judith Butler in relation to the recent occupations of public spaces (Tahrir, indignados, and Occupy). Butler specifically argues for the need to ‘rethink the space of appearance’ by paying attention to the performative interaction between bodily action and space. Judith Butler, ‘Bodies in Alliance and the Politics of the Street’, European Institute for Progressive Cultural Politics (7 September 2011), <http://www.eipcp.net/transversal/1011/butler/en> [accessed 30 April 2013].

15. Marcus Miessen and Chantal Mouffe, ‘Democracy Revisited: A Conversation with Chantal Mouffe’, in The Nightmare of Participation, by Marcus Miessen (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2010), pp. 105–59 (p. 109).

16. David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012), p. 73.

17. Ibid.

18. Michael McKinnie, ‘Performing the Civic Transnational: Cultural Production, Governance, and Citizenship in Contemporary London’, in Performance and the City, ed. by D. J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr, and Kim Solga (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2009), pp. 110–27 (pp. 112–13).

19. Ibid., p. 112.

20. Some of the banners outside St Paul’s Cathedral read: ‘This is what democracy looks like.’ The discussion on Occupy LSX in this article is based on the authors’ fieldwork at the site.

21. Baz Kershaw, The Radical in Performance (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 98–99.

22. Rimini Protokoll, 100% London Theatre Programme (London: Rimini Protokoll, 2012), p. 21.

23. All quotes from 100% London hereafter are taken from the performance on 1 July 2012.

24. On 4 August 2011 Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old Black British man, was shot by the London Metropolitan Police in Tottenham, North London. The circumstances of his death sparked the summer 2011 riots in London and other cities in England (including Manchester, Birmingham, Gloucester, Bristol, Nottingham, and Liverpool).

25. The wider communities of Hackney and greater London were also involved in the creation of the piece, contributing some of the questions used in the performance. These were sourced through Twitter and one of London’s free daily newspapers, Metro, and through the ‘Ministry of Stories’, an East London creative writing centre for young people.

26. Miessen and Mouffe, ‘Democracy Revisited’, p. 127.

27. Jen Harvie, Staging the UK (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), p. 193.

28. See Daniel Burdsey, ‘The Technicolor Olympics? Race, Representation and the 2012 London Games’, in Watching the Olympics: Politics, Power and Representation, ed. by John Sudgen and Alan Tomlinson (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 69–81 (p. 70) and Peter Newman, ‘“Back the Bid”: The 2012 Summer Olympics and the Governance of London’, Journal of Urban Affairs, 29 (August 2007), 255–67.

29. Beatriz Garcia, ‘London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Evaluation: Final Report’ Liverpool: The Institute of Cultural Capital, 2013, p. 163, in Arts Council England, <http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/media/uploads/pdf/london_2012_academic_report/London_2012_Cultural_Olympiad_Evaluation_ICC.pdf> [accessed 22 July 2013].

30. LIFT Festival, ‘Lift 2012: Shining a Light on the Stories of the World’, LIFT 2012, <http://www.liftfestival.com/content/12650/archive/2012/lift_2012/lift_2012/lift_2012> [accessed 9 December 2012].

31. Mark Ball, ‘Welcome to 100% London, a Unique Production that Puts Faces to the Stories and Statistics of Our City’, in Rimini Protokoll, 100% London Theatre Programme, p. 7.

32. Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo, Performance and Cosmopolitics: Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australasia (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007), p. 9.

33. McKinnie, ‘Performing the Civic Transnational’, p. 115.

34. Ibid., pp. 115–16.

35. Although the content across the various 100% projects is very different, they are nevertheless based on the same dramaturgical principles.

36. British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s address after being notified of the success of London’s Olympic bid was underpinned by a strong belief in multiculturalism: ‘people of all races and nationalities mix in with each other and mix with each other well’ (quoted in Mark Tran, ‘London Celebrates Olympics Decision’, Guardian, 6 July 2005, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/06/olympics2012.olympicgames3> [accessed 10 December 2012]). As a way to reverse the climate of fear following the 7/7 London bombings of 7 July 2005, London Mayor Ken Livingstone carried out an official poll which provided evidence that London’s citizens ‘were more confident about their city, more happy with the city’s diversity’ (quoted in Newman, ‘“Back the Bid”’, p. 263).

37. Mark Ball, ‘Welcome to 100% London’, p. 7. 100% London was the only Rimini Protokoll production where volunteer performers were used. In conversation with the company, we learned that their ethos dictates that participants are treated as ‘partners’ in the theatre-making process and should be remunerated for their labour. It could be argued that the lack of financial incentive impacted the composition of the chorus and even compromised its representational claims.

38. See Claire Heald, ‘London Olympics: How Volunteers Made the Games’, BBC News, 10 August 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19201329> [accessed 19 December 2012].

