Emergent Spaces: Change and Innovation in Small Urban Spaces (Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology) 3030843785, 9783030843786

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN URBAN ANTHROPOLOGY

Emergent Spaces Change and Innovation in Small Urban Spaces

Edited by Petra Kuppinger

Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology Series Editors Italo Pardo School of Anthropology and Conservation University of Kent Canterbury, Kent, UK Giuliana B. Prato School of Anthropology and Conservation University of Kent Canterbury, Kent, UK

Half of humanity lives in towns and cities and that proportion is expected to increase in the coming decades. Society, both Western and non-­Western, is fast becoming urban and mega-urban as existing cities and a growing number of smaller towns are set on a path of demographic and spatial expansion. Given the disciplinary commitment to an empirically-based analysis, anthropology has a unique contribution to make to our understanding of our evolving urban world. It is in such a belief that we have established the Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology series. In the awareness of the unique contribution that ethnography offers for a better theoretical and practical grasp of our rapidly changing and increasingly complex cities, the series will seek high-quality contributions from anthropologists and other social scientists, such as geographers, political scientists, sociologists and others, engaged in empirical research in diverse ethnographic settings. Proposed topics should set the agenda concerning new debates and chart new theoretical directions, encouraging reflection on the significance of the anthropological paradigm in urban research and its centrality to mainstream academic debates and to society more broadly. The series aims to promote critical scholarship in international anthropology. Volumes published in the series should address theoretical and methodological issues, showing the relevance of ethnographic research in understanding the socio-cultural, demographic, economic and geo-­ political changes of contemporary society. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14573

Petra Kuppinger Editor

Emergent Spaces Change and Innovation in Small Urban Spaces

Editor Petra Kuppinger Department of Sociology and Anthropology Monmouth College Monmouth, IL, USA

Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology ISBN 978-3-030-84378-6    ISBN 978-3-030-84379-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction: Emergent Spaces: Seeding Change and Innovation in Small Urban Spaces  1 Petra Kuppinger Part I Migrants, Place-Making, and Claims to the City  23 2 Peripheral Citizenship: Autoconstruction and Migration in Santiago, Chile 25 Miguel Pérez and Cristóbal Palma 3 Spaces of Social Reproduction and Emergent Change in Small Town America 47 Faranak Miraftab 4 Practice, Perception, and the Plaza: Situating Migration in Santiago, Chile 63 Megan Sheehan 5 The Free Trade Zone and the Ethnic Restaurant: South Asian Emergent Space in a Chilean City of Labor Migrants 85 Andrew Nelson

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Part II Religion, Urban Innovation, and Urban Spiritual Geographies 105 6 “God Loves Taxi Drivers”: Christian Translation, Publicity, and Emergent Spaces in Shanghai107 Steven Hu 7 Muslim Place-Making and Negotiations of Urban Change in Metropolitan Phoenix127 Muna Ali 8 Building Community Centers in Living Rooms: Piety Movements, Domestic Space, and Women in Islamabad, Pakistan145 Meryem Zaman Part III Popular Culture, Lifestyles, Social Activism, and Infrastructures 163 9 Seeding Change Through Soup, Bread, and a Vote: Utopics and Heterotopia at a Microgranting Dinner in Detroit165 Simon Johansson 10 Belonging through Bohemia: Queer Timespace and Possibility in Teresina, Brazil183 Timothy E. Murphy 11 Sustainability and Small Businesses in Stuttgart, Germany207 Petra Kuppinger 12 Food Is a Right Not a Privilege: Punk Anarchism, Ephemerality, and Seeding Change in Vancouver227 Sarah Fessenden

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13 “If He Has a Shack Like That …”: Infrastructural Labor and Possibility in Cape Town’s Informal Settlements247 Angela D. Storey Index267

Notes on Contributors

Muna Ali  holds a PhD in anthropology from Arizona State University. Her research focuses on American Muslims, Western Muslims, religion in the public sphere, and culture and health. She has authored articles or book chapters on Muslim Americans, bioethics, and Islamic ethics and education. Her book Young Muslim America: Faith, Community and Belonging was published by Oxford University Press in 2018. Sarah  Fessenden is a faculty member with the Department of Anthropology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and also a recent graduate of the University of British Columbia and a UBC Public Scholar. Her research has focused on radical social movement organizing, counterculture, and food-waste. Since 2010, Fessenden has worked alongside activists in some of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in Canada, Spain, and the United States. Her research looks at the social and cultural construction of “hunger” in Canada. Steven Hu  is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research examines Christian place-making, urbanism, and the politics of affective spaces in contemporary China. Simon  Johansson is a PhD student in the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University, Sweden. His forthcoming dissertation considers Detroit’s ostensible “comeback,” using case studies to engage the effects that an influx of a wealthier and whiter demographic have upon Detroit. His research interests lie in post-industrialism, gentriix

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fication, and the role of affects in the reshaping of cities. He has ­previously published work in Swedish, on the topic of gentrification and race in Detroit, and on how public planning events are deployed for the purposes of “affective management” of residents. Petra Kuppinger  is Professor of Anthropology at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois. She has conducted research about space, globalization, and consumerism in Cairo, Egypt, and space, culture, and Islam in Stuttgart, Germany. Recently she has been working on urban transformations and urban sustainability. She is the author of Faithfully Urban: Pious Muslims in a German City. Together with George Gmelch she edited Urban Life: Readings in the Anthropology of the City (6th ed.). Faranak  Miraftab  is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA.  Her work, empirically based in Latin America, Southern Africa, and the United States, draws on feminist, transnational, and urban scholarship. Her research and teaching concerns the global and local development processes involved in the formation of cities and citizens’ struggles to access dignified urban livelihood. Her most recent book, Global Heartland: Displaced Labor, Transnational Lives and Local Placemaking, received the ACSP’s 2017 Davidoff Book Award and the ASA’s Global & Transnational Sociology section book award. Timothy E. Murphy  is Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Worcester State University. His research focus is on belonging, middle-sized cities, global middle classes, gender, sexuality, queerness, youth, artists, and Latin America (especially Brazil). His National Science Foundation– funded research and recent book, Queerly Cosmopolitan: Bohemia and Belonging in a Middle-of-Nowhere Brazilian City, published by Palgrave in 2019, center on a community of bohemians living in the Brazilian city of Teresina—a rapidly urbanizing city in Brazil’s poorest region. He has also conducted qualitative research and published on educational pathways and belonging among Latino men in urban Massachusetts. Andrew  Nelson  is a sociocultural anthropologist at the University of North Texas. His doctoral dissertation examined the urbanization of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, through an ethnographic account of rural-­ urban migration, land transactions, and house construction. More recently, he has conducted research and published on the house-buying practices of

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Nepali Bhutanese refugees in the United States and labor mobility of South Asian migrants in Latin America. Along with Alexander Rödlach and Roos Willems, he co-edited the 2018 book The Crux of Refugee Resettlement: Rebuilding Social Networks. Cristóbal Palma  holds a BA in anthropology from the Alberto Hurtado University and is a graduate student at the same institution. He is Adjunct Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the Alberto Hurtado University and the Catholic Silva Henríquez University. His research interests include urban anthropology, migration, subjectivity, and urban margins. As a research assistant in the state-funded project “Ethnographies of Neoliberalism and Aspirations (2018–2021), he has conducted ethnographic studies of how migrant families access housing in different areas of Santiago. Miguel Pérez  holds a BA in anthropology from the University of Chile, an MA in Urban Development from the Catholic University of Chile, and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Alberto Hurtado University, Chile. He is also principal researcher in the project “Ethnographies of Neoliberalism and Aspirations” (2018–2021) and adjunct researcher at the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies, both funded by Chile’s Research and Development National Agency (ANID). His research focuses on citizenship, housing struggles, migration, subject and subjectivity, and, more broadly, the politics of urban life in Santiago. Megan Sheehan  is Assistant Professor at the College of St Benedict/St John’s University. She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Arizona. Since 2007, her research has examined Latin American labor migration to Chile, exploring how migration impacts and changes urban areas. She is examining the urban transformations produced by the unprecedented scale of recent Venezuelan migratory flows to Chile. Angela  D.  Storey is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville. Her work explores the politics of urban environments in Cape Town, South Africa, and Louisville, Kentucky (US). She is co-editor of The Everyday Life of Urban Inequality: Ethnographic Case Studies of Global Cities (2020).

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Meryem Zaman  is Associate Professor of Anthropology at The Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City. Her research interests include gender, the anthropology of religion, South Asia, Islam in the diaspora, and Islamic ­movements. Her work expands the descriptive and analytic compass for the study of women’s movements through its focus on the interaction of seemingly insular Islamic movements with local semiotics, which influence members’ daily interactions and articulations of identity. Her multi-sited ethnographic project examines transnational Islamic movements’ messages and ideology as they travel between movement-­centers in Pakistan and diaspora bases in New York.

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2

Map of the Santiago Metropolitan Area and Colina A Colombian resident autoconstructing his house in Nueva Esperanza. (Photo by Miguel Pérez 2018) Fig. 4.1 The Plaza de Armas on a Sunday afternoon, the Cathedral in the background. A class of physical education teachers tries to encourage onlookers to dance with them, as migrants walk by. (Photo by the author) Fig. 4.2 Dancers perform at the celebration of the Virgin of Copacabana, an important observance for many Bolivians. (Photo by the author) Fig. 4.3 Dancers perform the Chilean national dance, the cueca, for a diverse audience. (Photo by the author) Fig. 4.4 Chileans and migrants gather alongside the Cathedral prior to a march in support of migrants. The banner reads, “No to Racism in Chile.” (Photo by the author) Fig. 6.1 “God Loves Taxi Drivers” bumper sticker. “D-Ge” is a Chinese colloquial term for taxi driver. (Photo by the author) Fig. 6.2 “God Loves Taxi Drivers” pledge (in Chinese) Fig. 10.1 Recently built condominiums in Teresina’s developing East Zone. (Photo by the author) Fig. 10.2 A typical scene just outside Armazém, located in Teresina’s otherwise dark and desolate downtown. (Photo by the author)

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69 71 73 78 115 116 192 194

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List of Figures

Fig. 13.1 Looking from the doorway of a backyarder’s shack in Khayelitsha to a central road, the concrete shells of two bucket toilets behind a pedestrian and electricity wires overhead. 2015. Photo by Shachaf Polakow, used with permission Fig. 13.2 A self-made flushing toilet built within the concrete shell that previously held a bucket toilet. 2015. Photo by Shachaf Polakow, used with permission

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Emergent Spaces: Seeding Change and Innovation in Small Urban Spaces Petra Kuppinger

Urban transformations often start in small spaces, where ordinary people conduct their daily activities and act based on their values, traditions, and needs. They might experiment with new ideas and strategies driven by changing circumstances, grievances, official neglect, or dire necessities. In seemingly random activities of trial and error, urbanites create, test, and rework practices and use spaces to insert their needs, demands, and voices into the cityscape. Resulting emergent spaces and activities are rooted in lower class, immigrant, or minority cultures; nascent cultural, social, and political contexts and movements; environmental concerns; religious motivations; or economic necessities. These emergent spaces can become sites of urban social and cultural beginnings, outline aspects of urban futures, exemplify dynamics of innovation and resilience, and they can challenge existing urban forms and practices. Some actors or stakeholders

P. Kuppinger (*) Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_1

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pronounce concrete goals and loudly state their demands. Others simply act according to their habits, beliefs, or traditions and quietly add them to the cityscape. Some claim their voice and role in the city or seek to secure their economic survival. Some hope to insert religious voices or create spiritual spaces in secular cities. Numerous urban residents point to urban inequalities, the role and rights of immigrants, social problems, or environmental issues. By seeding change in small spaces, ordinary urbanites seek to create more livable and just cities. When small constituencies engage in informal innovations, resulting changes might remain ephemeral, slowly fade away, be limited to their respective contexts, or fail altogether. They can also attract broader constituencies, expand into larger movements, and become vibrant seeds for more pervasive cultural, political, social, environmental, or religious transformations. Regardless of their circumstances, contemporary globalized cities include millions of residents who creatively act in small spaces to remake the city, envision more livable and inclusive cities, and fight for social justice. Some groups act for the good of local residents or users; others hope for their efforts to feed into larger transformations. Some want to improve the physical spaces in which they act. Others seek changes with regard to urban participation, rights, and politics, or want to make the demands of their constituencies heard. They act in spaces that are safe, suitable, nearby, or most accessible. Some voice their demands or stage their activities in different spaces across the city, use transient, or even moving spaces if they best suit their purposes. Regardless of issues and goals, at their often informal and unplanned inception, much of the future of critical activities and efforts in small urban spaces remains unpredictable. Emergent Spaces explores contexts across the globe where urbanites negotiate, make, and remake urban spaces; create opportunities; attempt to envision and produce social change; challenge urban life, culture, and politics; or ask for their right to the city. The focus of this volume is on spaces and contexts where change is seeded, regardless of whether it was planned or whether it was or will be successful in the long run. Contributors analyze seeds of change at their inception. They explore moments of initiating change regardless of subsequent outcomes. This volume is framed by the following questions: How is urban change seeded in small spaces? Who seeds attempts of change and participation? What agendas and dynamics shape activities in emergent spaces? What makes some emergent spaces successful as they become established urban features and contribute

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to broader urban transformations? What potentials for change do emergent spaces have in their vicinity and cities at large? Contributors to this volume observed urban residents as they claimed spaces, inserted their demands, and articulated visions of better cities and futures. They ask questions like: How do small groups of ordinary and often also disenfranchised people design, suggest, and implement ideas of change? What types of spaces do they pick for their activities? Why do some activities unfold in transient, ephemeral, or mobile spaces? How do urbanites concretely voice their claims to the city, create opportunities, and design more just urban futures? When, how, and by whom is change seeded in often invisible or marginalized spaces? While the long-term results of people’s activities and demands for change are important, the focus of this volume is on the minutiae of initiating change. Chapters in this volume do not analyze vast or loud urban movements but examine the seeding of change in unlikely moments and spaces. Contributors conducted ethnographic fieldwork in often invisible, neglected, or transient spaces that escape the attention of other observers. Intensive ethnographic fieldwork allowed the authors to identify emergent spaces where new or neglected voices claim rights and participation, and creatively articulate their contributions to the city. Authors unearth seemingly irrelevant, but hopeful, beginnings of urban transformations and insist that it is important to have one’s analytical ear to the ground in unlikely spaces when and where ideas and activities are first articulated. Searching out small instances of change, authors are keenly aware that some of the activities they observed might fade away or be suppressed. But regardless of their later success or failure, it is paramount to explore many emergent spaces and activities to better understand and theorize urban beginnings and the dynamics of seeding change. Case studies in this volume explore examples in cities across the globe. They tell stories of seeding and creatively living change. Based on rich ethnographic data, authors illustrate how ordinary urbanites use small spaces to situate their practices and demands; form and maintain crucial relationships and networks; and create opportunities for cultural expressions, social and political participation, change, and improvement. Chapters illustrate how emergent spaces foster the localization of migrant lives, queer subcultures, diverse cultures and religions, experiments with green practices, and new forms of urban shared living and solidarity. They analyze dynamics of place-making, cultural negotiations, economic survival, spatial and cultural experimentation, and the creation of new

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relationships and alliances. They introduce ordinary citizens, their motivations, activities, struggles, and creative initiatives and illustrate how the availability of diverse accessible spaces is fundamental to quests for the localization of migrants, religious activities and debates, and overall participation in the city. Authors explore seeding moments and dynamics of place-making, economic survival, politics of care, new forms of sociality and leisure, and the quest for new urban relationships, debates, and lifestyles. They cover topics ranging from the creation of transient queer spaces in Brazil, the negotiation of spaces of Christian debates in Shanghai’s taxis, to spaces of home and belonging for South Asian migrants in Chile, the role of soccer fields in the localization of immigrants in a midwestern town in the United States, and Muslim middle-class women’s spaces of religious debate and learning in homes in Pakistan. Authors analyze urban squatter settlements, a central plaza, a restaurant, a religious teaching institute, urban infrastructures, sports and leisure sites, and green/sustainable businesses and workshops. They capture ephemeral activities in moving spaces like taxis, at pop-up dinner events, at fleeting nocturnal parties, and transient public eating spaces in city parks. These small spaces allow urbanites to gather, discuss, and experiment with new forms of sociability, urban life, and social justice. Change can be seeded at recurrent events in changing locations like fundraising events or a moving party scene that propose new lifestyles and ways of urban belonging and solidarity. People do not necessarily claim or challenge the spaces they use, but might voice broader claims to urban rights, visibility, recognition, and participation in spaces that best suit their purposes and/or are readily available. Debates about urban change and activism are often centered on specific topics, like migration, housing, environment, religion, work, or education. This volume explores emergent spaces from multiple topical angles. Contributors examine migrant community activities, faith-based activities, environmental themes, quests for citizenship or social and economic justice, and complex articulations of several such factors.

Seeding Change Theoretically, this volume examines the seeding of change in emergent spaces, the potentials for change of such seeding, and the opportunities it initiates for more just and inclusive cities. Authors identify activities of urbanites before they become broadly visible or yield large-scale results.

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Central in this analysis of the dynamics of the seeding of change are Sharon Zukin’s (2010) notions of “urban beginnings” and the “authenticity” of emerging spaces in the face of powerful homogenizing forces in neoliberal globalized cities. At a historical moment when neoliberal policies dominate large parts of global and globalizing cities, it is crucial to identify spaces, moments, and activities where ordinary urbanites claim their share, rights, and participation in the city and imagine a better city (Mitchell 2003; Franck and Stevens 2007a; Pardo and Prato 2012; Chase et al. 2008). Downtowns and upscale sections of cities are tightly planned and under constant surveillance so that only the “right” users can populate spaces in ways envisioned by planners and owners. Franck and Stevens call these “tight spaces,” where officials, developers, investors, and residents/users “have vested interests in a homogeneous predictable and well-ordered environment where use and appearance are controlled” (2007b, 22). The tightening and surveillance of such spaces, however, does not preclude creative challenges, but “displaces risky activities somewhere else” (ibid.) or pushes them into invisible nooks and moments. Tight spaces, Franck and Stevens note, might be efficient or profitable for authorities and elites, but what they call “loose spaces” are a “key sources of sociability, inclusiveness, diversification, and growth” (ibid., 23). Loose, that is open, and largely uncontrolled, spaces and moments can accommodate the many voices of diverse urban dwellers whose ideas and needs contradict neoliberal and profit-oriented cityscapes and those who control and benefit from them. Loose spaces accommodate the “messy vitality of the metropolitan condition, with its unpredictable intermingling of classes, races, and social and cultural forms” (Boddy quoted in Franck and Stevens 2007b, 24). Such space is flexible, offers unforeseen opportunities, and activities there “may arise as an immediate and unexpected response to specific constraints, it develops and changes over time” (ibid., 26). Loose space and the loose (or simply less restrained) use of spaces “often shows people’s conscious reaction against rules, expectations and constraints” (ibid.). Urban residents are hard-pressed to find loose spaces or spaces conducive to their creative activities and interventions in central city spaces. They either find cracks in tightly controlled downtown spaces or momentarily use and claim such spaces for themselves. More often people claim invisible and remote spaces, or seemingly irrelevant spaces in their neighborhoods or on urban fringes (Mukhija and Loukaitou-Sideris 2014). Sharon Zukin writes about food vendors who were pushed out of central spaces and ended up at a more distant ball field offering their food and

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remaking this space into a hidden destination for authentic Latin American food (2010, 191). Trying to unpack ordinary people’s activities in small spaces, a number of questions are central: Who are these urbanites, and what makes them turn to particular groups, activities, and spaces? How do they carve out moments and spaces where they act according to their beliefs and needs, and meet, cooperate, and envision better futures, and, very importantly for many, escape the dictates of powerful neoliberal urban economies? Where can people “be themselves” and lay the groundwork for better and more equal and inclusive cities?

Small Spaces Urban scholars have long understood the vital nature of small urban spaces. When William F. Whyte (1943) went to live and conduct research in a Boston Italian-American neighborhood in 1937, he knew that he could understand this quarter only if he engaged small groups and the spaces they inhabited. Whyte worked with young men who met on street corners, analyzed their activities, and how they were tied into other local networks. He illustrated that the quarter was not chaotic and dysfunctional as urban elites suggested. Instead, he argued, immigrant residents were structurally disadvantaged and excluded from urban opportunities. Ethnographic research in small and seemingly inconsequential spaces, like street corners, allowed Whyte to unpack the complexities of urban participation and exclusion. Later, others (Liebow 1967; Anderson 1978) similarly studied the social life of corner spaces, illustrated the exclusion of African American men in American cities, and mapped urban structural inequalities. These scholars did not examine spaces and activities as seeding change, but they highlighted the significance of small spaces in urban studies. Ethnographic research in limited spatial contexts is crucial for a nuanced understanding of larger urban dynamics and transformations (Low 2000; Duneier and Carter 1999; Goldstein 2016; Krase and Uherek 2017). Examining small spaces allows ethnographers to observe interactions, learn about issues, grievances, and possible solutions as they are discussed by ordinary residents who daily interact in these spaces, test their ideas and practices, and design new spatial and social forms and practices, before they take them to larger or more visible venues. Spaces like street corners, parks, playgrounds, restaurants, stores, bars, or community centers often serve as “third spaces” (Oldenburg 1989)

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where people meet, away from the privacy of their homes and the formalized and hierarchical structure of workplaces. At religious meetings, on the plaza, in restaurants, or at parties, urbanites encounter friends and strangers, make new acquaintances, and build and strengthen existing connections and networks (e.g. Duneier 1992; Bielo 2009). They create home spaces away from home where they discuss shared concerns and devise strategies for addressing them. Such spaces accommodate face-to-­ face contacts and debates among groups where all participants can voice their opinions. Among equals or similar people who congregate in non-­ hierarchical spaces, individuals find allies for their causes and situate themselves, their ideas, needs, and demands in the respective groups and spaces. They create socialities and spatialities that suit their purposes, make them feel at home and that can serve as starting points for more far-reaching efforts (Azzara 2019). The availability of small third spaces is fundamental for the seeding of democratic and inclusive change. William H.  Whyte (1980) examined the (dys-)function of (planned) small urban spaces with the understanding that design enhances, stifles, or prevents “the social life of small urban spaces.” He analyzes the role of seating, fountains, entrances, or the availability of food in the creation of comfortable spaces where people socialize and linger. He illustrates how welcoming and interactive small spaces can be produced by design details and points to the importance of such spaces as sites of un-/planned encounters between urbanites. People are attracted to comfortable small spaces “and they go there by choice—not to escape the city, but to partake in it” (ibid., 100). Urbanites seek out such spaces in search of random encounters or to feel and observe the presence of others. In twenty-first-­ century neoliberal cities, many of Whyte’s welcoming public space have become tight, privatized, commercialized, exclusive, or have disappeared altogether. When benches are removed and spikes are installed on planters, people are forced to create their own spaces where they can congregate, pursue their interests, use spaces in ways different from those intended, or they move their activities to less visible, more removed, or ephemeral spaces. Flexible spaces and transient uses are crucial elements of urban participation and the seeding of change (Pardo et al. 2020). I have noted elsewhere the relevance of “flexible topographies” and fleeting encounters in the making and remaking of urban cultures (Kuppinger 2014). When two pedestrians in a German city greet each other and interact within the framework of Muslim piety, they momentarily remake the space and

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moment and seed a vision of a more spiritual and inclusive city in this space. Similarly, when a group of Afghan women and their children routinely congregate in the same spot in a city park, they insert their vision of differently gendered spaces into the cityscape (ibid.). The flexible topographies of small spaces allow for urbanites to momentarily use and claim Franck and Stevens’ “loose spaces” in ways that best suit their purposes. Repeated use and practices, for example, the use of a particular public venue for women-only events, inscribe such uses and possibilities more firmly into the cityscape, and they become more regular hubs in alternative urban maps. They form the footsteps that create and solidify new urban ways and cultures (de Certeau 1984). Ordinary people create spaces that are important for their groups, like the migrants’ soccer field in Beardstown (Miraftab, this volume). The efforts of groups with some financial means have seeded more visible results, like the mosques in Phoenix (Ali, this volume; see also Truitt 2019), or private businesses that are based on and advocate ideas of sustainability in Stuttgart, Germany (Kuppinger, this volume). Access to space and resources has enabled groups to maintain long-term experiments that foreshadow new socialities and spatialities. Farmers’ markets in the United States are an example of an emergent space/activity that triggered a vast movement and substantial change. Franck and Steven explain: “What starts out as a single and possibly temporary innovation may become more firmly established or more widely adopted. The first farmers market started in New York City in one square in 1976” (2007a, 18). Today more than 8600 farmers’ markets are registered in the USDA Farmer Market Directory (What is a farmers’ market? 2020; Bubinas 2015). Michael LaFond introduces the ufaFabrik, a large “creative and non-profit development of buildings and spaces” that has since 1979 housed an alternative community in Berlin (2010, 65). In this defunct film studio compound “activists have been working […] to test and demonstrate what is possible with local places and resources, culturally, socially and ecologically speaking” (ibid.). Activists understand the ufaFabrik as a Freiraum (free spaces) where they and visitors can participate in cultural events and inspiring projects such as an “organic bakery, alternative ‘Free School,’ solar and co-generation energy systems” that outline and foreshadow different urban futures (ibid.).1 Such achievements do not constitute the end of their efforts, but enlarge their scope or inspire others elsewhere.

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Public and Other Spaces Much has been written about claims to and transformations in public spaces. Scholars analyze movements that turned empty lots into community gardens, the use of public spaces for ad hoc art projects and installations, or for (informal) markets and related commercial activities (e.g. Chase et al. 2008; Zukin 2010, 191; Crouch 2010; Hou 2010, 2010b, 2014; Goldstein 2016; Rantisi and Leslie 2010). Analysts challenge notions of the modern, planned, and/or neoliberal city and point to the creativity and resilience of urbanites as they appropriate, remake, or reuse public spaces to best fit their purposes (Loukaitou-Sideris and Ehrenfeucht 2009; Mukhija and Loukaitou-Sideris 2014). Some such uses are temporary and appear inconsequential, but bear witness to the presence of different urban needs and demands.  People are creative in their claims to in small spaces. Jeffrey Hou reports that in Hong Kong Filipina guest workers occupy the ground floor of Norman Foster’s signature HSBC building (an icon of global capital) every Sunday, and transform it from an anonymous corporate entrance to a lively community gathering space where migrant workers picnic, chat and reunite. (2010a, 7)

Hou also examines a night market in Seattle and points to its roots in successful Asian night markets, especially “Taipei’s notoriously crowded Shilin Night Market,” which attracts thousands of visitors every night (2010a, 11, 2010b, 111); remakes neighborhood spaces; and challenges “normal” business hours and spaces in the city (ibid.). Chantal Saint-­ Blancat and Adriano Cancellieri (2014) examine the annual Santa Cruzan procession of Filipino migrants in Padua, Italy, where mostly women domestic workers claim their right to urban visibility and participation (see Wu 2010, 142, for a similar procession of Filipinas in Taipei). Caroline Chen (2010) examines how retirees in Beijing dance under vast overpasses of urban highways. In the absence of other suitable venues, the elderly chose these spaces because they allow them to use loud music or drumming, practice a traditional dance, socialize, and exercise. Chen notes how the dancers momentarily appropriate public spaces that serve no social function at all. While public spaces remain crucial for random encounters between people, claims to visibility and participation, or for staging protests and

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demonstrations, it is necessary to look beyond the confines of public spaces for critical and creative activities and engagements. As Ray Oldenburg noted for third spaces, not all relevant meeting spaces are necessarily truly public. Margaret Crawford examines garage sales as an “ubiquitous yet little-studied dimension of the informal economy” (2014, 21). She insists on their “potential to reshape urban values and urban space” (ibid., 23) and explains that garage sales are “part of an extensive network of recycling” (ibid.) and thus elements of emerging circular economies. Since their appearance in the United States in the 1960s (ibid., 25–26), garage sales chronicle the economic ups and downs of households and communities and highlight frugality and recycling cultures. Some such ventures have turned into permanent stores (ibid., 34). Garage sales became urban fixtures whose places, contents, and frequency tell complex stories of excessive consumption, neighborliness, and economic necessity situated in private spaces that are turned into momentary public spaces. Many spaces are privately owned (bars, restaurants, stores, etc.), but open to a (select) public. While owners have the right to deny entrance or remove people, these spaces nevertheless can be meeting spaces and emergent spaces of change, especially if agendas and goals of owners and visitors overlap (e.g. Gliemann and Caesperlein 2008; Mattausch and Yildiz 2008; Milbourne 2010). Religious spaces are similarly complex in that they attract specific groups of believers or visitors but can frame urban transformations in their vicinity (Kuppinger 2018). Identifying emergent spaces, it is crucial to include such semi-public or even seemingly private spaces that attract strangers to their activities. Zaman (this volume) shows how religious meetings of women in living rooms attract groups of women (some are strangers to the hostesses) who seek to reshape their lives, families, and city. Murphy (this volume) insists that ad hoc parties in private homes are more than fun events, as participants negotiate cultural identities and belonging and create new cultural fields and foreshadow cultural transformations. Activities in private spaces attract and invite similar-­ minded strangers who do not necessarily know each. Belief in the cause, event, or context is sufficient for entry into these spaces. While truly public spaces are fundamentally important for the functioning of a democratic society, there are many other spaces, defined as semi-public or private, that can become emergent spaces as people engage in debates and activities there that strive to improve cities.

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Creative Practices and Spaces Large-scale and highly visible political activities or protests are crucial in cities, but they are neither the only ways of urban engagements nor sole sources of transformations. People use creative ideas in inauspicious contexts to claim their right to the city. They articulate new and exciting practices which often also include aesthetically pleasing expressions in unexpected spaces. Small creative acts or aesthetic statements are vital, because they can become highly visible contributions to cityscapes, especially at a time of intensive social media use and posting. Most obvious here are graffiti or murals which overnight can make powerful statements requiring relatively little resources (Sieber et  al. 2012). Such manifestations of vernacular and informal creativities often unfold away from commercialized downtowns and inspire and engender change in unlikely spaces (Wali et al. 2002, 2006; Hallam and Ingold 2007; Lippard 1997). Scholars have examined the creative work and contribution of immigrant (Fernández-Kelly and DiMaggio 2010; Lena and Cornfield 2008) and working-class communities (Edensor and Millington 2009, 2010). They emphasize the transformative potential of ordinary people’s creative activities (Edensor et al. 2010; Gibson 2012). Ben Chappell (2012) examines the creative work that Mexican American men invest in their lowrider cars. Their work in backyards and alleys is not only about the aesthetics and functionality of their cars, but they claim their right to urban spaces when they cruise and congregate with their cars. As these colorful cars drive (or at times jump) through the city, their owners claim belonging and participation. Their cars constitute mobile seeds of a more diverse and inclusive urban culture. Roberto Bedoya describes the “Chicano practice of Rasquachification,” where homeowners decorate their houses in bright colors and re-/use mundane artifacts for very complex and visible embellishment (2013; 2014, 1; see Rojas 2010, 40). This creative work is part of a larger quest for visibility and social justice as marginalized groups claim urban spaces, belongings, and participation (Rios 2010). Bedoya argues that this creativity is “rooted in resourcefulness and adaptability” and has the “capacity to hold life together with bits of string, old coffee cans, and broken mirrors in a dazzling gesture of aesthetic bravado” (2014, 3). These aesthetic of “making something of nothing, of the discarded, irreverent and spontaneous” (ibid., 5) opposes elements of dominant consumer society (see garage sales above). They seed more aesthetic and livable quarters. These creative

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expressions are not guided by profitability, but reflect people’s quests to embellish their environment, and to claim and transform urban spaces. They emphasize quality of life, local aesthetics, or livability concerns for all urbanites, especially lower class, marginalized, and immigrant communities. They make a statement about the city and propose a more just and less commercialized and exploitative city. Alison Bain challenges stereotypes of bland and uncreative suburbs and insists that “there is a lot more cultural work happening in suburbia than the North American urban scholarly literature reveals” (2013, 19; see also Ahmed and Dwyer 2017). She explains that suburban creative workers often labor at a distance to powerful artistic circles, but she points to “their relative power and influence in shaping the suburban landscape of which they are an integral part” (ibid., 27; see also Felton and Collis 2012). These artists seed more vibrant and engaged suburban cultures and landscapes. Scholars argue that we need to take seriously all creative expressions, including those that elite sensitivities label as not worthy of the term art (Gibson and Connell 2011). They insist on the transformative power of diverse popular or vernacular creative interventions. Edensor et al. argue for “more dispersed spatialities of creativity” (2010, 11) and insist that “we should not underestimate the potential of the banal to produce alternative and resistant everyday practices that enable individuals to reclaim some autonomy or control over dislocated power” (ibid.). Popular creative activities are often tied to social and cultural innovation and transformations. Tim Edensor and Steve Millington (2009, 2010) describe how working-class residents in Manchester and Sheffield decorate their houses with sizable displays of colorful Christmas lighting which cultural elites might label as kitsch. Edensor and Millington argue that these creative practices in “unspectacular, ordinary, mundane spaces” (2010, 170) are vital elements of a local “economy of generosity” (ibid., 171) that emphasizes Christmas as a moment of “conviviality, communal pleasure, neighborliness and generosity” (ibid., 178) and every year seeds and renews “neighborly interactions, charity, solidarity and memorial” (ibid., 181) in otherwise overlooked working-class quarters.

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Insurgent Spaces Scholars examine the power and potentials of “insurgent spaces” where urban residents use, claim, or and remake spaces, often challenging or ignoring rules and regulations of authorities or owners, to better serve their purposes. Such spaces are powerful meeting points and jumping boards for urban political and social movements or become symbols for their movements (e.g. Gezi Park in Istanbul or Tahrir Square in Cairo). Others remain more limited in their scope and users’ activities. Citizens use and undermine public spaces in different ways. Michael Rios describes “adaptive” practices where residents, for example, appropriate unclaimed spaces for their own “economic and social uses” (2010, 101). He argues that there are “assertive” spaces where people “express an explicit cultural identity” and thus “anchor [..] group solidarity on the urban landscape” (ibid., 103). Spaces and activities like “public festivals and ritual such as Día de los Muertos” can “challenge existing codes and symbols, resulting in changing meanings of public space” (ibid.; see Saint-Blancat and Cancellieri 2014). Participants and other stakeholders negotiate spaces, their characteristics, and long-term roles and transformations with their daily and repeated steps and claims. Globalizing cities further contain, what Rios calls negotiative spaces that “represent the leading edge of cultural interchange in the public realm” as they “move beyond symbolic representation of a particular group” as multiple groups seed and negotiate change and their coexistence and cooperation in such spaces (ibid., 100). These claims and changes are consciously seeded and actively maintained to push their stakeholders’ rights and claims. As public spaces become increasingly “tight” (Franck and Stevens 2007a) and “regulated, privatized and diminishing” (Hou 2010a, 1), claiming and remaking spaces becomes ever more urgent for disenfranchised urbanites. They reclaim exclusive and heavily controlled or policed public spaces and attempt to remake their materialities or socialities temporarily or permanently. They create “new uses and forms of public space” by way of “spontaneous events, unintended uses, and a variety of activities that defy and escape rules and regulations” (ibid., 9). While these efforts or “everyday expressions of public space activism might not have the appearance of radical insurgency” they are nonetheless the result of “extensive grassroots struggle” (10). They articulate “alternative social and spatial relationships” (ibid., 12). Hou outlines ways in which people claim or alter space: They appropriate spaces temporarily or permanently

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change “meaning, ownership, and structure of public space” (ibid., 13). They reclaim “abandoned or underutilized urban spaces for new and collective functions” (ibid.). They pluralize spaces and create culturally more diverse and inclusive spaces (ibid.). They transgress boundaries such as between public and private and create new meanings and relationships. They contest dominant urban meanings and regulations and introduce alternative ones (ibid.). Insurgent spaces and active takeovers of spaces have been documented in many contexts. Activities of the Occupy movement are an example where individuals and groups loudly voiced their demands using/occupying concrete spaces. Protesters on Cairo’s Tahrir Square built and lived in a tent city on the square for weeks in the spring of 2011. Debates about such visible spatial movements have contributed to a better understanding of the political and subversive use and potentials of urban spaces. Less has been said about small-scale activities in less visible spaces that seek to change spatialities and socialities in less spectacular ways. Even less has been said about barely noticeable seedings of change in small spaces. Such seeding might or might not have the potential to locally change things or to ever grown into a noticeable urban challenge or movement. This volume seeks to analyze such moments and spaces.

