scholarly journals Decolonial Possibilities of Reintroducing the Devil in the Public Space of Afro‐Ecuadorian Territories

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 191-202
Author(s):  
María Gabriela López‐Yánez ◽  
María Paz Saavedra Calderón
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Collaborative Design ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Public ◽  
Power And Resistance ◽  
Political Ecologies ◽  
Meaningful Connections ◽  
Collective Production ◽  
The Devil

The article discusses the decolonial possibilities of the collective design of a sound artwork in reimagining the role of two Afro‐Ecuadorian music and dance‐based events in the Afro‐Ecuadorian ancestral territories of North Esmeraldas and Chota‐Mira. The two events, Bomba del Chota and Marimba Esmeraldeña, emerged in the context of slavery and colonialism as a response of Afro‐Ecuadorians to the oppression and violence they endured. These two music and dance‐based events sustain a counter‐narrative of power and resistance for Afrodescendant peoples in Ecuador, weaving meaningful connections among them and other entities populating their territories, such as the “devil,” whose cohabitation with Afro‐Ecuadorians will be at the spotlight of our analysis. Based on the audio‐recorded testimonies of these connections that strongly existed until the 1970s, and of a sonic composition that was created from them, we propose a collaborative design of a sound artwork in the public spaces of the jungle in Esmeraldas and the mountain in Chota‐Mira. We discuss how a decolonial approach to the design of the artwork can serve as a dialogical space to engage inhabitants in their re‐connection to the possibilities of resistance that their ancestors nurtured in their territories through the practice of the two music and dance‐based events. Through a political reading of soundscapes, an argument is developed to show how sound constructs the public spaces that root people in their territories, connecting them with meaningful stories and practices that keep being forgotten due to the on‐going consequences of slavery and colonialism. The article contributes to the discussion about political ecologies and the collective production of public spaces as a joyful response to exclusion and oppression.

scholarly journals Planning, design and use of the public space Wahlenpark (Zurich, Switzerland) : functional, visual and semiotic openness

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Kaspar ◽  
E. Bühler
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Dual Role ◽  
Subjective Perception ◽  
Public Parks ◽  
The Public ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
City Planners

Abstract. Wahlenpark is currently one of Zurich's most recent urban public parks. It is located in a neighbourhood which has been totally rebuilt during the last 20 years. Based on a constructivist conception of space, this article looks at the kind of spaces that have been, and still are, produced at Wahlenpark. It is argued that various groups of actors are, and have been, involved in this production of spaces: city planners in the role of constructors, landscape architects in the role of designers and «the population» in the role of users. By defining requirements, city planners constitute space, at first on a mental level «only». As constructors they perform – through the designers' plans – a powerful spacing act: they physically construct a park. Park users in their dual role as actors and «park element» subsequently (re-)produce manifold spaces by uniting social goods and people to spaces (see Löw 2001). It is argued that openness is an important reference point in the production and appropriation of space at Wahlenpark by planners, designers and users, albeit with different meanings. The statements of park users show that they experience openness differently, sometimes even in a contradictory manner, thereby highlighting the variability of subjective perception, resulting in both the inclusion and exclusion of the perceiver. In view of greater inclusiveness of public spaces, a better understanding of the manner in which people perceive and use these spaces is needed.

Citoyens, piété et démocratie. Réflexions sur l’occultation des corps croyants, l’intimité et le droit au secret

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valérie Amiraux
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Other ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
The Public ◽  
The One

This article is based on ongoing fieldwork conducted in France and Quebec with Muslim women who stopped wearing a headscarf. It offers a puzzle for reflection: what is achieved when a sign of religious affiliation disappears (in this instance, wearing a headscarf)? The first part of the article describes the general framework in which public conversations about the visible piety expressed by Muslim women has been discussed in public spaces. The second part looks at the double bind in which Muslim women have been placed by being asked, on the one hand, to be as discrete as possible when expressing their religiosity and, on the other, to behave in full transparency. How and under which conditions can these women ‘find a place’ in the public space (Joseph, 1995) of secular societies? To conclude, the article invites reflection on the role of secrecy, the impossibility as well as the necessity of the secret in society in order to be able to consider the proper room available for pious female citizens in democratic secular societies.

scholarly journals Film Intervention in Public Space. A Phylogenetic Spatial Change

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Taher Abdel-Ghani
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Social Agent ◽  
The Public ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Function ◽  
The City