39. Department for Culture, Media and Sport, ‘Plans for the Legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games’, p. 1.

40. MacRury also shares this scepticism. See ‘Branding the Games’, pp. 48–49.

41. ‘Initial Statement’, Occupy London, 16 October 2011, <http://occupylsx.org/?page_id=575> [accessed 20 December 2012].

42. Ibid.

43. Ibid.

44. The performance’s search criteria indicate these diversity markers (see Rimini Protokoll, 100% London Theatre Programme, p. 22). However, other diversity parameters were underrepresented (for example, only 3 per cent identified as ‘gay’).

45. Jeevan Vasagar, ‘Public Spaces in Britain’s Cities Fall into Private Hands’, Guardian, 11 June 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/11/granary-square-privately-owned-public-space> [accessed 10 December 2012].

46. Pete Fussey, Jon Coaffee, Gary Armstrong, and Dick Hobbs, ‘The Regeneration Games: Purity and Security in the Olympic City’, British Journal of Sociology, 63 (June 2012), 260–84 (p. 260).

47. A case in point is Westfield shopping centre in Stratford.

48. The case of the Clays Lane Housing Estate in Stratford, where 425 people were evicted in order for the Olympic Park to be erected is a prominent example of pre-Olympic evictions. See Charlotte Baxter, ‘Displaced by London’s Olympics’, Guardian, 2 June 2008, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/02/olympics2012> [accessed 25 June 2013].

49. See Stephen Graham, ‘Olympics 2012 Security: Welcome to Lockdown London’, Guardian, 12 March 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/mar/12/london-olympics-security-lockdown-london> [accessed 25 June 2013]. For more details on the London 2012 security practices see UK Home Office, London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Safety and Security Strategy (March 2011), <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97983/olympic-safety-security-strategy.pdf> [accessed 25 June 2013].

50. Such processes of demonization and exclusion are evidenced in the decline of local businesses in Stratford and Hackney Wick due to the compulsory purchase for the Olympic grounds and the opening of Westfield Shopping Centre; the new residential developments in Newham that are predicted to drive property prices up as well as transform the area’s demographics and security demands; and the ‘“security legacy” […] bequeathing substantial mechanisms and technologies of control to the post-event public site’ (Fussey et al., ‘The Regeneration Games’, p. 271). For a more detailed analysis of the processes of demonization and exclusion at work within the Olympic regeneration see Fussey et al., ‘The Regeneration Games’, pp. 269–73.

51. Cited in Fussey et al., ‘The Regeneration Games’, p. 264.

52. Quoted in Vasagar, ‘Public Spaces’.

53. For example, companies responsible for the redevelopment of the Olympic Park are Lend Lease and Mace.

54. Henri Lefebvre, Critique of Everyday Life, trans. by Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 2008), III: From Modernity to Modernism, p. 80.

55. Jason N. Parkinson and Jess Hurd, ‘Save Leyton Marsh Protester Threatened with £335,000 Eviction Costs’, Guardian, 21 December 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2012/dec/21/save-leyton-marsh-protester-eviction-costs-video> [accessed 1 May 2013].

56. Henri Lefebvre, ‘The Right to the City’, in Writings on Cities, trans. by Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 158.

57. McKinnie, ‘Performing the Civic Transnational’, p. 119.

58. Harvey, Rebel Cities, p. 67.

59. Peter Walker and Riazat Butt, ‘St Paul’s May Seek Injunction to Move Occupy London Activists’, Guardian, 23 October 2011, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/23/st-pauls-occupy-london-protest> [accessed 18 December 2012].

60. ‘Occupy London Eviction: Boris Johnson “Glad the Law Has Taken Its Course”’, Huffington Post, 28 February 2012, <http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/28/occupy-london-eviction-boris-johnson_n_1306234.html> [accessed 18 December 2012].

61. Such as Starbucks, the American coffee-chain; Paul, the French bakery and patisserie chain; and NatWest, or National Westminster, a UK-based bank.

62. ‘They were, after all, sleeping and eating in the public square, constructing toilets and various systems for sharing the space, and so not only refusing to be privatised – refusing to go or stay home – and not only claiming the public domain for themselves – acting in concert on conditions of equality – but also maintaining themselves as persisting bodies with needs, desires, and requirements’. Butler, ‘Bodies in Alliance’.

63. The audience was invited to reflect on what is missing from the stage demographics after being asked to raise their hand if they believed themselves to be accurately represented by the stage’s ecology. This questioning over the function of statistics is also articulated in the theatre programme. Rimini Protokoll, 100% London Theatre Programme, p. 21.

64. McKinnie, ‘Performing the Civic Transnational’, p. 124.