Outline of This Volume The volume is divided into three sections. Chapters in the first section (Migrants, Place-Making, and Claims to the City) examine emergent spaces in the context migrant or immigrant communities. Authors explore how im-/migrants and their communities carefully insert themselves into their new cities by placing themselves in new and old spaces, making themselves visible, claiming participation, and seeding solid roots in the city. Miguel Pérez and Cristóbal Palma explore how immigrant residents claim belonging and citizenship in Santiago, Chile, by way of the houses they built themselves (autoconstruction). The authors emphasize the role of these homes as emergent spaces that strengthen the newcomers’ claims to urban rights, recognition, and equal participation. Pérez and Palma illustrate how immigrant builders and residents grow physical roots by way of their homes and construct themselves as worthy citizens by their solid spaces in the city. Faranak Miraftab describes how a multi-cultural group of immigrant workers in a US Midwestern town seeded change and their participation by way of their insistence to find and create places to play

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soccer and to celebrate their own festivals in an ever more public and visible manner. Miraftab notes that only by way of a grassroot-level analysis can observers understand the characteristics of emergent spaces and the intricacies of small and local place-making activities that seed and foster long-term changes in communities. Also working in Chile, Megan Sheehan explores the role and complexity of Santiago’s central Plaza de Armas as an emergent space of migrant sociality and localization. With the influx of migrants and their use of the Plaza as an informal meeting space, the Plaza has become a discursively contested space. As different constituency claim space and use of the Plaza, public debates focus not only on the actual use of the Plaza, but on larger themes of immigration and rights, as symbolized in the visibility of the immigrants on the plaza. By way of meeting in the Plaza and turning the Plaza into the subject of debates, immigrants meet their social needs and make their presence visible in the city. Debates about their presence further solidify the immigrants’ claim to the city. Also in Chile, Andrew Nelson explores new South Asian restaurants as emergent space for a small groups of mostly Nepali migrants in the regional city of Iquique. He illustrates how migrants use the restaurants as social spaces for themselves, but also to make their presence visible, introduce locals to the South Asian cuisine, and position themselves in the city and among its diverse constituencies. Nelson demonstrates that small semi-public meeting spaces like a restaurant where groups of immigrants meet can constitute emergent spaces that trigger further changes that not only localize immigrants but also localize aspects of their culture (food), and insert those into larger urban culinary landscapes. The second section of the book (Religion, Urban Innovation, and Urban Spiritual Geographies) examines the role of religion, religiosities, and religiously inspired actors in the seeding of urban change. Steven Hu introduces the effort of a pastor in Shanghai who hoped to improve urban civility/civil behavior via a bumper sticker campaign aiming at creating empathy with taxi drivers. Known for their aggressive driving, taxi drivers get much abuse in a city that is characterized by horrendous traffic. With the bumper sticker campaign, the pastor hoped to insert debates about civility and God into the secular city, hoping to turn Shanghai into a godlier city. Hu demonstrate that even small and transient spaces such as a taxis or traffic-related situations can potentially seed change. Ultimately, the pastor’s project failed because the local Public Security Bureau invited him for investigation which clearly illustrates the political potential of the bumper sticker campaign. This further illustrates that not all attempts at

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seeding change are successful and some might end, fail, be prevented, or fall into oblivion before they yield larger results. Muna Ali reports about a small Muslim Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, that seeks to seed change and a better city by way of seminars where participants learn more about what it means to be a good Muslim. Resulting faith-inspired personal transformations and emerging practices can foster new forms of urban participation that can initiate change in the city at large. Ali insists that urban transformations can be rooted in small group encounters in the semi-­ public context of seminar halls or community centers. Meryem Zaman explores women’s religious meetings that take place in the living rooms of middle- and upper-middle-class women in Islamabad, Pakistan. Under the guidance of a teacher and with the assistance of taped materials by a female religious leader, these pious Muslim women create spaces of debate for themselves, they acquire religious knowledge without the mediation or interference of men, and they seek to remake both their private and public lives in the city as more conscious and faith-inspired actors. Zaman demonstrates how group meetings in private spaces can result in changes in families, neighborhoods, and indeed the city at large as women rethink their religiosities and everyday practices. The volume’s third section (Popular Culture, Lifestyles, Social Activism, and Infrastructures) examines often invisible moments and places in the city where individuals and groups, both in singular or more organized efforts try to remake cities and spaces. Guided by necessity or broader social and political ideas and ideals, these urbanites seek to either just fulfill their dreams and visions both for the moment and for the future or contribute to larger, even systemic, change in the city. They work to draw attention to inequalities, illustrate more just and sustainable urban practices, and suggest short- and long-term solutions to various urban problems and injustices. Simon Johansson introduces “Soup,” an event in Detroit, Michigan, where people come together to share a meal, listen to the presentations of four innovative social projects, and then vote who will get the proceeds/donations the audience made for the meal, for their project. Johansson notes that not only does Soup seed many different interesting social and cultural projects in the city by way of the money they receive, but, very importantly, Soup also seeds change among the participants who engage in lively debates with strangers about these projects and related issues and keep recruiting other friends to future Soup events. Johansson argues that change is seeded in multiple ways at Soup events that unfold in semi-public spaces. Timothy Murphy explores the scenery of late-night

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pop-up parties in Teresina, Brazil. He shows how these largely invisible temporary spaces seed and support queer and alternative spaces, possibilities, lifestyles, and cultures. Murphy, however, also cautions the reader that while these spaces are vibrant and creative, they ultimately remain framed by the demands of a neoliberal city as nocturnal party-goers also need to act as parts of their families and often as professionals during the day. While the city’s informal nocturnal party scene fosters considerable cultural possibilities and debates, long-term cultural changes are slower to take hold in the city, but are supported by this vibrant scene. Petra Kuppinger explores small businesses that are part of an emerging more sustainable and fair urban economy in Stuttgart, Germany. Introducing an upcycling fashion designer, an unpackages grocery store, and a glass and wood upcycling artists, she illustrates how individuals and projects seed new businesses that are based on innovative ideas and that connect creative workers and growing numbers of customers and supporters to initiate and solidly maintain alternative and local economic circuits. Sarah Fessenden introduces “Food not Bombs,” a global project whose local chapters offers free food prepared from salvaged/donated food in random urban spaces. Fessenden examines activities from organizing the food to cooking, serving, and sharing the food in public in Vancouver, Canada. She illustrates that food creates a momentary community among members of the (ever)changing group of activists while also fundamentally challenging current food economies and the capitalist economy at large. Food not Bombs does not act regularly or in fixed spaces but nonetheless seeds critical debates, food practices, and ideas about sharing in random urban spaces, like the kitchens where the food is prepared and the parks where it is served. Angela Storey examines how residents of informal settlement in Cape Town use infrastructural changes to their dwellings to claim permanence in their homes. She shows how material and symbolic work on self-­ made infrastructural elements such as installing electricity, water, or a fancy bathroom is an important feature in larger urban transformations and claims to the city. Storey argues that private dwellings and their advanced infrastructural features are not isolated urban elements, but carry broader public and political meaning. Individuals seed both pride and change in their neighborhood with a fancy bathroom. Neighbors take collective satisfaction in such infrastructural works and take them as inspiration for further changes in the neighborhood. Taken together, the chapters in this volume point to many different small and smallest spaces and moments where urban change is seeded.

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Often such spaces and efforts are invisible as they unfold in public, semi-­ public, and private spaces. Some are temporary or transient. Some seeding of change quickly draws wider circles or attracts more participants or activists. Some projects become visible and ultimately successful for their participants. Others fail or fade away. This volume shows that all initial efforts at change are worth an analysis, as they can hold valuable lessons about the often hidden roots of urban change in small spaces.

Note 1. There are, of course, many similar projects. See, for example, the much newer The Plant in Chicago www.plantchicago.org or the vastly influential, but now defunct, Growing Power Farm in Milwaukee (Allen and Wilson 2013; Satterfield 2018).

References Ahmed, Nazneen and Claire Dwyer. 2017. “Living, Changing Light”: Stained Glass Art and Gendered Creativity in the Suburban Church. Culture and Religion 18 (4): 371–387. Allen, Will, and Charles Wilson. 2013. The Good Food Revolution. New York: Avery. Anderson, Elijah. 1978. A Place on the Corner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Azzara, Monique. 2019. Grappling with the Impermanence of Place: A Black Baptist Congregation in South Los Angeles. City & Society 31 (1): 77–93. Bain, Alison L. 2013. Creative Margins. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bedoya, Roberto. 2013. Placemaking and the Politics of Belonging and Disbelonging. GIA Reader 24 (1). Accessed February 24, 2017. http://www. giarts.org.article/placemaking-­and-­politics-­beloinging-­and-­dis-­belonging. ———. 2014. “Spatial Justice, Rasquachification, Race, and the City.” Creative Times Report. Sept 15. Bielo, James. 2009. Words upon the Word. New York: New York University Press. Bubinas, Kathleen. 2015. Shopping on Main Street: A Model of Community-­ Based Food Economy. In Sustainability in the Global City, ed. Cindy Isenhour et al., 217–237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chappell, Ben. 2012. Lowrider Space. Austin: University of Texas Press. Chase, John, Margaret Crawford, and John Kaliski, eds. 2008. Everyday Urbanism. New York: The Monacelli Press. Chen, Caroline. 2010. Dancing in the Street of Beijing: Improved Uses within the Urban System. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 21–35. New  York: Routledge.

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Crawford, Margaret. 2014. The Garage Sale as Informal Activity and Transformative Urbanism. In The Informal American City, ed. Vinit Mukhija and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, 21–38. Cambridge: MIT Press. Crouch, David. 2010. Creativity, Space and Performance: Community Gardening. In Spaces of Vernacular Creativity, ed. Tim Edensor et al., 129–140. London: Routledge. De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Duneier, Mitchell. 1992. Slim’s Table. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Duneier, Mitchell, and Ovie Carter. 1999. Sidewalk. New York: Macmillan. Edensor, Tim, and Steve Millington. 2009. Illuminations, Class Identities and the Contested Landscapes of Christmas. Sociology 43 (1): 103–121. ———. 2010. Christmas Lights Displays and the Creative Production of Spaces of Generosity. In Spaces of Vernacular Creativity, ed. Tim Edensor et al., 170–182. London: Routledge. Edensor, Tim, Deborah Leslie, Steve Millington, and Norma Rantisi, eds. 2010. Spaces of Vernacular Creativity. London: Routledge. Felton, Emma, and Christy Collis. 2012. Creativity and the Australian Suburbs: The Appeal of Suburban Localities for the Creative Industries Workforce. Journal of Australian Studies 36 (2): 177–190. Fernández-Kelly, María Patricia, and Paul DiMaggio. 2010. Art in the Lives of Immigrant Communities in the United States. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Franck, Karen, and Quentin Stevens, eds. 2007a. Loose Spaces. London: Routledge. ———. 2007b. Tying Down Loose Space. In Loose Spaces, ed. Karen Franck and Quentin Stevens, 1–33. London: Routledge. Gibson, Chris, ed. 2012. Creativity in Peripheral Places. London: Routledge. Gibson, Chris, and John Connell. 2011. Elvis in the Country: Transforming Place in Rural Australia. In Festival Places, ed. Chris Gibson and John Connell, 175–193. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Gliemann, Katrin, and Gerold Caesperlein. 2008. Von der Eckkneipe zur Teestube: Urbaner Wandel im Alltag: Dortmund-Borsigplatz. In Urban Recycling, ed. Erol Yildiz and Birgit Mattausch, 119–136. Basel: Birkhäuser. Goldstein, Daniel. 2016. Owners of the Sidewalk. Durham: Duke University Press. Hallam, Elizabeth, and Tim Ingold, eds. 2007. Creativity and Cultural Improvisation. Oxford: Berg. Hou, Jeffrey, ed. 2010. Insurgent Spaces. New York: Routledge. ———. 2010a. (Not) Your Everyday Public Space. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 1–17. New York: Routledge. ———. 2010b. ’Night Market’ in Seattle: Community Eventscape and the Reconstruction of Public space. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 111–122. New York: Routledge.

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———. 2014. Making and Supporting Community Gardens as Informal Urban Landscapes. In The Informal American City, ed. Vinit Mukhija and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, 79–96. Cambridge: MIT Press. Krase, Jerome, and Zdeněk Uherek, eds. 2017. Diversity and Local Contexts: Urban Space, Borders and Migration. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuppinger, Petra. 2014. Flexible Topographies: Muslim Spaces in a German Cityscape. Social and Cultural Geography 15 (6): 627–644. ———. 2018. Informal Place-Making: Mosques, Muslims and Urban Innovation in Germany. In The Palgrave Handbook of Bottom-Up Urbanism, ed. Mahyar Arefi and Conrad Kickert, 149–162. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. LaFond, Michael. 2010. eXperimentcity: Cultivating Sustainable Development in Berlin’s Freiräume. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 61–70. New  York: Routledge. Lena, Jennifer, and Daniel Cornfield. 2008. Immigrants Arts Participation. In Engaging Art, ed. Steven Tepper and Bill Ivey, 147–170. New York: Routledge. Liebow, Elliot. 1967. Tally’s Corner. Boston: Little. Lippard, Lucy. 1997. The Lure of the Local. New York: The New Press. Loukaitou-Sideris, Anastasia, and Renia Ehrenfeucht. 2009. Sidewalks. Boston: MIT Press. Low, Setha M. 2000. On the Plaza. Austin: University of Texas Press. Mattausch, Birgit, and Yildiz, Erol, eds. 2008. Urban Recycling: Migration als Grossstadt Ressource. Basel: Birkhäuser. Milbourne, Paul. 2010. Growing Places: Community Gardening, Ordinary Creativities and Place-Based Regeneration in a Northern English City. In Spaces of Vernacular Creativity, ed. Tim Edensor, 141–154. London: Routledge. Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City. New York: Guilford Press. Mukhija, Vinit, and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, eds. 2014. The Informal American City. Cambridge: MIT Press. Oldenburg, Ray. 1989. The Great Good Place. New  York: Paragon House Publishers. Pardo, Italo, and Giuliana B. Prato, eds. 2012. Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory. Farnham: Ashgate. Pardo, Italo, Giuliana B.  Prato, and James Rosbrook-Thompson. 2020. “Ethnographies or Urbanities in Flux: Theoretical Reflections.” In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, ed. I.  Pardo, G.B.  Prato, and J.  Rosbrook-Thompson. Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10 (S3): 2–11. Rantisi, Norma, and Deborah Leslie. 2010. Creativity by Design? The Role of Informal Spaces on Creative Production. In Spaces of Vernacular Creativity, ed. Tim Edensor, 33–45. London: Routledge. Rios, Michael. 2010. Claiming Latino Space: Cultural Insurgency in the Public Realm. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 99–110. New York: Routledge.

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Rojas, James. 2010. Latino Urbanism in Los Angeles: A Model for Urban Improvisation and Reinvention. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 36–55. New York: Routledge. Saint-Blancat, Chantal, and Adriano Cancellieri. 2014. From Invisibility to Visibility? The Appropriation of Public Space through Religious Ritual: The Filipino Procession of Santacruzan in Padua, Italy. Social and Cultural Geography 15 (6): 645–663. Satterfield, Stephen. 2018. Behind the Rise and Fall of Growing Power. Civil Eats. 13 March. Accessed 15 July 2020. https://civileats.com/2018/03/13/ behind-­therise-­and-­fall-­of-­growing-­power/. Sieber, Tim, Graça Índias Cordeiro, and Lígia Ferro. 2012. The Neighborhood Strikes Back: Community Murals by Youth in Boston’s Communities of Color. City & Society 24 (3): 263–280. Truitt, Allison. 2019. Bringing Buddha to the City: Metropolitan New Orleans and Vietnamese Buddhist Communities. City & Society 31 (1): 17–33. Wali, Alaka, Rebecca Severson, and Mario Longoni. 2002. Informal Arts: Finding Cohesion, Capacity and Other Cultural Benefits in Unexpected Places in Chicago. Chicago: Columbia College, Chicago Center for the Arts Policy. Wali, Alaka, Noshir Contractor, and Rebecca Severson. 2006. Creative Networks: Mexican Immigrant Assets in Chicago. Chicago: The Field Museum. What is a Farmers Market? 2020. Farmers Market Coalition. Accessed May 17, 2021. https://farmersmarketcoalition.org/education/qanda/. Whyte, William F. 1943. Street Corner Society. University of Chicago Press. Whyte, William H. 1980. The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces. New York: Project for Public Spaces. Wu, Pina. 2010. How Outsiders Find Home in the City: ChungShan in Taipei. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 135–146. New York: Routledge. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PART I

Migrants, Place-Making, and Claims to the City

CHAPTER 2

Peripheral Citizenship: Autoconstruction and Migration in Santiago, Chile Miguel Pérez and Cristóbal Palma

Since the mid-twentieth century, demands for housing rights have been decisive in constructing and recognizing the urban poor as citizens. In diverse metropolises of the so-called Global South,1 claiming a right to live in the city has led to extensive processes of autoconstrucción, a concept that, following the Latin American terminology, Holston (1991) and Caldeira (2017) translate as “autoconstruction.” As a defining feature of mass urbanization in the Global South, autoconstruction refers to a mode of constructing urban space in which low- and working-class residents are the primary agents of urbanization (Caldeira 2017). Since the 1960s, anthropologists have investigated this phenomenon in cities such as Lima (Mangin 1967), Mexico City (Adler Lomnitz 1977), São Paulo (Holston The authors thank the ANID/FONDECYT 1210743, the Proyecto Anillos Ethnographies of Neoliberalism (ANID/PIA/SOC 180033) and the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (ANID/FONDAP/15130009) for their support in the ethnographic project this chapter is based on. M. Pérez (*) • C. Palma Department of Anthropology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago de Chile, Chile © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_2

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2008; Caldeira 2017), and Delhi (Das 2011). But autoconstruction of urban space implies more than just the construction of homes and neighborhoods. This practice also allows for the emergence of “insurgent” forms of citizenship (Holston 2008) by which autoconstructors generate new spaces of civic participation that transform them into legitimate rights-bearers. But what happens when the autoconstruction agents are migrants demanding not only the right to housing but also their recognition as rights-bearers in a nation-state that does not consider them full citizens? We address this question by examining the daily lives of migrants living in a campamento (squatter settlement) in Santiago, Chile. Migration processes usually expose dynamics of integration and exclusion (Pardo 2020), which reveal themselves in how migrant communities make, use, and appropriate the urban space. Understanding migration as an act “of settlement and of habitation” (Sassen 1999, 6) in a space like that of a campamento, we interrogate how migrant groups manage their incorporation into the receiving society—that is, how they create networks inside and through nation states (Glick-Schiller and Çağlar 2009)— through their practices of city making (cf. Glick-Schiller and Schmidt 2016). In his study of Haitians in Manaus, Brazil, Da Silva (2018) shows that the integration of immigrants depends largely on how they negotiate their position in society by becoming organized as an ethnic group. In this process, Da Silva argues, the urban context plays a key role in setting the conditions for the emergence of new forms of resistance against prejudice and discrimination. In this chapter, we argue that Chilean campamentos, as concrete and small urban spaces, are a significant setting for migrants to deal with the issue of incorporation. In a context in which they have been increasingly excluded from the city’s central areas, campamentos emerge as a source of sociability, inclusion, and diversification as, among other aspects, they provide these groups with new design possibilities and more flexible construction opportunities (cf. Franck and Stevens 2007). Over the past 15 years, the number of migrants arriving in Chile from other Latin American countries has been steadily increasing. Since the mid-2010s, rates of migration from border countries like Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina have been surpassed by rates from countries further away, like Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and, lately, Venezuela and Haiti. According to statistics from the National Statistics Institute, 1,492,522 people of foreign origin lived in Chile in 2019; whereas they represented only 0.81% of the total population in 1992, they now make up 8.4% (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2020). Given the significant growth of

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migrant communities, research on international migration has tended to focus on two main dimensions of analysis. The first has studied processes of discrimination, exclusion, and racialization experienced by Latin American migrants in Chile (Stefoni and Fernández 2011; Pavez 2012; Tijoux 2013; Sheehan 2018). The second has analyzed the social practices of migrants and their cultural diversification to understand how migration affects concepts of identity, nation, citizenship, and territory (e.g., Garcés 2012; Guizardi and Garcés 2013; Imilan 2014; Stefoni and Stang 2017). Migrants’ residential practices and the ethical-political implications of these remain, however, largely unexplored. In this chapter, we explore how the experience of informally inhabiting the city may make possible new forms of citizenship based on residency, through which migrants reconfigure their political practices and imaginaries as rights-bearing subjects. To do so, we particularly examine the role of campamentos, as small, autoconstructed spaces, in the transformation of migrants into ethical and political subjects. Why is it important to examine citizenship from a perspective that considers migrants’ engagement in processes of city making? Angélica, a Dominican woman in her early 40s lived on the margins of Santiago, the Chilean capital, specifically, in the Campamento Nueva Esperanza in the northern district of Colina. Like many of the Dominicans who resided in that settlement, Angélica arrived in Chile around a decade ago, and after renting for almost seven years, she decided to move to Nueva Esperanza in 2017. “Why do you think you have rights in this country?” we asked her on one of our early visits to the settlement. She answered emphatically: We have more rights because we pay taxes. Meanwhile there are Chileans that live here and don’t pay taxes, right? There are Chileans living here on handouts, you know. […] There are some Chileans here that are real vagos [slackers], they don’t like to work. But we come here to work. […] I’m not working currently and it makes me uncomfortable that I’m not working. I’m not working now, but I could work tomorrow, you know?

Angélica’s response sheds light on how migrants living in squatter settlements conceive of citizenship and rights. Her observation allows us to explore the central elements of a political imaginary based on the idea that those who “contribute” more to society “deserve” more rights than others. We argue that the autoconstruction of small spaces (homes and neighborhoods) is one of the ways that foreigners demonstrate their contribution

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to their receiving society, therefore legitimizing their claim to rights. In this way, the recognition of autoconstruction as a political practice allows us to reflect on a residency-based form of citizenship, in which migrants construct themselves as subjects capable of demanding rights from the state regardless of their country of origin or condition as migrants. Scholars have highlighted the transformative potential of ordinary people’s creative and innovative actions; practices that enable them to configure an aesthetic of resistance and political belonging (e.g., Edensor et  al. 2010; Gibson 2012; Chappell 2013). In the current case, we show that the type of citizenship that migrants develop in peripheral squatter settlements is closely bounded up with the appearance of aesthetic judgments of autoconstruction through which they formulate political and ethical views of themselves as rights-bearing subjects. In order to grasp the kind of citizenship that migrants generate in the peripheries, we examine the migration process in Santiago, Chile, focusing on the residential experience of migrants. Next, we explore ethnographically the autoconstruction practices through which residents like Angélica have produced their living spaces materially and symbolically. Finally, using the concept of urban citizenship (Holston and Appadurai 1996; Holston 2008; Pérez 2017), we analyze the relationship between citizenship and residency, demonstrating how the act of home-building has become a key criterion of political membership employed by migrants. We conclude that the autoconstruction carried out by migrants has two defining elements: (1) unlike other urban movements that have emerged in recent decades, the appearance of campamentos built by migrants results from practices of city making that are permeated with a market rationality; (2) in order to be recognized as urban subjects, international migrants in Chile articulate ethical and political narratives about their conditions of exclusion which express their aspirations for belonging and incorporation into the national political community. These narratives, we argue, are held together by a paradoxical understanding of rights: while migrants imagine rights as a universal prerogative belonging to any individual on the basis of their human nature, they also articulate narratives based on moral categories like decency and sacrifice (cf. Pérez 2018) by which they deny other residents’ right to have rights. This chapter is based on an ethnographic study in the Campamento Nueva Esperanza, for which we conducted 30 in-depth interviews and participant observation between August 2017 and March 2018. Interview subjects were recruited through snowball sampling. The text data

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produced in interviews and fieldnotes was analyzed according to “grounded theory” (Glaser and Strauss 2017), an inductive method of interpretation in which the empirical data determines the theoretical frameworks to be applied. To protect our informants’ identity, all names have been changed. The name of the campamento, however, remains unchanged.

The Residential Experience for Migrants in Santiago By 2019, 11.2% of the over 7 million residents in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago were foreigners, coming mostly from Venezuela (26.8%), Perú (21.4%), and Haiti (13.9%) (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2019). Migrants’ residential experience in Santiago depends on processes of inclusion and exclusion that are directly associated with the spaces they occupy and the urban practices they deploy. This can be seen, for example, in the spatial effects of migrant trade and job searching, everyday practices that allow them to anchor their interactions to specific places and, accordingly, appropriate certain areas of the city (Garcés 2012; Imilan et  al. 2014; Stefoni 2016). At the same time, the urban experience of migrants is also based on the visibility of their cultural expressions, which are often rejected or used to justify racist discourses of assimilation that criminalize foreigners (Stefoni 2013). Because migrants are subject to discourses and practices that reject and exclude them from the receiving society, the residential/housing experience is one of the most significant elements of the urban dimension of their migration process. As Vaccotti (2017) indicates for the case of Buenos Aires, the adentro (“in here”) of their neighborhoods often helps migrant populations deal with the rejection they face in public space. Meanwhile, the residence itself provides a space to build local networks with other migrants and find work, while, in some cases, functioning as an enclave to affirm cultural beliefs and practices.2 In the case of Santiago, during the 1990s and early 2000s, migrants began to populate certain areas of the city that were in commercial and residential decline, particularly in the northern part of the historic city center and adjoining neighborhoods like Recoleta and Independencia. Foreigners were able to move into these residential areas that had been largely abandoned as a result of the flight of Chilean residents to new neighborhoods and residential areas to the east and south of the Metropolitan Region (Luque 2004). The arrival of the

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migrants, then, reactivated the business and housing sectors in the central areas, allowing for the emergence of migrant-majority neighborhoods. By the end of the 2000s, the distribution of nationalities among foreigners living in Santiago appeared random, with no discernible patterns or “ethnic niches” (Schiappacasse 2008). But more recent studies showed that the residential spread of migrants is not haphazard. In fact, it is closely related to factors like socioeconomic condition, national origin, and gender, on the bases of which discrimination bars access to housing (Margarit and Bijit 2014; Márquez 2014; Contreras et al. 2015). Although the 2017 Census showed that migrants are still living in the city center and adjoining neighborhoods, particularly in comunas (municipal districts) like Santiago (28%), Estación Central (17%), and Recoleta (16%), certain conditions have changed significantly over the past few years. First, the real estate market has been revived in central neighborhoods that were not formerly used as residential areas, which has brought about a process of urban revitalization in which both the formal and informal housing markets are booming (Contreras et al. 2015; Sheehan 2018). This phenomenon has led to deteriorated living conditions for the foreign Latin American population, restricting access for low-income residents almost exclusively to slums and barely habitable spaces (Contreras et al. 2015; Margarit and Bijit 2014). Delia Curahua, of the Warmipura Association of Women Migrants, explained: [The places where migrant individuals live] are precarious, lacking electricity, not even authorized as habitable living space, yet they can cost anywhere between 60,000–200,000 pesos [$80–$265USD, per month] depending on whether they are centrally located (Santiago, Independencia, Recoleta) but without adequate hygiene, with narrow hallways, where families cook their food and live side-by-side. (Curahua 2013, 44)

A second recent change is that residents now take locational, social, and work opportunities into account when choosing where to live (Margarit and Bijit 2014). Given the excess demand and exploitative conditions for housing in central areas, migrants have begun to move to comunas that are far from the city center but offer lots of commercial activity and job opportunities of their own. This is the case with comunas in the northern part of the Santiago Metropolitan Area like Quilicura, Lampa, Til-Til, and Colina. As a peripheral district, Colina (Fig. 2.1) stands out as the site of important real estate transformations over recent decades, including the

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Fig. 2.1  Map of the Santiago Metropolitan Area and Colina

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Fig. 2.2  A Colombian resident autoconstructing his house in Nueva Esperanza. (Photo by Miguel Pérez 2018)

construction of luxury homes for the more affluent classes of the Metropolitan Region. This has led to increased demand for labor associated with domestic service and construction, making Colina a desirable location for migrants. In fact, of 146,207 residents in Colina, 15.075 are of foreign origin, principally Perú (17.8%), Haiti (16.1%), and Colombia (10.9%) (Instituto Nacional de Estadística 2019). In this context of restricted access to housing and exploitative living conditions, it is not surprising that Latin American migrants are increasingly opting to live in informal settlements (López-Morales et al. 2018). Recent statistics demonstrate this trend. In 2015, only 6% of all residents living in campamentos in Chile were of foreign origin, by 2019 this rate had increased to almost 28% (Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo 2019). Thus, migrants’ growing presence in peripheral squatter settlements compels us to examine the ethical and political implications of autoconstruction, as well as how such a practice allows them to produce new types of citizenship (Fig. 2.2).

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Autoconstruction and Urban Citizenship Over the past fifty years, several authors highlighted the close relationship between the lack of housing for the urban poor and the emergence of social movements for housing and citizenship rights in Latin American cities (e.g., Mangin 1967; Castells 1983; Holston 2008; Caldeira 2017). Vulnerable people’s desires to live in the city have led to extensive processes of autoconstruction, a modality of producing urban space, mostly in the peripheries, that is defined by three characteristics (Caldeira 2015). First, it is a process drawn out over time, in which autoconstructors are constantly refining, remaking, or remodeling their living spaces. Second, it implies a specific relationship to the official logics of the state and market insofar as autoconstructors, though operating informally, must constantly deal with problems of legalization, regulation, and speculation (cf. Prato 2020), all while consuming goods to erect their homes. Third, it generates new kinds of citizenship and sites of contestation, from which residents constitute themselves as political subjects capable of legitimately claiming rights from the state. As a set of transformative practices of city making, autoconstruction lets us delve into how vulnerable residents respond innovatively to their conditions of exclusion by creating small spaces of sociability and political resistance. A number of scholars showed the role of ordinary creative work in the development of new modes of political participation, as well as in the construction of a sense of belonging (Rojas 2010; Connell and Gibson 2011; Chappell 2013). In our view, autoconstruction alludes thus to a particular type of creative practice framed by ordinary people’s desires for permanently improving the small spaces they live in (houses and neighborhoods). In such an enterprise, their engagements in creative construction work on these spaces help them articulate broader demands for participation and incorporation, which generally take the form of citizenship claims. In Chile, the phenomenon of autoconstruction has been primarily examined in relation to the housing movement of the mid-twentieth century, in which thousands of families in need of homes achieved their right to housing by occupying urban plots and self-building campamentos (Angelcos and Pérez 2017; Murphy 2015). The housing movement was at its height between the mid-1950s and 1973, during a wave of politicization in which left and center-left parties began to consider the urban poor as an important force for social change. The social recognition of pobladores (poor urban residents) as potentially revolutionary subjects was

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cemented during Salvador Allende’s government (1970–1973), as the parties in Allende’s Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) coalition spearheaded urban land occupations in order to carry out their partisan agendas across the territory. This led to the emergence of over 300 squatter settlements in Santiago (Cofré 2011), many of which were politically and ideologically supported by a specific political party. By 1973, over 83,000 families had assembled themselves in campamentos, amounting to almost 17% of the population of Santiago (Santa María 1973). However, the housing mobilizations were severely constrained once General Augusto Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s government. The military dictatorship (1973–1990) quashed land occupations, carried out massive evictions of squatter settlements, and killed hundreds of poor residents. The poor could no longer occupy urban lands, and the state persecuted those who engaged in housing struggles. Today’s campamentos are substantially different from those formed in the mid-twentieth century. First, according to the  NGOs TECHO  and the Housing Foundation, of the 83,000 families residing in campamentos nationwide, today almost 20,000 of them live in informal settlements in the Santiago Metropolitan Region,  that is 0.9%  of the regional  population. Second, illegal occupations are no longer the swift result of a concerted effort of highly politicized squatters organized by leftist political parties as part of a massive urban social movement. Rather, in present-day neoliberal Chile, poor families conceive of autoconstruction in informal settlements as an strategy to access well-situated urban land and eventually become owners of subsidized housing (Brain et al. 2010). Third, today’s campamentos are more culturally diverse than those of the past, due to the systematic arrival of immigrants over the past ten years. As we have mentioned, studies showed that immigrants are systematically subjected to discrimination when they seek access to formal housing markets (Contreras et al. 2015; Sheehan 2018). This explains the significant increase in the number of immigrants living in informal settlements from which they articulate demands to be recognized as rights-bearing subjects. But why should these demands be understood as claims to citizenship? In anthropology, the concept of citizenship has been defined as a regulatory system through which political communities manage internal difference in order to consolidate identity projects (Kipnis 2004; Postero 2007; Holston 2008). All citizenship formations operate on the basis criteria for political membership, which define the types of rights that citizens can

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exert. Citizenship refers thus to a relationship between individuals or groups and the state, a relationship framed by how societies resolve the question of belonging to the political community (Postero 2007). In the modern liberal compact of citizenship, nationality has been understood as the main criterion to determine who belongs to society. In this formulation, everyone who belongs to a nation and holds the “status” of citizen is formally equal in dignity and rights, which means that citizens are protected by the same legal corpus and granted the capacity to exercise the same rights (Walzer 1989). This national citizenship model has been fiercely critiqued. Some scholars maintain that the promotion of formal equality among citizens has led to the subordination of social difference—whether in terms of race, gender, class, and so on—to dominant cultural structures (e.g., Young 1989; Taylor 1992; Kymlicka 1995; Benhabib 2002). These critiques prompt us to ask, how can excluded groups legitimately claim their rights if, according to the national model of citizenship, they are not citizens? We argue that migrants’ autoconstruction processes enable them to articulate practices and discourses of citizenship. Following recent debates within anthropology about autoconstruction and the production of peripheral spaces (Caldeira 2015, 2017), we insist that practices of city making allow for the development of narratives about rights that can overcome the limits imposed by the modern project of citizenship, giving rise to residency-­ based types of citizenship. The concept of “urban citizenship” has been widely debated by anthropologists and social scientists interested in the political potential of the city in the context of global urbanization. We draw on this concept to analyze how migrants living in squatter settlements legitimize themselves as rights-­ bearing subjects through their residential practices. Following Holston (2008), we understand urban citizenship as a citizenship formation characterized by three assumptions or premises: (a) it considers the city, rather than the nation, as the main political community; (b) residency, rather than nationality, is the primary criterion of political membership; and (c) the rights to be claimed are conceived of as rights to the city. Conceived in this way, this urban formation of citizenship can guarantee what the national model is incapable of providing: the inclusion and representation of marginal groups, regardless of their formal status of belonging to a nation-state.

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Nueva Esperanza: “Living Well” in a Small Squatter Settlement The Nueva Esperanza campamento was founded in 2016 in Colina, when a dozen Chileans and migrants occupied an empty plot of approximately one hectare near the Colina Penitentiary II and the Colina municipal cemetery. However, the majority of families that moved there after the land seizure were foreigners. Compared to other squatter settlements that house hundreds of families, Nueva Esperanza is a small campamento. By April 2018, there were around 80 families living in the settlement, representing, in the words of one Dominican resident, “six races”: Colombian, Peruvian, Bolivian, Dominican, Haitian, and Chilean. Although Dominicans, Haitians, and Colombians appear to dominate numerically, as of this writing it is difficult to estimate exactly how many inhabitants, and of which nationalities, live in Nueva Esperanza, since the number of residents continues to grow. Nueva Esperanza exemplifies the dynamic and diverse character of campamentos across Chile, reflected in the increasingly visible presence of “foreign” elements like flags, imported products, and international cuisines, and celebrations. Similarly, foreign-born neighbors in Nueva Esperanza have introduced specific techniques of homebuilding and maintenance that are inspired by the desire to vivir bien (“live well”). The migrants’ approach to autoconstruction enables us to analyze the emergence of residency-based types of citizenship through which they legitimize their rights-claiming. All homes in the settlement are structurally similar, built with oriented strand board panels (OSB, an intermediary between plywood and particleboard) and corrugated zinc roofs. However, the aesthetic differences between homes constructed by Chileans versus by foreigners are quite noticeable, particularly in terms of finishing. While Chilean families tend to build in a simple, rudimentary style, with little interest in sophisticated touches, migrant families are more dedicated and invested in decorating their living spaces. This distinction is most evident in the materials chosen for doors, flooring, or fence railing. Figure 2.2 shows how a Colombian resident prepares his materials for home autoconstruction. While the majority of his Chilean neighbors put up fences made of polyethylene netting, discarded wood pieces, and zinc sheeting, he has erected a solid fence with barbed wire to protect his house. How should we understand this difference? As one of our interlocutors explained, migrants invest more money in embellishing their houses than

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Chileans do; for this reason, they have come to be identified as the “rich” neighbors in the settlement. Whether or not this is true, the visible aesthetic differences in migrant homes illustrate how these residents conceive of themselves as citizens. The special attention they pay to their homes on a daily basis reveals the ways they construct themselves as rightsbearing subjects. Adrián, a Dominican man around 30 years old, arrived in Chile in 2013. When we met him, he was working as a gardener in Chicureo, a suburb of Colina where some of the capital’s most affluent families live. Adrián was undocumented; he had entered the country from Bolivia to live with his cousins, who had settled in Colina a few years earlier. “I came here illegally, but I have an ID card now, thank God,” he told us when we first met. In 2017, he and his partner, a Dominican woman he met in Colina, decided to move to Nueva Esperanza because their landlord threatened to raise their rent. Under those circumstances, both Adrián and his partner saw in Nueva Esperanza a way to continue living in Colina without having to worry about rent hikes. For Adrián, moving to the encampment was not free; he had to pay $200,000 pesos (around US$265). In our fieldwork, we heard similar stories on several occasions. Immigrants explained to us that they had to “purchase” a plot of land from Chileans who had arbitrarily parceled out the initial property taken in the land seizure. This experience, reported by Adrián and many others, reveals two important aspects of the politics of the campamento: first, a market rationality operates widely in squatter settlements, evidenced by the fact that foreign newcomers have to literally buy the right to live there; second, housing discrimination persists even in the informal market, given that we observed only foreigners being charged these move-in fees. Immigrants like Adrián challenge this form of discrimination, generating a set of ethical and aesthetic judgments through which they constitute themselves as individuals legitimately endowed with rights. Spending more money on building a house, in this context, is seen as proper behavior for virtuous, hard-working, self-sacrificing citizens. In Adrián’s own words, Chileans live like animals…; immigrants like the Colombians, Haitians, Dominicans, and Peruvians all have nice little houses [but Chileans] are viciosos [drug addicts]; I’ve been here almost six years and I get up at six in the morning to go to work, and they [Chileans] won’t get up. That’s how you get to eat well, live well. [Chileans] don’t work… some work and some

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don’t, some of them you can tell they just get up at ten [a.m.] to look for handouts. Interviewer: What do you mean when you say they ‘live like animals’? By animals I mean… an animal eats whatever it finds, they catch a bird and eat it and they don’t care that they live in filth. But I like to vivir bien [live well].

