Exemplary Amateurism: Thoughts on DIY Urbanism

Do-It-Yourself (DIY) urbanism has become increasingly recognised as a non-professional and non-technocratic practice of urban alteration and community building. Already thus marked as ‘amateur’ in the contemporary sense (where the lines between amateur, professional, producer and consumer are significantly blurred), two of its key features are support for ‘proam’ cultural production and the ‘meanwhile’ use of commercial buildings. Within this, DIY urbanism is an important reference to economic and spatial scarcity in the Australian, English and North American cities where it has manifested as a discourse. The reference is particularly evident in the proximity to marginal urban space that participants in DIY urbanism share with other potential users of that space, which includes people experiencing primary homelessness. It is through this proximity that DIY urbanism works as a kind of ‘exemplary amateurism’. DIY urbanism demonstrates spatial scarcity in the city — a phenomenon in which amateur labour, 'meanwhile' use of buildings and homelessness are implicated

O urbanismo entre a favela e o chique

As representações de territórios de favelas têm múltiplas camadas de significação. Neste post, Ann Deslandes discute as promessas e perigos de projetos ‘favela chic’, representações particulares e releituras de favelas na Anglofonia

Urbanism between favela and chic

Representations of favela territories are multilayered and contested. In this post, Ann Deslandes discusses the promises and perils of ‘favela chic’ projects, particular representations and reinterpretations of favelas in the Anglosphere

Moving Encounters

This essay explores my experience of losing an authoritative speaking position – that is, ‘falling on my face’ in a research encounter with the Brazilian Landless Worker’s Movement (O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais sem Terra, or MST).  My specific movements through this locale invoke Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s concept of ‘unlearning one’s privilege as a loss’; and Sara Ahmed’s theory of ‘stranger fetishism’.  In writing my brief loss, I also; of course, recover my speaking position, meaning that I can always efface the loss by re-writing it as a source of ethnographic authority.  This essay is written in two voices in order to reflect this paradox: one which describes the encounter, and one that critically ruminates upon it.  I note, for example, that the MST as a variegated conglomerate of people takes the form of particular ‘Others’ when they are represented in the scholarship and polemic of ‘first world’ activists in the so called ‘global justice movement’.  ‘Falling on my face in the street’ of these Others locates particular processes of fetishization within the global justice movement and the relationships across power and difference that are contained herein; processes that impact on the idea of a ‘global’ solidarity against systemic ‘global’ oppressions

Museums and science centres as sites for deliberative democracy on climate change

This paper addresses the position of the museum sector in relation to public policy-making about climate change. It is informed by the perspectives of museum and science centre visitors and leaders canvassed as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage project, ‘Hot Science, Global Citizens: the agency of the museum sector in climate change interventions’. We apply complexity theory to evaluate the claim that museums are a site for the enaction of deliberative democracy. In doing so, we reveal a cultural opportunity for cultural institutions to play a more expansive and explicit role in brokering social futures for communities confronted by climate change

Activist experiences of solidarity work

In the runup to Mayday 2014 the special issue editors invited activists to comment on a range of questions about their experience of solidarity work and its practical challenges. We’ve edited the responses together into a single piece which we hope will provoke reflection

What do pop-up shops and homelessness have in common?

What do the \u27DIY urbanism\u27 movement and homelessness have in common? Whether it\u27s a temporary studio, a pop-up shop, a sleeping bag in a doorway or a tarpaulin under a bridge, all are informal responses to the scarcity of space for everyone\u27s needs and ambitions. But while DIY urbanism is hailed as a creative, revitalising force, the homeless are still marginalised in many cities.  A group of young fashion designers occupy a studio space while the property group who manages it seeks a corporate tenancy. Next door, a snap-happy couple set up a temporary photography gallery in a disused shopfront owned by a wealthy local family. Across the street, a discussion group meets every week in a time-shared office space while it is being remodelled. Another group holds a bake sale and zine fair out the front about once a month.  Elsewhere in the city, a man in his thirties keeps his sleeping bag and a couple of milk crates under the steps leading up to a large empty building on a street corner. Across town six families erect tents in a city park, planning to stay for a time. Down by the river, five middle-aged women erect a tarpaulin under a bridge, filling the space with an old couch and a bag of donated groceries. How are these two scenes related? Read more &gt

How pop-up stores, origami shelters and bus stop bedrooms are helping tackle homelessness

Australian cities are not alone in playing uneasy host to people sleeping rough or experiencing other kinds of homelessness. Indeed, it would be rare to find a city where there are not people sleeping out without a permanent home, somewhere.   Which is why three groups of just-do-it types in Cape Town, Los Angeles and Melbourne have created some high-profile, street-level responses to the clothing, shelter and empowerment needs of the homeless, using the well-established language and signifiers of ‘pop-up’ retail and exhibition spaces.   These ‘meanwhile’ spaces — which have previously been occupied by the ‘flat white economy’, characterised by small, niche bars and smaller, nicher cafes — are now being put at the service of those experiencing ‘primary homelessness’, who might otherwise find themselves asked to move on. &nbsp

Museums and science centres as sites for deliberative democracy on climate change

This paper addresses the position of the museum sector in relation to public policy-making about climate change. It is informed by the perspectives of museum and science centre visitors and leaders canvassed as part of the Australian Research Council Linkage project, ‘Hot Science, Global Citizens: the agency of the museum sector in climate change interventions’. We apply complexity theory to evaluate the claim that museums are a site for the enaction of deliberative democracy. In doing so, we reveal a cultural opportunity for cultural institutions to play a more expansive and explicit role in brokering social futures for communities confronted by climate change