Cinema has taken up the role of a social agent that introduced a variety of images and events to the public during critical times. This paper proposes the idea of using films as a tool to reclaim public space where a sense of belonging and dialogue restore to a meaningful place. During the January 2011 protests in Egypt, Tahrir Cinema, an independent revolutionary project composed of filmmakers and other artists, offered a space in Downtown Cairo and screened archival footage of the ongoing events to the protestors igniting civic debate and discussions. The traditional public space has undergone what Karl Kropf refers to as the phylogenetic change, i.e. form and function that is agreed upon by society and represents a common conception of certain spatial elements. Hence, the framework that this research will follow is a two-layer discourse, the existence of cinema in public spaces, and the existence of public spaces in cinema. Eventually, the paper seeks to enhance the social relationship between society, spaces, and cinematic narration – a vital tool to raise awareness about the right to the city.

scholarly journals “Night Hawks” Watching Over the City: Redeployment of Night Watchmen and the Politics of Public Space in Turkey

2019 ◽  
pp. 120633121988625
Author(s):  
Bülent Batuman ◽  
Feyzan Erkip
Keyword(s):  
Urban Environment ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Public ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The City

Technological advances have enormously increased surveillance techniques in the last three decades. In this article, we scrutinize the re-instatement of bekçi, the traditional night watchmen patrolling the residential neighborhoods in Turkey, which was obsolete for decades. We analyze the re-emergence of the bekçi in relation to the dynamics of urbanization, and with a perspective of power and surveillance. Our discussion bridges the Foucauldian notion of “visibility,” equating it with being subject to surveillance, and the Arendtian emphasis on “appearance” as the precondition for a claim to public space (hence, citizenship) in order the uncover the role of visibility within the mechanisms of power in public space. We argue that although the bekçi seems outmoded, especially within the context of ever-increasing advancement of surveillance technologies; its recent deployment in the public spaces of Turkish metropolises brings about new modes of politics of visibility parallel to the changing modality of the urban environment.

scholarly journals The Role of Environmental Graphic in the Identification of Urban Public Spaces

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (8) ◽  
pp. 1949 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanieh Eshaghzadeh Torbati
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Graphic Design ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Analytic Method ◽  
Art And Science ◽  
Urban Identity ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Library Method

Today one of the important spaces in cities is the public spaces that, according to their classification and specifications, there is no limit to the use of different groups of people, and due to the presence of all type of people in these spaces, attention to identifying is of paramount importance. Environmental graphic is one of the useful tools to design the spaces and create identity. Of course we know that urban identity is based on the relationship and coordination of various branches of art and science such as psychology, sociology, economics, traffic, landscaping, urbanization, architecture, graphic design and so on. Although, as an interdisciplinary topic, it can be said that this branch of graphic can affect urban identity reformation, given its potentials. In this paper we attempt to study about this topic through applied descriptive-analytic method and to consider the position and importance of environmental graphic in create identity for urban public spaces, using required parameters analyze and definition by library method. Considering the space constructed in city without notice to identity, we analyze this important that if there is public space made with environmental graphic, how it creates an identity.

Public space as inspiration for the writer: writing the diverse nation and the threat of privatisation in Carol Shields’s Unless

1970 ◽  
Vol 32 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Esra Melikoğlu
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Woman Writer ◽  
The Public ◽  
Privileged Position ◽  
A Site

In Carol Shields’s Künstlerroman Unless, protagonist Reta Winters revisits, in her narrative, her private home in suburbia and the public spaces of Toronto. These sites help her ponder the role of space and ultimately her own role as a writer in redefining the nation. Reta’s home emblematises an incompletely revised Canada. Privatisation of space, suburbanisation, and consumerism, as well as her self-absorption in her relatively privileged position as a woman writer, perpetuate selfishness and fear of (other forms of) alterity. Reta must widen her scope of interest as a writer of difference and reconsider public space, a site of different ethnic and class identities, as a model for the diverse nation.

scholarly journals Translation of Civic Pedagogical Tactics to Critically Produce Public Spaces in Amman

2020 ◽  
pp. 37-50
Author(s):  
Amro Yaghi
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Architecture Education ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This paper asks how can we re-think and critically produce alternative ‘public’ spaces through translating forms of civic pedagogical tactics in Amman? Our neoliberal contemporary cities and political agendas, with its Arabic versions, have produced socially, spatially polarised and de-politized spaces. In fact, what we inhabit today are spaces that are pseudo public. Those spaces prompt critiquing the role of the architects, practitioners and architecture educators to intervene, mediate and response collectively. Trying to form a resistance to this problem, the responding approach is informed by reviewing and critiquing how architectural pedagogies are performed in Jordan, focusing on evaluating their civic engagement and the political and neoliberal influence. The paper then moves to focus on key relevant pedagogical models with envisioning the action plan that are adopted and tailored to the specific cultural, political and social context of Amman. This paper framework will start reflections from some critical pedagogical theories to evaluate and critique the current architectural pedagogical approaches in Amman-Jordan contexts and analysing the various actants such as political policies, civic interventions and processes that affect architecture education. Furthermore, it generates some important lessons and reflections from practices, such as the interventions used by Romanian architects in the 1980s, Pseudo Public Space Studio-UK, live projects-UK, triggering and resisting the challenges on civic practices. The study will conclude by proposing methodological framework for translating civic pedagogical tactics that prompt to provoke and draw the public attention towards the right to the city and its space, while resisting the challenges that are facing the context of Amman- Jordan. The process of translation is adopted and tailored to Amman-Jordan context, rather than imported and colonised. These tactics opened up possibilities and generated a new and alternative form of publicness, as well as a resilient and resistant community.