Inside Adrián’s home we found lots of ceramics, with which he had once outfitted his apartment. The American-style kitchen he built stood out prominently, as did a series of proudly displayed items like a 40-inch LCD TV and a cable satellite antenna. According to Adrián, building his home has cost him over four million pesos (around US$5300), a high price, but not unlike the costs other immigrants reported that they had also spent to “live well.” As mentioned above, autoconstruction is a type of innovative and creative practice of city making that materialized in the emergence of small spaces like Nueva Esperanza, where residents of the peripheries carry out their quest for developing new forms of civic participation and political incorporation. In addition, autoconstruction also involves a certain temporality organized around the constant renovation of constructed space (Caldeira 2015, 2017). Houses and neighborhoods grow gradually as residents improve their living spaces over time. In the context of settlements, living well, much like autoconstruction, is an unfinished project constantly practiced. This perpetual nature is clearly expressed by Robert, a 40-year-old Haitian. When asked him how long it had taken to finish building his house, he corrected us: “No, I’m not actually done yet.” “What’s left?” we inquired. “Something is still missing; there’s a lot missing,” he said ambiguously, as if he wasn’t sure himself what else he would build. As a perpetually developing practice, autoconstruction shapes the daily practices of living in the settlement and affords a processual character to migrants’ self-construction as citizens. This aspect is made evident by the testimony we collected from Ana Luz, a 35-year-old Dominican woman. In response to our question about the future of the settlement, she answered: “Well, look, I hope they would let me stay here [in Nueva Esperanza] because this is spacious. I have a patio. If they gave me a house I wouldn’t be the same there […]; if they leave me here, I could fix it up myself and make it nice.” For Ana Luz, the house she was living in already met all of her material needs. Even so, she believed that her house could be better, expanded and

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decorated according to her own aesthetic criteria—an option that would be severely restricted in any housing unit delivered by the state. In this way, the possibility for permanent transformation offered by autoconstruction is used by the immigrants as an argument for claiming housing rights on the space already occupied. For them, the settlement thus manifests their hopes for integration into the receiving society, as both autoconstruction of housing and their recognition as good neighbors are seen as never-ending projects that must be performed daily. But how does the desire for vivir bien expressed by migrants embody their conceptions of citizenship? Most of our interlocutors believed that the Chileans living in Nueva Esperanza did not invest economically in keeping up their homes because they were used to vivir mal (living poorly). This lifestyle, according to them, is the result of certain ethical dispositions of people who “don’t like to work,” are “drug addicts,” and rely on handouts (as Angélica explained in our opening quote). Immigrants, on the other hand, described themselves, using Rose’s (1999) and Ong’s (2003) approaches to Foucault’s governmentality, as autonomous, responsibilized, self-sufficient subjects capable of ethically conducting their lives. The act of constantly building their own homes with specific aesthetic attributes cements their transformation from immigrants illegally occupying land into residents endowed with the capacity to self-govern. But the material characteristics and continuous construction of their houses not only allow immigrants to articulate ethical judgments to distinguish between good and bad residents (themselves and Chileans, respectively). The materiality and practice of autoconstruction, at the same time, helps immigrants to formulate an urban form of citizenship by which they can recognize themselves as citizen city-makers.

Becoming Urban Citizens “Do you think that immigrants have the same rights as Chileans?” This was one of our questions for interlocutors, to explore how they imagined their political belonging in Chilean society. Adrián’s response to this question was particularly revealing, demonstrating that his self-perception as a rights-bearing subject, although complicated by his immigration status, was closely linked to his recognition of himself as an autoconstructor: For me [as an immigrant] I do have rights, I mean we’re all people. [But] I don’t have the same rights that you have here, because this is your country.

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But I think that if I act well, [if] I’m a good person, I think I can be Chilean-­ Dominican like they put on my ID card … as long as you’re disposed to work, and don’t steal or get into drugs Interviewer: Do you think you have the right to build a house here in this settlement? Well I think this [the house] is already mine because I live here… I’d say I’m already the owner here. All of us living here have rights because we’ve got houses up. And once you have a house on some land, even if it wasn’t yours, you become the owner. For me, my right is my house, because we’ve already set it up.

Most immigrants we worked with, including Adrián, held paradoxical, even contradictory, ideas about rights and citizenship that they resolved by insisting that the practice of autoconstruction made them morally solid urban citizens. The first of these paradoxical ideas is that rights are universal. Our interlocutors insisted that all individuals, regardless of national origin, hold rights on the basis of their human nature. Based on this universalist conception of rights, the mere fact of being a person affords rights to all residents of the city, including those who don’t have formal citizenship status. However, they also understood the capacity to exercise those rights as differentiated: immigrants, as Adrián expressed, can’t have the same rights as Chileans because the rights of the latter are constitutionally protected, whereas those of the former are not. But  this understanding of rights as a universal entitlement that is unequally distributed according to an individual’s legal status appeared to be of secondary importance to the moral dimension of quotidian practices. Put simply, in declaring themselves to be rights-bearing subjects, immigrants relied primarily on the virtuous character of their daily life as residents of a squatter settlement, rather than on their abstract condition as “persons” or “human beings.” Our interlocutors clearly interpreted their capacity to demand rights as part of their practices building the city themselves. This explains why Adrián believed that illegal occupants earn rights to housing once their house is “up.” In a clear example of what Holston (2008, 260) calls “contributor rights,” immigrants legitimize their capacity to exercise rights through the practical contributions they make to build the city in daily life. For our informants, this contribution implies ethical judgments that set them apart from their Chilean neighbors: if the foreigners have earned rights, it’s not just because they have self-built, but also because, citing Adrián, they “act well” and are “good

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people.” Therefore, they believe that their daily practices as responsible, invested, and self-sacrificing city-makers earn them the right to have rights. The foreign residents of Nueva Esperanza, in this way, base their conceptions of rights on an urban citizenship model (Holston and Appadurai 1996; Holston 2008; Pérez 2017). According to this model, the city is the basic political community; therefore, residency becomes the main prerequisite for political membership. This framework for imagining oneself as a legitimate rights-bearer does not rely either on upholding migrants’ essential human nature or on their legal recognition as citizens. Rather, it presents migrants’ autoconstruction practices—qualitatively distinct from those of Chileans—as part of the many contributions that migrants regularly perform as good citizens.

Conclusions The case of Nueva Esperanza illuminates the transformative potential of ordinary people’s innovative activities, materialized in the symbolic and material building of a small urban space. Far away from the center of the city—the area where public and political activities are much more recognizable—the residents of this settlement have been able to create new settings for civic participation by demanding their right to housing. Nueva Esperanza, in that sense, reveals the political significance of urban peripheries. A kind of “loose spaces” (Franck and Stevens 2007), campamentos thus emerge as autoconstructed settlements in which migrants not only give shape to their desires for incorporation, but also configure specific ideas of citizenship and rights. The practices of city making that we described make possible an urban citizenship through which migrants judge their living conditions, both ethically and aesthetically, as illegal residents in a small, peripheral settlement. If this citizenship formulation shapes their rights-claiming, the content of their demands for rights depends on the set of ethical practices (actions on the self and on others) with which they construct themselves as autonomous, responsibilized subjects. As part of this process, autoconstruction, as an ordinary creative practice, transforms migrants into rights-­ bearing subjects only when the material outcomes of their construction over time conform to their ideas about what makes a “good person” who “lives well.” In other words, immigrants conceive of their path to becoming full legal subjects as directly dependent on their behavior as “good citizens,” which is judged by the specific aesthetic attributes of their homes.

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Foreign residents thus use autoconstruction to establish a symbolic boundary between their own living conditions and the stereotypes associated with living in informal encampments, which represent life in that space as dirty, haphazard, and precarious. Our case study of migrant practices in Nueva Esperanza prompts us to examine the political implications of informal settlements in neoliberal cities of the Global South like Santiago. The new foreign residents in these spaces, unlike the housing movements of the mid-twentieth century, do not perceive autoconstruction as a politically subversive act. For them, autoconstruction is primarily a tangible expression of their lack of formal citizenship. Without formal recognition, in order to integrate themselves into Chilean society as honest, worthy members, immigrants feel compelled to symbolically “leave” the settlement where they live. Declaring themselves responsibilized, dignified subjects, migrants construct certain forms of citizenship that clearly set them apart from their Chilean neighbors in the settlement on the basis of the ethical and aesthetic value of their lifestyle and material construction. This process of citizenship formation, much like autoconstruction, offers a specific temporality defined by continuity, persistence, and the long term. Just like the houses they put up, becoming citizens is seen as an incomplete, never-ending project, work that must be constantly renovated according to a continual redefinition of what it means to vivir bien, “live well.” Thus, the promises of having one’s own place to live and being recognized as a citizen are realized through the quotidian practices of autoconstruction and the permanent claiming of rights.

Notes 1. Although scholarly literature often depicts autoconstruction as a process proper to large cities of the Global South, some authors have accounted for similar phenomena in Europe. See, for example, Prato’s (2020) work on urban informality in the peripheries of Tirana, Albania. 2. See, for instance, Wirth’s (1982) classical work on the ghetto.

References Adler Lomnitz, Larissa. 1977. Networks and Marginality: Life in a Mexican Shantytown. New York: Academic Press. Angelcos, Nicolás, and Miguel Pérez. 2017. De La ‘Desaparición’ a La Reemergencia: Continuidades y Rupturas Del Movimiento de Pobladores En Chile. Latin American Research Review 52 (1): 94–109.

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Benhabib, Seyla. 2002. The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Brain, Isabel, Prieto Prieto, and Francisco Sabatini. 2010. Vivir En Campamentos: ¿Camino Hacia La Vivienda Formal o Estrategia de Localización Para Enfrentar La Vulnerabilidad? EURE 36 (109): 111–141. Caldeira, Teresa. 2015. Social Movements, Cultural Production, and Protests: São Paulo’s Shifting Political Landscape. Current Anthropology 56 (S11): 126–136. ———. 2017. Peripheral Urbanization: Autoconstruction, Transversal Logics, and Politics in Cities of the Global South. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35 (1): 3–20. Castells, Manuel. 1983. The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chappell, Ben. 2013. Lowrider Space: Aesthetics and Politics of Mexican American Custom Cars. Austin: University of Texas Press. Cofré, Boris. 2011. El Movimiento de Pobladores En El Gran Santiago: Las Tomas de Sitios y Organizaciones En Los Campamentos. 1970–1973. Tiempo Histórico 2: 133–157. Connell, John, and Chris Gibson. 2011. Elvis in the Country: Transforming Place in Rural Australia. In Festival Places: Revitalising Rural Australia, ed. Chris Gibson and John Connell, 173–195. Bristol: Channel View Publications. Contreras, Yasna, Veera Ala-Louko, and Gricel Labbé. 2015. Acceso Exclusionario y Racista a La Vivienda Formal e Informal En Las Áreas Centrales de Santiago e Iquique. Polis 14 (42): 53–78. Curahua, Delia. 2013. Integración Social y Protección de Los Derechos Humanos de Los Migrantes. In Migraciones: Conferencia Internacional Sobre Migraciones y Derechos Humanos: Estándares y Prácticas, 43–48. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Aún Creemos en los Sueños. Da Silva, Sidney. 2018. Haitians in Manaus: Challenges of the Sociocultural Process of Inclusion. In The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B.  Prato, 465–477. New  York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Das, Veena. 2011. State, Citizenship, and the Urban Poor. Citizenship Studies 15 (3–4): 319–333. Edensor, Tim, Deborah Leslie, Steve Millington, and Norma Rantisi, eds. 2010. Spaces of Vernacular Creativity: Rethinking the Cultural Economy. New York: Routledge. Franck, Karen A., and Quentin Stevens, eds. 2007. Loose Space: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life. New York: Routledge. Garcés, Alejandro. 2012. Localizaciones Para Una Espacialidad. Territorios de La Migración Peruana En Santiago de Chile. Chungara 44 (1): 163–175. Gibson, Chris, ed. 2012. Creativity in Peripheral Places: Redefining the Creative Industries. New York: Routledge.

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Glaser, Barney, and Anselm Strauss. 2017. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. New York: Routledge. Glick-Schiller, Nina, and Ayse Çağlar. 2009. Towards a Comparative Theory of Locality in Migration Studies: Migrant Incorporation and City Scale. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35 (2): 177–202. Glick-Schiller, Nina, and Garbi Schmidt. 2016. Envisioning Place: Urban Sociabilities within Time, Space and Multiscalar Power. Identities 23 (1): 1–16. Guizardi, Menara, and Alejandro Garcés. 2013. Circuitos Migrantes: Itinerarios y Formación de Redes Migratorias Entre Perú, Bolivia, Chile y Argentina En El Norte Grande Chileno. Papeles de Población 19 (78): 65–110. Holston, James. 1991. Autoconstruction in Working-Class Brazil. Cultural Anthropology 6 (4): 447–465. ———. 2008. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Holston, James, and Arjun Appadurai. 1996. Cities and Citizenship. Public Culture 8 (2): 187–204. Imilan, Walter. 2014. Restaurantes peruanos en Santiago de Chile: construcción de un paisaje de la migración. Revista de Estudios Sociales 35 (48): 15–28. Imilan, Walter, Alejandro Garcés, and Daisy Margarit, eds. 2014. Poblaciones En Movimiento: Etnificación de La Ciudad, Redes e Integración. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Alberto Hurtado. Instituto Nacional de Estadística. 2019. “Estimación de Población Extranjera En Chile Según País de Nacionalidad.” Gobierno de Chile. https://www.ine.cl/ docs/default-­s ource/demografia-­y -­m igracion/publicaciones-­y -­a nuarios/ migraci%C3%B3n-­i nternacional/estimaci%C3%B3n-­p oblaci%C3%B3n-­ extranjera-­e n-­c hile-­2 018/ine-­d em_estimaci%C3%B3n-­p oblaci%C3%B3n-­ extranjera-­en-­chile_regiones_nacionalidad_(2019).pdf?sfvrsn=375441b6_7. ———. 2020. “Estimación de Personas Extranjeras Residentes Habituales En Chile al 31 de Diciembre 2019.” Gobierno de Chile. https://www.ine.cl/ docs/default-­s ource/demografia-­y -­m igracion/publicaciones-­y -­a nuarios/ migraci%C3%B3n-­i nternacional/estimaci%C3%B3n-­p oblaci%C3%B3n-­ extranjera-­en-­chile-­2018/estimaci%C3%B3n-­poblaci%C3%B3n-­extranjera-­en-­ chile-­2019-­metodolog%C3%ADa.pdf?sfvrsn=5b145256_6. Kipnis, Andrew. 2004. Anthropology and the Theorisation of Citizenship. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 5 (3): 257–278. Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. López-Morales, Ernesto, Pablo Flores, and Hernán Orozco. 2018. Inmigrantes en campamentos en Chile: ¿mecanismo de integración o efecto de exclusión? Revista INVI 33 (94): 159–185. Luque, José Carlos. 2004. Transnacionalismo y Enclave Territorial Étnico En La Configuración de La Ciudadanía de Los Inmigrantes Peruanos En Santiago de Chile. Revista Enfoques 3: 81–102.

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Mangin, William. 1967. Latin American Squatter Settlements: A Problem and a Solution. Latin American Research Review 2 (3): 65–98. Margarit, Daisy, and Karina Bijit. 2014. Barrios y población inmigrantes: el caso de la comuna de Santiago. Revista INVI 29 (81): 19–77. Márquez, Francisca. 2014. Inmigrantes En Territorios de Frontera: La Ciudad de Los Otros. Santiago de Chile. EURE 40 (120): 49–72. Ministerio de Vivienda y Urbanismo. 2019. “Catastro Nacional de Campamentos.” https://www.minvu.cl/wp-­content/uploads/2019/12/Presentaci%C3%B3n­de-­Resultados.pdf. Murphy, Edward. 2015. For a Proper Home: Housing Rights in the Margins of Urban Chile, 1960–2010. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Ong, Aihwa. 2003. Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pardo, Italo. 2020. “A Botched Urban Change: A Case-Study from Central Naples.” In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, edited by I.  Pardo, G.B.  Prato, and J.  Roosbrook-Thompson. Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10 (S3): 13–32. Pavez, Iskra. 2012. Inmigración y Racismo: Experiencias de La Niñez Peruana En Santiago de Chile. Si Somos Americanos 12 (1): 75–99. Pérez, Miguel. 2017. Reframing Housing Struggles: Right to the City and Urban Citizenship in Santiago, Chile. City 21 (5): 530–549. https://doi.org/10.108 0/13604813.2017.1374783. ———. 2018. Toward a Life with Dignity: Housing Struggles and New Political Horizons in Urban Chile. American Ethnologist 45 (4): 508–520. Postero, Nancy. 2007. Now We Are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Prato, Giuliana B. 2020. “Changing Cities: Migrations and New Urbanities in Contemporary Europe.” In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, edited by I.  Pardo, G.B.  Prato, and J.  Rosbrook-Thompson. Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10 (S3): 33–50. Rojas, James. 2010. Latino Urbanism in Los Angeles: A Model for Urban Improvisation and Reinvention. In Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 36–44. New York: Routledge. Rose, Nikolas. 1999. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Santa María, Ignacio. 1973. El desarrollo urbano mediante los ‘asentamientos espontáneos’: el caso de los ‘campamentos’ chilenos. EURE 3 (7): 103–112. Sassen, Saskia. 1999. Guests and Aliens. Edición: New Edition. New  York, NY: The New Press. Schiappacasse, Paulina. 2008. Segregación Residencial y Nichos Étnicos de Los Inmigrantes Internacionales En El Área Metropolitana de Santiago. Revista de Geografía Norte Grande 39 (May): 21–38.

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Sheehan, Megan. 2018. Migrant Residents in Search of Residences: Locating Structural Violence at the Interstices of Bureaucracies. Conflict and Society 4 (1): 151–166. Stefoni, Carolina. 2013. Comprensión de La Discriminación Desde La Construcción de La Diferencia. In Migraciones: Conferencia Internacional Sobre Migraciones y Derechos Humanos: Estándares y Prácticas, 55–60. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Aún Creemos en los Sueños. ———. 2016. A la espera de un trabajo. Cuando la precariedad laboral determina las formas de habitar el espacio público. In Debates contemporáneos sobre migración internacional: una mirada desde América Latina, ed. Alejandro Canales, 211–234. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara. Stefoni, Carolina, and Rosario Fernández. 2011. Mujeres Inmigrantes En El Trabajo Doméstico: Entre El Servilismo y Los Derechos. In Mujeres Inmigrantes En Chile: ¿Mano de Obra o Trabajadoras Con Derechos? ed. Carolina Stefoni, 43–72. Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Stefoni, Carolina, and Fernanda Stang. 2017. La construcción del campo de estudio de las migraciones en Chile: notas de un ejercicio reflexivo y autocrítico. Íconos—Revista de Ciencias Sociales 58 (May): 109–129. Taylor, Charles. 1992. Politics of Recognition. In Multiculturalism and ‘The Politics of Recognition’, ed. Amy Gutmann, 25–73. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Tijoux, María Emilia. 2013. Niños(as) Marcados Por La Inmigración Peruana: Estigma, Sufrimientos, Resistencias. Convergencia 20 (61): 83–104. Vaccotti, Luciana. 2017. Migraciones e informalidad urbana. Dinámicas contemporáneas de la exclusión y la inclusión en Buenos Aires. EURE 43 (129): 49–70. Walzer, Michael. 1989. Citizenship. In Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, ed. Terence Ball, James Farr, and Russell L.  Hanson, 211–219. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wirth, Louis. 1982. The Ghetto. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Young, Iris Marion. 1989. Polity and Group Difference: A Critique of the Ideal of Universal Citizenship. Ethics 99 (2): 250–274.

CHAPTER 3

Spaces of Social Reproduction and Emergent Change in Small Town America Faranak Miraftab

Beardstown is a small former sundown town in central Illinois. Being home to a large meat-packing plant, the town has since the 1990s undergone considerable demographic changes with the influx of migrant workers mostly from Mexico and West Africa. The meat-packing plant had been run by a different company and closed in the late 1980s after a long struggle between unions and management. The plant was soon bought by another company and reopened with considerably lower entry-level wages (Miraftab 2016, 6). As local workers were unwilling to accept such drastically lower wages and looked for employment opportunities elsewhere, the company turned to hiring minorities and immigrants, going as far as sending recruiters to US towns close to the Mexican border that were known for high numbers of unemployed and Latino populations Parts of this chapter have previously been published in Miraftab (2016).

F. Miraftab (*) Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Illinois at Urbana-­ Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_3

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(ibid., 7). Soon the company expanded its recruitment strategy beyond Spanish-­speaking Central Americans and Mexicans to French-speaking West Africans, many among them from Togo who were new arrivals to the United States through a Diversity Visa and work permit looking for jobs that did not require English language knowledge. While the company found rental housing in town for workers it recruited for the Beardstown plant, it made no effort to provide social services to this displaced workforce. Unprepared for its new residents, the town had little to offer to the newcomers besides their factory jobs. No welcome mat was rolled out and no adjustments were made for the new arrivals. Instead, they were initially received with resentment by long-term white residents some of whom had previously held the higher paying jobs in the meat plant before it had closed under the earlier company. The new workers had to make do with what they found. Initially many kept a low profile and remained largely invisible. Social life unfolded in their homes and behind closed doors. In the absence of much recognition and resources, it was up to the displaced population to create moments and spaces of sociality, belonging, and eventually civic recognition and participation by and for themselves. The recruitment of a displaced workforce for dangerous, difficult, and dirty jobs in the meat-packing industry rapidly shifted the social dynamics in Beardstown from an almost all-white and native-born population to a diverse, multiracial, and multilingual community. I call this process in-­ placement and place-making by populations that are displaced to new locations that were not necessarily by choice, that is places like Beardstown. Considering the dispossession that had preceded the recruitment of this new labor force to the plant, as I discuss in length elsewhere (2016), the terms immigration and immigrants risk a misrepresentation of the situation, for these terms historically suggest a choice to move and hence obscure the brutality of economic and political policies that have forced the newly recruited labor force to relocate to places like Beardstown in search of livelihood. In this chapter, when I use the term immigrant in reference to the recruited Mexican and West African workers it is not to conflate the experience of displacement and immigration, but as a short cut. In this chapter I show how diverse and displaced populations negotiate their position and participation in Beardstown. I focus on place-making and related dynamics of change as they unfold in spaces workers and their families use for social reproduction and recreation like public spaces, parks and sports fields, residential neighborhoods, and home-based childcare centers. My central focus is on emergent spaces such as soccer fields and

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claims to visibility via celebrations in public spaces where displaced workers and their families claim their right to the town and seed their participation as permanent town residents. In Beardstown, playing soccer and creating soccer fields neatly illustrate the spatial struggles of newly arrived workers and their families as they planted seeds of change and helped to strengthen group dynamics. Public soccer fields and public celebrations helped to increase immigrant groups’ visibility and initiated the first steps and moments of the newcomers’ participation in local society and beyond. As one of my interlocutors noted, immigrants by way of a fierce struggle, were able to claim public space to play their beloved game of soccer and they were able to move their cultural celebrations from basements and enclosed churches to the outdoor public spaces and streetscapes in this former sundown town. Becoming visible and claiming participation and belonging were achievements and important milestones for the new residents that facilitated a process of change by voicing the claim: “we are here!”

Arriving and Place-Making in a Small Town The arrival of new workers in Beardstown was a non-event in a sense that they arrived without much of a welcome or any accommodation being made for their presence and well-being beyond their factory jobs. But despite some popular resentment, enormous constraints, and limitations with regard to opportunities, and the absence of formal structures for intercultural dialogue and integration, Mexican and West African workers and their families eventually achieved a certain inclusion in public institutions and public spaces and made a home in Beardstown. They worked to create spaces of inclusion in the absence of formal offers and institutions. They carefully worked at their emergent moments and spaces of participation and did not use confrontational politics or large-scale protests. Instead, diverse newcomers and some local allies slowly built sites of intercultural and interracial interaction beyond the workplace and asserted their right to visible and active presence in Beardstown. They did not stage metropolitan-style large-scale marches or employed formal processes of so-called community development planning and citizen participation, but used their unassuming practices and everyday undertakings, the kind of non-collective, non-confrontational practices that Asef Bayat (2010) describes as the “quiet encroachment of the ordinary.”

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The story of “immigrants’ inclusion” in Beardstown does not follow the stereotypical “melting pot” model; they have moved beyond this model. For example, they pushed the local school system beyond ESL or programs in where Spanish-speaking children have to transition to English-­ only classrooms. In Beardstown, English-speaking children, and indeed increasingly French-speaking children, all have to learn another language. It is a mode of inclusion where two linguistic groups take a step to meet each other. In sports, most Beardstown immigrants have not sought inclusion of their children in popular American sports such as baseball or football. At schools and in parks, the priority for the emerging community has been to make space in the public realm for the sport of their choice: soccer. When analyzing the activities of displaced communities and here especially place-making activities is it important to seek out the smallest efforts and places; the spaces often overlooked or ignored by outside observers. If one is “looking from above,” searching for large-scale formal organization, be it of planning or politics, and collective action within or outside formal structures, one is bound to see Beardstown as a place where immigrants seem passive or uninvolved. However, “looking from below,” and paying attention to many small and smallest spaces where immigrants act and seed change, a very different image of their immersion and participation in this town emerges. The immigrants’ activities and spaces seed long-­ term change in the community and very importantly also mediate constructive relationships among diverse local constituencies. Such new relationships that develop in communities among diverse groups are not only shaped by race, ethnicity, or immigration status, but are also influenced by the specificities of mediating institutions and sites through which they interact (Lamphere 1992, 2). In Beardstown, mediation sites outside the plant and beyond formal politics have offered important opportunities for interaction and emerging interracial, intercultural dynamics, opportunities that remain invisible if observers solely focus on the realm of production or formal political processes and structures. Analyzing only the factory or formal politics as mediating sites for processes of localization and participation among a diverse workforce, the logic of corporations dominates what we detect, namely, immigrant workers who are pitted against each other at the plant and governed outside the plant by formal institutions that remain all-white and unaffected by the demographic shifts in a town ruled and governed by the company’s interest. Isolated and dependent on a single employer, the new arrivals are bound to be seemingly passive victims of global capitalism, trapped in an inhospitable town

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in “the middle of nowhere.” However, shifting the vantage point and considering emerging spaces, moments and interactions that mediate relationships and dynamics of belonging beyond the workplace and formal political structures and “official” community participation, to the realm of social reproduction that is places like schools, homes, parks, libraries, and childcare centers, one clearly sees a broad range of transformative moments, spaces, encounters, possibilities, and relationships. Looking from below and at the micro-level of people’s everyday practices, one recognizes intense everyday negotiations among people who share a location. Ash Amin (2004, 39) calls such local level relational politics the “politics of propinquity,” a “politics of negotiating the immanent effects of geographical juxtaposition between physical spaces, overlapping communities, contrasting cultural practices.” Relational politics of place pays attention to physical space and the role it plays in negotiation of issues thrown up by living with difference on the same proximate turf, and “sharing a common territorial space” (ibid., 39). The new multilingual and multiracial labor force, recruited outside the local area and region to the meat-packing plant, arrived in a town without public and social service agencies experienced in dealing with the needs of diverse groups. Moreover, existing formal institutions such as the town council, the park district, or the School District Boards never opened up to include the diverse new residents. To renegotiate their role and position in town and to assert their right to be visible and actively involved in this former sundown town, immigrants and their local US-born allies took advantage of mediating sites outside formal structures, within the realm of social reproduction. They took advantage of absences and constraints and opened up spaces within the existing institutional cracks. For example, in the absence of rental housing complexes to receive immigrants, ordinary residential neighborhoods became an alternative mediating site in the emerging interactions of diverse groups. Through interracial rentals of refurbished housing units, residential integration unfolded. Similarly, in the absence of private, public, or nonprofit affordable childcare services or a company daycare at the plant, immigrant women established informal home childcare and made them sites that mediated new and emerging relationships between immigrant groups.

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Claiming Public Space: Soccer Playing soccer has been a central venue for the diverse new workers in Beardstown. On many Sunday afternoons, visitors arriving in Beardstown on Highway 125 (which once had signs of racial hatred on the display) notice an unusual social landscape for a small Midwestern town. Just before entering town (on good weather days), large soccer fields are busy with racially and linguistically diverse players in colorful uniforms, Latino, African, and white American players run in these fields. One white resident humorously related, “I heard on radio ‘soccer is commie’ and we’ll never have it in Illinois. One day I was driving home, and I saw youth playing soccer [at the outdoor fields]. I said ‘Holy cow! We must have gone commie!’” This highly visible public presence of immigrant workers and their families is the result of a spatial struggle based on a careful and well-tended seeding process years ago. The newcomers pushed their visibility and rights to the town one soccer match at a time over a longer period of time. Founders and players of the current soccer league and its eleven multiracial teams told me in interviews about their initial uphill battle to claim public spaces for their soccer passion. Roberto,1 one of the league’s founders explained that “in 1995 immigrants who were in Beardstown and playing soccer were almost all Spanish-speaking. At the time there were twenty-five of us from Mexico who played soccer. We would play somewhere out of sight,” usually in private spaces like a player’s backyards. As much as they tried to be invisible, “the police cars drive back and forth on the street to check on us, … as if we were up to no good.” For the next few years, the Spanish-speaking workers played on abandoned lots in town or behind the local school. These were, however, inadequate fields that were often covered with broken glass and trash. One day the soccer players were kicked out of the field behind the school because of construction and they moved their matches to the fields of the park district, which at the time hosted only baseball games. The resulting regular presence of the passionate soccer players and their families following the match on the benches and overall using the public park facilities sparked considerable controversy. White locals objected to soccer matches in the park and the players were subsequently banned from the district’s sports fields. One player remembered: “we had to leave. For two years we had nowhere to go. We used to drive up to Iowa, two and a half hours away, or to Jacksonville [half an hour away] to play soccer.” Driving to other towns in

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the regions to play soccer caused anxieties for the Mexican players, who were keenly aware of racism in the region. “My dad was worried about me driving around outside town. He said a lot of KKK lives around here. I said, ‘No, they can’t do anything to us, we are many.’” A Mexican “old timer” in Beardstown recounted how they used to carpool and move in groups as they traveled in the region. “But we did not give up,” Roberto explained, “we kept talking to the district. And kept playing and making our teams.” In 2003, after years of struggle and endless efforts of the league presidents negotiating with the park district officials, the soccer fans finally gained the soccer fields they still use today. In the end, the park district acquired land for soccer fields which gave the Latino players a visible and legitimate public presence. “Once we had the land, we worked on making it a functional soccer field. Each player paid five dollars per year, and with that we funded the construction of the wooden shed and benches at the field … Cargill [meat-packing company] donated trees; the league put in the labor to plant those. The district cares for the grass and mows the field; we the league members clean the fields and pick up trash.” The first soccer team in Beardstown was named Tejaro. Other teams were similarly named after players’ hometowns like Morelia, Toluca, or Puebla. The make-up of teams changed over the years and now teams no longer reflect their original hometown association. “Each team,” explained Roberto, “has more or less three or four African players and perhaps one or two white American players … We get along quite well.”2 On a sunny Sunday in April 2008, I interviewed Diego and Jorge at an all-day soccer tournament to which Roberto had invited me. I met Diego and Jorge, who were both from Guanajuato and worked at Cargill, at the sidelines of a match. Both had lived in the United States for 20 years. Diego was married to a white American woman, who was his third wife, for five years. The couple has two children, and they live in Beardstown. Diego spoke in broken English. Jorge was also an old timer who has lived in Beardstown since 1994. We spoke in English and Spanish. “Things have changed,” Jorge said. “Nos dan mas spacio ahora” [they give us more space now]. When I probed further, he said, “For example, before if we went to the store, they look at us like what a strange thing, but now they don’t care anymore. Poco a poco han mejorado [Little by little things have improved].” “The reality is,” he said, “este pueblo levanto por los Latinos” [this town revitalized because of Latinos]. When I asked about relations

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between African and Latino players, Diego noted, “Entre nosotros no hay racismo” [there is no racism among us], Jorge added. Fútbol nos unido [soccer united us] because Africans tell us ‘desde chiquito they played sin zapatos and nosotros egual’ [since they were little they played soccer without shoes and same with us]—we are like each other. We like football and play, and through football we have become more friends. They invite us to their parties, they rent a hall in Rushville [nearby town] for party and invite us; and we invite them to ours. We speak a little of English and they too. It is no problem.

On my way to the soccer field on this Sunday, I passed the park where baseball leagues play and where the Mexicans briefly played soccer before there were chased away. While on the same afternoon the soccer field was busy with about sixty people—picnicking, cheering families, players getting ready, volunteers selling tacos at a concession stand, there were less than a dozen people on the baseball fields or tennis courts. The creation of soccer teams and the acquisition of a soccer field are significant achievements in the immigrants’ quest for visibility and participation in the town. Seeding spaces and rooting themselves in these spaces illustrates the newcomers’ claims to rights and belonging the Beardstown. Today’s highly visible public soccer fields are new inclusive spaces of interracial, intercultural interaction among Francophone West Africans and the Latin American families and increasing numbers of English-speaking white residents who are joining the teams. The soccer fields no longer are the only places of belonging for those not born in the US and not speaking English but illustrate the emergence of a new more inclusive and consciously multi-ethnic town. One young worker from Togo explained to me how he had made friends among his Mexican colleagues by way of soccer: “The first day I was shy like, you know, but now it is fine.” He added that in Beardstown, one does not have time to do much beyond work. Soccer, however, allowed him to socialize with others. Some of his soccer teammates worked in the same line with him at the meat plant. He liked Mexicans, but that they did not socialize outside work: “There is no other thing that links us apart from the soccer.”

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Claiming Public Space: Celebrations In addition to soccer, displaced workers have also seeded their claims to belonging and rights to the town by way of public celebrations. Mexicans have held celebrations for the Mexican Independence Day in Beardstown since 1998 and Africans have annually celebrated Africa Day in Rushville since 2008.3 These events are public, highly visible, and boldly state the immigrants’ claims to rights in the towns and their public spaces. The very first Africa Day was celebrated indoors, but subsequent festivities and other celebrations have been held in the public park, starting with a soccer match among Africans, followed by West and Central African music, dance, and food. The public festivities for the Mexican Independence Day, while resented by some white locals, have become larger every year with a growing participation of diverse local residents. I attended the celebration in 2006 which included a twenty-one-float parade through town ending on to the main square, where they were greeted by live Mexican music in the gazebo. Mexican food stalls surrounded the square. Twenty years earlier in 1996, the very same square had been the site of a six-foot-tall burning cross and a Ku Klux Klan parade. A leader of Amigos Unidos, the group that annually organizes the Mexican Independence Day and Cinco de Mayo celebrations, explained that these celebrations were not only recreational events. They are communal events that some adults and children work for and reflect about all year and spend much energy to make them meaningful and successful. They emphasized that the event symbolized more than one day a year of lavish festivities. They represent the immigrants’ pride in their cultural identity, which they publicly display. He explained: Here is the problem: … what are Mexicans known for [in the eyes of average white Americans]? They are known as people that are drunken, uneducated, and illegal … Mexicans trabajan de todo, y comen de todo [do any kind of work and eat any kind of food]: that is the Mexican identity here. And that is what Mexicans want to do with the celebration of cultural identity in this town … [to demonstrate] that they are workers, who are marginalized by everyone and everywhere, they are workers at the bottom of the bottom. But they take pride in their cultural heritage.

The celebrations of Mexican Independence Day and Africa Day are meaningful beyond the groups that stage them. This might not be very significant elsewhere, but in the public spaces of this former sundown town, the

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proud and visible presence of the non-English-speaking individuals of color in the square, streets, sports fields, churches, schools, and libraries constitutes vast social and political symbols and achievements. Being visible in very different spaces in the town, from residential streets to classrooms, grocery stores and the barbeque stands in the park, immigrants have become visible. They claim and occupy local spaces.

Building Relationships: Childcare and Beyond While soccer has provided a space for interracial and intercultural relations among men, childcare has served a similar role for women. Mexicans, because of their distinct local and translocal resources and immigration history, are more likely to have their extended families with them than the African displaced workers. Latinos are also more likely to be able to bring in a family member from elsewhere in the United States or from across the border to help with childcare. Often within a larger extended family, there is one young or old woman who stays home to provide childcare for other family members, almost all of whom work at the meat-packing plant. West African newcomers have a different history of immigration and different translocal resources and transnational family structures, such that they seldom have their extended families with them. But those West Africans who do have children converge with Mexicans around childcare, as they find the Mexicans’ expression of affection and care toward children more akin to Africans’. “They are like us,” was how a West African mother put it when speaking about her Mexican caregiver. Another West African interviewee stated, “I go to their house every day to pick up and drop off my child. We talk, I have learned a few words of Spanish, they sometimes invite us to their parties. We are too busy but one time we went. It was fun …. In the beginning I used to think differently about them.” On several occasions, I was surprised by Spanish words and expressions coming from French-speaking Africans. During an International Day celebration at Gard Elementary School in Beardstown, I was sitting next to one of the first West Africans to arrive in Beardstown, a Senegalese woman who worked at the plant and was the mother of a set of twins. Since I am a mother of twins myself, we shared notes, having what is called “twin mothers’ chats.” As a young Latina girl passed by, the Senegalese woman said to her, “Oye, y tu mama? Donde esta?” [Hey and your mom? Where is she?]. Then, she and the girl continued speaking in Spanish about what was going on with her mother and at her school. Once their conversation

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was over, I asked my Senegalese acquaintance whether she had had a Spanish education back home. She shrugged and said no. Her twin children were raised by the girl’s Mexican family, and so over the years she had picked up the Spanish from daily contact. It seemed like she had picked up more than language but also a rapport with the family. This was not an exception. I heard similar stories from other workers. The growing intercultural interaction and understanding seems to be everywhere: a French-­ speaking West African yells from the back of the room at a community event “ándale pues” (Mexican Spanish slang for “come on now”); a Mexican student in an ESL class makes a pact with a fellow French-­ speaking student to teach others in the class one French word a day. Shared childcare has over the years created new links and networks within the diverse displaced community. Not surprisingly, a growing number of interracial romances have also been blossoming in Beardstown. My interview with a resident in her nineties revealed broader effects of interracial intimacies. She had a Latino neighbor on one side and an African on the other side. While she did not leave home much, she mentioned, “They are nice people, very nice people, very helpful … If they see me carrying something they offer help. They always say hello.” But these were infrequent interactions. What was most puzzling for her was how her feelings about blacks had changed since her granddaughter started dating a young black man. She asked me to follow her to her kitchen so she could show me a picture of the couple she had posted with a magnet on her refrigerator. With her finger crooked and deformed by arthritis, she dislodged the picture and offered it to me to take a good look. It was of a nice smiling couple embracing, one dark and one blond. The girl was in the front and the boy in the back with his arms wrapped around her. They both had big smiles. The grandmother said, “Now that my granddaughter has a black boyfriend … I get a funny feeling, some kind of a connection with the black people … It’s weird I think, it’s kind of scary. Perhaps it is blood, because she is with him so I feel different. It’s a feeling I can’t explain.” Opportunities for interaction and developing relationships among residents in spaces outside the workplace open possibilities to overcome the competitive and zero-sum relationships that have dominated in the realm of production. As neighbors, tenants, childcare providers, teammates, lovers, and parents, individuals and groups have opportunities to interact and experience dynamics different from those at the plant.

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Place Matters The story of Beardstown illustrates the important role of small spaces in the transnational and social relationships that emerge in communities of destination. The histories, resources, cultural preference, and social networks of local actors situated within a specific place constituted by social and spatial relationships make a difference in the experience of interethnic dynamics, that is, of transnational immigrants vis-à-vis US-born people of European descent and among immigrant groups alike. In Beardstown, it is through marginalized spaces that immigrant groups negotiated their relationships and larger processes of localization in the realm of social reproduction. The specificities of spatial proximity matter in emergent spaces and relational politics in a small town and these relational politics differ from those that unfold in larger metropolitan areas. Examining interactions among and between immigrants and native-born residents outside plant in the realm of social reproduction at schools, neighborhoods, parks, daycares, or sport fields, it becomes apparent how immigrants articulate their role and belonging in their new hometown. Looking beyond the workplace and focusing on the everyday practices of immigrants and their families, the vitality of their communities and their creative place-making are evident. In the factory, workers might be set against each other, but in the town, they live side by side, their children go to the same school, their little ones are cared for by the same providers, and they play on the same soccer teams. They create emerging solidarities and forge new cultural understandings. They renegotiate ethno-racial divisions and tensions imposed by local racism and global capitalism. They create moments and spaces that outline a different local future and equal visibility and participation for all. In this chapter I showed how diverse immigrants seeded their claims to belonging and rights to place in Beardstown in small marginal spaces. It took the immigrants years of playing soccer in different spaces in Beardstown and beyond, before they were finally granted real and “official” fields. They fought hard and persisted and their initial claim to an uneven and littered field eventually translated into some recognition and access to public fields. Similarly, the immigrants held their first national celebrations in indoor spaces. With time, they left these invisible indoor spaces and moved their festivities to public streets and even the central town square. It took years before emergent spaces turned into permanent and recognized spaces. Once such spaces were in place and celebrations

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out in public, the immigrants had visibly arrived in the middle of Beardstown. This does, however, not mean that one would naively claim that they had become equal citizens. It only means that they are very slowly moving in this direction. It is important to understand that in such struggles for rights and belonging, the local context matters. The town is not only the site of enactment of those social dynamics; it also forms them. The spatial juxtaposition of difference and the physical proximity of concrete social details are vital to the emergent cultural, economic, and political dynamics among diverse groups in a particular place. These processes unfold differently in Beardstown than, for example, in Chicago where immigrants might be better able to build and sustain distinct ethnic institutions and cultures, which, in turn, might minimize interethnic relations. In contrast to metropolitan areas, the possibility for anonymity in a company town like Beardstown is limited. Combined with dependence on a single employer, the town’s size imposes an enormous constraint on the kind of political or collective action that can emerge. Here, no collective action can take place outside the watchful eyes of the corporation. The small town characteristics of Beardstown also create different opportunities. Ownership of homes and rental properties, for example, is more affordable there for immigrants. Unlike metropolitan areas with racially and ethnically segregated neighborhoods that channel new arrivals to certain areas based on their ethnic and racialized affiliation, previously homogenous towns like Beardstown, that had “zoned out” all non-whites, had no internal zoning regulations. What also contributes to the emergent dynamics of Beardstown are its material characteristics, taking materiality to mean “the physical world that surrounds us: nature, human-made objects, our bodies, and even more broadly, the way space is organized around us, and the concrete practices and technologies we employ in our everyday life” (Gille 2014, 157). Size is only one aspect of the material characteristics of a place. A global sense of place, as Doreen Massey (1991) writes, is “the accumulated history of a place, with that history itself imagined as the product of layer upon layer of different sets of linkages, both local and to the wider world” (29). In Beardstown, a small industrial and affordable blue-collar town, all this matters, along with the composition of diverse incoming groups. This is not to argue that Beardstown is unique, but to highlight that the social and spatial character of the place, what I call the materiality of the place, matters. Beardstown allowed for the emergence of specific spaces of cooperation and for the use of concrete public spaces for

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immigrant celebrations. Rooted in concrete circumstances, the localization or in-placement of displaced workers and their families unfolded in ways that are specific to this small town and reflect both characteristics of the town and those of its new residents. While referring to the performative politics of the “Occupy” movements, Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou (2013) highlight the political charge of plural presences in public spaces in ways that resonate with public performances of identity celebrations in the public spaces of Beardstown. They write about the assemblage of bodies in public space and certain performative forces that result from it. Such collective presence, they argue, does not need to be highly organized or a collective action with a single message. “The ‘we are here’ that translates that collective bodily presence might be re-read as ‘we are still here,’ meaning: ‘we have not yet been disposed of.’ We have not slipped quietly into shadows of public life” (196). By their collective assembling of bodies and by asserting their plural presences, Latinos and West Africans do more than engage in a cultural celebration; they make a profound political statement. Many aspects of social and spatial relationships that shape transnational processes in Beardstown are different from those documented for large cities. This company town that is the local site of intense global capital accumulation is also a locus of alternative spatial formations and transnational processes that can facilitate distinct social dynamics and politics. We can recognize the means by which local actors achieve a dignified life if we pay attention to the unassuming forms of their humanity and their everyday practices in a range of mediating spaces, including those in the realm of social reproduction. Measured against metropolitan areas or collective actions that occur in realms of production, the emerging transnational small town spaces may look like spaces of despair for victimized newcomers. But by studying nonmetropolitan areas and towns in their own right, we can register how immigrants and their local allies renegotiate relationships that global capital imposes on them, and we can see the humanity and agency of people making places and a new home. Claiming spaces, growing roots, and seeding spaces of participation and belonging are of central importance in the in-placement of displaced groups in their new homes. Without own spaces and visibility, they cannot articulate their quests of belonging and claims to equal participation. The Beardstown soccer fields tell a complex story of immigrants’ struggles, multi-ethnic relationships, and cooperation. They symbolize the remaking of a town’s ethnic and cultural landscape and illustrate the permanent

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nature and new roots of the processes of in-placement and place-making by families displaced across the world to a small Midwestern town.

Notes 1. All personal names are pseudonyms. 2. In 2012 Beardstown High School started a soccer team, which is quite strong and has made soccer more popular among white youth. According to the team’s coach, the players’ diversity has given the team advantage over other schools because even though all players know English, “when the boys speak Spanish or French, the other team might not know what we’re talking about” (Kane 2014). 3. Africa Day has been celebrated in Rushville because most of the area’s Africans used to live there when these celebrations were initiated. In addition, Rushville, despite its sundown town history, at the time had a supportive mayor who was at the forefront of promoting integration and appreciation of the cultural diversity West Africans brought to town.

References Amin, Ash. 2004. Regions Unbound: Towards a New Politics of Place. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 86 (1): 33–44. Bayat, Asef. 2010. Life as Politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Butler, Judith, and Athena Athanasiou. 2013. Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. Malden: Polity Press. Gille, Zsuzsa. 2014. Materiality: Transnational Materiality. In Framing the Global, ed. Hillary Kahn, 157–181. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kane, Dave. 2014. Diverse Beardstown Soccer Team Pulls Together to Start Season 4-1. State Journal-Register (Springfield IL), 9 September. http://www. sj-­r.com/article/20140909?Sports/140909473#ixzz3MBIRyCrX. Accessed December 2014. Lamphere, Louise. 1992. Structuring Diversity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Massey, Doreen. 1991. A Global Sense of Place. Marxism Today 38: 24–29. Miraftab, Faranak. 2016. Global Heartland: Displaced Labor, Transnational Lives and Local Placemaking. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

CHAPTER 4

Practice, Perception, and the Plaza: Situating Migration in Santiago, Chile Megan Sheehan

I first heard the Plaza de Armas discussed in the context of migration in 2008. At the time, I was conducting research in Arica, a town located at Chile’s northern extremity. In my work at this border, both migrants and Chileans mentioned an association between migration and Santiago’s Plaza de Armas. In one conversation, a Peruvian woman, Carmen,1 recounted discrimination that she had recently experienced. She shared, “One time, I heard some people from Santiago [say], ‘These fucking Peruvians occupying the plaza; they come only to take our work and nothing else.’” When I asked Carmen whether the passers-by had possibly been referring to the cement curb and hard-packed dirt environs of Arica’s International Bus Terminal where she had been sitting when she heard this comment, she said no. She sighed wistfully and assured me that their discussion had been about Santiago’s beautiful plaza. While Carmen aspired to go to Santiago, she had never been south of Arica, a city located more than 2000  kilometers from Santiago’s Plaza de Armas. Carmen’s

M. Sheehan (*) Sociology Department, College of St Benedict/St John’s University, Collegeville, MN, USA e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_4

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experience and reflection, however, suggests that even in a remote corner of Chile, spatial associations tied to one discrete site circulate widely, taking on additional meaning through their circulation. Likewise, when my Chilean friends in Arica learned that I was interested in understanding the new migratory flow, they encouraged me to spend time in the Plaza de Armas before returning to the United States. They insisted that if I wanted to really understand migration, I should start at the plaza. In these conversations, both migrants and Chileans positioned the plaza as a spatial origin for the frictions prompted by new migratory flows and a focal point through which to analyze the role of migration in Chilean society. The articulation of migration with one tangible site and the many subsequent discussions that I have had about the plaza illustrate the way that small, urban spaces take on meaning and how relevant these spatial associations are for understanding broader social, political, and cultural norms. In this chapter, I draw on 30 months of ethnographic fieldwork2 to explore a discrete, emergent space—Santiago’s Plaza de Armas. This bustling public space fills one central city block. The historic heart of Santiago, this plaza has been made and remade over the centuries since its colonial establishment. Here, I explore how this bounded site has taken on expansive meaning in the debates over migration since the early 2000s (Poo 2008). While the initial seeds of change tying migration to this tangible place predate my fieldwork at the site, “public space is always in some sense, in a state of emergence, never complete and always contested” (Watson 2006, 7). This continual recrafting of urban sites also plays a pivotal role in the broader urban sphere. The notion of the city as a patchwork of sites that are creatively constructed as people navigate their daily needs and routines illustrates cityness, or “the city as a thing in the making” in which “practices of inhabiting the city are so diverse and change so quickly that they cannot easily be channeled into clearly defined uses of space and resources or patterns of social interchange” (Simone 2010, 3). Building on this fluid and textured notion of the city, the analysis of how small, discrete spaces are invested with new meaning—particularly in light of new users—takes up the call to avoid categorical assumptions of the city in favor of recognizing the complexities of local contexts and diverse urban residents (Pardo and Prato 2018). As Chileans, migrants, and community groups use the Plaza de Armas, they participate in the continual remaking of this important public space. The many ways that the site is currently used and how these situated practices are understood combine to shape perceptions of the plaza as a space

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of migration. Moreover, the ways in which this emergent space is discursively positioned and contested by Chileans seeds further urban shifts and impacts the manner in which the plaza is engaged by both Chileans and migrants. In this chapter, I examine how discourses about the plaza circulate, crafting spatial associations (c.f. Caldeira 2000; Briggs 2007). Specifically, I analyze the way in which discussions of and tropes connected to the Plaza de Armas are shared and thus, reproduced. As migrant use of the plaza is recognized, joked about, and debated, a spatial association is assembled by the cumulative effect of these disparate discourses. I argue that discourse and the circulation of spatial tropes play a central role in the remaking of emergent spaces. These debates over spatial associations highlight the multivocality of small urban sites—even as new beginnings challenge the claims of urban authenticity (Zukin 2010), emergent spaces may continue to hold divergent meanings and importance for different actors. As the Plaza de Armas is transformed into a space of migration, what are the implications of this emergent space and its contested associations?

Emergent Space, Urban Change, and Discourse There are numerous ways of understanding space and the meanings with which spaces are invested. Here, I draw from Lefebvre’s foundational work on the production of space (1991) in which he analyzes space as layered—from the physical sites and social practices to the conceptual understandings embodied in maps and urban planning to the representational forms that translate sites, objects, and practices for symbolic use (1991, 39–41). Most significant for this discussion of the plaza is Lefebvre’s elaboration of representational space, namely, the ideas, imaginations, and visions of spaces (1991). As Lefebvre notes, “space is never empty: it always embodies a meaning” (1991, 154) and the meanings with which space is invested exist in a dialogical relationship with practices and the social relationships that play out at sites such as the plaza. Low’s work on “spatializing culture” adds further nuance, elaborating “a multidimensional framework that includes social production, social construction, embodied, discursive, emotive, and affective, as well as translocal approaches to space and place” (2017, 6, c.f. 2000). This detail and complexity enable inquiry into the processes and actors involved in spatializing culture. In the case of the plaza, I ask, how are socially significant

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meanings articulated as framing national difference, stereotypes of migrants, and aspirations for the city? Urban sites are continually remade, and emergent spaces epitomize this fluidity and continual transformation. Alterations, redesigns, landscaping, and repairs to the physical reality of the plaza often frame “new beginnings,” a concept Zukin (2010) employs to emphasize the initial shift in the social practices and perceptual understandings of particular urban places. Detailing case studies of transformations rooted in small sites like neighborhoods, markets, and public squares, Zukin juxtaposes examples of new beginnings with claims of authenticity vested in historical narratives of origins (2010). In light of accelerating socio-material shifts remaking small urban spaces within New  York City—often in a gentrifying fashion, Zukin writes, “whether it’s real or not, then, authenticity becomes a tool of power” (2010, 3). While authenticity might be a tool of power and one often linked to late capitalist urban development, individual actors can also prompt significant urban change. In his work on urban change in the Middle East, Bayat argues that the “collective actions of noncollective actors” can power urban transformations (2010, 15). As individuals go about their everyday routines to meet their needs, the cumulative impact of similar efforts can lead to the “quiet encroachment of the ordinary” (Bayat 2010, 15). The impact of this encroachment juxtaposes state and municipal governance which often mediate how diverse actors engage with critical sites by establishing, sanctioning, and policing the use of urban sites. However, these acts of oversight can also foster uneven and uneasy social relations (Pardo 2017, 2020). For example, in work on integration versus exclusion in the Neapolitan labor market, Pardo details how misgovernance prompts distrust of institutions (2017) and undermines traditional patterns of tolerance and hospitality (Pardo 2020). In the absence of effective urban governance, the uncoordinated efforts of individuals trying to meet daily needs becomes a driving force in crafting urban sites. In this way, the cumulative use of small public spaces like Santiago’s Plaza de Armas can render significant urban transformations, impacting how these sites are understood, discussed, and take on meaning. Spatial meaning often takes shape through discourse. Quite simply, words do work—both encouraging actions and encoding meaning. Spatial associations travel widely and discourses can function as “communicable cartographies,” similar to the ways in which maps encode locations (Briggs 2007). In his work on the way narratives and violence are connected, Briggs notes that “discourse projects cartographies of its own production,

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circulation, and reception … I add the sense of infectiousness—the ability of communicative ideologies to find audiences and locate them socially and politically” (Briggs 2007, 332). As these narratives circulate through individual tellings, media portrayals, and legal proceedings, a dominant cartography is created by the circulating narratives—an “infectious iterability” (Briggs 2007, 334) centripetally outlines the primary narrative. Similarly, in her work on the talk of crime in Sao Paolo, Caldeira argues that repeated “everyday conversations, commentaries, discussions, narratives, and jokes—is contagious … [and] also fragmentary and repetitive” (2000, 19). It is in such everyday exchanges that opinions are formed and perceptions are shaped such that particular narratives as well as broader discourses are both “expressive and productive” (2000, 19). In this manner, narratives “not only produce certain types of interpretations and explanations (usually simplistic and stereotypical); they also organize the urban landscape and public space, shaping the scenario for social interactions which acquire new meanings in a city becoming progressively walled” (2000, 19). Spatial discourses have the power to symbolically reorder society, thus reproducing the emotions, meanings, and feelings that are expressed in them. In the following section, I discuss the physical space and myriad everyday uses of the plaza, setting the stage to then examine how circulating discourses influence and remake this emergent space of migration through the lens of Chilean (mis)perception.

The Plaza de Armas as an Emergent Space of Migration As in other Latin American nations, Chile’s oldest plaza is a central site of city life—linked to the national project, seen as a quintessential urban public space, and continually reiterated through representational work carried out through public gatherings, monuments, and events. Founded in 1541, the city of Santiago was designed around the plaza (de Ramón 2007; Gutiérrez 2012), and this site was originally established as the symbolic as well as geographic center of Chile, marking kilometer zero, the point from which mileage in Chile was measured (Barros 2014; Gutiérrez 2012). Through its reiterations, Santiago’s Plaza de Armas has been produced as a historical and national site, rich in social memory. In the plaza there are monuments remembering the city’s founder, Pedro de Valdivia; the city’s namesake, Saint James; Latin America’s Independence; three

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Chilean cardinals; and Chile’s indigenous peoples. Along one promenade, engraved plaques line the ground, featuring historic maps of Santiago, commemorating the construction of the Cathedral, and honoring Pope John Paul II’s visit to Chile. These monuments serve as physical reminders of Santiago’s founding and mark the space as an important historical and national site, rich in social memory. Despite the growth of the city and population movement toward the urban peripheries (Dammert 2004), the central plaza remains a bustling space. On a daily basis, the mixture of people regularly includes individuals entering and exiting the subway stations, business people dressed in suits, children being pushed in strollers and toddlers chasing pigeons, older men trying to pick up younger women, homeless individuals talking among themselves, mounted police observing the action and sometimes intervening, evangelical preachers proclaiming via a speaker system, artists selling their work in established stalls, seniors playing chess, comedians performing on the steps of the cathedral to densely packed circles of onlookers, shoppers loaded down with bags, tourists snapping photographs, and migrants sitting on the many benches. Like any vibrant public space, the Plaza de Armas has a rhythm and life to it, with multiple groups and diverse individuals ever present; it hosts a shifting kaleidoscope of activities, events, and everyday encounters (Fig. 4.1). Over the last three decades, increasing flows of Latin American migrants have settled in Santiago, and their use of the plaza prompted a new beginning for this important urban space. Since the early 1990s, migration to Chile has increased exponentially (INE 1992, 2002, 2012; Godoy 2019). In 1992, there were just over 100,000 migrants in Chile, accounting for 0.8% of the total population (DEM 2014). During the 1990s and 2000s, there was significant growth in Peruvian migrants settling in Chile. By 2012, more than 400,000 migrants lived in Chile, hailing from increasingly diverse countries of origin, such as Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Haiti (DEM 2014). Over the last five years, new migratory flows from Venezuela have again transformed migration in Chile. As of 2019, there were nearly 1.3 million migrants, accounting for 7% of the total population (Godoy 2019), and the Chilean government predicted that 300,000 more Venezuelans would arrive by 2020 (Reyes and Vera 2019). These diverse communities of migrants encounter differential access to jobs, housing, and public acceptance, illustrating the ways in which attitudes toward migrants are shaped by perceptions of their country of origin (Prato 2020). As migration has increased, the historic Plaza de Armas has

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Fig. 4.1  The Plaza de Armas on a Sunday afternoon, the Cathedral in the background. A class of physical education teachers tries to encourage onlookers to dance with them, as migrants walk by. (Photo by the author)

increasingly become associated with these new flows of Latin American migrants to the city (Garcés 2007, 2012, 2014; Ducci and Rojas 2010; Núñez 2008; Araujo et al. 2002). Santiago’s Plaza de Armas is the public space most closely tied to migration, and this association is produced both through migrant everyday use of the site and through the circulation of discourses detailing and contesting migrant presence in the plaza. For migrants, the Plaza de Armas offers a place for encounter, a third place consisting of an informal gathering place different from home and work that is central to individual and community well-being (Oldenberg 1989). Moreover, the plaza is frequently a site where celebrations and events take place for migrant groups, such as Peru’s Señor de los Milagros procession and marches in support of migration. Targeted resources and services that cater to migrants are also present onsite, including an informal day laborer hiring location alongside the

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cathedral and essential commerce such as calling centers, money exchanges, and stores with goods from other places.3 Many migrants hear of the plaza as a space of migration before they even arrive in Santiago, illustrating the ways that discourses of the plaza spread as widely among migrants as among Chileans. Several migrants interviewed noted that they had arrived in Santiago with no connection or plan apart from heading to the Plaza de Armas and seeking assistance from migrants there. For these individuals, the plaza is the spatial embodiment of their initial connection to social networks, information about Santiago, and immediate assistance—such as jobs, housing, and health care. The plaza also functions as a vital space of encounter that enables individuals to quickly establish friendships, join groups, and become part of communities. Many migrants interviewed emphasized the community aspect of the site and shared stories of how their social relations map onto the plaza, articulating spatial affect in their narratives. In August 2013, I joined a Bolivian friend to attend the celebration of the Virgin of Copacabana. After a procession through the streets of downtown Santiago, the main festivities unfolded in the Plaza de Armas. A four-­ foot statue of the Virgin was placed right below the plaza’s Pedro de Valdivia statue—which stands as a memorial to Santiago’s founder—and the participants danced one group at a time on a cleared promenade along the plaza’s northern side. The groups wore traditional outfits and performed dances to honor the Virgin. As each group moved to a different percussive tempo, at least two members danced around with the Bolivian and the Wiphala flags.4 I watched the dances alongside Veronica, whose niece was participating in one of the groups. As the groups shifted, she explained the origins of each dance to me. Veronica also enthusiastically noted that she had attended her niece’s practice the week before, where she had been moved to learn that half of the dancers were young Chileans from northern cities who shared similar traditions. Throughout the afternoon, we were joined by Bolivian, Peruvian, and Chilean friends and acquaintances, and we shared stories, food, and jokes while enjoying the celebratory feeling on an overcast winter day (Fig. 4.2). By mid-afternoon, the crowds were dwindling, and I watched as a small girl, about four years old, broke away from her mother’s hand and jogged toward a space between the onlookers. She watched the scene mesmerized as her mom caught up to her and took her hand again. “Mom, look, dancers!” she exclaimed with enthusiasm, not yielding as her mother attempted to hurry her along. Amid the women in pollera skirts5 and the prolific

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Fig. 4.2  Dancers perform at the celebration of the Virgin of Copacabana, an important observance for many Bolivians. (Photo by the author)

presence of Bolivian flags, her mom responded shortly, “It’s nothing, just those Peruvians in the plaza. Come on.” The mom succeeded in guiding her daughter away and I watched as they descended into the plaza’s subway station. I turned back toward the dancers and found Veronica watching their retreat as well. “It’s always the same,” she noted. When I asked what she meant, she explained that she was used to being called or identified as Peruvian. She believed that Chileans just see migrants as all the same, and that she had heard time and again the trope of Peruvians who use the plaza. The plaza is a vibrant public space—made so by diverse users from many nationalities, including many Chileans. It is true that there is a presence of diverse migrants and representations from many different communities at the plaza—seen in the ebb and flow of the plaza’s daily life. However, the practices based in this site often bear little resemblance to the ways that the plaza is imagined and perceived by Chileans. As the next

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section details, the ways in which the plaza is discussed flatten the meaning, the affective ties, and the many practices articulated in this central block.

Spatial Discourses and the Circulation of Associations As Santiago’s Plaza de Armas has become the central gathering place for migrant communities, this association has left an indelible impression on how many Chileans talk about the plaza—seen in the monikers, “Pequeña Lima,” or “Little Lima” (Ducci and Rojas 2010; El Mercurio 2008; Capital 2008). Migrant use of this important public space has garnered widespread attention, push-back, and debate. In interviews, when I would ask Chilean research participants about the plaza, first responses usually consisted of terse descriptions. The plaza is: “lamentable,” “a stigma,” “revolting,” “an ISSUE,” “invaded,” “stolen,” and “packed,” “teeming,” and “full of Peruvians.” Chileans interviewed paired these initial descriptions with an affirmation of the site as centrally important to understanding of new waves of migration to Chile. As one Chilean man noted of the Plaza de Armas, “that’s where the heavy resentments began, like the bad vibes, you know, the period that began the bad vibes with the people in the Plaza de Armas.” Proffering the plaza as a spatial origin point for the frictions related to new waves of migration has the effect of highlighting what is at stake in discursive contestations over migrant use of the plaza— the right to engage more broadly in civil society and urban life (Lefebvre 1991). These descriptions also critically push back against the emergence of the plaza as a site of migration, challenging migrant right to use the space in a subtle exercise of power to contest an increasingly diverse populace (Watson 2006). In short, as migrant use of the plaza is discussed by Chileans, it becomes a multivocal kilometer zero—symbolic of the Chilean nation and ground zero for contested responses to the new migration. Even while the geographic “kilometer zero” was long ago moved a mile away to the spot where the Panamerican highway crosses Santiago’s principal boulevard, for many Chileans, the plaza remains Chile’s symbolic and geographic heart. As one Chilean research participant repeated emphatically several times to me in an interview, “The Plaza de Armas is kilometer zero for Chile, it’s Chile’s center!” This heightened notion of spatial affect linked

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to the nation was frequently proffered as a counter point to the perception of migrant use of the site. In a conversation with two Chilean women, one initially noted, “It’s no longer the Plaza de Armas,” in recognition of the quotidian transformation of the site, and essentially ceding the space to migrants while also relegating it as a national space only in memory. As she noted this, however, she was interrupted and corrected by the second woman: “It is no longer the Chilean Plaza de Armas, it is the Peruvian plaza, listen, and they don’t do anything, they are sitting there sunning themselves.” Overlooking the importance of diverse public spaces open to all, these comments rebuke migrant presence in the plaza, positing it as a challenge to the nation and dismissing the notion that pluralistic public spaces create more inclusive and vibrant cities (Hou 2010; Watson 2006) (Fig. 4.3). In 2014 the most recent renovation of the plaza was completed. The yearlong closure of this site temporarily forced users out, allowing

Fig. 4.3  Dancers perform the Chilean national dance, the cueca, for a diverse audience. (Photo by the author)

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municipal officials to address what they perceived to be space’s most pressing needs. New pavement, the addition of free Wi-Fi connectivity, LED lights, and closed-circuit security cameras were added. In a newspaper article announcing the re-opening of the plaza, the mayor of Santiago at that time, Carolina Tohá, justified the plaza’s upgrading and its closure: The improvement of the Plaza de Armas was urgent and necessary … What we have done here is rescue an emblematic city space and give it the dignity it deserves. We have invested in modern cameras for TV surveillance and a system of guards to create security for the passersby, tourists, and visitors. (Emol 2014)

The mayor’s statement reinforces the urban importance of this particular plaza while also making a veiled reference to the impact of changing uses of the site, likely implying migrant use. As the city’s mayor, Tohá was ostensibly supportive of migrant communities, welcoming migrants under the slogan “We Are All Santiago” and opening an office to address migrant needs (Municipalidad de Santiago 2016). However, Tohá’s rhetoric about the plaza’s refurbishment echoes broader Chilean public discourses about the current plight of the plaza and concerns about security. It is important to read Tohá’s discussion of the need to “rescue” an important city site and the idea that the addition of surveillance cameras and guards might create “dignity” in the plaza in the context of the plaza’s daily use and emergent symbolic connection with migration. As municipal governance priorities and resource investment are voiced by the mayor, they are disseminated by the news media, prompting further debate. Indeed, the plaza’s use by migrants was on the minds of the newspaper’s readership when Tohá’s comments were published. In the first of the online comments responding to the article, David asked, “Have they removed the Peruvians as part of the remodeling??” In direct response, other posters added: Mateo:

It’s ironic, the question should be; do Santiagans have the right to the plaza? Carolina: Without wanting to attack our Peruvian brothers, I was wondering the same thing this morning. Marta: I’m Chilean and I didn’t see Peruvians yesterday. It turned out beautiful and clean. Full of surveillance cameras.

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Marta:

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Thanks Marta, and it’s not to discriminate, but the Peruvians who set up and sell their onion-based [foods] in their carts, truthfully, they make the downtown ugly, since it seems more like an eatery than a plaza. I hope they exert more oversight on them. David, that’s the idea. To position downtown as a tourist attraction and dress it up. (Emol 2014)

David’s joke at the outset acknowledges and further produces the space in association with new migratory flows while concurrently drawing on racialized discourses linking migrant use of the site to notions of dirt and disorder. In response, Mateo’s question suggests social and spatial divisions as a zero-sum proposition, that is, if migrants use the plaza, then Chileans cannot or will not use the space. This online forum highlights the contested and value-laden nature of engagements with this space. Even as many Chileans are vocal about the potential benefits of migration and increasing multiculturalism—seen in the hedges about “our Peruvian brothers” and “not to discriminate”—these debates continue to reinforce links between perceived urban transgressions (or disorder) and migrant use of this important national site. When discussions of the plaza are couched in language that emphasizes possible invasion, occupation, theft, and disorderly behavior, or even when conversations are positioned around the desire to make the plaza beautiful again, they suggest Chilean dissatisfaction with migrant use of the plaza and craft migrant engagements with the plaza as aligned with transgressions. These discourses subtly elaborate boundaries defining who the proper users are and what behavior is acceptable at the site. Moreover, these discourses also flatten the diverse and textured practices of people from many nations into spatial associations that play upon stereotypes and tropes linked to migration, furthering certain perceptions of the plaza and the perceived practices linked to the site. In interviews with Chileans, migrant everyday production of the plaza as an emergent space of migration is often presented as naturalized fact. Early in an interview with two young professional Chileans, I commented that migration was often in the press and the two men immediately brought up the plaza. David:

Generally, when immigration is spoken about, even among us, it is because there are too many Peruvians, the Plaza de Armas is packed …

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Carlos: David: Author: Carlos:

I think that what you see most of are Peruvians, by far, here in Santiago at least … There are sooo many, in reality, you go downtown and see many Peruvians, many, many. In the Plaza de Armas? The Peruvian border, you mean.

When I asked about the Plaza de Armas, Carlos jokingly equated it with the border itself. Even when framed as a joke or derided, Chilean discursive contestations often reify the notion of the plaza as a space for migrants, further naturalizing the association. When I asked the two men about the origins of this perception of the site, they noted that it was merely a recognition of the use of the plaza by migrants, and it was a common norm. Pushed to further reflection about the symbolic link of migration and the plaza, Carlos recalled a memorable joke made years ago by a comedian at the nationally televised summer festival. He went on to describe the joke— that Peruvians sitting along the side of the Cathedral were fulfilling a crucial job by holding up the sides of the building. Notably, the circulation of tropes emphasizing the lazy, unemployed, and lounging migrants stands in stark contrast to the common refrains that Chileans use to describe migrants as hard-working employees (Staab and Maher 2006). While the exact origin of the joke eluded me, other individuals shared similar jests about the “work” that migrants do while enjoying the plaza. These stories illustrate the type of “infectious iterability” (Briggs 2007, 334) that through their repetition serve to craft a communicable cartography of migrant misuse of the plaza. As the migratory flows have shifted over the last decade, Chileans have recognized the plaza’s use by differing groups—emphasizing (and perhaps over-emphasizing) the ways in which Haitians and those from the Dominican Republic use the site. While Chileans comment on shifting nationalities, reiteration of earlier tropes emphasizing misuse, criminality, and fear continue to dominate discourses about the plaza’s use. I interviewed a Chilean who lived near the plaza in 2019, and Enrique referred to the site as “Congo.” When I asked him what he meant by this, he described having walked through the site earlier in the week, noting, “I don’t know, it just seems, I don’t know dude, it scares me, only people that, entirely foreigners, excuse me, but all blacks, just like in Africa—it’ll scare you. Dude. Trafficking, full of prostitutes, [the plaza’s] been completely lost.” Enrique then went on to describe how the plaza used to be.

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“Well, historically, the Plaza de Armas became famous because Peruvians arrived there and would, well it was said that the Peruvians ate pigeons [there].” Enrique’s description of the plaza recognized the changing racial and national diversity among users, even as he critiqued the perceived newcomers for criminality and inappropriate use of the site, noting that practices based at the site prompted concern and fear. The stereotypes that Enrique enumerates of improper use of the plaza and criminality draw on earlier ones voiced in light of Peruvian migration which Enrique positions as an origin story of the plaza’s association with migration. Notably, these common associations are framed as repeated rumors, “it was said,” and Enrique provides a further link in this circulating trope as he shared these associations with me (Fig. 4.4). Interviews conducted in 2019 with the directors of central neighborhood councils provoked more nuanced considerations of the uses and practices located in the plaza and other nearby urban spaces. Gerardo, an older man who had directed the neighborhood council, reflected on the area surrounding the plaza. “I have lived here for forty years, and I love my neighborhood so much, even though they might say that there’s crime, that there is some of every [problem], but I feel part of this place when I walk through the Plaza de Armas.” He recognizes the circulation of spatial associations in his reference, “they might say” but he counters with how he personally feels about the plaza and the surrounding neighborhood. Later in the interview, he further detailed the stereotypical perceptions and the implications of these spatial associations. People always talk about how small-scale drug trafficking is a real problem, when in reality, Santiago doesn’t have those problems, or at least this neighborhood doesn’t. But the visibility that is associated with it because they’re black, because they’re foreigners, they speak differently. Because of this the streets are empty, the streets of Santiago are abandoned, neighbors don’t use them or the public parks either, they people hide away in their houses.

