Transitional Ethics and Aesthetics: Reimagining the Postdisaster City in Christchurch, New Zealand

Abstract

The 2010 and 2011 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, resulted in significant loss of life and injury and in the devastation of much of the center and east of the city. They also shook the foundations, structures, and assumed relations that had previously made the city legible, and in their aftermath the city was marked not only by a mournful sense of living with the hurt but also by coconstructions of new senses of life and place, involving alternative imaginations and performances of place. In this article we focus on how the event of the Christchurch earthquakes has summoned forth previously repressed and little noticed ideas and practices of transitional urbanism. Starting with localized performances of improvised community empowerment, a group of emergent transitional organizations in the city has begun to model new kinds of ethical fidelity to the perceived nature and potential of the earthquake event, especially in terms of transitional experimentation, civic rights of in-commonness, and the performance of aesthetic connection. With the passage of time, transitional organizations have connected these local priorities into wider international networks of transitionalism, acting as imagineers of transnational transitional activity. We argue, therefore, that the irruption of alternative imaginations and performances generated by the earthquakes needs to be understood in terms of both local and transnational assemblages of transition. Not only has fidelity to the event of the Christchurch earthquakes afforded opportunities to reshape collective engagements at the local level but it has also begun to influence transitionist activity in broader global society. Key Words: Christchurch earthquakes, event, fidelity, transitional ethics and aesthetics.

2010年至2011年间纽西兰基督城的地震，导致了重大的生命伤亡，并摧毁了该城市中心与东部的大半部分。这些地震同时动摇了过往让该城能够辨认的基础、结构与预设关系，而该城在地震过后，不仅以带着痛楚的哀痛生活感、亦以共同打造新的生活与地方感为特徵，其中包含地方的另类想像与展演。我们于本文中聚焦基督城地震事件如何进一步召唤过往受到压抑并鲜少受到注意的转型城市主义之概念与实践。城市中一个浮现的转型组织团体，从耗竭社区的赋权之在地化展演开始，着手塑造对所认知的地震事件之自然与潜能的崭新道德忠诚，特别是就转型实验、共有公民权，以及美学连结的展演而言。随着时间推移，转型组织已将这些在地优先性连结至更广泛的国际转型主义网络，并作为跨国转型活动的展望者。我们因而主张，由地震所引发的另类想像与展演的介入，必须同时就转型的地方与跨国凑组进行理解。对基督城地震事件的忠诚不仅提供了重塑地方层级集体参与的契机，亦同时开始影响更为广泛的全球社会的转型活动。关键词: 基督城大地震，事件，忠诚，转型道德与美学。

Los terremotos de 2010 y 2011 en Christchurch, Nueva Zelanda, causaron significativas pérdidas de vida y heridos, y devastación de gran parte del centro y oriente de la ciudad. También sacudieron los cimientos, estructuras y presuntas relaciones que previamente habían hecho legible la ciudad, y con sus secuelas la ciudad quedó marcada no solo con el penoso sentido de vivir con los lastimados, sino también con las co-construcciones de nuevos sentidos de la vida y el lugar, implicando imaginaciones alternativas y representaciones del lugar. En este artículo nos enfocamos en cómo el evento de los sismos de Christchurch ha concertado ideas y prácticas antes represadas e inadvertidas de urbanismo transicional. Empezando con las representaciones localizadas del empoderamiento comunitario improvisado, un grupo de organizaciones transicionales emergentes de la ciudad empezó a modelar nuevos tipos percibidos de fidelidad ética a la naturaleza y potencial del evento sísmico, especialmente en términos de experimentación transicional, derechos civiles en comunidad y la representación de la conexión estética. Con el paso del tiempo, las organizaciones transicionales han conectado estas prioridades locales con redes internacionales del transicionalismo, de mayor alcance, actuando como los gestores de imagen de la actividad transicional de alcance transnacional. Por eso sostenemos que la irrupción de imaginaciones y representaciones alternativas generadas por los terremotos debe entenderse en términos de ensamblajes de transición local y transnacional. La fidelidad al evento de los terremotos de Christchurch no solo propició oportunidades para reconfigurar los compromisos colectivos a nivel local, sino también ha empezado a influir sobre la actividad transicional en la sociedad global más amplia.

Palabras clave:

• ética y estética transicional
• evento
• fidelidad
• terremotos de Christchurch

Notes

Notes

1 Complete inventories of the activities of these organizations have been captured elsewhere. For more in-depth inventories, see Carlton and Vallance (2013), Wesener (2015), and Bennett, Boidi, and Boles (2012).

2 See http://gapfiller.org.nz/project/think-differently-book-exchange/.

3 See http://transitionnetwork.org/.

4 See http://teputahi.org.nz/.

5 See http://www.shareable.net/sharing-cities.

6 See http://ministryofawesome.com/about/.

7 See https://www.govhack.org/.

Additional information

PAUL CLOKE is Professor of Human Geography at the University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include social change, ethical geographies, and the role of the third sector. Aside from research in the postdisaster context of Christchurch, his recent work addresses the intersections between voluntary sector welfare and care (e.g., in services for homeless people and in food banking) and geographies of postsecularity.

SIMON DICKINSON is Lecturer in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA, UK. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the organizations and activist networks operating in various postdisaster landscapes. He is specifically interested in how the fissures afforded by different extreme events open up possibilities for different forms of ethical, political, and social change during recovery.