Beursplein as b/orderland? Street reflections on the complexities of "right to the city” and significance of everyday “drama” and struggles in public space to urban politics : Case of the occupy movement and Beursplein Amsterdam
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2012-06
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en
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Abstract
In this thesis I firstly examine key concepts of Lefebvre’s writings on ‘Right to the city’
and literature on Europe’s borders, to link them to the everyday b/ordering practices at
an urban public space - Beursplein Amsterdam, amidst the actions of the Occupy
movement. In following the actions around the occupy movement at the Beursplein
Amsterdam I ask, “Who is/are the ‘we’(s) claiming and/or ‘occupying’ the square (in this
case Beursplein)? And how does the ‘we’(s) change (or not) and/or is changed (or not)
by the diverse time-spaces of the plein?” I use the concept of “performative action”
from performativity theory to analyse the everyday political struggles of b/ordering at
the Plein. Further, I argue for the significance of everyday politics of visibility around
‘being seen’ (or not) and ‘seeing’ (or not) amidst multiple b/orders of urban life to urban
politics. I do so through narratives, conversations and my own reflections emerging
during my fieldwork. By bringing to fore the multiple borders, contestations and
conflicts of everyday ‘drama’ and the internal b/ordering of democratic movements such
as Occupy, around being at the square that I witnessed and found myself part of, I hope
to highlight the complexities of centrality and coming together of ‘inhabitants’ (whom
Lefebvre believes have the first and foremost ‘right to the city’) towards subverting the
often undemocratic and exclusionary spatio-temporalities of ‘capital’ and ‘the state’. I
argue that the Beursplein comes to resemble a b/orderland, where multiple ‘we’(s) are
perpetually struggling with and against each other in the everyday drama of performing
and/or subverting b/order.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen