Outline Proposal : The City as oppression: Mapping the individual against the urban post-utopia.
Introduction
Exploring the notions of hegemonic social, capital and spatial control and why we knowingly/unknowingly enter the system.
The current addiction to capital is beginning to encroach into everyday life, taking away traditional rights and values and as a result, the city is experiencing an existential crisis. “Increasingly, we see the right to the City fall into the hands of the Private or Quasi-Private interests”[1]The ritualistic exploitation carried out by capitalism has seen the city ransacked and the products of the city reduced down to a purely economic form. The City, rather than an attraction, is becoming glamorised enslavement.
This essay will explore the links between the individual, slavery and the city, examining how the city has become a project of competition rather than a project of collaboration. From this, I will explore the illusion of freedom within the city using an interdisciplinary methodology, exploring social, physical and political theory.
I will begin to explore the way that the city manipulates and divides, citing examples at a human level and linking this with a theoretical discussion, allowing me to analyse why this is occurring. I will explore the links between myself and the city, exploring how I have migrated from a non-urban community to the subconsciously dictatorial state that is the city.
Oppression through division - Exploring how the city works as a divisive tool to break social bonds and communities for financial gain.
The fall of community has coincided with a rise in the significance of the corporation. “The traditional City has been killed by rampant capitalist development, a victim of the never ending need to dispose of overaccumulating capital driving towards endless and sprawling urban growth no matter what the social, environmental, or political consequences”[2] The ascendency of capitalism has brought about a thirst for capital that can only be quenched with ever increasing profits. The nature of this addiction leads the city to search for any way of extraction, including the breakdown of traditional communities and clans in search of economic capital.
“Capitalism devours everything, social capital disappears, leaving only capital. And apparently the majority likes it.”[3]
For Bourdieu, the forms of capital are transferable[4], meaning that social capital can be broken down (through other forms) to a digestible form of capital for the city. This involves replacing a quality, history or a connection within the community with a perceived value, a marketable quality that can be traded and exchanged for something else. With the value of the individual now more important than the physical and territorial link, communities are broken down and traded.
“Roots in the city are no longer afforded as much significance in the eyes of the community. They are lost because the city is not a community anymore.”[5]
The notion of the city as purely individuals is not completely correct, as pockets of smaller, weaker communities still exist, but the nature of the city effectively creates a collection of individuals[6] with no links or connections, and as a result, no social capital. The lack of social relationships removes solidarity, trust and a sense of community and instead, creates false communities that foster alienation and exclusion which leads to a sense of fear[7].
Social capital is not just responsible for trust in the community. It also gives them strength. As a community, it allows people to have a voice (much like a union does for workers) and gives them a platform to express their views. Compared to the individual, “social capital is strong, whereas the individual is weak”[8]. The increased weakness marginalises the individual, and begins to relegate them to a level of subservience whilst power itself becomes more powerful.
As social capital is diminished and people are taught to fear and fight each other, the strength of each individual is no match for the framework of power, therefore diminishing the individual and leading to a wider class difference between those in power (i.e., those with money[9]) and those without it, causing wider social issues.
(Human scale examples needed. How does this affect me?)
Oppression through surveillance – Critically reflecting on the rise of closed circuit television camera (CCTV) culture, panopticism[S1] and the insatiable desire to be watching.
The culture of fear that a society with a lack of social capital has, creates a perceived issue with security. By introducing watchmen in the forms of CCTV cameras, security is imposed onto the public, whether they like it or not. The introduction of the sentry that is synonymous with almost all public space within the UK has a dual purpose, providing protection but always watching, monitoring and controlling the actions within the space. By justifying the cameras for public safety, the cameras are disguised from their main aim, fulfilling “the supreme and essential mystery [is] [...] to hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them clown”[10], effectively providing a suitable guise to obscure the less favourable qualities.
To explore this context with relation to the way the city divides and controls, I will compare a place (my home town) with a high level of perceived social capital and a temporary place (in this case, the journey between my flat and the University) with low levels of perceived social capital and begin to explore the different methods used to monitor/control/survey myself as I journey between two places. (Needs comparison between communities/locations)
The similarities between the restless, panoptic[11] nature of the closed circuit television camera and the panoptic telescreens in Orwell’s Oceania[12] are already abundantly clear. The actions that take place within the view of a telescreen/CCTV camera however, are subconsciously staged, forced.[13] The creation of this quasi-theatre creates a space that lacks authenticity and instead of creating a space of safety, it exudes a sense of fear as you are constantly tracked, checked and analysed within the constraints of the mainstream society.
Oppression through economic enslavement – Analysing the role of economic capital in the breakdown of the city. Exploring the ideas of Harvey, Minton and Chang.
The lack of social capital within the city can cause neighbourhoods to fail which excludes the money. To counteract this, capitalist developers ‘gentrify’ areas, in an attempt to draw capital back to areas of low income/property prices. “The result of this increasing polarisation in the distribution of wealth and power are indelibly etched into the spatial forms of our cities, which increasingly become cities of fortified fragments, of gated communities and privatised public spaces kept under constant surveillance.”[14] Instead of creating a sense of community, the space becomes more divided and isolated, a modern prison in which we choose to live. The result of this added protection leads to the increase in dominion of private corporations over the remains of communities. [15]
“We live in a world, after all, where the rights of private property and the profit rate trump all other notions of rights.”[16] Power is associated with property ownership. However, property ownership for many becomes a form of slavery. The nature of ownership relies on debt, as people have to take out mortgages, effectively guaranteeing their connection to the system. The relentless payments increase the dependence on the employer, with the threat of dispossession used as a tool of leverage.[17] The employer enjoys a position of strength, as people are unwilling to upset the system for fear of losing the source of payment and become manipulated, controlled and dictated, effectively agreeing to be subservient.
To explore this topic, I will map my own connection to the system through debt. From this I can explore how capital is ‘converted’ into cultural capital (in the form of education) and explore the value of myself to the city [18] The debt effectively acts as a guarantee, not only that I will make the bank a profit, but that I will become ‘addicted’ to the system and in the process, become subservient to the current state.
(TODO : Discuss the nature of debt as shackle to the system and why this is not a positive.)
Conclusion
“Power has become invisible and more powerful than ever. Trapped in its structures we lose the possibility of revolt.”[19]
With the number of people migrating to the city soaring, control and power is an issue of rising importance. By comparing theoretical discourse, ‘reality’ as I understand it and my own personal interpretation of Orwells dystopia[20], I have begun to analyse and observe the hidden and less publicised side of the city.
The conclusion will critically dissect the ideas put forward in the previous three chapters in relation to the questions asked in the introduction. By examining the methods of social, economic and physical control, we can begin to examine the motives behind the current hegemonic systems and understand how freedom is being controlled, and ultimately, eroded.
The current themes have not been fully explored [S2] and as a result, cannot begin to critically respond to the original questions raised. Although the focus of this essay appears to critically discuss the negative effects of the city, the aim is to invoke a response, rather than to blindly accept the “prison of liquid totalitarianism”[21], questioning whether we agree with the tendency towards a system of subservience.
Bibliography
Books
Andrew Ballantyne, Deleuze and Guattari for Architects(Abingdon: Routledge, 2007).
Albert Camus, The Outsider, trans. by Joseph Laredo, 3rd edn (London: Everymans Library, 2001)
Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism, 2 edn (London: Penguin, 2010).
Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus : Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. by Brian Massumi, 11th edn (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2005).
Kim Dovey, Framing Places : Mediating Power in Built Form (London: Routledge, 1999).
Kim Dovey, Becoming Places : Urbanism / Architecture / Identity / Power (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010).
Gordana Fontana-Giusti, Foucault for Architects (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013).
Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan, 2nd edn (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977).
David Harvey, Rebel Cities : From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution (London: Verso, 2012).
Neil Leach, Camouflage (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006).
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. by Donald Nicholson Smith, 2 edn (Oxford: Blackwells, 1991)
Krzysztof Nawratek, City as a Political Idea (Plymouth: University of Plymouth Press, 2011).
Krzysztof Nawratek, Holes in the Whole : Introduction to the Urban Revolutions (Alresford: Zero Books, 2011).
Anna Minton, Ground Control : Fear and Happiness in the 21st Century City. (London: Penguin, 2012)
Oscar Newman, Defensible Space : Crime Prevention through Urban Design, 1 edn (London: Macmillan, 1973)
George Orwell, Animal Farm, 4 edn (London: Penguin, 2008).
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty Four, 6 edn (London: Penguin, 2008).
George Orwell, Coming Up for Air, 2 edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962).
George Orwell , Down and Out in Paris and London, 5th edn (London: Penguin, 2001).
Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. by R.H.M.Elwes, Unknown edn (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing , 2001)
Articles
Pierre Bourdieu, 'The Forms of Capital', in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. by John Richardson(New York: Greenwood, 1986), p. 241-258
Georg Simmel, ''The Metropolis and Mental Life'', in The City Cultures Reader, ed. by Malcolm Miles, Tim Hall, Iain Borden, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 12-20
Philip Tabor, 'I am a Videocam', in The Unknown City, ed. by Iain Borden, Joe Kerr, Jane Rendell, Alicia Pivarro(Cambridge, Massachussetts: MIT Press, 2000).
Journals
Neil Leach, 'Drag Spaces', STATIC, .4, (2006), 1-7, in Unaccommodated <http://static.londonconsortium.com/issue04/pdf/leach_dragspaces.pdf> [accessed 9 October 2013].
Louis Wirth, 'Urbanism as a Way of Life', American Journal of Sociology, 44.1, (1938), 1-24.
Videos/Films/Documentaries
'OBEY , dir. by Temujin Doran (Studiocanoe, 2013).
[1] David Harvey, Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolutions, 2 edn (London: Verso, 2012), p. 23
[2] Harvey, Rebel Cities, p. xvi
[3] Krzysztof Nawratek, City as a Political Idea (Plymouth: University of Plymouth Press, 2011) p.144
[4] Pierre Bourdieu, 'The Forms of Capital', in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. by John Richardson(New York: Greenwood, 1986), p. 241-258
[5] Nawratek, City as a Political Idea) p.27
[6] Georg Simmel, ''The Metropolis and Mental Life'', in The City Cultures Reader, ed. by Malcolm Miles, Tim Hall, Iain Borden, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 12-20
[7] Kim Dovey, Becoming Places : Urbanism / Architecture / Identity / Power (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010).p.34
[8] Nawratek, City as a Political Idea, p.34
[9] Harvey, Rebel Cities, p.1
[10] Benedict de Spinoza, A Theologico-Political Treatise, trans. by R.H.M.Elwes, Unknown edn (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2001), p. 9.
[11] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish : The Birth of the Prison, trans. by Alan Sheridan, 2nd edn (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977).
[13] Anna Minton, Ground Control : Fear and Happiness in the 21st Century City. (London: Penguin, 2012)p.55
[14] Harvey, Rebel Cities, p.15
[15] Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, trans. by Donald Nicholson Smith, 2 edn (Oxford: Blackwells, 1991), p. 160.
[16]Harvey, Rebel Cities, p.1
[17] Harvey, Rebel Cities, .p.54
[18] Exploring the notion that as you enter the city, you are a complex mass of capitals and that as you inhabit and use the city, it attempts to break you down into the pure form of economic capital to be consumed and used by the city. This will allow me to explore the nature of value of the individual (are they worth more than the sum of their parts?)