Pushing back against popular assumptions about the use of space, Gerardo highlights the ways in which spatial practices often juxtapose the simplified and stereotypical perceptions of space. In work on how spatial notions of crime develop and are circulated, Caldeira argues that these associations have wide-ranging consequences. “Prejudices and derogations not only are verbal but also reproduce themselves in rituals of suspicion and investigation at the entrances of public and private buildings. As people’s

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Fig. 4.4  Chileans and migrants gather alongside the Cathedral prior to a march in support of migrants. The banner reads, “No to Racism in Chile.” (Photo by the author)

thoughts and actions are shaped by the categorical reasoning of the talk of crime, its influence spreads, affecting social interactions, public policies, and political behavior” (Caldeira 2000, 39). As Chilean perceptions of migrant use of the plaza circulate, they coalesce, forming a strongly symbolic representational space (Lefebvre 1991).

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Public spaces are vital centers for civic life (Watson 2006), especially critical as “cities remain the strategic arena for the development of citizenship” (Holston and Appadurai 1996, 188). Citizenship is more than merely political and legal rights. As Holston and Appadurai (1996) note, citizenship includes the ability to participate in the public sphere, cultural rights, and the practices of belonging in society. In her work on changing social relationships in two small urban spaces, Low writes, “Plazas are spatial representations of Latin American society and social hierarchy. Citizens battle over these representations because they are so critical to the definition and survival of civil society” (2000, 33). Indeed, contestations over the meaning and use of plazas reflect “a war of cultural values and visions of appropriate behavior and societal order” (Low 2000, 128). At the heart of Chilean discourses about the plaza is a challenge to the pluralization of public space. As discourses are shared, repeated, and circulated widely, Chilean associations erase much of the social and cultural texture underlying the practices that play out in the plaza, and these strong spatial perceptions affect how these spaces are engaged.

Conclusion Spaces are never neutral, and the ways in which sites are engaged, discussed, and understood craft social norms. As seen in the example shared in the introduction, even for migrants who live thousands of kilometers away from the plaza, this spatial association functions to stereotype, discriminate, and craft docility—even if they have no direct connection to the site. Moreover, the ways in which migrants discuss the plaza often engage with Chilean framing of spatial perceptions. In a conversation with three women from the Dominican Republic, they shared their understandings of the plaza and the debates over its use. Berta: Pia:

It’s true what they say … You know what they say? That Chile’s plaza, that it’s no longer Chilean, that it’s Peruvian Elizabeth: Yes, Peruvian! Pia: And the pigeons! [laughter] Berta: To me, they have discriminated so much. Pia: For me, because of this, I don’t go to the Plaza de Armas, I don’t go.

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Even as the women openly laughed at the perceived comeuppance implied by migrant use of the nation’s oldest urban public space, they repeated the racialized joke associating Peruvians with pigeons and initially positioned themselves as separate from the debates over this site. However, they went on to directly relate Chilean contestation of the plaza to the discrimination that they and other migrants face. Most migrants who I interviewed spoke positively about the plaza, noted that they would spend time there, and talked about feeling like they belonged when they were in the plaza. For others, however, the negative and stereotypical spatial associations clouded their understanding of the site. Like Pia, some migrants avoid the plaza or countered the negative perceptions with vehement arguments against commonly circulated stereotypes. In a similar way, several Chileans shared that the plaza was a site where they used to go, “but one that already it’s like, it’s getting a little less [use]. There used to be more, yes, yes, Chileans used to use it a lot … ‘Where should we meet?’ ‘In the Plaza de Armas.’” The shifting uses and engagement with the plaza suggest the extent and power of spatial associations to alter how individuals understand and use public spaces. The plaza as an emergent space of migration illustrates the dialogic interplay between a small physical site, the practices and uses that the space hosts, and the discourses that shape spatial associations. Although Santiago’s Plaza de Armas is a bounded space, the circulation of perceptions about the plaza and its perceived users travel far beyond the plaza’s physical reach. The discursive and symbolic representations of this site matter—they shape perceptions of the space and ultimately alter the way that some people engage with the plaza. In her work in Sao Paulo, Caldeira tracks the ways that circulating discussions of crime drive urban change, leading to a proliferation of walled, enclosed spaces—perceived as safer confines. In light of these increasingly private and separate spaces, public spaces are marked by “segregation, social distance and exclusion” leading to an “implosion of modern public life” (Caldeira 2000, 298). While the example of the Plaza de Armas is a small urban space, and, thus, not on the same scale as spatial enclosures throughout Sao Paulo, Caldeira’s work points to the power of circulating discourses to impact both perceptions and uses of urban spaces. The processes through which emergent spaces take on meaning is not always easily charted. The frictions underlying the practices and perceptions of the plaza highlight the ways in which aspirational goals of emergent spaces—such as the creation of an inclusive, multicultural urban

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commons—may never reach full fruition. As the diverse narratives presented here illustrate, emergent spaces may carry multiple meanings and may be engaged by diverse publics in divergent ways. Even as Chilean discourses often simplify migrant use of the plaza in line with stereotypical tropes, these narratives exist in the context of many interpretations, practices, and contestations of what the plaza means to different individuals and groups. In this way, the Plaza de Armas is multivocal—it takes on multiple meanings, both in the diverse ways in which myriad practices play out at the site and in the divergent narratives that are shared and circulated widely. Many migrants find belonging and a feeling of grounding in the plaza, even as they might hear jokes and comments pushing back against their use of the plaza. Likewise, Chilean narratives are rarely as uniform as the perceptions framed by comments of “what they say…” and “it is said….” At stake here is the ongoing meaning-making and emergence of the Plaza de Armas as a site that embodies notions of migration, belonging, and the undefined future of a multicultural Chile.

Notes 1. All names are pseudonyms and all translations are my own. 2. Over a decade (2008–2019), I conducted research analyzing the impact of migration in Chile, processes of migrant racialization, and the role of migration in urban transformations. This chapter draws from data collected primarily in Santiago, where my field sites have included a migrant hiring hall, an agency that aids migrants, a public plaza where migrants gather, and individual homes. The data presented here is largely drawn from semi-­ structured interviews conducted with migrants (n  =  139) and Chileans (n = 45) living in Santiago. The data is contextualized by field notes chronicling long-term participant observation as well as public commentary drawn from social media posts linked to the two most-read online news sites in Chile. 3. The blocks spreading north from the Plaza de Armas are the geographic heart of the Peruvian community in Santiago and migrants from varying nations live in the sector (Imilan 2014; Fernandez Tapia 2009; Tijoux 2007). 4. The Wiphala flag is a grid of seven rainbow colors representing the social and natural diversity of the Andes, and often aligned with Andean indigeneity and claims for recognition (Albó 1996). 5. Voluminous skirts typical of Andean areas which often mark their wearers as indigenous (Zorn 2004). In Chile, polleras are often associated with Bolivian migrants even as the skirts are worn throughout the Andean highlands.

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References Albó, Xavier. 1996. Bolivia Making the Leap from Local Mobilization to National Politics. NACLA Report on the Americas 29 (5): 15–20. Araujo, Kathya, María Claudia Legua, and Loreto Ossandón. 2002. Migrantes Andinas en Chile: El Caso de la Migración Peruana. Santiago, Chile: Fundación Instituto de la Mujer. Barros, Juan Pablo. 2014. Mira Tú: Guía para perderse en Chile. Santiago: Hueders. Bayat, Asef. 2010. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Briggs, Charles L. 2007. Mediating Infanticide: Theorizing Relations between Narrative and Violence. Cultural Anthropology 22 (3): 315–356. Caldeira, Teresa P.R. 2000. City of Walls: Crime, Segregation, and Citizenship in São Paulo. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Capital. 2008. La pequeña Lima. July 23. Accessed October 20, 2016. http:// www.capital.cl/poder/2008/07/23/170709-­la-­pequena-­lima. Dammert, Lucía. 2004. ¿Ciudad sin ciudadanos? Fragmentación, segregación y temor en Santiago. EURE 30 (91): 87–96. De Ramón, Armando. 2007. Santiago de Chile: Historia de una sociedad urbana. Santiago: Catalonia. DEM (Departamento de Extranjería). 2014. Migración en Chile: 2005–2014. http://www.extranjeria.gob.cl/. Ducci, María Elena, and Loreto Rojas Symmes. 2010. La pequeña Lima: Nueva cara y vitalidad para el centro de Santiago de Chile. EURE 36 (108): 95–121. El Mercurio. 2008. Inmigrantes peruanos revitalizan barrios de Santiago donde se han instalado con negocios. August 15. Emol. 2014. Reabren la Plaza de Armas de Santiago tras extensa remodelación. December 5. Accessed March 11, 2016. http://www.emol.com/noticias/ nacional/2014/12/05/693166/reabren-­plaza-­de-­armas-­de-­santiago.html. Fernández Tapia, Carla. 2009. Síntesis estudio de caracterización de comunidades peruanas en comunas de la zona norte de Santiago. Cultura-Urbana 6: 1–17. Garcés H., Alejandro. 2007. Entre lugares y espacios desbordados: Formaciones urbanas de la migración peruana en Santiago de Chile. Serie Documentos 2: 5–22. ———. 2012. Localizaciones para una espacialidad: Territorios de la migración peruana en Santiago de Chile. Chungará, Revista de Antropología Chilena 44 (1): 163–175. ———. 2014. Contra el espacio público: criminalización e higienización en la migración peruana en Santiago de Chile. EURE 40 (121): 141–162. Godoy, G. 2019. Según estimaciones, la cantidad de personas extranjeras residentes habituales en Chile superó los 1,2 millones al 31 de diciembre de 2018. INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística). https://www.ine.cl/docs/default-­source/

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default-­d ocument-­l ibrar y/estimaci%C3%B3n-­d e-­p ersonas-­e xtranjeras-­ residentes-­en-­chile-­al-­31-­de-­diciembre-­de-­2018.pdf?sfvrsn=69145bd2_0. Gutiérrez, Vólker. 2012. Plaza de Armas: El Corazón de Santiago. Santiago: Letra Capital Ediciones. Holston, James, and Arjun Appadurai. 1996. Cities and Citizenship. Public Culture 8: 187–204. Hou, Jeffrey. 2010. (Not) Your Everyday Public Space. In Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 1–17. New York: Routledge. Imilan, Walter Alejandro. 2014. Restaurantes peruanos en Santiago de Chile: construcción de un paisaje de la migración. Revista de Estudios Sociales 48: 15–28. INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística). 1992. Censo. Santiago, Chile. ———. 2002. Censo. Santiago, Chile. ———. 2012. Censo. Santiago, Chile. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991[1974]. The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Blackwell Press. Low, Setha. 2000. On the Plaza: The Politics of Public Space and Culture. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. ———. 2017. Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place. New York: Routledge. Municipalidad de Santiago. 2016. Inmigrantes en la comuna. April. Accessed October 20, 2016. http://www.municipalidaddesantiago.cl/. Núñez Carrasco, Lorena. 2008. Illness and Healthcare among Peruvian Migrants in Chile. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Centre. Oldenberg, Ray. 1989. The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Community Centers, Beauty Parlors, General Stores, Bars, Hangouts, and How They Get You through the Day. New York: Paragon House. Pardo, Italo. 2017. Politicking Imperils Democracy: Contested Public Space in Naples. In Diversity and Local Contexts: Urban Space, Border, and Migration, ed. Jerome Krase and Zdenk Uherek, 149–166. Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2020. A Botched Urban Change: A Case-Study from Central Naples. In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, ed. I.  Pardo, G.B.  Prato and J.  Roosbrook-Thompson. Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10(S3):13–32. Pardo, Italo, and Giuliana B.  Prato. 2018. Introduction: Urban Ethnography Matters—Analytical Strength, Theoretical Value and Significance to Society. In The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, 1–19. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Poo, Ximena. 2008. Migrantes Peruanos en la Proa de la Plaza de Armas de Santiago de Chile: De umbrales a indicios de hibridez cultural. Perspectivas de la Comunicación 1 (1): 8–19.

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Prato, Giuliana. 2020. Changing Cities: Migrations and New Urbanities in Contemporary Europe. In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, ed. I. Pardo, G.B. Prato and J. Roosbrook-Thompson. Urbanities-­ Journal of Urban Ethnography 10(S3):33–50. Reyes, Carlos, and Angélica Vera. 2019. Chadwick advierte que 300 mil venezolanos tendrían intención de ingresar a Chile en los próximos meses. La Tercera, July 1. https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/chadwick-advierte-organismosinternacionales-proyectan-300-mil-venezolanos-tendrian-­intencion-­ingresar-­ chile-­los-­proximos-­meses/723962/ Simone, AbdouMaliq. 2010. City Life from Jakarta to Dakar: Movements at the Crossroads. New York: Routledge. Staab, Silke, and Kristen Hill Maher. 2006. The Dual Discourse About Peruvian Domestic Workers in Santiago de Chile: Class, Race, and a Nationalist Project. Latin American Politics and Society 48 (1): 87–116. Tijoux, María Emilia. 2007. Peruanas inmigrantes en Santiago. Un arte cotidiano de la lucha por la vida. Polis: Revista Latinoamericana 18: 2–11. Watson, Sophie. 2006. City Publics: The (Dis)enchantments of Urban Encounters. New York: Routledge. Zorn, Elayne. 2004. Weaving a Future: Tourism, Cloth, and Culture on an Andean Island. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 5

The Free Trade Zone and the Ethnic Restaurant: South Asian Emergent Space in a Chilean City of Labor Migrants Andrew Nelson

My first day in Iquique happened to be the same day as the finals of the 2018 World Cup. A growing coastal city in northern Chile, Iquique is known for its “Zofri” free trade zone and long history of transborder connections that have made it known as a “city of migrants” (Tapia 2012).1 With the exception of a celebration at a French restaurant, it appeared to be a slow Sunday morning in the city center. Due to national holidays closing businesses in the coming week, it was one of the rare Sundays the Zofri remained open. When I reached Restaurante Monte Everest, about one mile south of the central plaza, the side door was open with a frenetic kitchen busy at work. I met briefly with Shyam, a Nepali cook who had recently migrated from Turkey to Chile.2 He was preparing lunch meals for the workers in the Zofri, most of whom worked in Indian-owned shops in the free trade zone’s duty-free mall. He explained that few of the workers knew how to cook or had someone at home to cook for them, so

A. Nelson (*) Department of Anthropology, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_5

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they relied on the restaurant to serve their lunches. He told me to return for lunch at one. When I returned in the afternoon, the restaurant had converted into an ethnic restaurant with a wood cut-out sidewalk advertisement of a sari-­ wearing woman saying “Namaste” and “Bienvenido.” Although the restaurant was located on the southern edge of the older and disinvested part of the city, it was close enough to the tourist beaches and car-free Paseo Baquedano to draw in middle- to upper-class customers. Of the eight tables in the dining room, a few were occupied by a group of friends who had just come from a yoga class and preferred Everest as one of the only vegetarian restaurants in town. Several South Asian men dressed in suits arrived to pick up take-away orders. Laxmi Bista, the owner-manager of the restaurant, explained that most of her customers were Chileans who wanted to “explore” a new taste. To help grow their interest, she had recently started a class that would introduce Chileans to South Asian cooking. Later that evening, I was invited back to the restaurant to meet with the “older generation” of Nepali men in Iquique. The restaurant was closed to the public, but had converted into a social space for the male Zofri workers, with tables pushed together to accommodate the group of fifteen to sit together. Most of the group had arrived in Iquique in the late 2000s to find jobs in the Indian-owned shops of the Zofri. When they got off work at nine, they took colectiva taxis through the older center, an area some warned me against walking through alone at night, to the restaurant for several hours of gossiping, tea drinking and eating snacks. The temporal fluctuations of the restaurant, from lunch caterer to ethnic restaurant to co-ethnic male space, reflect the improvisatory and flexible ethos of workers in the Zofri. For most in the group, Chile was not their intended destination, but rather one step closer to the US.  Most entered South America via Ecuador and Bolivia’s visa liberalization programs, or a Indian-Chilean student visa scam, and ended up in Iquique thanks to job opportunities connecting with Indian entrepreneurs in the Zofri. These jobs, however, came with the trade-off of labor demands that offer pan-diasporic boss-worker trust in exchange for long hours and six-­ day work weeks. Importantly, many conceive of work in the Zofri as a possible stepping stone to other opportunities, such as immigration to the US or Europe, better-paying jobs in Santiago or India, or in the least, a return to Nepal with savings to buy land. Starting restaurants represent one such immediate alternative to working in the Zofri. Like the Zofri

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workers, the restaurant owners do not intend for their businesses to become permanent fixtures in Iquique. They are, instead, improvised and temporary adaptations to working and living abroad. In this chapter, I chart five years of two Nepali-run ethnic restaurants in Iquique that each, in their separate ways and transformations, reveals multiple and improvisatory spatial imprints of migrant life on the city. The first half documents Monte Everest’s origin as a lunch delivery service and social center for the workers and its conversion into an ethnic restaurant. Monte Everest’s different faces represent a spatial spectrum from a semi-­ private and gendered place of migrant solidarity and organizing to an ethnicized public space. The second half discusses Everest’s transformation into an upscale Indian restaurant, and the emergence of Sabores de Casa, a Nepali-owned “local” food café with a South Asian-South American customer base. While Everest emphasized its recognizable Indian-­ vegetarian appeal in the city’s revitalized tourist center, Sabores laid a foundation, albeit temporarily, for cross-ethnic solidarity in the city’s disinvested migrant core. These examples show that an ethnic restaurant is never just a restaurant, but a place-maker in ways both visible and invisible to the host society. They represent small and emergent spaces responsive to the migrant worker politics of precarious labor conditions and shifting immigration policy, while also accommodating customer expectations of an ethnic experience within the uneven renewal of the larger city.

Beyond Assimilation: Ethnic Restaurants as City-Makers In the social science scholarship of restaurants, discussions of migration tend to be limited to the role of ethnic restaurants in relation to assimilation. For instance, how ethnic restaurants reflect social relations between migrants and the host society (Garcia et al. 2017; Notar 2008); express a minority ethnic identity (Song 1999; McDowell et al. 2014); or change the culinary landscape of host societies (Ray 2016). More politically engaged work has questioned the labor relations of restaurant workers in terms of their struggles for social mobility (Ahmad 2015; Bloch 2013; Ram et al. 2001; Wilson 2018) or cultivation of cross-ethnic ties of solidarity (Lee 2019; Wise 2016). Çağlar and Glick Schiller (2018) argue that assimilationist approaches to migration run the risk of reproducing methodological nationalism, in

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which migrants are perceived according to an “ethnic lens” as outsiders in opposition to native insiders. They propose understanding migrants and natives through the same analytical framework, particularly for the “common conditions of precarity and displacement that mark the lives of many urban residents” (2018, 12). This approach entails seeing migrants as “city-makers” in processes of urban restructuring—perpetuating, resisting, or accommodating neoliberal transformations. The range of a restaurant’s city-making possibilities is given a more explicit focus in Zukin’s (2010) analysis of “authenticity” in the urban politics of New York City’s emergent spaces. For Zukin, authenticity can have two meanings, one driven by developers and urban planners working to brand neighborhoods as “historic, local, cool” for the sake of economic growth; the other as promoting the “social rights” of inhabitants. In this second “poor, ethnic, and democratic” vision, a neighborhood represents the “opportunity to put down roots—to represent, paradoxically, both origins and new beginnings” (2010, 26). As recent studies of urban renewal in northern cities, such as Toronto (Hackworth and Rekers 2005) and Berlin (Schmiz 2016; Stock and Schmiz 2019), have shown, ethnic restaurants can become vehicles of gentrification and urban renewal, ultimately contributing to geographic exclusion. Muniandy’s (2015) discussion of migrant restaurants in Kuala Lumpur offers a counter-example from the global south that is more aligned with Zukin’s second definition of authenticity. Muniandy refers to Bayat’s (2010) “quiet encroachment of the ordinary” to interpret the small actions of restaurants catering to South Asian and Burmese temporary labor migrants as “non-movements.” In particular, he argues that migrants use the informality of urban conditions in forgotten neighborhoods to leverage their temporariness and appropriate public spaces to create “spaces of security and comfort” in ethnic restaurants (2015, 170). The neglected and vulnerable spaces of migrants often occupy the dark side of urban renewal processes, what Simone (2019) calls the “uninhabitable” or “peripheral” districts where lives are dictated by improvisation. Through this improvisation, Simone (2019, 10) proposes a different sort of politics not seeking inclusion or incorporation, but rather “a kind of thinking that challenged or refused what it means to viably inhabit a place.” This method is generated through the “provisional affiliations” of partial connections and strange alliances, a politics of care embracing short-term collaborations and small actions, and infrastructural assemblages made out of leftover materials. In one telling example, Toji (2019)

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describes São Paolo as “gambiarra”—a colloquial Portuguese term denoting a “solution improvised with existing scarce resources” (2019, 67)—to theorize the plasticity and potentiality within the precarious conditions of certain urban spaces. In this chapter, I argue that the small actions and spaces of the restaurant represent a spectrum of urban engagements, which, although temporary, improvisatory, and provisional, still leave a mark on the city. In particular, they contribute to the formation of “migrant infrastructure” as nodes of fragmented networks that create solidarity and even political representation without the concentration of ethnic neighborhoods (Varshaver and Rocheva 2018). The restaurants represent not just social networks, but also spatial imprints on the city. Building on Krase (2012), I combine ethnography with a visual analysis of restaurants as vernacular landscapes that combine ethnic and class signs to articulate messages of conflict and negotiation. In this formulation of migrant politics, restaurants do not directly confront oppressive labor conditions. Rather, they slowly emerge as sites that might reproduce neoliberal urban processes or other forms of exploitation, but might also produce more subtle “quiet encroachments” (Bayat 2010), spaces of cultural sanctuary (Tan 2018), or place-making practices invisible to the dominant society (Kuppinger 2014).

2015–2017: The Nepali Kitchen as a Counter-space to the Zofri The history of Nepali-run restaurants in Iquique mirrors Nepali immigration to Chile. Rabindra, who opened a commercial kitchen in 2015, arrived in Chile in 2010 as part of the first group of Nepali immigrants to work in the Zofri as a temporary job intending to migrate to somewhere else. He leased the kitchen from a closing pizzeria business and initially planned to just use the kitchen for making and preparing lunch-time deliveries to the workers of the Zofri. Rabindra and two cooks would prepare dal bhat tarkari (lentils, rice, vegetables) in the kitchen and then deliver the food to the Zofri each afternoon. While there, they would obtain spices not commonly found in Chilean grocery stores. Leasing the kitchen on a short-term basis, Rabindra did not have long-term plans for the spot. Like Rabindra’s kitchen, the first wave of Nepali migrants in Chile did not expect to stay long. Using immigration liberalization in Ecuador and Bolivia,3 migrants entered Latin America, or what some of the Nepalis

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jokingly refer to as “Let-in America,” intending to transit to the US or Europe. However, when northern migration options were denied or became too expensive or dangerous, job opportunities in Iquique’s Zofri pulled migrants south in an example of “stepwise migration” to a country with less restrictive immigration policies and accessible labor opportunities (Paul 2011). Migration from Ecuador and Bolivia accounted for a trickle of approximately ten Nepalis per year migrating to Chile between 2007 and 2011, but then tripled to nearly thirty per year between 2012 and 2014 (Gobierno de Chile 2020). In particular, Indian entrepreneurs in the Zofri looked upon Nepalis as a “god-send” to meet a labor need during a time of growth in the mall.4 In Nepalis, they found “trustworthy and hard-working” employees who conveniently understand Hindi and share certain cultural similarities. This perception of Nepalis echoes a stereotype often used to justify their subordinate position in the migrant hierarchies in the Gulf and India (Bruslé 2008, 2018; Gardner et  al. 2013). According to one cynical Zofri worker, Maya, The Indian knows that the South American will only work 8 hours, but a Nepali will work for 10–12 hours. They have biswas (trust) in us. We are chahine manche (indispensable people) for them, whereas they don’t trust the South American workers.

While the relaxed immigration laws of the Zofri (Icarte et al. 2018) might allow for neoliberal exceptionalism and exploitative labor conditions (Ong 2006), for many, the free trade zone is “unexceptional” (Cross 2010) and typical of Nepali-Indian labor relations outside of South Asia (Hamal 2015). Many of the workers had experienced similar working conditions in the Gulf or Malaysia prior to coming to Chile, and often excused the long hours acceptable in exchange for a dependable and loyal relationship with their boss (Thapa 2019). Zofri workers were well aware of their subordinate position. Using language to explain their marginal position, one worker, Ajay, explained that Nepalis had to learn and communicate in a variety of other languages— Hindi with their bosses, Spanish with co-workers and customers, and even some Mandarin and English. This linguistic adaptability was not new. The only difference from Gulf and Malaysia experiences was that in Chile they were speaking Spanish instead of English, Arabic, or Malay. Ajay, explained, “We are bahadur (brave), we go anywhere, do anything, we have no

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choice.” The ability to adjust to multiple labor and social conditions reflects not just awareness of one’s subaltern position, but also a commitment to creating spaces of solidarity. Ajay described the tactical benefit of the migrant’s perspective through comparing the villager and the urbanite. He reversed the hierarchy of the standard development discourse in Nepal that posits the bikasit (developed) city-dwellers as more advanced than the abikasit (undeveloped) villagers. For Ajay, the villager’s ability to adapt and form social networks of support in foreign contexts makes them superior. He stated, “We move to the city and find our way. We move to a foreign country and find our way, we figure it out … While we villagers learn to adjust, the foreigner or urbanite would be lost in the village.” The opening of the kitchen expressed one such physical space of solidarity and adjustment. Immediately after opening, it became a space of post-work social gatherings. It provided, more officially, a monthly meeting space for the “Society,” a social organization formally called Nepali Samaj Chile. Although the Society had been established in 2013, the kitchen gave the group its first physical space for meetings. One of the founders explained, “We realized that we were on our own. The closest Nepali diplomatic support was in Brazil so we had to look out for each other.” On the day Rabindra took control of the kitchen, the community performed a purification puja and placed the Society’s charter on the wall of the dining area. The Society was initially formed for social purposes, a group with which to celebrate holidays and festivals and maintain transnational linkages with Nepal. For instance, when the April 2015 earthquake devastated central Nepal, the Society organized relief funds to send to afflicted areas. They raised money from friends, bosses, and co-workers in Iquique and delivered it to a village next door to Barpak, Gorkha, the epicenter of the earthquake. The Society grew with gradual Nepali investment in the city to create spaces where they could claim as hamro (ours). It became the center of an emergent “localized migrant community” based on dispersed networks rather than the spatial proximity of an ethnic neighborhood (Varshaver and Rocheva 2018). Specifically, people used the verb sthapana (to establish) to describe the Society and kitchen, as well as a few shops and a house owned by three Nepali brothers, the Pandes. The house consists of two long rectangular structures consisting of four bedrooms in each; one side for the Pande family and the other side rented to other Nepalis. While male Zofri workers would meet at Rabindra’s kitchen, the house provided a meeting space for Nepali women in Iquique.

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The kitchen, house, and shops were all located along the southern end of the city center characterized by lower rents and disinvestment. According to Jimenez (2007), the rapid expansion of the Zofri mall in the 2000s precipitated a fragmentation of the cityscape.5 Capital investment gravitated to the city’s edges running from the northern Zofri southward along the expensive beachside real estate of the western side of the city to the skyscraper elite residences in the newer southern parts. Despite a few tourist-­friendly spaces in the city center, mainly along the Baquedano car-­ free boulevard, its dilapidated built environment stems from the city’s mining past. There, in the disinvested and downscaled center, Nepalis and other migrants found possibilities for claiming space. While the Zofri owners and bosses reside in the high-rises of the city’s south, the working migrants occupy the center. As one of the Pande brothers, Nilkantha, explained to me, in the Zofri he would need 100,000 USD to buy a shop, but only 20,000–30,000 USD would suffice to start a business in the markets “outside.” Regardless of their position on the economic periphery of the city, the claiming of co-ethnic space represents success to the workers in the Zofri aspiring to leave the long hours and dependent relations of work in the free trade zone. More specifically, the kitchen provided a space where translation was not necessary. It represented an exclusive space that they did not need to share with their bosses. As one of Ajay’s flatmates, Ashima, explained, “Even though the Indian boss is rich, they will always be treated as extranjero (foreigner) here—just like us.” Ajay added, “Except the difference is we stick together.”

2017–2019: El Restaurante Monte Everest and the Making of an Ethnic Restaurant In 2017, Rabindra transferred control of the restaurant to Laxmi and Sunil Bista, who then converted the kitchen into a restaurant advertised as “Nepali-Indian cuisine,” giving it the name El Restaurante Monte Everest. Raised in Gujarat, India, by Nepali parents, Laxmi wanted the restaurant to combine Nepali dishes with better-known Indian cuisine. In the mornings, the restaurant continued the lunch delivery business. But, at one in the afternoon, the restaurant physically transformed into a restaurant by opening the shutters, placing the entrance sign on the sidewalk directly underneath the bright red billboard announcing “Monte Everest Authentic

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Indian Food.” Laxmi described the early days as “opening up” the restaurant as a multicultural space able to accommodate different groups of people. Her ease with multiple languages expressed her cosmopolitan vision for the restaurant. With her main chef, a Gujarati woman, she spoke in a mixture of Gujarati and Hindi. She spoke Nepali with the two Nepali kitchen workers. With customers and the Ecuadorian server, she communicated in Spanish; with non-South American or non-South Asian customers, such as me, in English. She reinforced the cosmopolitan image of Monte Everest with a multilingual menu that described South Asian dishes in Spanish and English. The restaurant’s decoration consisted of Buddhist prayer flags, mandala art, posters of Mount Everest and famous South Asian temples, as well as of Machu Picchu. For the lunch and dinner diners, Monte Everest was most appealing for its vegetarian and vegan options, intimate location, and perceived authenticity. Most reviews on Facebook and Trip Advisor referred to the abundance of vegetarian or vegan options on the menu. Additionally, diners wrote about the intimacy of the restaurant’s small location, what one regional web-based reviewer described as “without pretensions, simple approach and unmatched heart.” Others noted a balance between its authentic cuisine—evidenced through seeing “Indians eating there”—and its accommodation of the Chilean fear of excessive spice, as it offers “different levels of picante.” While Monte Everest opened to the Iquique public, its time as a private space for the Nepali community evolved. Although continuing to deliver lunch meals to Zofri workers and providing a social space for after-work male gatherings, the community’s attachment to the restaurant, and more importantly, Chile, appeared to be slipping when I arrived in 2018. When I proposed to several workers that Chile might be a fitting destination to migrants unable to reach the US, I was quickly corrected, “No, don’t tell people to come here. It’s full.” They explained that conditions had changed in the past two years due to increasing numbers of South American and South Asian migrants arriving in Iquique looking for work. Not only did most not want to build long-term diasporic connections to Chile, they were also hesitant about more Nepalis coming. When Chile started cracking down on irregular migration from Ecuador and Bolivia in 2015, a new avenue opened up via student visas being granted at the Chilean Embassy in New Delhi, India. An entrepreneurial “college” in Santiago arranged a South Asian connection with Kathmandu recruitment agencies, known locally as “manpower” or “educational

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consultancies,” that would arrange student visas for expensive fees between 1 and 1.5 million Nepali rupees (about 10,000 to 15,000 USD). For this second generation of migrants, recruiters sold them on Chile using the promise of “Master’s degrees” in wine cultivation and tourism that could be converted into work opportunities in Australia and the US. This new route accounted for a peak of Nepali entries into Chile, at sixty-five in 2016 and sixty-nine in 2017 (Gobierno de Chile 2020). Increased Nepali immigration to Chile echoed the country’s transformation from a sending country, a legacy of the military government’s political repression in the 1970s and 1980s, into a receiving country. While immigration gradually increased throughout the 2000s, from about 40,000 to 80,000 admissions per year, it greatly accelerated in the 2010s, growing from 81,578 in 2011 to a peak in 2018 of 438,222 (Gobierno de Chile 2020). As immigration to Chile escalated, the nation’s political landscape shifted rightward with leaders increasingly adopting xenophobic rhetoric. In the 2018 election to replace Michelle Bachelet, both candidates on the right and left capitalized on anti-immigrant sentiment. The eventual winner, Sebastian Piñera, used the criminalization of migrants to his advantage, claiming along the campaign trail that “many of the criminal gangs in Chile, like those that clone credit cards, are foreigners” (Doña Reveco 2018). Upon taking office, Piñera immediately implemented restrictions on migrant visas, particularly for Haitians and Venezuelans. The increasing immigration and fears over restrictive policies have changed the Indian boss-Nepali worker relationship by decreasing pay and forcing workers to compete with incoming immigrants from countries in northern South America, most often Venezuela and Colombia. Furthermore, the new wave of student visa immigrants soon realized that their college course was nakali (fake), ending abruptly after five months without any of the promised job offers. Stranded in Santiago, students had few options other than returning home, working for low pay on fruit farms outside Santiago, or moving north to seek work in the Indian-­ owned shops of Zofri. According to one student-turned-migrant laborer, twenty-five-year-old Raj, his deep debt made his situation anything but a choice. If he returned home, he would have crushed his family’s ijjat (status) as a returned migrant who did not earn abroad. Increasingly, migrants looked to the Zofri for employment in spite of fewer opportunities. Identifying the disconnect between agent promises and Chilean realities, the Society started meeting more regularly at Monte Everest to organize a campaign against the recruitment agency in Kathmandu responsible

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for sending migrants. In late 2017, the Society sent a letter of complaint to the nearest Nepali Embassy in Brazil, as well as to the Foreign Ministry in Kathmandu, demanding that recruitment agents tell the truth about the student visa scam to Chile. Within a few months, much to the Society’s surprise, Kathmandu police arrested three recruitment agents. At the same time, the Delhi connection had come to a stop—no new student visas were issued by the Chilean Embassy in India. Further, in December 2018, two Embassy officials were arrested on charges of corruption connected to the student visa scheme. Back in Iquique, however, the letter resulted in the unintended fragmentation of the small Nepali community. Ajay explained, “Our message was simply for Kathmandu agents to tell the truth, but what was translated to the community here was ‘we don’t want anyone else to come’.” Indeed, my conversations with younger and more recent arrivals viewed the letter as an unnecessary act of the older first generation that implied to them, “we don’t want more Nepalis in Chile.” Some went even further to accuse the older generation of using the letter to displace their disappointment in not reaching the US. The Society’s letter succeeded at drawing international attention to the corruption of the industry that brought migrants to South America, but it failed at improving their conditions. Moreover, the letter inadvertently created a fracture within the small group of Nepalis in Iquique. Their collective act, ironically, undermined group solidarity. This fragmentation would become physically visible in the relocation and renaming of Monte Everest and emergence of a second Nepali-owned restaurant.

