Abstract
This paper explores how tactics of urban activist art can unsettle territorially
inscribed power structures. It is based on the community theatre of “CARAVAN
NEXT”, a Creative Europe project co-funded with €2 million by the European
Commission. This case is chosen because it bridges the local and the EU scale
and links multiple cities transnationally, offering insight from the perspective of
policymakers, culture professionals and locals. I examine how conflictual
discourses revolving around community theatre negotiate power structures of
urban spaces. I mainly employ theory on: 1) contemporary consensual governance and politics of dissensus; and 2) discursive constructions of place and community.Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I argue that EU cultural policies could succeed in naturalising competitive creativity and economy as valid discourse on local scales. This would rebuff the local urban as a domain of political dissensus. Through phenomenological performance analysis, I point to four counter-tactics applied in CARAVAN’s performances, arguing that, by engaging in the everyday, art can produce spaces for renegotiating discursive hegemonies instated by policy makers. These tactics only serve as examples, for community theatre does not apply only one canonical set of tools, but develops continuously to meet the changing landscapes of control. The conclusion of my research is that, in this early phase of CARAVAN, the EU framework’s hegemonic discourses are challenged locally. Yet, there is a hazard that these discourses, so far only adopted sporadically by CARAVAN, can come to reshape local practices of involved partners and communities.
inscribed power structures. It is based on the community theatre of “CARAVAN
NEXT”, a Creative Europe project co-funded with €2 million by the European
Commission. This case is chosen because it bridges the local and the EU scale
and links multiple cities transnationally, offering insight from the perspective of
policymakers, culture professionals and locals. I examine how conflictual
discourses revolving around community theatre negotiate power structures of
urban spaces. I mainly employ theory on: 1) contemporary consensual governance and politics of dissensus; and 2) discursive constructions of place and community.Through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), I argue that EU cultural policies could succeed in naturalising competitive creativity and economy as valid discourse on local scales. This would rebuff the local urban as a domain of political dissensus. Through phenomenological performance analysis, I point to four counter-tactics applied in CARAVAN’s performances, arguing that, by engaging in the everyday, art can produce spaces for renegotiating discursive hegemonies instated by policy makers. These tactics only serve as examples, for community theatre does not apply only one canonical set of tools, but develops continuously to meet the changing landscapes of control. The conclusion of my research is that, in this early phase of CARAVAN, the EU framework’s hegemonic discourses are challenged locally. Yet, there is a hazard that these discourses, so far only adopted sporadically by CARAVAN, can come to reshape local practices of involved partners and communities.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Publikationsdato | sep. 2017 |
| Status | Udgivet - sep. 2017 |
| Begivenhed | Birkbeck Law Review Annual Conference: Law and the City: Exploring the Urban Revolution in Critical Legal Studies - Bickbeck, University of London, London, Storbritannien Varighed: 15 sep. 2017 → … http://www.bbklawreview.org/2017-law-and-the-city.html |
Konference
| Konference | Birkbeck Law Review Annual Conference |
|---|---|
| Lokation | Bickbeck, University of London |
| Land/Område | Storbritannien |
| By | London |
| Periode | 15/09/2017 → … |
| Internetadresse |