scholarly journals Enabling quality of urban spaces in Cairo’s new suburban settlements: a community character approach for New Cairo, Egypt

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally M. Murshed ◽  
Ahmed M. Ouf ◽  
Abbas F. Zafarany
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Field Investigation ◽  
Added Value ◽  
The Public ◽  
Design Attributes ◽  
Distinct Character ◽  
New Settlements

AbstractA global concern claims that activities and functions that once filled traditional public spaces are privatized being less and less oriented to the public. In Cairo’s new settlements, public spaces don’t seem to contribute to its public life. Each community’s most valuable assets are the ones they already have; thus, urbanisms advocate the role of retaining traditional street patterns, vistas, and landscape of a community’s distinct character. The research aim is to identify design attributes to be added to the literature in terms of designing public spaces for the specific cultural context of Cairo, Egypt, and its new suburban settlements. The methodology then follows a comparative analysis study to reach the desired objectives of buildings a community character approach. In an exploratory method, two case studies of public spaces in Cairo are chosen following a purposive selection most relevant to the study. The target is to choose two cases in proximity for users to be familiar with the two of them and enable a reliable comparison. It then conducts a survey that involves the user’s evaluation of their public spaces in correlation to their needs. Jan Gehl’s twelve criteria are adopted by this paper’s field investigation for the assessment of public spaces’ quality. Findings of the study include an elaboration on Jan Gehl’s twelve criteria either by highlighting the importance of existing aspects or the addition of further criteria that showed value to public space quality and their users. The findings provide guidelines that help in designing quality public spaces in Cairo’s new settlements. The added value from this study is in identifying a set of factors or attributes that consider users’ needs for a given cultural context.

Komunistki

2020 ◽  
pp. 671-692
Author(s):  
Aga Skrodzka
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Visual Memory ◽  
Women's Movement ◽  
Women’S Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Communist Past ◽  
Status Of Women

This article argues for the importance of preserving the visual memory of female communist agency in today’s Poland, at the time when the nation’s relationship to its communist past is being forcefully rearticulated with the help of the controversial Decommunization Act, which affects the public space of the commons. The wholesale criminalization of communism by the ruling conservative forces spurred a wave of historical and symbolic revisions that undermine the legacy of the communist women’s movement, contributing to the continued erosion of women’s rights in Poland. By looking at recent cinema and its treatment of female communists as well as the newly published accounts of the communist women’s movement provided by feminist historians and sociologists, the project sheds light on current cultural debates that address the status of women in postcommunist Poland and the role of leftist legacy in such debates.

‘Party in the street’: The partisan politics of space

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110338
Author(s):  
David Jenkins ◽  
Lipin Ram
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Public space is often understood as an important ‘node’ of the public sphere. Typically, theorists of public space argue that it is through the trust, civility and openness to others which citizens cultivate within a democracy’s public spaces, that they learn how to relate to one another as fellow members of a shared polity. However, such theorizing fails to articulate how these democratic comportments learned within public spaces relate to the public sphere’s purported role in holding state power to account. In this paper, we examine the ways in which what we call ‘partisan interventions’ into public space can correct for this gap. Using the example of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM), we argue that the ways in which CPIM partisans actively cultivate sites of historical regional importance – such as in the village of Kayyur – should be understood as an aspect of the party’s more general concern to present itself to citizens as an agent both capable and worthy of wielding state power. Drawing on histories of supreme partisan contribution and sacrifice, the party influences the ideational background – in competition with other parties – against which it stakes its claims to democratic legitimacy. In contrast to those theorizations of public space that celebrate its separateness from the institutions of formal democratic politics and the state more broadly, the CPIM’s partisan interventions demonstrate how parties’ locations at the intersections of the state and civil society can connect the public sphere to its task of holding state power to account, thereby bringing the explicitly political questions of democratic legitimacy into the everyday spaces of a political community.

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