2019–2020: Everest Comida Hindu and Sabores de Casa In October 2019, Laxmi and Sunil decided to move Monte Everest to the tourist center of Iquique and change its name to Everest Comida Hindu. It was now located directly on the Paseo Baquedano, the main tourist thoroughfare blocked to car traffic and lined by restaurants and bars. The new location nearly doubled the size of the restaurant, offering capacity to more than fifty diners with a much larger kitchen. The main announcement on the restaurant’s webpage marked this transition: Now, in a nicer and larger new local location, the attention is always good and the food always exquisite!!! A place where vegetarians and vegans can go

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and eat and enjoy themselves with 100% recommendable tranquility. (Translated from Spanish original by the author)

The name change to “Hindu” highlighted a conscious shift to emphasize the restaurant’s Indianness and upgrading of the restaurant’s decor.6 The Bistas hired a local designer to remake the restaurant’s exterior into a haveli-like façade with high archways over outdoor seating facing the Baquedano. Instead of posters, the restaurant’s interior now consisted of religious sculptures, candles, small oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, and decorated pillows for every seat. Laxmi took particular pride in starting an India Night, a monthly event consisting of Henna tattoo tables, and performances by a classical dancer and sitar player. She started a YouTube channel, “Cocina with Laxmi,” which produced regular instructional videos on cooking Indian food. Several local television stations aired segments about the new restaurant, offering amusing interactions between Laxmi and interviewers whom she would reassure, no se preocupe, por no se pica (don’t worry, it won’t burn you) while testing dishes. Building on Monte Everest’s appeal to Iquique’s vegetarian and vegan eaters, seen in hashtags #iquiqueveganos or #iquiquevegetarianos, the restaurant expanded its social media presence, offering frequent posts on how to make samosas, lassis, puri, and chai (tea). The renovation also appealed to South Asian customers. The new menu added a section of Asian Fusion including famous Chinese-Indian hybrid dishes of Hakka noodle, Manchurian curries, and Manchow soup. As one south Indian entrepreneur in Iquique explained to me, “the sign of a true Indian restaurant outside of India is to have Chinese food on the menu … because that’s what we eat at restaurants in India, something no foreigner would want.” While the new restaurant focused on growing its appeal to Chileans and South Asians, it left few opportunities for Nepali workers to meet after work. Catering to the Baquedano late-night crowd, the restaurant changed its closing time to 11 pm. As explained to me by Ajay, the new restaurant belonged to the Nepalis in Chile who lived with extended families and had investments. For those no longer working in the Zofri, Ajay and his roommates admitted, “They don’t understand our worker’s struggle.” Additionally, the property-owning  Bista and Pande families each shared connections to Gujarat, as they or their spouses were raised or educated in Ahmedabad, India. The workers, on the other hand, tended to come from Nepal’s rural districts in the midwestern part of the country, the area most affected by the Maoist insurgency, earthquake, and

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out-­migration. Nonetheless, the visible public success of Everest Comida Hindu remained a source of pride for many, even if they did not frequent it often. Additionally, it planted the seed for another restaurant to continue offering a space of social congregation. Just prior to the relocation and name change of Everest, a second Nepali-owned restaurant opened, Sabores de Casa. Unlike Everest, it was not established with ties within the Nepali community, but rather between the new Nepali owner, Dipendra, and the previous owner, Santiago, a Bolivian who was planning to return to Bolivia. Santiago offered ownership on a rent-to-own structure in which Dipendra’s rent payments would eventually lead to ownership. For Dipendra, the restaurant’s success was not guaranteed, but given its relatively low financial risk, he did not view failure as devastating. Until Santiago left, however, he offered to co-­ manage the restaurant and help Dipendra transition. For this reason, the restaurant remained advertised as offering Chilean and Peruvian dishes, what Dipendra described as “local” food including beef dishes taboo for Hindus. Dipendra explained that he intended to construct a second Hindu kitchen where he would start serving South Asian food, eventually transforming it into a hybrid restaurant. In spite of its Latin cuisine, Sabores de Casa unintentionally came to represent the post-letter fragmentation of Nepalis in Iquique. Located on the migrant-dense east side of the Iquique’s central plaza, it occupied a cheaper rent zone of narrow streets consisting of open stall markets, hardware stores, “Chifa” Chinese restaurants, juice stands, and Colombian empanada take-away. As Dipendra explained, it was a Nepali space hidden in plain sight in a neighborhood of immigrants where Nepalis go mostly unnoticed, even if “their Spanish sticks out.” Unlike the daily fluctuations of Monte Everest, the clientele of Sabores de Casa remained a constant mixture of working class migrants, both South American and South Asian. Nepalis, in particular, would meet at the restaurant to watch football games and drink tea on the weekends. It was not a semi-private space of organized meetings or even post-work socializing just for Nepalis, but rather a more informal weekend spot for Nepali engagement with other migrant groups. Ajay referred to it as a place he could connect with Venezuelan and Colombian co-workers. It was a place where the potential for cross-ethnic working class social relations existed. For Dipendra and his wife, Sushmita, Sabores de Casa did not represent a long-term commitment to Iquique with many expectations, but rather an escape from the Zofri, among other possibilities. Dipendra spoke of the

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restaurant as a temporary venture, a business opportunity that would provide a job for Sushmita outside of the Zofri while also helping him and her to apply for Permanent Residency (PR). PR status meant they could travel to several countries for extended periods, like Mexico, Argentina, Peru, or Colombia. These countries could get them closer to the US, he calculated. As Nepali immigration entries to Chile reversed (30 entries in 2018, 15 in 2019), Dipendra and Sushmita, along with increasing numbers of Nepalis (127 in 2018 and 2019), would obtain PR status (Gobierno de Chile 2020). Dipendra characterized his life as preparation for seizing multiple possibilities. While a student living in Kathmandu, he was studying three different courses. In the morning, he would take classes toward a Sociology degree, then attend a cooking class in the afternoon, all the while doing a master’s degree in English at the national Tribhuvan University. These degrees would prepare him for a life in Nepal or abroad, he believed. Like most other Nepalis in Chile, he arrived there only after failed attempts to reach other destinations, specifically Norway and the US.  Stranded in Quito, an agent convinced him to apply for a Chilean visa from Peru, which was denied, before finally gaining Chilean papers from Bolivia. When Sushmita arrived in 2013, she started working in the Zofri, but Dipendra did not like to see her exploited by the high work expectations. “We work for [the Indian bosses] because of language and religious similarity,” he admitted, “but that does not mean we like it.” In 2016 Sushmita quit the Zofri to start a home catering business in which she cooked and delivered food to workers in the Zofri. This small business provided sufficient capital to start negotiations with Santiago in 2018. After just a few months of running the restaurant, Sushmita shared Dipendra’s detachment, telling me that “I’ll try this for two or three years and then see what happens.” She struggled with communicating with the cooks and customers and did not like serving “so much meat.”

COVID-19 When the coronavirus pandemic reached Chile in March 2020, the Zofri immediately shut down, and Iquique grinded to a halt. As workers were staying at home, they did not need lunch catering. Sabores de Casa closed down and has not yet opened as of writing in September 2020. Everest Comida Hindu, however, used its online presence to transition into a delivery service. After being closed for nearly a month, it re-opened in May as a visible face of South Asian culture in Iquique. Its Facebook page

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reflected this new role. Descriptions of food items compare Indian dishes to Latin ones (e.g., “puri is like sopapilla”), provide recipes for dishes, and discounts on certain holidays (e.g., reduced rates on Chile’s national firefighter day; two free beers on father’s day). Food advertisements are mixed with informational posts about Krishna’s birthday, why Indians eat with their hands, the language and religious diversity of India, Hindi language lessons, and descriptions of house-cleansing rituals. The pandemic, thus, forced an additional makeover of the restaurant’s role in the city as it transitioned into a virtual symbol of South Asian Iquique.

Conclusion The restaurants Everest and Sabores de Casa reflect a range of temporary engagements with the changing landscape of Iquique and immigration politics of greater Chile. In response to the larger dynamics of neoliberal urban transformation and immigration restrictions, they represent a flexible spatiality adaptive to the different needs of migrant Zofri workers and Chilean customers. This was most evident in the daily shifts of Monte Everest from the morning delivery service to its afternoon and evening public face as an ethnic restaurant, and late-night semi-private space for male workers to socialize and organize. Just like the changing faces of Monte Everest, the Zofri workers have learned to change languages and social registers at a moment’s notice. As Simone (2019, 93) notes of improvisatory acts of individuals in vulnerable urban spaces, “They have to secure and build, but also refuse the specificities of any construction, self or otherwise, and act as if they belong anywhere.” The temporary and provisional nature of Nepali immigration in Chile compels the restaurants to be improvisatory and flexible, able to physically, socially, and virtually remake themselves to represent different meanings to different people at different times. In spite of their small size and recent emergence, Everest and Sabores de Casa contributed to the urban landscape of Iquique by expanding its migrant identity. In the wake of declining Nepali immigration to Chile and other pressures, the restaurants balanced a dual engagement with the Nepali community and greater Iquique. The transformation from Monte Everest into Comida Hindu marked the visible entry of a South Asian presence into the revitalizing tourist center, particularly through the demand for ethnic vegetarian cuisine—at the expense of being localized migrant space to Nepalis. At this point, the restaurant as immigrant

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co-­ethnic space had transferred to Sabores de Casa, allowing Nepalis to create partial connections in the city’s neglected migrant core. In an era of global migration defined by immigration restrictions and neoliberal austerity, the restaurants’ spatial adaptations reflect a politics of temporariness and flexibility amid contingent conditions.

Notes 1. Iquique’s reputation as a migrant city was further cemented by Pope Francis’ visit in January 2018 to promote social justice for immigrants. 2. I have given pseudonyms to each research participant in order to maintain confidentiality. 3. Nepali migrants started migrating to South America when Rafael Correa’s government instituted its Universal Citizenship policy in 2008, effectively allowing any nationality to obtain a visa upon arrival. When Ecuador rescinded its policy for Nepalis, among nine other nationalities in 2010, Nepali transit shifted to Bolivia, where a similar visa allowance was enacted. 4. In 2018, of the more than 2000 businesses registered in the Zofri, 43% were owned by Chileans, while 52% were owned by entrepreneurs from Taiwan, Korea, India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia (Zofri 2016). Most of the Indian entrepreneurs, many from Sindhi communities in northwest India, came to the Zofri in the 1980s when the mall was just opening. The construction of newer parts of the mall in the 2000s coincided with the arrival of Nepalis in Chile. 5. The relationship between the Zofri and Iquique is evidenced in the fact that the city’s population has tripled since the founding of the free trade zone in 1975. As one of the mall’s representatives, explained to me, “si no fuiste a Zofri, no fuiste a Iquique” (if you didn’t go to the Zofri, you didn’t go to Iquique). 6. As the term “India” is often confused with “Indio,” a Latin American term referencing indigenous people, the term “Hindu” tends to be used more often in Latin American Spanish to refer to people and cultural practices from India rather than a religious identification.

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Kuppinger, Petra. 2014. Flexible Topographies: Muslim Spaces in a German Cityscape. Social and Cultural Geography 15 (6): 627–644. Lee, Rennie. 2019. Who Does the dishes? Precarious Employment and Ethnic Solidarity among Restaurant Workers in Los Angeles’ Chinese Enclave. Ethnicities 19 (2): 433–451. McDowell, Linda, Esther Rootham, and Abby Hardgrove. 2014. Precarious Work, Protest Masculinity and Communal Regulation: South Asian Young Men in Luton, UK. Work, Employment and Society 28 (6): 847–864. Muniandy, Parthiban. 2015. Informality and the Politics of Temporariness: Ethnic Migrant Economies in Little Bangladesh and Little Burma in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. International Sociology 30 (6): 561–578. Notar, Beth E. 2008. Producing Cosmopolitanism at the Borderlands: Lonely Planeteers and ‘Local’ Cosmopolitans in Southwest China. Anthropological Quarterly 81 (3): 615–650. Ong, Aihwa. 2006. Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty. Durham: Duke University Press. Paul, Anju Mary. 2011. Stepwise International Migration: A Multistage Migration Pattern for the Aspiring Migrant. American Journal of Sociology 116 (6): 1842–1886. Ram, Monder, Tahir Abbas, Balihar Sanghera, Gerald Barlow, and Trevor Jones. 2001. ‘Apprentice Entrepreneurs’? Ethnic Minority Workers in the Independent Restaurant Sector. Work, Employment and Society 15 (2): 353–372. Ray, Krishnendu. 2016. The Ethnic Restaurateur. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Schmiz, Antonie. 2016. Staging a ‘Chinatown’ in Berlin: The Role of City Branding in the Urban Governance of Ethnic Diversity. European Urban and Regional Studies 24 (3): 290–303. Simone, Abdoumalique. 2019. Improvised Lives: Rhythms of Endurance in an Urban South. Cambridge: Polity Press. Song, Miri. 1999. Helping out: Children’s Labor in Ethnic Businesses. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Stock, Miriam, and Antonie Schmiz. 2019. Catering Authenticities. Ethnic Food Entrepreneurs as Agents in Berlin’s Gentrification. City, Culture and Society 18. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2019.05.001 Tan, Kevin S.Y. 2018. Traversing the Golden Mile: An ethnographic outline of Singapore’s Thai Enclave. Urbanities 8 (1): 3–19. Tapia Ladino, Marcela. 2012. Frontera y migración en el norte de Chile a partir del análisis de los censos de población. Siglos XIX-XXI. Revista de Geografía Norte Grande 53: 177–198. Thapa, Samita. 2019. Living in the Other America: Nepalis in Chile. M.D.E.V. diss., Graduate Institute Geneva.

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PART II

Religion, Urban Innovation, and Urban Spiritual Geographies

CHAPTER 6

“God Loves Taxi Drivers”: Christian Translation, Publicity, and Emergent Spaces in Shanghai Steven Hu

Morning traffic in Shanghai is oppressive. Even the tropical summer heat in August is more tolerable than the bumper-to-bumper traffic one must endure to get anywhere in the city. Yuping Road was jammed even on Sunday. David Fang, pastor of Living Grace Church,1 a unregistered evangelical church,2 and I sat in his minivan waiting for a red light to change, and he told me about God Loves Taxi Drivers, an outreach initiative he began in order to draw attention to the plight of taxi drivers, many of whom are migrant workers from other parts of China. Even though many residents rely on taxis to get around the city, taxi drivers are disliked because of their aggressiveness and lack of civility in the streets of Shanghai. Incidents of motorists involved in physical altercations with taxi drivers are not unheard of in the city. The traffic finally eased up and we made our way onto the expansive boulevards of Shanghai’s Zhongshan Park district.

S. Hu (*) University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_6

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Pastor David expertly weaved in and out traffic as we talked. Taxi drivers work long shifts, fourteen or more hours behind the wheel with no breaks, for little compensation. “It’s a hard way to make a living,” he explained. “Taxi drivers are really looked down upon.” Work stoppages and strikes by taxi drivers are common in China. Two years before I met Pastor David, a weeklong drivers’ strike in Shanghai in 2012 caused disruption and heightened publicity of difficult working conditions and issues of equity drivers face.3 In early 2014, Pastor David printed over 5000 bumper stickers with the words “God Loves Taxi Drivers” and distributed them to his own congregation and other churches in Shanghai. By placing these stickers on cars so they can visibly circulate throughout the city, Pastor David hoped to garner publicity and bring awareness to these issues. “The bumper stickers catch people’s attention so we can talk about God in public,” he explained. “If we (Christians) drive courteously, then we can ‘love our neighbor’ and demonstrate care to taxi drivers in this city. This is evangelism.” Pastor David said as we passed other cars. “What if in these encounters with taxi drivers they accept Jesus and become Christians?” Pastor David asked. “Then they too will demonstrate Christian concern and love to others! Imagine taxi drivers driving less aggressively while sharing the gospel with hundreds, thousands, even millions of passengers in Shanghai!” As he spoke, Pastor David became excited at the potential taxi drivers demonstrating civility and “live out the gospel” in the streets of Shanghai as Christian evangelism. This chapter examines how Chinese Christians seed change in Shanghai by constructing small spaces as sites for the remaking the cityscape. David’s desire to proselytize Shanghai taxi drivers is an attempt to reimagine and transform the city into a space of civility for the common good. Through the visibility of God Loves Taxi Drivers bumper stickers, Pastor David envisions strangers discussing God, concern for others, and the merits of civility in taxis, street corners, and other small spaces. Like many other Chinese Christians living and working in Shanghai, their desire to transform the city is therefore an attempt to assert a Christian “right to the city” (Harvey 2008). This chapter argues the Chinese Christian cultural project of remaking the city is made possible by the everyday practices of translation and publicity which begins in the transient moments and discursive spaces located in small physical spaces where interlocutors meet.

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Religion and the City In much of current urban theory and policy, the modern city is seen as the product of a long process of secularization (cf. Eliade 1961; MacIntyre 1967). Religion, in this framework, is something external to urban modernity. While studies of urban religions in Asian and Meso-American settings have long recognized the undeniable link between cosmologies and the making of cities, some continue to ignore the role of religion in people’s lives in the industrial/post-industrial city where “cosmology, ritual, architecture, and demarcations of space are not so carefully and intentionally synchronized, if at all” (Orsi 1999, 42). However, manifestations of the sacred in urban settings reveal how religion is at the core of modern urban experiences and continues to transform and (re)make subjectivities, communities, and physical landscapes (cf. Hancock and Srinivas 2008). Religion has long been the seed of urban change. A number of recent studies have examined the mutual imbrication between religion and the city. Omri Elisha (2011) and Matthew Engelke (2013) demonstrate how Protestants and Catholics have intervened in urban contexts in the United States and the United Kingdom by providing social services and seeding spiritual conversations in urban spaces hoping to make Christianity more visible in the public sphere. In Soviet Ukraine, despite an officially avowed atheism, socialist ideology offered a sacred vision of world salvation (Wanner 2012, 246) depicted in monuments in public spaces. The sacred continues to manifest itself publicly in post-Soviet Ukraine where contemporary monuments present a modernizing Ukraine state and promote a new sense of self and national identity. Shi’i practitioners’ continual negotiation, contestation, and refashioning of their subjectivity in light of their belief and their environment in Beirut illustrate that religion is central and constitutive to urban life (Deeb 2006). Tulasi Srinivas (2010) and William Elison (2018) explored how sacredness in Puttaparthi and Mumbai are made public through official and unofficial regimes in urban spaces. While Srinivas found that the city of Puttaparthi itself became a public model of and for moral architecture that religious practitioners experienced, interpreted, and then translated to other areas of their private lives, Elison saw devotees of “illegal religious structures” in south Mumbai denied recognition within rationalized spatial regimes. However, devotees were still successful in their claims to the city by relying on the indexical power of sacred symbols so entire “city blocks are established and made recognizable not through certification by the paperwork

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of the state, but by a higher if unofficial imprimatur, the concretized presence of protective spirits” (Elison 2018, 90). For Cuban exiles in Miami, everyday ritual practices and devotion to Our Lady of Charity allow the community to “imaginatively construct its collective identity and transport itself to the Cuba of memory and desire” in urban space (Tweed 1997, 10). In this case, the deployment of specific spatial and territorial resources enables religious devotees to cross national boundaries. In Justin Wilford’s (2012) analysis of contemporary American suburban and evangelical religion, geographical and historical specificities of a place shape and determine strategies religious practitioners can conceive and enact since their material location contains specific “discursive and performative resources” (Wilford 2012, 38). While religious practitioners and devotees may draw on local spatial resources to construct meaning and identity, they also contribute to the constitution and reshaping of local urban spaces. “Religions in the streets” represent the intersectionality of lived religion, urban space, and place (Orsi 1999, 2002). Christians, especially, deploy spatial imaginaries to cultivate an urban sense of belonging and place that reflects and recreates elements of their faith in varied physical environments (cf. Bielo 2009; Coleman and Maier 2013; Selka 2013; Strhan 2013). Religious space, especially public and urban space, are in a state of constant emergence “and (are) always contested, constituted in agonistic relations, in that it is implicated in the production of identities as relational and produced through difference” (Watson 2006, 7). Through contestation and appropriation, space is shaped and reshaped by actors relying on available spatial resources. In other words, like ethnographers, religious practitioners and others engage in the productive “art of the possible” because the urban contains multitudes of possibilities (Pardo and Prato 2018). Spatiality, thus, contains the very seed of change. While an “innocent spatiality of social life” may hide relations of power and discipline from view, human space is often filled with politics and ideology (Soja 1989, 6). Likewise, the sacredness of a space is neither given nor inherent (Kong 2001). Contestation in the constitution of religious space is therefore unavoidable since there exists a surplus of symbolic meaning available for appropriating in the construction of such space. Chidester and Linenthal suggest there are four possible modes of contestation in the production of religious space. The first two strategies, appropriation and exclusion, are most often used to assert domination and power, while the latter two, inversion and hybridization, are employed for resistance since

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they are “practices of mixing, fusing, or transgressing conventional spatial relations” (1995, 19). What is true of the politics of space is the resulting emergence of a new or different kind of space. Religious spaces are emergent spaces in that they seed transformations in other spheres of social life. In China, the robust reemergence of religion after the Maoist period sparked the reconstruction of temples, produced new subjectivities, and altered social relationships. In postcolonial contexts the resurgence of religion accompanied postcolonial discourses and political movements that challenged the secular state, yet this was not the case in China. Secularization in the Chinese context is the product of an active state-building project designed to expand and consolidate state power (Yang 2008). Secularization was a dual movement of distinction and intervention in the sphere of religion, in order to distinguish religion from superstition and to reshape aspects of religious life to meet this new criteria in order to  better serve the agenda of the state (Szonyi 2009). Thus, the reemergence of religion must be understood in spatial terms since what constitutes the secular in China is not the mere subtraction of religion (Taylor 2007) but an active secular imaginary that attempts to construct a unique space for itself while relegating religion to a separate sphere. The presence of both the secular and religion is evident in the clearly demarcated spheres which the Chinese state can classify and regulate: religion, education, health, leisure, work, income, justice, and war. The space that religion may properly occupy in society has to be continually redefined by the law because the reproduction of secular life within and beyond the nation-state continually affects the discursive clarity of that space. (Asad 2003, 201)

The relegation of religion to a separate sphere is especially evident in Chinese cities since urbanization is a government-led process where the state is the sole authority in planning and structuring of urban landscapes. While private religious spaces have increased in urban China (cf. Cao 2010; Kang 2016; Vermander et al. 2018), they allow only discrete activities, like Bible studies or prayers, and are limited to specific members of a particular movement or organization. Public religious spaces like temples and churches, on the other hand, allow various people to express their aspirations—hopes for the future—that are not possible in secular urban spaces. In other words, public religious spaces promote “transgressive aspirations” (Fisher 2014) which allow for the emergence of desires and

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hopes contrary to state aspirations that dominate Chinese urban landscapes marked by the accumulation of capital. In this chapter, I argue that the God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach initiative is an attempt to construct and mobilize public religious spaces to articulate a “spatial metaphor” (Armstrong and Rosbrook-Thompson 2016) and aspire to an alternative imagination of Shanghai, that is, a city that is civil, courteous, and built for the common good. This chapter engages Orsi’s suggestion that “urban religion” is the “dynamic engagement of religious traditions … with specific features of the industrial and postindustrial cityscapes and with the social conditions of city life” (Orsi 1999, 43). By taking a spatial approach toward religion, I consider how both religion and the city are mutually constitutive and always emerging. In foregrounding the imbrication of religion, the city, and everyday practices in the emergence of new social spaces, I attend to the ways “cultural place-making, negotiation of social identities, and the formations of political boundaries” are informed by specific spaces and places (Tse 2013, 2). This approach foregrounds space, place, and networks constituted by “grounded theologies,” that is, “performative practices of place-making informed by understandings of the transcendent” (ibid.). The focus on lived religious practices is essential in understanding the everyday experiences of the religious in emerging spaces.

The Emergence of Contemporary Chinese Cities In order to contextualize the urban environment of Shanghai where Pastor David operates, it is essential to trace the emergence of the contemporary Chinese city. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese state sought to transform and standardize Chinese cities and their forms. The Chinese state ceased all activities associated with capitalism in cities since they contributed to consumption, fragmentation, and social stratification that were contrary to communist ideology (McGee et  al. 2007). The central government also redirected investment and development away from coastal cities toward interior regions. Provincial capitals and cities underwent rapid transformation in which they acquired increased economic and political significance. This policy led to the increased differentiation between the city and countryside (Ren 2013, 24) and cities rapidly industrialized to become centers of production. Chinese urban planning in the Maoist era transformed cities characterized by heterogeneity into places of sameness. Cities became compact and

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their geographic expansion was limited. This was accomplished through the reorganization of urban districts as self-sustaining and self-sufficient units (Gaubatz 1995; Wu and Gaubatz 2013). This approach to urban planning resulted in the erasure of differences between districts such as “central city,” suburbs, and industrial districts. Functional  homogeneity through work-unit districting resulted in the “persistence of a walking-­ scale city” (Gaubatz 1995, 33). Maoist urban planners stressed the importance of the walkability of the city since residents have no need to travel outside their districts. The uniformity and classlessness that the Chinese state hoped to map onto cityscapes gave way to diversification and specialization in the reform period. By the late 1980s, urbanization in China once again became a process based on specific geographical areas centered on cities. First seen in Special Economic Zones designated along coastal regions, “city-­ centered urbanization” (Lin 2002) resulted from the influx of foreign capital, China’s integration in the global economy, and the decentralization of state power (Kipnis 2016). As the Chinese state decentralized and distributed power to local governments, commercial centers were revitalized and specialized districts emerged in cities. Rapid housing development and privatization of real estate markets in the 1990s and 2000s diversified cityscapes and produced new urban social spaces. These factors resulted in increasingly diversified and distinct Chinese urban forms that parallel the transformation of the social and cultural landscape characterized by the emergence of differentiation and heterogeneity. Urbanization and decentralization continue to seed changes and produce new urban social spaces. These processes are undergirded by the state’s deliberate privatization efforts, allowing citizens to take on new choices and (limited) freedoms. This governing strategy refashions individuals as “entrepreneurs of the self” where their quotidian experience is shaped by the “intersection of powers of the self with socialism from afar” (Zhang and Ong 2008, 2). Left to their own, individuals can pursue a range of self-managing goals in daily life, including religious belief and practices. Indeed, the (re)emergence of religion in China since the 1980s can be attributed to liberalization, privatization, and the limited retreat of the socialist state. The (re)emergence of religion in public space, especially in urban centers, must be considered and understood as a spatial phenomenon in which the existence and expansion of religion emerge into a specific space that has been carved out and enabled by the state’s governing strategy.

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An Urban Church Engages the Public in Shanghai Living Grace Church The beginning of Living Grace Church dates to 2002 when Pastor David graduated from university. Prior to his graduation, he was part of a small Bible study group. While the focus of the group was on reading and studying the Bible, the group also conducted outreach primarily through its social networks. Relying on relationships, or guanxi, members of the small group invited their friends, family members, colleagues to join. Pastor David eventually took over leadership of the small group which met in apartments and homes throughout Shanghai. The Bible study group remained at about 20 people with its size fluctuating over the years. For Pastor David, the Bible study group was not a church. Only in 2012 when he was introduced to other pastors in the city, he considered organizing the group into a formal church. For evangelical Chinese Christians, a church is not simply a physical building used for public worship, it is an assembly of Christians led by a group of elders/deacons, organized around a set of by-laws, and practices the sacraments of baptism and holy communion. In 2013, Pastor David formalized the small Bible study as a church and officially named it “Living Grace Church.” Currently, approximately 45 members regularly attend the church. Like most unregistered Chinese Protestant churches, Living Grace began as a small social group where the Bible is studied. These groups are small spaces where individuals cultivate a sense of intimacy with others and understand their own attachment to community while perceiving their own subjectivities in those contexts (Bielo 2009). As the group grew and its needs changed, it became a formalized church. Both the Bible study group and the church are “third spaces” (Oldenburg 1989) or inclusive social spaces where people can meet outside of work and home to cultivate sociality, a sense of solidarity, and engagement with the public. When I met Pastor David in the summer of 2014, Living Grace Church had moved to the Dapuqiao section of Shanghai, just a block from Tianzifang, a heritage tourist site famous for dwellings that combine western and traditional Chinese architectural elements that suited the long alleys of high-density neighborhoods in the city. The church is located on the ground floor of a five-story residential building on the property of a former toy factory. After the toy factory closed in the late 1980s, city officials allowed residential dwellings and commercial spaces to be built on the land. An elder of Living Grace Church knew the owner of the building

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and rented the ground floor to convert into the church and offices in 2013. The church itself is only 500 square feet, the size of a small urban apartment, and can seat about 55 people. Due to its proximity to businesses and other residents living above the church, Pastor David had the church space meticulously soundproofed to avoid noise complaints from neighbors. The God Loves Taxi Drivers Outreach Living Grace Church began the taxi outreach project in early 2014 to generate awareness regarding the difficult working condition of Shanghai taxi drivers. Pastor David distributed approximately 5000 bumper stickers to his own congregation and other churches in the city. In planning this outreach, Pastor David clearly wanted to generate public discussion regarding these issues in the streets of Shanghai in addition to discussing God, the Christian Gospel, and garner publicity regarding the importance of civility in the city (Fig. 6.1).

Fig. 6.1  “God Loves Taxi Drivers” bumper sticker. “D-Ge” is a Chinese colloquial term for taxi driver. (Photo by the author)

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The bumper sticker also included an URL which directed anyone curious about the meaning of “God Loves Taxi Drivers” to visit its companion website, www.godlovesdge.com.4 The website included information about the purpose of “God Loves Taxi Drivers” and various ways ordinary people could be civil when they encountered taxis. By having cars visibly sport the bumper sticker in the streets of Shanghai, Pastor David hoped to generate public discussions among strangers regarding civility and courtesy in the city. Pastor David also believed that if he and other Christians in Shanghai truly wanted to “transform the city by God’s grace,” they must model the behavior they desired to see. The logic of the outreach was: If Christians can actively demonstrate care, concern, and civility in their everyday behavior to strangers in the streets, including taxi drivers, then those they encounter would be transformed by the “grace” Christians bestowed upon them. As if civility is contagious, Pastor David reasoned  that in these encounters taxi drivers too would be changed by “God’s grace” and then go on to impact the city at large. There would be less accidents and strife on the busy roadways of Shanghai (Fig. 6.2). The public discussions and conversations regarding the importance and ongoing necessity for civility would take place in various public spaces in Shanghai including those  inside taxis. Christians participating in this

Fig. 6.2  “God Loves Taxi Drivers” pledge (in Chinese)

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outreach are asked to sign a “covenant” pledging commitment  to respect  and civility when encountering taxis in Shanghai. The covenant lists four basic principles: 1. When you are driving, if you encounter a taxi changing lanes or when a taxi is about to park, be as courteous as possible. Do not aggressively approach them or tailgate the taxi. 2. If there is a taxi driving slowly in front of you, or if the taxi is not observing traffic regulations or impeding your travel, please don’t swear at them, honk your horn, or aggressively drive around the taxi. Please be patient with them. 3. When your car inadvertently collides with a taxi, don’t argue with the taxi driver. Resolve the situation in a peaceful way through insurance or negotiation, even if some taxi drivers are rude. 4. When you see a taxi involved in an accident or having mechanical problems, please do your best to help them, even if you just pull over to wait with them and help them make a phone call. Pastor David’s desire for engaging the public in Shanghai is informed by an American evangelical conception of the city which has increasingly influenced Chinese Christians in the last two decades via missionary contact with American evangelicals. A number of American evangelical pastors and thinkers developed this theological and biblical perspective of the city to encourage their constituents to consider cities as “mission fields,” that is, spaces in need of God’s transformation. The theology of the city is a territorial understanding of space and place (AlSayyad and Massoumi 2011) since it is articulated in geographical terms and reimagines a new kind of urban space where the city is remade through specific actions enacted upon this space. This American evangelical conception of the city sees the city containing the seeds of its own transformation. In this framework, urbanization is a positive development since it produces innovation and increases both cultural and economic production (Keller 2012). The city is an “amplifier” (Um and Buzzard 2013, 44) that concentrates both resources and diverse demographics resulting in increased social connectivity. For evangelicals, the city is a place of boundless potential where the opportunity to engage non-Christians can be found in public and private spaces—apartments, offices, cafés, parks, street corners. The city is inherently a “positive social form with a checkered past and a beautiful future” (Keller 2012, 151) where the “urban future” is the result of the

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geographical and territorial expansion of “God’s kingdom” to all corners of the earth (Um and Buzzard 2013, 81). The God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach is based on this theology of the city where Christians like Pastor David and his church members work toward remaking Shanghai and the culture of the city into a space and place that reflects God’s plan for humanity. In the case of God Loves Taxi Drivers, the theology of the city offers a transgressive aspiration for Shanghai that is contrary to the state’s vision of the city as a space for capital accumulation (Shen and Wu 2017). Since the modality of the outreach involves mobility and navigating the city on foot or by taxi, participants constantly encounter group differences in urban space. This everyday mobility is multi-sensory and requires participants to interpret signs of social identity. Urban dwellers like Pastor David are therefore skilled at reading the social in the city (Shortell 2018). When Pastor David ­distributed the bumper stickers to churches throughout the city, he also spoke at those churches to encourage participation. At a leadership meeting of 30 pastors and church leaders in Shanghai, Pastor David noted the difficult working conditions of taxi drivers while recalling how he witnessed taxi drivers physically fighting for passengers at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport when he was picking up visiting friends. In these talks, Pastor David does the work of interpreting the social for his audience. He related: I used to be very aggressive when I encountered taxis on the roads, and I thought they were discourteous and terrible drivers. I myself almost got into a physical altercation with a taxi driver once. Like many others in Shanghai, I also thought, “They (taxi drivers) are in the wrong, so why should we act better?” But after I became a Christian, I realized this behavior wasn’t right. I also realized these drivers are scorned by society … there is so much prejudice toward them, and they drive aggressively because their hearts are dejected. I have repented of my actions. Now, I ask, “How can I serve and help them since they are so in need of the Gospel?” We Christians say that in this city we need to transform the culture. If taxi drivers are transformed by the Gospel, they will become a huge impact since they come in contact with so many people each day … Imagine if you took a taxi and its driver is calm, collected, and has a sense of peace on the road in midst of traffic and other aggressive drivers. Immediately you can sense his attitude is different. His behavior shows transformation, a transformation by the Gospel.

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As Christians we ought to be courteous and care for taxi drivers. This is for the betterment of the public good. When we do so, when we act civilly, we are training ourselves to love and care for those we don’t like.

While Pastor David and members of Living Grace Church did engage taxi drivers and talk to their families and friends about the importance of respect and courtesy on the streets of Shanghai for about two months, God Loves Taxi Drivers never got off the ground. As Pastor David began to distribute the 5000 bumper stickers and interacted with taxi drivers in the city, Chinese state authorities got wind of the outreach. In the fall of 2014, members of China’s Ministry of State Security visited Pastor David and invited him to “drink tea.”5 It was not the local Public Security Bureau that came to speak with Pastor David; he was warned by state officials to stop the outreach as it was considered “disruptive to the peace of the city.” While it is common for pastors like David to be invited to tea with local public security, it is rarer to be visited by officials from the state security apparatus. After “drinking tea” with State Security officials, Pastor David stopped passing out the bumper stickers and shelved plans to expand the outreach to other churches in Shanghai. Pastor David told me it was not worth the trouble to become “involved” with State Security since it would lead to charges of subversion if he persisted with the outreach. Pastor David and his fellow church members were most likely surveilled by state agents for some time even after distribution of the bumper stickers stopped.

Seeding Change Through Small Spaces, Translation, and Publicity In foregrounding civility and courtesy as everyday practices that have been lost, the God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach integrated the quotidian act of driving in the city into a larger narrative of divine  redemption and the restoration of social relationship between strangers in the city. Whenever Pastor David passed out the God Loves Taxi Drivers bumper stickers to church members, friends, taxi drivers, and even strangers, he rehearsed and disseminated this narrative by telling his audience the necessity for civility and redemption. In his attempts to befriend taxi drivers in Shanghai, he tells them about the necessity of civility as a common good that is beneficial to all urban residents. This narrative is “performative” in that talk about bettering the city is discourse about metaphysical divine action in

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relation to the immanent (Tse 2013, 204). However, for Pastor David and those involved in this outreach, their purpose is not simply to cultivate better-mannered drivers. The ultimate goal is the spiritual and material reordering of the city where people and social structures are transformed by God resulting in a city that is ordered, civil, without strife. In these public encounters and engagements, Pastor David is seeding change in the city by creating small discursive spaces that allows for civil discussions and debates. These spaces, however momentary, create opportunities for strangers to imagine the city differently. While transient and small, the discursive spaces produced and engendered by Pastor David and other Christians promote the possibility of transformation of the city into a space for mutual concern, service, and the common good. Such transformation of Shanghai by God and his agents (people like Pastor David and other Christians) yields a reconfigured space where divine redemption is mapped onto the secular urban geography. These small discursive spaces are also public religious spaces in that they allow alternative imaginations of Shanghai based on the metaphysical divine to be articulated in public. In the context of the God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach, “civility” and the “common good” are secular renderings of Christian terms “love for neighbor” and “Christian service.” This translation of Christian terms into secular concepts also undermines government restriction on proselytization. While proselytization is permitted in private settings in China, it is strictly prohibited in public (cf. Yang 2008). Since Pastor David and the Christians involved in this outreach are not members of state-sanctioned churches, they cannot openly conduct religious gatherings. Usage of concepts such as civility and courtesy allow for Christian discourse to circulate in public spaces. The translation of Christian concepts into secular ones is also performative since religion and faith are bracketed, at least temporarily, for the purpose of public engagement with a secular audience that otherwise would not occur. The temporary bracketing of religious discourse makes engagement in public spaces possible between Christians, taxi drivers, and strangers. The interaction among various participants is generative in that it produces debate, shared sentiments, and moods among the discussants over issues such as God, salvation, and redemption. Thus, translation in this context seeds the creation of spaces for discussion and civil debate. This translation  constitutes a public since it is a reflexively circulating discourse in interaction with its audience and interlocutors (Warner 2002). This public

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is a shared social space that selects participants based on habitus, topic, content, or genre. At least two overlapping publics are generated by the God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach. The first is composed of Christians participating in the outreach. These participants understand themselves as a social entity formed through its own discursive circulation. This is evident when Pastor David recognize himself and other Christians as part of a specific community who “distinguish ourselves from the surrounding culture” (Wang 2018, 31). As Christians move into various social spaces across Shanghai and introduce these translated Christian concepts to others, a new public is formed consisting of a wider audience including family members, friends, coworkers, and strangers interacting in spaces such as offices, classrooms, cafés, private apartments, or taxi cabs. The goal of the outreach is to generate person-to-person interactions between the drivers and passengers across the city. As discussions of related issues circulate in urban spaces, they form other small and intimate publics (Berlant 1997, 2008) while generating publicity. These interactions include face-to-face discussions between strangers which allow for more intimate engagements with issues of civility and the common good. These overlapping publics make possible interactions and rational debate between audiences and interlocutors. While Christian participants understand themselves as a unique community, they also recognize their audience and interlocutors as a distinct social entity. The outreach is an attempt to reach strangers and to collect them into a public. While these publics may be fleeting and temporary, they seed change since they may evolve and develop into more formal and permanent spaces such as a regular meet-up between two new friends, a small group with a shared interest, or even a Bible study group. Christians seed and create spaces of transformation when they enact respect and courtesy toward taxi drivers and others. Their actions not only demonstrate care and concern toward strangers in the city, but also serve as a visible argument for Christianity as a viable resource for addressing the needs of Chinese society. Pastor David envisioned the outreach to spread by word of mouth. Despite government restrictions on proselytization, the outreach couched in translated terms will nevertheless publicize Christianity. In this sense, civility would become its own publicity, that enactments of Christian charity and respect would provoke the imagination of a new city made possible by the Christian gospel. The foregrounding of Christianity in the God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach demonstrates

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how Christians like Pastor David practice religious publicity (Engelke 2013) since they are interested in addressing public concerns of Chinese society by engaging the public sphere (Chow 2014). Translation and publicity are practices that seed change by attempting to reorder spatial arrangements within the city. This twin set of practices allow Chinese Christians to reconfigure local spaces by mapping spiritual significance onto secular geographies. Both are guided by the idea of “an experimental utopia” where the idea of a city renewed and redeemed by the Christian gospel is “the exploration of what is humanly possible based upon the image and the imaginary (imaginaire), constantly subjected to critique and referring to a problematic derived from the real, that is a feedback mechanism” (Kofman and Lebas 1996, 15). The performative aspect of both translation and publicity are spatial practices (Lefebvre 1992) which bring together Chinese Christians, their interlocutors, means of symbolic production, and conceptualized space that is discursively constructed by the theology of the city.

