Activist performances on edge: spatial politics after the end of public space

ABSTRACT

Analyses of the shifting dynamics of public space often give way to nostalgic desires to return to former iterations imagined as universally accessible and egalitarian. Instead of lamenting the end of public space, I propose that the contradictions and impossibilities embedded within the colonial concept of publicness might be cause to embrace such an ending. I first introduce the idea of false publics by lingering in a Detroit alleyway to unveil how popular esthetics and discourses of community can obfuscate the violence of structural oppressions. Rather than use this example to argue for a return to truly public space, I instead turn to a series of activist performances to suggest that their embodied acts seek something other than recuperation. By working against prevailing norms about how to act in public, I suggest that these performances challenge the colonial formation of public space and make possible more radical spatial politics.

KEYWORDS:

• False publics
• activism
• performance
• spatial politics
• edgework

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Activist performances on edge: spatial politics after the end of public space

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Angela Marino, Jason Luger, Loretta Lees, and the anonymous reviewers, all of whom provided vital feedback on earlier drafts. This article would not have come to fruition without the insights shared with me by many artists and organizers, nor without the collaborative inquiry made possible through the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) and the community of graduate students and faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. Finally, I would like to thank Andrew Herscher for his immeasurable generosity and for modeling what it means to build knowledge with others through action.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 My use of the term popular aesthetics simply denotes aesthetic practices that emerged outside museums and concert stages. I engage this term with a particular emphasis on the ways that marginalized communities have often accessed political participation through such practices.

2 The idea of emptiness often refers to a decrease in population and decline in real estate value. This framing systematically erases the ongoing presence of longtime residents of Detroit. Andrew Herscher discusses this in his book, The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit.

3 We the People of Detroit Community Research Collective’s Mapping the Water Crisis: The Dismantling of African-American Neighborhoods in Detroit provides an excellent analysis of the role of water shutoffs in racialized displacement. In brief, the city privatized the public water system which led to water rate markups up to 1000% the wholesale rates. The city then began shutting off water to houses with overdue bills, but disproportionately shutting off water in Black-owned homes through a series of loopholes.

4 While Mayor of Detroit in 2014, Mike Duggan established a special Graffiti Task Force within the police department as part of the overall blight elimination program. In the first three years, the city made over 50 arrests and processed over $1.2 million dollars in fines for unsanctioned graffiti. The further criminalization of graffiti is particularly disturbing amidst the city’s increased support for sanctioned street art, often by well-known white artists from out of town (Ikonomova, 2017).

5 Thanks to Andrew Herscher for this insight.