Conclusion While Pastor David’s hope for a renewed Shanghai marked by civility never materialized and was thwarted by the ever-present Chinese  state, God Loves Taxi Drivers nevertheless represents an alternative imagining that runs contrary to the state’s vision for the city. Through the circulating visibility of God Loves Taxi Drivers bumper stickers, the outreach envisioned strangers in the city discussing God and demonstrating concern for others in taxis, street corners, and other small public spaces. Pastor David attempted to mobilize a transgressive aspiration to inspire residents to see the possibility of a different kind of city, a Shanghai that is civil, built for the common good, and ordered according to a divine plan. In this chapter I showed that actors relying on locally available spatial resources can enact everyday practices to seed urban change. Such spatial resources are founded in the inherent structures of post-reform Chinese cities. While state-led urbanization resulted in a cityscape dominated by capital accumulation and market structures, decentralization and privatization allowed new social spaces such as religious spaces to emerge in the post-reform Chinese city. These new social spaces are resources that Pastor David and other Christians in Shanghai can appropriate for their own purposes. The formation of Living Grace Church illustrates how religious actors can

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capitalize on the privatization of the post-reform real estate market to find and make space for themselves. With Living Grace Church serving as a generative space where people can assemble and imagine a better future, Pastor Davis is able to gather Christians to reimagine urban spaces. What Pastor David imagined was not just the remaking of Shanghai into a place of tolerance, acceptance, and civility; he imagined the possibility of change through the production of small, mobile, and transient religious spaces that could enable debate and public engagement in the city. While the tactical practices of translation and publicity resulted in some fruitful engagement with the public, the scale which the God Loves Taxi Drivers outreach initially imagined never came to pass; the kind of large scale change required to transform Shanghai never emerged. Perhaps this is why the Chinese state found God Loves Taxi Drivers threatening. The small spaces which the outreach produced could result in change in the very fact they could pop up and disappear at any time. Such small spaces of debate and engagement could ignite larger social movements  and would be difficult to track since they are diffused and decentralized. Even if Pastor David will never see Shanghai transformed into a space “full of God’s grace,” in printing bumper stickers and launching the outreach, he activated the potential for change in the city. Possibilities for urban change are always emerging, waiting for actors like Pastor David to realize their potential.

Notes 1. Individual and church names in this chapter have been anonymized. 2. Unregistered churches—either Protestant or Catholic—are not sanctioned by the Chinese government. While Christians may gather and worship in state-regulated churches, unregistered churches are disallowed to operate under Chinese law. Christians who attend these churches may face legal prosecution. 3. See上海青浦出租车司机持续罢工 (Shanghai Taxi Drivers Work Stoppage) http://www.rfa.org/mandarin/yataibaodao/sh-­07062012120106.html. Retrieved September 10, 2017. 4. The “God Loves Taxi Driver” website was still active in September 2017, but its domain name has since expired and the website is now defunct. 5. To “drink tea” is a Chinese euphemism for being asked to meet with localor national-level government officials to answer their questions. Often this is for officials to find out what is going on in the church or to deliver a warning or message.

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CHAPTER 7

Muslim Place-Making and Negotiations of Urban Change in Metropolitan Phoenix Muna Ali

Early on a Saturday morning in mid-August 2018, eleven men and twenty-­ eight women diverse in background and age met for a retreat. Some are white and black American converts or the children of converts to Islam; others are first- or second-generation Americans of diverse immigrant backgrounds from the Middle East, Africa, South and East Asia, and South America. Referring to each other as brothers and sisters, they exchange warm greetings of as-salamu alaykum (peace be upon you). Returning participants of the same gender, many of whom have become friends, kiss each other on the cheeks. They shake hands with new retreat participants of the same gender and share positive experiences of previous events, reassuring newcomers that they will love this weekend. All participants gather in an open dining area decorated with bright colored desert landscape art to sample the assortment of the continental breakfast spread while the “Islamic music”1 of Maher Zain, a Lebanese-Swedish musician, plays in the background. The temperature outside is in triple digits on this

M. Ali (*) Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_7

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weekend in Phoenix, but the retreat participants are not there to cool off and relax. They signed up for the Good Tree Institute’s (GTI) intensive two-day “Seeds of Wisdom” workshop paying $180 each for registration and three meals. As planned, at 9  am sharp, participants pick up their assigned folders with workshop materials and walk to the meeting room. They sit in mixed-gender groups of six around unassigned tables decorated simply with a small vase of flowers and face the front of the room where two facilitators, Dr. Nadia, a middle-age female immigrant from Syria, and Diego, a thirty-something Venezuelan-born, American-raised male convert to Islam, preview the day’s PowerPoint presentation. Three other members of the GTI leadership team (all American-born and American-raised Muslims of Syrian, Pakistani, and white American backgrounds) sit on different sides of the room preparing workshop activities. Facilitators ask participants to silence their phones and to immerse themselves in the “ocean of the Qur’an,” Islam’s sacred text. The workshop begins with bismillah al-rahman al-rahim (in the name of God, the most compassionate, the all merciful) and with peace and blessings on the Prophet Muhammad, the customary formula Muslims use to sanctify an activity. Then, Diego offers a supplication in English peppered with Arabic formulae familiar to all. Dr. Nadia welcomes participants and reminds them that GTI provides a unique opportunity to “go on a journey to explore and discover ‘who we are,’ who is the human being in the Qur’an.” She reminds them of GTI’s mission to “create a safe space for everyone” to engage in honest conversation and sharing of insights and that there is an expectation of mutual trust. She assures them that what happens in the workshop stays there and encourages them to “open [them]selves to new insights.”2 With this introduction begins GTI’s two-day “Seeds of Wisdom” (SOW) summer retreat, the sixth of eight annual workshops for adults. This is one of the main programs offered by GTI across the Phoenix metropolitan area (hereafter the Valley) that promise participants the unique opportunity to “reflect, discover, and transform” themselves and their communities. The theme for this workshop is the timely subject of social justice which, for Muslims in the present political climate where racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim rhetoric elected a president who ran on and implemented many discriminatory policies, including a “Muslim Ban,” is an ever more urgent topic. At times like these, when some Muslims find it prudent and safer to hide their religious affiliations or ethnic identities, others see building resilience and exploring diverse forms of resistance

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necessary; these topics are pervasive in Muslim American public spheres and in GTI’s programs. Using the GTI as an example, this chapter explores how Muslim Americans creatively experiment with religious and cultural practices using temporary sacred urban spaces in a process of self-making and place-­ making. As they hold their activities in community centers, conference halls, or hiking trails, they create transient Muslim spaces across the city that enable them to cultivate a particular kind of ethical subject and a confident belonging both to a global religious community and to their cities. The aim of the activities is to seed changes at the individual and group levels with the hope that participants’ embodiment and enactment of these changes in society will seed larger changes in the city. I argue that these efforts are modes of spiritual practice and cultural production which, though they seem insignificant, exemplify what Sharon Zukin calls urban cultural “beginnings” that “mark emerging spaces of urban authenticity,” which in the long term change urban landscape (2010, 20). GTI and similar efforts are constructing spaces of resistance and ways to enable Muslim Americans to remain resilient while localizing Islam in its American cultural landscape and to resist otherizing discourses from within the Muslim community and society. They are also contributions, however smaller, to urban change.

Urban Religion and Religious Urbanity With increasingly greater percentage of the world population living in cities often side by side with racially, ethnically, or religiously different Others, illuminating the complexities of life in the city with insights from different disciplines becomes ever more critical. Drawing on Max Weber’s concept of “ideal types,” Italo Pardo and Giuliana Prato remind us that what distinguishes a city is not merely its “size and demographics” or its built space (urbs) but also its civitas, the “social association of citizens”, and its polis , “political community” (2018, 3). These elements produce diverse ways of being in the city and account for both similarities and differences in urban life the world over; how those inhabiting these diversity and complexities interact and relate to each other is an essential element of what constitutes urbanity (Pardo et  al. 2020). Conceptualizing the city and urbanity in this way presents us with the possibility of comparison and “the basis for a theoretically relevant ethnographic analysis that makes commensurable the apparently incommensurable” and much could be

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gained from the insights of urban anthropology as its methodology lends itself well to exploring how these complexities are lived on the ground through thick description and analysis (Pardo and Prato 2018, 7–8). Though scholars for years predicted the demise of religion in the march toward secular modernity and urban life, it is now an accepted fact that modernity and secularism are not conjoined twins and neither secularism nor modernity is monolithic (Asad 2003; Beaumont and Baker 2011; Beyer 2013). Long a neglected aspect, religion has over the years gradually gained greater scholarly attention in urban studies (Garbin and Strhan 2017). Becci and Burchardt note that this shift was made necessary by the fact that cities around the world were noted to be “vibrant” centers of “religious innovation” and the realization that religious life in urban centers differed from rural areas in that “cities have their own dynamics of change which are distinct but still related to the nation state and which also affect religious and secular change” (2013, 1). Cities could be viewed as a “crucial arena in which citizenship, democracy and, by extension, belonging are critically negotiated” and in which the “morality of law and politics” (Pardo and Prato 2018, 6), whether religiously or secularly inspired, could be interrogated or contested. Lanz (2014) argues, however, that often the focus in urban studies has been on religion in the city rather than religion of the city where both religious practices and the city are examined and the mutually constitutive relationship between religion and the city is explored. When looked at it this way, he adds, instead of taking the city as an “entirety” and a “fixed reality” (2014, 29, citing Ong 2011, 4), the city and religion can be conceptualized as “assemblages of material, social, symbolic, and sensuous spaces, processes, practices, and experiences” where religion and the city shape each other resulting in religious urbanity and urban religion (Lanz 2014, 30). This (re-)production and mutual transformation, however, is not taking place in a vacuum; therefore, the understanding of this interplay requires simultaneously focusing the analytical lens on the assemblages, the agents, and on the tempero-spatial, economic, political, and institutional contexts in which this takes place (Brenner et al. 2011, 233). Katie Day’s Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street (2014) illustrates this by examining how diverse religious communities on a Philadelphia street through time shape and are shaped by the physical, political, economic, and cultural context of their city and how if they suddenly disappeared, this area will be an entirely different urban space.

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Burchardt and Westendorp (2018) identify four interwoven themes that constitute a paradigm that usually frames the growing study of religion in urban contexts: “politics of belonging,” “regimes of space and territoriality,” “materiality and sensorial power,” and “visibility” (2018, 164). The authors concede that these are not distinct elements that can be examined separately. The politics of belonging and identity are about who belongs to the city and to whom it belongs. These politics manifest in the ways religious actors lay temporary or permanent claim to urban spaces and in the religious material and aesthetics that mark those spaces. These in turn make their presence more visible to others and tend to lead to tensions between groups. These tensions give insights to the reasons “majority religions often seek to represent and defend the space of the nation, while migrant religions are particularly invested in urban space” (2018, 163). These concepts, argue Burchardt and Westendorp, make up “building blocks” to what Garbin refers to as “religious place-making” (2018, 164) in urban spaces. The material aspect (buildings, objects, symbols) of urban religion is usually the focus of research and has been critical in expanding our understanding of contemporary religion. It can, however, erase a religious community’s internal diversity and neglect the religious ideas and values that give rise to religiously grounded people in their urban context, and enable them to belong and experience the city (Burchardt and Westendorp 2018). Peter van der Veer examined ideas and values behind a large religious display like Ganapati Festival in Mumbai and the Pentecostal Prayer Walk in Singapore. Borrowing Appadurai’s notion of “aspiration,” he coined the term “urban aspiration” to refer to the “ideational character of many of the processes that effect cityscapes and urban movements” regardless of whether these are religious or secular ideas and values (Van Der Veer 2013, 63). Burchardt and Westendorp (2018) illustrate how different interpretations of the life and character of Jesus (as a revolutionary or peacemaker) provide “religious urban aspirations” that underpin contrasting actions and attitudes of two Christian women from Hong Kong toward the social-political-economic Umbrella Movement. In minority religious communities, new immigrants or converts initially focus on how to connect with co-religionists in whatever space is most cost-effective. These spaces might be small storefronts or office spaces and they are examples of what architect and artist Matilde Cassani (2011) calls “sacred spaces in profane buildings,” by which she means urban spaces that were not constructed originally as a religious space. Though externally unmarked, the interior of these buildings often undergoes

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“improvised transformation” to meet a group’s religious, social, and educational needs (Cassani 2011). Both the externally marked and the improvised places of worship transform cityscapes. Urban spaces are consequently “both the context for and the product of ethnic [and religious] transformation” as people attribute meanings to urban spaces (Krase and Shortell 2017, 22). While religious communities build such places, the process of religious place-making also builds communities (Mazumdar and Mazumdar 2009). The Islamic Center of North East Valley in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale, for example, was built five years after it was incorporated. In the intervening years, a Muslim community numbering in the hundreds formed and used a local inn for prayers and gatherings and a daycare for its weekend religious school. Religious groups also use urban public spaces temporarily for regular activities or for occasional events like parades and festivals and claim their belongings to the city (van der Veer 2013). Ann David (2012), for example, examines a Tamil Hindu festival in London and argues that the performative ritual and resulting sound and movement carve out a space for the procession that temporarily transforms the urban space into a transient Hindu sacred space. Azzara (2019) provides another example of temporary/transient sacred space that is created by the congregants of the Faith Family Missionary Baptist Church in South Los Angeles. Lacking permanent sacred space due to their limited financial resources, they gather in rented spaces while their resources last or in city parks. Their socio-economic-political status forces them to inhabit urban spaces temporarily and invisibly; but their faith inspired care for the poor, ministering for the disenfranchised, mentoring at risk youth, creating a community and seeding change for “urban beginnings” (Zukin 2010) have potential for greater impact. Though with greater economic resources, a group of Muslims in the Phoenix Metropolitan who participate in the Good Tree Institutes programs similarly use private homes or rented spaces in conference halls and city facilities or parks and create transient scared Muslim spaces across the city. They draw on lessons from the Qur’an and on Islamic and secular resources to inspire personal change. In these resources, they find technologies of the self that permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of others a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to attain a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality. (Foucault 1988)

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The individual transformation is not an end in itself; GTI leaders hope that these are seeds of change for communal and societal transformation to bring about a more tolerant, caring, and socially just urban life. GTI uses these urban public and private spaces for its activities, temporarily modifying spaces to be Muslim place of prayers, learning, and community building. This process of “appropriation and experiencing” and reimagining of urban spaces is “religious place-making” through which a sense of attachment and belonging are nurtured (Garbin 2012, 410). The invisibility of the unmarked temporary sacred spaces makes them less likely to be contested, but they are no less of a sign of belonging and demands for recognition of the right to the city. This demand for recognition signaled in the visible presence of a religious minority creates fears in the local communities which can be exploited for political ends. Burchardt and Becci (2013) remind us that the politics of belonging is manifest in the tension between two forces: the struggle for “place-making” by a minority and efforts of “place-keeping’” by a majority to maintain its dominance over the public space. The remaking of urban spaces by groups like GTI to suit their needs is arguably transient and insignificant in the larger scheme of urban life and their religious urban aspiration may be of limited impact on the city. However, Sharon Zukin notes that seemingly minuscule changes can be seeds of “new beginnings” (2010) of urban authenticity. Over time, these efforts can alter cityscapes. Authenticity to Zukin is not about class-based preferred aesthetics but about “the experience of origins” in the city (2010, 6, italics in original). She clarifies that origins are not about who was in a place first but about people’s exercise of their “moral right to the city,” which “enables them to put down roots”; it is the “right to inhabit a space, not just consume it as experience” (2010, 6). In coining these concepts, Zukin (2010) was examining neoliberal globalizing forces and the potential impact on the cityscape of the actions of the actors or communities these forces emplace or displace. It is easier to recognize how that context seeds new urban beginnings. Though powerful, economic forces are but one example of urban aspirations that impact the city. Religious urban aspirations can also present emergent spaces and moments for urban innovations and new beginnings and the Muslims in Arizona provide an illustrating example.

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Islam in Arizona Arizona Muslims have for years used parks, community centers, and convention venues for congregational prayers and community activities when a permanent mosque is not easily accessible or is not large enough to meet their needs. But GTI’s use of temporary spaces is not for lack of permanent Muslim community spaces that could host its activities. News headlines about the killing of a Sikh man mistaken for a Muslim, the intimidation of worshipers by armed bikers in a “freedom of speech” rally, and the two “patriot” women and their children mocking Muslims and vandalizing a mosque illustrate the risk of religious symbols in post-9/11 Arizona. Yet, Muslims, numbering approximately 70,000,3 have long shaped the Valley’s cityscape through their visible religious attire, ethnic restaurants and stores, and the architectural features of mosques. Though the presence of Muslims in Arizona is relatively recent, the desert landscape of Arizona figures in the history of Islam in Arizona and in the United States. In 1856, the US military brought Hajji Ali, a Muslim from the Greater Syria region at the time, to test the viability of camels for transportation in the desert for military and commercial exploration (Ghaneabassiri 2010). Hajji Ali, who came to be known as “Hi Jolly,” eventually became a US citizen and settled in the town of Quartzsite, Arizona. He died there in 1902 and a monument in the shape of a pyramid with a camel statue on top was erected in his honor in Quartzsite. The contemporary history of Islam in Arizona, however, starts in the 1960s when the health benefits of desert climate attracted Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam (NOI), to the Valley where he built a home in a south Phoenix neighborhood and began to split his time between Phoenix and his base in Chicago. He and his followers established three temples in the Valley that represent the earliest contemporary Muslim presence in Arizona. The temples became mosques as the majority of the NOI members transitioned to Sunni Islam when imam W.D. Muhammed (d.2008) took over the leadership after his father’s death in 1975. In the 1980s, the first two mosques designed as such in Arizona were built as part of a single project, in a rare partnership between African American and immigrant Muslim leaders. The first to be completed was the south Phoenix Masjid Jauharatul-Islam (the Jewel of Islam mosque), an architectural hybrid with North African design elements and features from the Grand Mosque in Mecca. The mosque was built to serve and to

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be led by African American Muslims who continue to make up the majority. The second mosque, the Islamic Cultural Center of Tempe adjacent to the campus of Arizona State University, was built as a replica of the Dome of Rock mosque in Jerusalem to serve and be led by a diverse immigrant majority. Since those first two mosques, twenty-seven others have been built across the Valley, each having faced varying levels of resistance or support from local residents. There are million-dollar mosques complete with domes and minarets. There are also smaller mosques, which are temporarily or permanently transformed storefronts, office spaces, and houses. These spaces serve not only as places of prayer but also as spaces to educate, to socialize, and to mark life events from birth to death. Most GTI participants and leaders attend religious services in these mosques. Additionally, there are two full-time Islamic schools with large campuses in the Valley. Yet, GTI leadership prefers to use public and private venues creating temporary Muslim sacred spaces throughout the Valley.

Seeds of Change The Good Tree Institute started over ten years ago as an idea for an afterschool program organized by a group of second-generation Arab and South Asian female friends. Having been raised as the American children of immigrant Muslims, these young women wanted their children to study the Qur’an without the immigrant “cultural or political baggage” (Ali 2018) they endured growing up. They wanted to teach their children about the “mercy and love of God” and to have character education that equips the children with a “moral compass” that guides them as engaged members of society (Ali 2018). The approach also appealed to adult second-­generation Muslims and converts to Islam who wanted a “pure Islam” extricated from a presumably “cultural Islam” of immigrants to feel at home as both American and Muslim (Ali 2018). As demand for this approach to studying the Qur’an increased, the founders of the program decided to institutionalize their effort. They created GTI as a not-for-­ profit organization in 2010 with the mission to “provide an experiential educational study of the Qur’an that develops and nurtures exemplary individuals, communities, and societies.”4 Central to GTI programing is the last 1/30 of the Qur’an, which consists of the earliest and shortest revelations. This is because they and scholars of Islam see it as the summation of Islam’s ethical and spiritual message. Its chapters illustrate

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recurring “core theological ideas and literary themes” in the Qur’an (Sells 2002) which provide the spiritual principles from which GTI draws to plant the seeds of change in participants with the potential to impact society. Understanding the meaning and the message of the Qur’an and how to apply them to one’s life is not a unique GTI effort. This is the goal for which programs of many institutions and private study circles of Muslims everywhere strive. In the case of GTI, however, what is different and appealing to participants, young and old, is that the religious teacher is not viewed as having the only authoritative voice imparting knowledge and wisdom or citing traditional exegeses and Islamic references as the ultimate authority on the meaning. Instead, the GTI’s teacher translates the Arabic words by stripping them into their three-letter roots and proposes the multiple shades of meanings of each word. Then, whether it is an adult or youth focused program, the gathering takes a seminar format where the teacher facilitates a collective interpretation by participants to expand upon and enrich these meanings through the diversity of their backgrounds and experiences. They utilize secular online material such as YouTube videos on social experiments about racism, Google images for exercises on stereotyping, and TEDxTalks video clips on implicit racism. In the summer SOW that opened this chapter, the Qur’an verses and this online material generated spirited discussions that explored prejudices, racism, sexism, and tensions within the American Muslim community and in society. The participants then propose the “take away message” of the chapter and seminar and the relevance and applicability of what they read in their lives. The Qur’an and secular sources provide participants with technologies of the self, designed to cultivate a certain type of ethical subject (Burchardt and Westendrop 2018; Mahmood 2005), who the organization hopes will be inspired to restore universal values of beauty, justice, and care for others while resisting prejudices and racism in one’s self and others. As part of the “experiential learning” of these values and its efforts to seed change in society, GTI tries to bring diverse groups together, including inviting non-­ Muslims to its programs, reassuring them this is not an attempt to convert them but to get to know one another.5 It holds “American Tapestry” events to showcase different cultural groups and engage diverse communities in the Valley. During the social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd, GTI held virtual conversations on racism and the work needed to dismantle systemic racism and exhorted its participants to

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engage in organizations working on social justice in the city. Adult and youth participants also spearhead projects, including a suicide prevention hotline staffed by experts and art events like “Art for Change” and “Art Thou Loving” to benefit refugees and inspire creativity. The organization was established ten years ago with the ambitious mission of providing an approach to religious knowledge that transforms the individual and collective. Yet until today, it only has one paid part-time staff and it has no office space. Instead, the leadership conducts the organization’s business online or at one of the members’ homes. It holds its youth and adult programs in homes, conference halls, city-owned community centers, college campuses, shared office spaces, and parks, thus creating temporary Muslim sacred spaces that dot the Valley.

Discussion Burchardt and Westendorp note that “urban religious aspirations” are the various religious “values and other ideational elements that inspire people’s practices of being in the city, belonging to the city and experiencing the city” (Burchardt and Westendorp 2018, 164). These aspirations create small but important emerging spaces for urban change. But the same religious values and ideas can lead to change in religious practice and inspire different ways of being in the city and exploring religious urban aspirations helps unsettle any presumed homogeneity of religious communities (Saint-Blancat and Cancellieri 2014). In the case of GTI, the values and ideas that inspire its founding, programing, and the ethical urban subjectivities it aims to cultivate are religiously grounded and informed by the socio-cultural and political context of a polarized country and of city in which there have been public anti-Muslim incidents. Using public and private spaces throughout the Valley rather than mosques enables several changes within the Muslim community. It is an opportunity to showcase a female religious scholar’s authority and ability to educate both men and women and to experiment with teaching methods and material without having to deal with mosque politics and community expectations about mosque-based teaching. It provides a safe space where people can talk freely about personal matters or question societal and Muslim practices without being concerned about the etiquette associated with the mosque as a formal sacred space. GTI’s non-mosque status appeals to the “unmosqued” who feel alienated from mosques and find in GTI a community and a place for spiritual and personal development. Not having a

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fixed venue might seem like a liability, but it makes GTI programs accessible for people, Muslims and non-Muslims, who might otherwise not attend due to distance or the religious setting. Through these factors, the organization itself serves as an emergent space where a seed of change planted over a decade earlier as an innovative idea to help a few children has since become a recognized urban Muslim institution adapting Islamic teachings to the participants’ American sensibilities and cultural context. All this enables GTI to brand its approach and programs and to maintain its organizational identity. But change, no matter how small, is not without difficulty; while GTI attracts praise from participants, it is also blamed by those who see it as taking people away from mosques. Its leadership argues that rather than competing with mosques, GTI complements and supports mosques by rekindling people spiritually, which brings them back to mosques to make them places of diversity and social change. But the seminar also presents an emergent space for individual and collective change through the provided resources of technologies of self. Most of the participants attend the same workshop multiple times hoping to gain new insights because, as one participants asserts, “you don’t read the Qur’an, the Qur’an reads you” and in each encounter with the Qur’an there is a hope for greater insights that could inspire individual changes in thoughts and actions. They discuss oppressive community and societal expectations and practices, childhood trauma, and dysfunctional relationships. They also share moments of grace and gratitude in their lives. Ostensibly, the purpose of sharing which participants find both instructive and cathartic is to create a supportive space for reflecting on one’s life and benefiting from others’ perspectives. Insights gained and “take away messages” from Qur’anic chapters become assignments for self-improvement. One participant commented that the GTI programs are useful because participants and teachers serve as both Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil, offering support and empathy and, when necessary, challenging participants’ positions and perceptions and changing their perspectives. The organization’s objective is for these changed individuals to embody these values and act in society to seed social change by restoring universal values that were presumably once societal norms but have since been “dimmed.”6 This echoes a common narrative in Muslim and non-Muslim religious revivalist movements. Saba Mahmood (2005) and Meryem Zaman (2019) explore these themes in Muslim women’s piety movements in Egypt and Pakistan respectively and identify common themes. GTI, however, differs in several important ways that shape and are shaped by

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being American Muslim in a diverse city. Unlike these movements, GTI programs are attended by both men and women who are diverse in their cultural backgrounds, and the programs are open to non-Muslims. The teachers and participants draw on Islam’s discursive tradition which “includes and relates itself to the founding texts” (Asad 1986, 14) and “links practitioners across the temporal modalities of past, present, and future through pedagogy of practical, scholarly, and embodied forms of knowledge and virtues deemed central to the tradition” (Mahmood 2005, 115). Yet, unlike other piety movements where referencing Islamic scholarly resources is central and bolsters the authoritativeness of the teacher, no references are made to these resources in GTI programs. Dr. Nadia explained that GTI teachers are well versed in the scholarly tradition, but they do not reference sources because “truth is awakened, not given.”7 Here the authority of the teachers hinges on their certifications in the Islamic tradition and, just as importantly, on their cultural competence in the American context. All this enables GTI teachings to resonate with their American Muslim audience and for that to inspire their “practices of being in the city, belonging to the city and experiencing the city” (Burchardt and Westendorp 2018, 164).

Conclusion GTI’s religious and cultural experimentation, creative expressions, and social solidarity activities change the cityscapes in ways no less impactful than the coffee shops, art studios, and ethnic stores which Zukin identified as “emerging spaces of urban authenticity” (2010, 20). Zukin noted that there are two aspects of urban authenticity. One is old and about origins; the other is new and creative and is the source of new initiatives that are the bloodline of change in cities (2010). In an instantiation of these two sides of authenticity, GTI creates a different way for Muslims to experience the city and see it as their own. However, GTI’s claims for authenticity are also about rooting their approach and goals both in the Islamic tradition and in the US cultural context. Dr. Nadia says that GTI’s approach is unique and creative but has its origins in the Qur’an and early Islamic history. It is, she notes, how Prophet Muhammad’s companions experienced the Qur’an. Besides serving a need, urban place-making is also about the emotional “attachment” to the city in that one feels comfortable and that  one belongs; a sense of having the right to be there without fear of being in

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places other than one’s private sanctuary at home. GTI members are not specifically attached to the conference hall or community center or the park per se, and they are likely emotionally neutral toward these spaces. Yet they are attached to the idea of having places in the city that enable them to create a more inclusive and expansive community in a physically, emotionally, and intellectually “safe space.” In that space, they experience emotions that lace the memory of their time there. This expands the “local Muslim mental maps and emerging social geographies,” which increase Muslim visibility as part of Arizona’s urban landscape (Kuppinger 2014, 629). Minoritized and marginalized groups in society may be powerless; but still, their visibility commands a “presence” (Sassen 2005, 19) that enables them to lay claim to the city. These claims and confident presence need not be seen as a “take-over,” as their efforts are sometimes framed. It is the mark of thriving multicultural societies. Zukin noted that origins are about people’s exercise of their “moral right to the city” (2010, 6). GTI leaders and program participants do not consciously assert this right to inhabit the city. They just do it. For some who fear the “Islamization of America,” this at-homeness and the visibility of Muslims in the city conjures images of a Muslim cultural take-over (see Ali 2018). Alternatively, this could be a sign of a positive and confident sense of belonging that can seed urban change. Immaterial dimensions, such as values, ideas, and beliefs, anchor religious identity and belonging to cities no less firmly than “material assemblages” (Burchardt and Westendorp 2018, 164). Along with the material elements and marked “official sacred spaces,”(Garbin 2013) these urban aspirations and the embodied practices of Muslim urbanites constitute the religious inscription of everyday life in urban spaces (Saint-Blancat and Cancellieri 2014, 646). These inscriptions are emerging spaces for new urban beginnings that are small but are nevertheless possibilities for changing cityscape.

Notes 1. This is a music genre with religious themes and is often devotional in nature. In this case, the lyrics are in English with Arabic phrases familiar to Muslims regardless of their mother tongue. 2. Fieldnotes, 08/2018. 3. Religious composition of adults in Arizona: https://www.pewforum.org/ religious-­landscape-­study/state/arizona/. 4. See the organization’s website http://www.goodtreeinstitute.com/.

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5. https://www.facebook.com/events/hera-­hub-­phoenix/explore-­quran-­ november/3017746411633105/. 6. Personal communication with Dr. Nadia. 7. http://www.goodtreeinstitute.com/our-­story.html.

References Ali, Muna. 2018. Young Muslim America: Faith, Community, and Belonging. New York: Oxford University Press. Asad, Talal. 1986. The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. Occasional Paper Series. Washington, DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University. Asad, Talal. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Azzara, Monique. 2019. Grappling with the Impermanence of Place: A Black Baptist Congregation in South Los Angeles. City & Society 31 (1): 77–93. Beaumont, Justin, and Christopher Baker, eds. 2011. Postsecular Cities: Space, Theory and Practice. London: Continuum Books. Becci, Irene, and Marian Burchardt. 2013. Introduction: Religion Takes Place: Producing Urban Locality. In Topographies of Faith: Religion in Urban Spaces, ed. Irene Becci, Marian Burchardt, and José Casanova, 1–21. Leiden: Brill. Becci, Irene, Marian Burchardt, and José Casanova, eds. 2013. Topographies of Faith: Religion in Urban Spaces. Leiden: Brill. Beyer, Peter. 2013. Questioning the Secular/Religious Divide in a Post-­ Westphalian World. International Sociology 28 (6): 663–679. Brenner, Neil, David J.  Madden, and David Wachsmuth. 2011. Assemblage Urbanism and the Challenges of Critical Urban Theory. City 15 (2): 225–240. Burchardt, Marian, and Mariske Westendorp. 2018. The Im-Materiality of Urban Religion: Towards an Ethnography of Urban Religious Aspirations. Culture and Religion 19 (2): 160–176. Cassani, Matilde. 2011. Sacred Spaces in Profane Buildings: An Exhibition. https://www.archdaily.com/167159/sacred-­spaces-­in-­profane-­buildings-­an-­ exhibition-­by-­matilde-­cassani. Accessed 28 Aug 2020. David, Ann R. 2012. Sacralising the City: Sound, Space and Performance in Hindu Ritual Practices in London. Culture and Religion 13 (4): 449–467. Day, Katie. 2014. Faith on the Avenue: Religion on a City Street. New York: Oxford University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1988. Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Lectures at University of Vermont Oct. 1982. In Technologies of the Self. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Garbin, David. 2012. Introduction: Believing in the City. Culture and Religion 13 (4): 401–404.

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———. 2013. The Visibility and Invisibility of Migrant Faith in the City: Diaspora Religion and the Politics of Emplacement of Afro-Christian Churches. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 39 (5): 677–696. Garbin, David, and Anna Strhan, eds. 2017. Religion and the Global City. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Ghaneabassiri, Kambiz. 2010. A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order. New York: Cambridge University Press. Krase, Jerome, and Timothy Shortell. 2017. The Visual Impact of Islam: A Special Focus on Turkish Migration to the United States and Europe. Urbanities 7 (1): 22–44. Kuppinger, Petra. 2014. Flexible Topographies: Muslim Spaces in a German Cityscape. Social & Cultural Geography 15 (6): 627–644. Lanz, Stephan. 2014. Assembling Global Prayers in the City: An Attempt to Repopulate Urban Theory with Religion. In Global Prayers: Contemporary Manifestations of the Religious in the City, ed. Jochen Becker, Katrin Klingan, Stephan Lanz, and Kathrin Wildner, 16–47. Baden: Lars Müller. Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mazumdar, Shampa, and Sanjoy Mazumdar. 2009. Religious Placemaking and Community Building in Diaspora. Environment and Behavior 41 (3): 307–337. Ong, Aihwa. 2011. Introduction: Worlding Cities, or the Art of Being Global. In Worlding Cities: Asian Experiments and the Art of Being Global, ed. Aihwa Ong and Ananya Roy, 1–26. Malden and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Pardo, Italo, and Giuliana B.  Prato. 2018. Introduction: Urban Ethnography Matters—Analytical Strength, Theoretical Value and Significance to Society. In The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, 1–19. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Pardo, Italo, Giuliana B.  Prato, and James Rosbrook-Thompso. 2020. Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections. In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, I. Pardo, G.B. Prato, and J. Roosbrook-­ Thompson Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10 (S3): 2–12. Saint-Blancat, Chantal, and Adriano Cancellieri. 2014. From Invisibility to Visibility? The Appropriation of Public Space Through a Religious Ritual: The Filipino Procession of Santacruzan in Padua, Italy. Social and Cultural Geography 15 (6): 645–663. Sassen, Saskia. 2005. The Repositioning of Citizenship and Alienage: Emergent Subjects and Spaces for Politic. In Globalizations: Empire or Cosmopolis? ed. Barry Gills, 79–94. London: Routledge. Sells, Michael. 2002. Understanding, Not Indoctrination. The Washington Post. August 8. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/08/08/understanding-­not-­indoctrination/574efa11-­fde0-­4670-­ b7e4-­5180500e2a6f/. Accessed 17 Aug 2020.

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van der Veer, Peter. 2013. Urban Aspirations in Mumbai and Singapore. In Topographies of Faith: Religion in Urban Spaces, ed. Irene Becci, Marian Burchardt, and José Casanova, 61–71. Leiden: Brill. Zaman, Meryem. 2019. Segregated from the City: Women’s Spaces in Islamic Movements in Pakistan. City & Society 31 (1): 55–76. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. New York: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 8

Building Community Centers in Living Rooms: Piety Movements, Domestic Space, and Women in Islamabad, Pakistan Meryem Zaman

Urban Pakistani society underwent a noticeable transformation in the early 2000s, when upper- and middle-class women who had previously not veiled their hair began adopting the hijab, a form of headcover that is distinct from the local dupatta, a flexible shawl which can be worn on the shoulders or over the hair based on social context. Some commentators linked this growth to the after-effects of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York, while others pointed out that the impacts of these attacks in Pakistan were governed by a separate politics of representation than those facing Muslims in the diaspora (Kamal and Fayyaz 2016). Women who were surveyed regarding their reasons for adopting a hijab and/or niqab (covering hair and face) indicated that this form of dress was due to their religious sentiments (Kamal and Fayyaz 2016). This increase

M. Zaman (*) Social Science Department, The Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City, New York, NY, USA © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_8

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in religious sentiments and expression can be traced partially to the increase in membership of Islamic revivalist movements in Pakistan, starting in the early 2000s. Women who join Islamic movements often adopt stricter forms of veiling than previously and withdraw from a number of customary social gatherings; this makes middle- and upper-class women’s adoption of revivalist values startling and unexpected to local commentators. While the extent of the changes is dependent both on the individual woman and on the ideology of the specific movement she has joined, women who join these movements uniformly alter their socialization and dress habits, adopting greater degrees of purdah (veiling) and distancing themselves from social gatherings containing “unislamic” behavior. Why would women join these movements to the extent that they have, altering the sartorial and spiritual landscape of Pakistani cities? Until the early 1990s, the headscarf was an anomalous garment in middle- and upper-­ class urban contexts and was a marker of “the culturally left behind” (Jamal 2009, 20). Urooj, one of my non-revivalist interlocutors who is a doctor in Islamabad, remembers that when she was in high school in Islamabad in the late 1980s, only two of her classmates in a class of thirty wore a headscarf. In contrast, she says that nearly one-sixth of her students in medical school veil to some degree. The literature on women in religious movements initially treated women’s absorption into patriarchal religious movements as women’s attempt to coopt some of the benefits of enforcing the patriarchy on other women (Dworkin 1978; Boddy 1989) and has since grown to a more dimensional view which sees women as engaging in ethical self-fashioning (Mahmood 2005; Ahmad 2009). This approach encapsulates women’s own motivations for participation in Islamic movements while sidestepping the necessary and important question of the ways in which these self-transformations impact women’s social contexts. My participant observation research on Islamic movements in Pakistan, conducted since 2007, suggests that while ethical self-fashioning is the primary approach women take to their own participation in these movements, their self-motivated transformations bring corresponding shifts to their personal relationships, approach to religion and authority, and community bonds. These are part of a significant change in women’s lives and communities. This chapter uses this lens to trace the ways in which women’s involvement in one at-home class of the Islamic revivalist movement Al-Huda results in a profound transformation of a small space from domestic space to movement space to community center. These transformations of a small space echo through the wider

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community and the city, creating social change through women and their social networks’ interactions with the city of Islamabad. I argue that Al-Huda’s at-home classes offer middle-class women in Islamabad an opportunity to build a form of community which goes beyond the stated goals of the religious movement which sponsors their meetings in order to build a “third space” which serves their needs for community and education. While making this argument, I wish to be clear that I am not arguing that this is a significant advantage which motivates women to join the movement; many of my interlocutors made large sacrifices in their personal lives in order to participate, and this side-effect of their participation in no way compensates for their struggles as movement members. I also wish to be clear that this chapter focuses on women in Islamabad, which has a unique geographical and ethnic composition compared to Pakistan’s other urban centers; while I conducted brief ethnographic research in both Karachi and Lahore, it was not of sufficient duration to assess the similarities and differences between these three sites in terms of movement spaces transforming into something greater. Work examining Muslim women and space often focuses on women’s use of public spaces, including mosques, and on their utilization of public mosque spaces for religious gatherings (Brekus 1998; Eason 2003; Mir-­ Hosseini 2000; Mahmood 2005; Rinaldo 2013). In contrast, this chapter examines Pakistani women’s gatherings in small spaces within homes. “Women’s worlds” are inaccessible to men and have often been dismissed as supplementary to “public spheres,” and yet significantly impact social interactions and influence (Donner 2012, 175). Janaki Abraham has pointed out that neighborhoods can be central arenas for the construction and exercise of social and cultural influence (2018, 95). Movement spaces in Islamabad, while confined in neighborhoods, and in spaces that have sometimes been categorized as private, bear out these observations, reaching into and transforming life in Islamabad by impacting beliefs about women, authority, and virtue. The interactions which enable this social change are authentic, in the manner envisioned by Zukin, in that they are created through the “continuous process of living and working, a gradual buildup of everyday experience” (2010, 6). Women in these small spaces are focusing on developing their own moral excellence, but in the process are creating changes in the way women’s religious authority is perceived throughout the city. These changes draw on the resources provided by the revivalist movement they are affiliated with but move beyond them over time, conforming to women’s needs and expectations. Michel de Certeau

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has observed that it is the “ordinary practitioners” (1988, 92) within the space who give it its ultimate impact, and this is true of the movement spaces I explore. These small spaces create city-wide patterns of discourse and behavior reflecting the changes that occur within them. The city of Islamabad also plays a role in the way in which the movement space I discuss in this chapter is significant to individuals other than those directly involved. Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, is dominated by people who do not have roots in the city. According to the 1998 Provincial Census Report conducted by the Population Census Organization, more than 59% of the city’s inhabitants arrived there as migrants (Hasan and Raza 2011, 116). Ethnographic evidence of this can be seen in the emptying of the city on religious holidays such as Eid-ul-Fitr, when traffic in the city is low because many residents have gone to their villages to visit family. Most of my interlocutors had been in Islamabad for ten years or less, and had moved there from other cities, villages, and in some cases from abroad.

Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism The Al-Huda Welfare Trust was founded by Dr. Farhat Hashmi in 1992 and is a relative newcomer to the scene of Islamic revivalist movements in Pakistan. Despite its recent origin, the movement has a disproportionate impact on urban Pakistan, due to its outreach to a demographic that had been largely ignored by other Islamic movements, namely upper-middle-­ class women. Al-Huda’s female founder, known to movement participants simply as “Dr. Farhat,” started the movement with the explicit goal of reaching out to women and reforming society through authentic Islamic education (Esposito 2010). In doing so, she turned a demographic often presented by Pakistani revivalists as irreligious others into the target of conversion efforts and prominent new bearers of public piety. Al-Huda provides classes for women in a number of settings. These classes teach women Arabic and provide them with unmediated access to the Quran and Hadith. Al-Huda’s use of cassette tape sermons and its focus on middle- and upper-class women has moved it into transnational contexts, with a main campus in Toronto and over 200 branches globally (Okoye 2010). In less than thirty years the movement has grown from a building in Islamabad to an international organization that penetrates deeply into many elite neighborhoods and nearly every women’s college in Pakistan. It offers classes in its official campus in Islamabad, week- and month-long seminars in elite hotels, and classes in the private homes of

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members. Any woman who completes the offered diploma courses can, with the approval of the institute, open a center in a private house. Al-Huda is responsible for supplying test papers, checking those papers, and supplying diplomas to women who complete courses. Al-Huda classes focus on translation, interpretation, and context surrounding either the Quran or the Hadith. The Quran is divided into thirty sections. Al-Huda Quran classes work on one section at a time, focusing on learning the literal translation of each word, and then the overall meaning of the verse and the chapter it is a part of. Ways in which each verse dictates moral action are also discussed as part of the class. Al-Huda Hadith courses focus on the Sahih Al-Buhkari, one of the six canonical Hadith collections, which gather together all of the Hadith, or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Classes working on the Hadith progress through each book, translating, interpreting, and learning how to derive Islamic law from the Hadith. Al-Huda offers tests that can be administered at the culmination of each section of the Quran and book of Hadith, and passing these tests demonstrates a student’s mastery of the subject matter. The movement’s impact and rapid expansion can be tied directly to the demographic it targets, and the ways in which it accommodates them. Wealthy Pakistani women, prior to Al-Huda, had been a secondary audience for religious preachers and movements. Movements of reform in the Indian subcontinent have historically focused on male audiences, and been male directed. Men have provided intellectual frameworks and theological guidance, while women have participated as followers. Female leaders within these movements have functioned in coordination with, and under the direction of, male leadership. In Al-Huda, in contrast, leadership and members are exclusively female. Al-Huda’s focus on women results in a movement tailored to upper- and middle-class women’s unique time and mobility constraints. Classes are offered in a variety of venues and formats. The literature on Al-Huda focuses on women’s participation in official classes held on purpose-­built campuses or hotels (Mushtaq 2007; Ahmad 2009). Classes such as the one I studied are held in members’ homes in informal settings and offer women without access to movement teaching within walking distance of their own homes. The institute’s deep reach into the urban Pakistani upper and middle class is a result of its semi-formal classes: not everyone has time or motivation to attend classes in the institute itself, but most women are able to go to houses in their own neighborhoods. The

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movement’s focus on small domestic spaces is echoed by other Islamic movements in Pakistan. Unlike Islamic revivalist movements in other parts of the world, such as Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Iran, Pakistani women’s religious gatherings are based in houses, schools, colleges, hotels, and municipal buildings (Mahmood 2005; Rinaldo 2013; Mir-Hosseini 2000). This focus on small spaces caters to Pakistani middle-class women’s constraints with regard to travel, but also presents the women in these spaces as engaging in primarily domestic reform. The class at Nazish’s house, where I conducted research, was one such class. Nazish is a homemaker in her late fifties who lives in Islamabad’s F 11 sector with her husband, son and daughter-in-law, and two young grandsons. The Al-Huda class at Nazish’s house was one of the main sites of my research from 2007 to 2010. When I started research, the class had been ongoing for five months, and I was able to observe the intertwined changes the class brought to its space, participants, host-family, and community as it developed over three years. I drew on a combination of methods for this research. These included in-depth participant observation research, formal and informal interviews, and a general values survey.

Nazish’s Drawing Room The spatial practice of Al-Huda classes for housewives represents the collaboration between the movement leadership, the teacher, and the class “hostess”—the woman who volunteers her house for movement-related activities. Costs to the movement leadership are low and involve checking test papers and providing the institutional guidelines under which classes are held. Teachers must commit their time while the class hostess commits time and the use of her family’s drawing room. The class status of the woman hosting varies based on location but is generally middle- to upper-­ middle class. Neighborhood classes draw from a hostess’s friends and women who live in the neighborhood, and timings are based on the convenience of the hostess and the teacher. Home-based classes are held in private drawing rooms which are multi-­ use and not devoted only to Al-Huda activities. The lack of specialized space reflects Al-Huda’s status as a woman-led movement. Many Al-Huda women participate against the wishes of their families, and even those who have supportive families do not modify a portion of the house exclusively for the gathering. I was a guest at more than ten Al-Huda at-home classes in Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore, and all these classes were offered in

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drawing rooms, which serve specific functions in middle- and upper-class Pakistani homes. Urban Pakistani drawing rooms are designed to allow the business of the house to continue unseen while (often gender-­ segregated) guests are entertained. Drawing rooms are an in-between space; they are not outside the house, but they are also not central to it. They are designed this way in order to create flexible segregated space. Male or female visitors can be entertained in the drawing room while the inner, private space of the house remains segregated, and household members of the opposite gender from the guests are not disturbed. “Joint-­ family” multi-generational patrilocal households like Nazish’s use drawing rooms to entertain guests while keeping them out of the way of the entire extended family household. The family lounge/drawing room arrangement also creates segregated spaces for male and female visitors when large parties occur. Drawing rooms are generally temperature controlled, furnished with heaters, air-conditioners, and fans. Couches made of wood, leather, or fabric dominate the room—the material and style of the furniture reflects the wealth and taste of the family. The room contains tables on which knick-knacks are displayed, and some drawing rooms feature china cabinets and display cases. Most drawing rooms feature paintings on the walls, statuettes, vases, and other forms of decoration. Drawing rooms are an elite space—they are possessed only by those who have the resources to allocate an entire room of the house primarily to the occasional guest. Their furnishings and arrangements are also elite. One purpose of the drawing room is to reflect the family’s prestige; the isolated nature of the room makes it possible for it to be the only room in the house guests see, and so the furniture and objects within this room are more prestigious than those in the family lounge, the room where family and close friends are entertained. Nazish, as the senior woman in her household, was able to devote her drawing room exclusively to Al-Huda activities, even though the house was not large by urban middle-class standards. The house had two main entrances: one in the front, leading to the drawing room, and one in the back, leading to the kitchen. The kitchen was connected to a dining room which led to the drawing room through an archway. These three rooms were separated from the living room by a thin plaster wall, and there were two bedrooms off the living room. There were en-suite bathrooms attached to both bedrooms, and one half-bathroom in the living room intended for guests. There were stairs leading to the upper story of the

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house near the kitchen entrance, and the upper story was rented out to another family. Al-Huda’s at-home classes reorganize drawing rooms to recall elements of a schoolroom. This framing is not a concession to material constraints— Al-Huda’s purpose-built space resembles other college campuses and contains multiple classrooms. The idea of the classroom demonstrates the movement’s focus on cultivating an aura of modernity and accommodation to contemporary norms and spaces. When describing the reasons why they chose Al-Huda, members often speak of Al-Huda’s “modern” approach. Nazish, for example, often mentioned that she had attended a few other religious gatherings, but Al-Huda’s “modern, educated” approach had led to her attendance at Al-Huda. Al-Huda women present themselves as having gained mastery over the “subject” of religion through their participation in the movement. Al-Huda classes, held in what seem to be ordinary drawing rooms, are encoded to convey to outsiders that Al-Huda does not demand radical changes to Pakistani life, while signaling to participants that serious work is occurring inside the class.

Conversion into Movement Space The Al-Huda class at Nazish’s house relied on subtle modifications to the drawing room to signal its use as a place of study. The “students,” who were Nazish’s neighbors, came equipped with notebooks, Al-Huda workbooks, and pens. Rabia, the teacher, sat alone on a couch that was moved to one side of the room before the class started, and the other chairs and sofas were moved to face hers. A small coffee table was moved in front of her sofa and held a cassette player and several books. There were two paintings on the wall containing ornately painted calligraphic Quranic verses. A few small hand-knotted silk rugs were strategically placed on the carpeted floor, and a small indoor palm tree sat under a window. An air conditioner ran in the background, and fans were working at full speed. A bookshelf in the corner of the room contained several religious books, the Bukhari Hadith collection, a few Qurans, commentaries on the Quran, and a shelf full of cassette tapes. After the class was over Nazish returned the audio-cassette the class had been listening to its place in the sequence on the bookshelf. The use of the classroom frame for at-home Al-Huda gatherings spans cities and locations and was present at all movement sites where I conducted research. This framing is meant to empower women and construct

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them as confident, articulate scholars. Nazish proudly told me more than once that learning the Quran had taught her how to read fluently, and that she had “forgotten” how to read before joining the movement. Rabia made links between learning in class and gaining self-confidence. She said to her students: There are various kinds of discipline (tarbiyat) you are put through in these classes. Learning to speak without feeling hesitant is one of them. You need to be confident and speak bravely, wherever you are. You need to speak the truth, and not worry about consequences.

After the “homework,” the class would begin in earnest with an audio recording of Dr. Farhat Hashmi’s lecture on the text the students were studying that day. When they were studying the Quran, “Dr. Farhat’s” voice would guide the students through the intricacies of the Quran, and the way it related to larger theological and social issues. During Hadith classes, “Dr. Farhat” took students through the subtleties of Hadith, and the ways in which specific Hadith create theological rulings, or fatwas. This, too, was in line with Al-Huda gatherings in other parts of Pakistan. However, the use of audio-cassettes for teaching has consequences that run contrary to the intentions of the Al-Huda leadership. Rabia, the teacher, would guide her students through the audio-cassette and elaborate on points that seemed relevant to her. While the audio-cassette sermon seems designed to allow the official views of the movement to circulate, the pause button allows the teacher to contextualize and expand on the sermon.

Class in 2007 I first conducted participant observation research on the class at Nazish’s house in 2007. I had been introduced to the site by Huma, who I had been introduced to by a friend who was in graduate school in Lahore. The class at Nazish’s house had been ongoing for around five months when I arrived and had ten attendees who participated regularly who were all between the ages of twenty-five and fifty. The class was held daily on week day mornings from 9:30 am to noon. The women were working on the seventh section of the Quran at the time. I attended several classes that summer and noticed that the class seemed to consciously cleave to Al-Huda guidelines regarding the structure and social functions of space.

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During the first class I attended, I noted that the participants worked on creating a classroom atmosphere through a number of behavioral cues. Rabia, the teacher, took attendance at the start of class, calling out a “student’s” name, in response to which the student would reply in Arabic “present.” Rabia had also assigned behavioral modification as “homework” and, before starting the lesson, asked students about how they had done—the homework she had assigned the previous week had been for students to find opportunities to express gratitude to God for his blessings, and one by one, students chimed in with examples of times in which they had done so. Later that month, there were tests on the seventh chapter, which Rabia took back to the Al-Huda main campus to be marked. Al-Huda classes, at home and on campus, are intended to be spaces for learning, and not for the customary socialization between neighbors and friends. Rabia and Nazish worked hard that first year to signal that the Al-Huda class was not a social space through a strictly held-to agreement not to serve refreshments or tea to the women attending. Nazish mentioned that she found it difficult not to provide tea and snacks for her neighbors, even the ones she did not know well, but that this was a class, and it would not be appropriate. This position seems in line with the majority of Al-Huda classes, which limit refreshments. Rabia often headed directly from Nazish’s house to another class, and Nazish would wait until all of the other participants had left before offering Rabia tea.

Class in 2009 When I returned to Islamabad in July 2009 to continue my research, the original students at Nazish’s class had completed their revision of the Quran and had started a tri-weekly afternoon Hadith class from 2 to 4 pm. At the same time, Rabia passed the Quran class on to her students Nazish and Komal, who continued teaching the newer students the Quran from 9.30 am to noon every weekday. The regularly scheduled use of the room was the subject of some conflict with Nazish’s young daughter-in-law, Fatima, who had joined the household in 2008. Fatima never objected to the class within earshot, but frequently refused to host the gathering when Nazish was traveling, and sometimes would pull Nazish away from the gathering or try to end the class early. Rabia occasionally attempted to recruit Fatima into attending the class, and slowly won her over during the course of my fieldwork. There were now two classes occupying Nazish’s living room, which was busy from 12.30 to 4 pm three days a week. The

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tenor of both classes had also changed with the longevity of its stay at Nazish’s house. The Hadith class had four members, consisting only of women who had completed the Quran course. These “old” students now knew each other well enough to ask after husbands and children, and to postpone the start of class to have conversations about their lives. The original students had started socializing with each other and inviting each other over with their families. In Ramadan that year, each of the students threw an iftar party and invited the other group members. They would also ask after each other’s children’s progress in school, and their matrimonial prospects. Kausar, one of the older members of the class, once complained that her grandson, Nomaan was quite skinny. “I’ve noticed that his mother is also like that,” commented Rabia. “Yes, she is also not very strong,” Kausar said. Exchanges like this one illustrate the growing familiarity the Hadith class showed with the details of each other’s families and lives. The atmosphere of the Quran class had also changed and become less formal. The Quran class now had more than twenty students, and several women ended up sitting on the floor. This class had a number of women from the original class who had been unable to complete the Quran in the first round, like Huma who had to take a year off following the birth of her second son. Huma had arranged for childcare for her baby in 2007, but in 2009 brought both children to class. Saira and Maria were new students who also brought their toddlers. They would sit on the floor and work while their babies played at their feet, and the other class attendees would help quiet them and keep them occupied. Nazish, who had already completed the Quran course, was present in her role as hostess, and spent a lot of time engaging with the children. I once commented that Nazish must find herself very busy with all of the activities at her house. Nazish responded, “I spend most of the morning class looking after the children. There are Huma’s two, and my grandson, and a few others. It is like I am running a childcare center.” Komal added: It is good that the children come. Children these days do not know how to listen. Coming here is discipline for them. It’s our own fault that the children do not listen—we put them in front of computers and TVs. When they come here, children sit with us and learn things.

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Huma later confided that she really appreciated the support and company she found at the class: “my own family is in Lahore, and we are all alone here. It is very nice to have Nazish Baji to help with the children, and to come here and learn instead of being stuck at home.” The students were also much more confident and articulate. As in 2007, Rabia frequently paused Dr. Hashmi’s taped sermons to elaborate on them and modify the message the cassette tape was conveying. A sermon on honesty from the cassette could turn, in Rabia’s hands, into one on being good to one’s in-laws. The tape recorder, with its “pause” button, transformed the Al-Huda classes into a collaborative effort; rather than Farhat Hashmi’s view of issues, Rabia’s view dominated. This was similar to the effect the cassette sermon had in other classes and by 2009 the class at Nazish’s house also involved many contributions from the class attendees. The cassette interpretation recited by Dr. Farhat Hashmi, the movement’s founder, was frequently interrupted by women interjecting their own experiences into the discussion. Usually, these interruptions were to clarify a point made in the cassette sermon, or to place a teaching into the context of their own lives. Class members would also relate the material to their own lives, presenting themselves as “good” women to the other class participants, or describing how their participation in the classes had changed them.

Class in 2010 By 2010, the class at Nazish’s house occupied her drawing room for most of the day. There was a morning Quran class on weekdays from 9.30 am to noon. Nazish and Fatima had started offering a children’s Quran class from noon to 2  pm daily, at the request of members of the Quran and Hadith classes who wanted a place to send their children where they could acquire religious knowledge. The evening Hadith class continued to be held three times a week from 2 pm to 4 pm. At this point in the class, there was a flexibility regarding the boundaries between the classes. Women in the Quran class would occupy the drawing room while their children attended the children’s class, and women might attend both Quran and Hadith classes if they had friends in the other class. The character of the drawing room also shifted, and it became community space. Women would come to Nazish with their marital problems after class, and some of the younger women were sent to Nazish for premarital counseling on how to lead an Islamic married life. Nazish described one of these girls to me:

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“There is a girl in the neighborhood who is about to get married. Her mother sends her to me so she can learn things before she is married … If girls learn these things, they will have successful marriages.” Children would barge into the drawing room early and sit and converse in corners while the women’s Quran class wound down. Nazish’s husband, who was visibly pious,1 had been involved with the Jama’at Islami in his youth, and never complained about being confined to the family lounge during the day. At the same time, the use of the drawing room clearly constrained Nazish’s family; during the class, sounds of them using the family lounge, watching TV, and spending time together were clearly audible. Classroom activities were also audible to them and intruded on their space on a daily basis.

Conclusion The Al-Huda class at Nazish’s house changed forms and boundaries as it established itself and grew beyond the limits envisioned by the movement leadership. This is due both to the unique situation of Nazish’s family, and to the way it served the needs of the neighborhood women. Interactions that started in class, and among the small group of women who attended, also spilled over into other neighborhoods and into the city at large. As the class established itself, its members began to use the tools they acquired within class to impact their communities and families. The class started out strictly adhering to Al-Huda at-home classes framing as classrooms in private space. It did this through both physical cues such as seating, and behavioral cues such as the limiting of hospitality. Over time, the class literally and metaphorically outgrew these restrictions; as the Quran class expanded to twenty students, many women had to sit on the floor due to seating constraints, and as the students grew to be friends, it became natural for them to stay at Nazish’s for a cup of tea after class. This “gradual build-up of everyday experience” (Zukin 2010, 6) led to several authentic changes which shaped the impact the class had on the community and city in which it was located. One of the frequent topics of conversation after class in 2009 and 2010 was how to implement the teachings in the class into their own lives and the lives of their families. Nazish complained that her son watched TV. Komal worried that her sisters did not veil. Kausar, one of the older members of the class, often expressed her concern that her son and daughter-­in-law did not pray regularly. One of the ways in which the class

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addressed these concerns was through their outreach to neighborhood children, and the other involved strategizing after class to help each other delineate the boundaries of moral conduct. The children’s Quran class was also a direct outcome of women’s everyday socialization after class. Naila, one of the Quran students, had mentioned that she did not like having a man come to her house to instruct her daughters in the Quran, and she did not feel like they gained as much as she was in her own Quran class. Rabia immediately suggested that the women host their own Quran class, and over the next week, after much conversation, Komal and Fatima volunteered to teach the class. The presence of young children during the women’s Quran class was also a result of women’s spending time socializing and discussing the challenges associated with their attendance in the class. The toddlers in the class set gatherings at Nazish’s house apart from other religious meetings for women throughout the city. Nazish and Rabia both claim that excluding children ignores the realities of women’s lives, and results in fewer women having access to religious learning. The involvement of children on both of these levels is tailored to the needs of Nazish’s community. Although Al-Huda’s ostensible focus is on self-improvement and not on forcing change on family members, women would discuss ways to improve their family’s religious behavior after class. Students would also provide each other with moral support to resist family pressure on them that was not, according to their interpretation of the sacred texts, mandated by Islam. Rabia once conspicuously ignored her buzzing phone three times during class, and afterward explained that her husband was feeling ill and had texted to ask her to come home. “I will leave at the usual time,” she said over tea, “it sounds like he has heat sickness, nothing serious. Men can make so much fuss.” The other students started to giggle, and Shazia said, “men do not have patience. God is going to make women mothers, so he makes them strong.” These maneuverings spill out into the larger urban surroundings and create a discourse which sees Al-Huda as creating distance between women and their families. There is a common discursive formulation in which “Al-Huda” (guidance) is called “al-Juda” (the separation) for the distance it creates between women and their families. I heard variations of jokes along this theme on three separate instances during fieldwork, from individuals whose female relatives were not involved with the movement. There are also common and frequent sayings calling the piety of Al-Huda women into question, such as the suggestion that what women are doing

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is not “religion” but “fashion.” These discursive frames highlight the threatening nature of middle- and upper-class women’s claim to religious authority; if women who have been traditionally seen as the irreligious “others” of pious men start wielding religious authority, it threatens to destabilize both family and community status quos. As time passed, many of the women at the Quran class became resources their families and friends consulted in order to determine religious obligations. Their existence increases the options available to the women who consult them, providing them with friendly female “scholars” they can draw on to determine ritual and social practice. The idea that women can serve as a source of Islamic authority is itself a radical one in urban Pakistani society, where religion has been the province of men educated in a madrassa tradition only moderately accessible to women. The introduction of female religious “scholars” into urban society shifts the balance of religious authority and increases options for women across social class. The women at Nazish’s house became loci of religious knowledge. As time passed, and the class became an established neighborhood presence, neighborhood women would come to consult Rabia and Nazish about problems with parents, children, husbands, and in-laws in attempts to learn what Islam required of them. All of the women in class shared stories of their extended networks reaching out with questions ranging from those related to ritual religious practice to serious personal problems. The women who consulted them were diverse and included members of all social classes; students in the class would dispense advice to friends, neighbors, relatives, and connections of their servants. The quiet transformation of Nazish’s drawing room into a community space had ripples which impacted the neighborhood and the city, as well as providing the women students with a supportive community which many of them lacked in Islamabad. Work on Muslim women and space tends to focus on women’s access to so-called public space, and strategies by which women can increase their access to this space. These include the adoption of new sartorial practices, deployment of Islamic theology, and political activism (Göle 2003; Göle 1997; Mumtaz and Shaheed 1987; Newcomb 2008; Osanloo 2002; Secor 2002, Weiss 1998). However, these studies cleave to the western delineation of space as either public or private. My examination of Nazish’s living room and the impact it has on life in the neighborhood and city point to the ways in which a public/private dichotomy when examining space is insufficient. A home’s drawing room is unquestionably private space, in

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the classical sense. Despite this, this small space and others like it scattered through the city have a significant role to play in shaping the lives of the women who attend it and through them shape the city of Islamabad itself.

Note 1. He cultivated a beard and went to the mosque five times a day, both of which are markers of male piety in urban Pakistan.

References Abraham, Janaki. 2018. The Lives of Others. The Production and Influence of Neighborhood Cultures in Urban India. In The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Anthropology, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, 71–92. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Ahmad, Sadaf. 2009. Transforming Faith: The Story of Al-Huda and Islamic Revivalism among Pakistani Women. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Boddy, Janice. 1989. Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Brekus, Catherine. 1998. Strangers and Pilgrims: Female Preaching in America, 1740-1845. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. de Certeau, Michel. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Donner, Henrike. 2012. Between the Verandah and the Mall: Fieldwork and the Spaces of Femininity. In Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana G. Prato, 173–190. Burlington: Ashgate. Dworkin, Andrea. 1978. Right Wing Women. New York: Perigee. Eason, Andrew Mark. 2003. Women in God’s Army. Gender and Equality in the Salvation Army. Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Esposito, John. 2010. The Future of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Göle, Nilüfer. 1997. The Gendered Nature of the Public Sphere. Public Culture 10 (1): 61–81. ———. 2003. The Voluntary Adoption of Islamic Stigma Symbols. Social Research: An International Quarterly of Social Sciences 70 (3): 809–828. Hasan, Arif, and Mansoor Raza. 2011. Migration and Small Towns in Pakistan. Islamabad: Oxford University Press Pakistan. Jamal, Amina. 2009. Gendered Islam and Modernity in the Nation-Space: Women’s Modernism in the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan. Feminist Review 91: 9–28.

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Kamal, Anila, and Waseem Fayyaz. 2016. Conditions of Wearing Hijab and Other Forms of Dress: A Comparative Study. Pakistan Journal of Women’s Studies: Alam-e-Niswan 23 (2): 91–102. Mahmood, Saba. 2005. Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. 2000. Islam and Gender: The Religious Debate in Contemporary Iran. London: I.B. Tauris. Mumtaz, and Shaheed. 1987. Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? Lahore: Vanguard Books. Mushtaq, Faiza. 2007. A Day with Al-Huda. Contexts 6 (2): 60–61. Newcomb, Rachel. 2008. Gendering the City, Gendering the Nation: Contesting Urban Space in Fes, Morocco. City and Society 18 (2): 288–311. Okoye, Ify. 2010. Farhat Hashmi and Alhuda Institute Phenomenon. Muslim Matters. April 7. Osanloo, Arzoo. 2002. The Politics of Women’s Rights in Iran. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Rinaldo, Rachel. 2013. Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Secor, Anna. 2002. The Veil and Urban Space in Istanbul: Women’s Dress, Mobility and Islamic Knowledge. Gender, Place and Culture 9 (1): 5–22. Weiss, Anita. 1998. The Gendered Division of Space and Access in Working Class Areas of Lahore. Contemporary South Asia 7: 71–89. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PART III

Popular Culture, Lifestyles, Social Activism, and Infrastructures

CHAPTER 9

Seeding Change Through Soup, Bread, and a Vote: Utopics and Heterotopia at a Microgranting Dinner in Detroit Simon Johansson

As the audience quiets down, a white woman in her thirties walks onto the stage. She introduces herself as Amy Kaherl, the founder of Soup and tonight’s main facilitator. Her style is cheerful and quirky, sounding like a motivational speaker that went to art school. Between cheers, she asks how many are at Soup for the first time. About a quarter of the audience raises their hands in response and she then explains what this Sunday evening will have in store. The donations that everyone left at the door are being counted and we are soon to experience four presentations of about four minutes, each proposing a project that seeks to change the city of Detroit. After each presentation, the presenter will remain on stage to answer up to four questions from the audience. After the presentations, everyone will share a potluck-style community dinner, while discussing the merits of the proposed projects. Toward the end of the dinner, everyone will get the chance to vote for the project they liked the most. When

S. Johansson (*) Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_9

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explaining the voting procedure, Amy underlines how Soup relies on an honor system, entrusting participants to behave honestly and not cast multiple votes. In the end, a winner will be named, and will be handed all of the collected donations in a little brown envelope, to be used as funding for their project. As Amy explains, there is no paperwork or bureaucracy at Soup, but there is accountability. Whoever wins has to return, on a future Sunday, and report to the audience on how they spent the money and what results their project has achieved. And with that said, the event called Detroit Soup is underway. Soup is a transient and emerging event for seeding urban change in Detroit and beyond. In framing how Soup seeds change, it is helpful to think that change exhibits two directionalities. Through the funding of various projects that intervene in and improve the city, Soup acts outward, altering the urban fabric in which it is situated. The other and inward direction is less visible, but nevertheless significant. Soup also acts upon those who participate and interact at the event; intervening and seeding change within the lived experiences of those who dwell in the region. Soup is thus an event for enacting both small and spatial changes elsewhere in the city, and it is a small space of change onto itself. The event’s outward direction of change fits within narratives of DIY-­ urbanism. Its projects represent “microspatial urban interventions” (Iveson 2013, 947), offering low-cost, small-scale, alterations of the city (Bermann and Marinaro 2014; Douglas 2014, 2019; Fabian and Samson 2016; Finn 2014; Talen 2015). These projects tend to be bottom-up, improvisational, and temporary, oftentimes claiming a right to do something at someplace, without legal permission. Thus, they resonate with broader scholarly observations that emerge under different conceptual rubrics, like “guerilla urbanism” (Hou 2010), “participatory urbanism” (Wortham-Galwin 2013), “tactical urbanism” (Lydon and Garcia 2015), “everyday urbanism” (Chase et al. 1999; Chatterton and Pickerill 2010), or “open-source urbanism” (Bradley 2015). These different terms are not commensurable, arising out of different contexts and theoretical orientations, but they are suggestive, as the projects of Soup, that one viable element in contemporary urban life is the multitude of small-scale actors who continuously engage in altering and reordering the city (Krase and Uherek 2017). Examining the projects that Soup has funded in the last decade, one is struck by their diversity. They address various problems in different ways; some resist the capitalist economic order, others have become part of this

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order, turning into profitable businesses and industries over time. Like Iveson (2013, 941), one wonders “what, if anything, connects them across their diversity”? What alternatives do they offer, collectively, to a contemporary urban world? Answering these questions brings us to the core of this chapter and its attention to Soup as a space of change onto itself. I argue that the small and emergent space of Soup allows for a reading and experience of how the city may be otherwise ordered. In the miniscule, ephemeral, and heterogeneous combinations of materiality, interactions, and practices, at this particular site, lay representations of an alternative spatial and social ordering of urban life. Although the projects funded through Soup remain important, I would suggest that the radical edge of Soup is not in how it changes other places in the city, but how it continually seeds change in the people who pass through its space. This chapter has four sections. First I present a frame to understand how the small and rather marginal space of Soup is a space of change that offers an alternative ordering of the city. Having framed Soup conceptually, I examine Soup in relation to Detroit and the event’s history. Third, I provide an ethnographic account of a Soup event. The final section discusses Soup, focusing on what alternative orderings emerge in its small space.

What Grows on the Margins? A conceptual point of departure is that small and marginal spaces are filled with urban potentials, serving as sites from which change continually emerges. This conceptual point is informed by concerns about how urban change is situated within the spatial and social relationships of centers and peripheries. The small and marginal are meaningful in relations to that which is not small and marginal. This concern extends beyond claiming that urban change emerges in peripheral urban spaces, toward conceptualizing the margin as both conducive and integral to change. In other words, novelty emerges at the margins, not in centers. A vocabulary to express this relation between center and periphery can be found in Franck and Steven’s (2007) discussion on “loose” versus “tight” spaces. They argue that the quality of “loose space” may emerge both through “its relationship to other spaces” (ibid., 9) and through how people act in and on the space itself (ibid., 10–11). “Loose” space offers a degree of unpredictability, possibility and diversity that tends to be vacated in spaces that are more controlled, surveilled, and segregated—in terms of

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both uses and users. Franck and Steven note that there are many kinds of “loose” spaces in a city, and the quality of their relative “looseness” or “tightness” may alter with regard to time, as a site may be “tighter” during the day, but “looser” at night. The creative potential, the possibility for unexpected and unpredictable interactions and uses is greater in small and “loose” spaces. Thus “looseness” is conducive for change to emerge. Similarly, the creative potential of urban margins and peripheral spaces have been developed in Zukin’s (2010) notion of “urban beginnings”, as she notes that novel and locally negotiated spatialities tend to emerge on the fringes of what is, increasingly, a global ordering of urban spaces. Notions of centers and peripheries, “looseness” versus “tightness” and the creative potential of “urban beginnings”, can aid in situating the small space of Soup, nowadays called the Jam Handy. The space was constructed in 1919 on Grand Boulevard, a ring road completed in 1913 and at the time considered the “absolute outer limit” of Detroit (Bak 2001, 60). Its peripheral location relates to its original use and users, as it served as a house of worship for Baptists, who were often marginalized because of their racial and/or rural backgrounds. The evolution of the Jam Handy illustrates how peripheries and centers are not objects, but processes. They move and shift, as relationships and meanings transform. The former “margin” of the city soon became a boulevard for the city’s economic and cultural elites. From 1935 to 1969, the building was a very successful film production stage and sound recording studio, making industrial films for the automobile industry. Briefly, during WWII, would-be aerial gunners were trained in these premises in a prototypical virtual reality environment. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the building served as a recording studio once again, televising local church services. Financial difficulties led to is abandonment and decay. Eventually, it was acquired by the municipality, who put it up for auction in 2010. Through crowdfunding, partly on behalf of Soup, the building has since been refitted with electricity and heating. Historically, the space of the Jam Handy has fluctuated between notions of center and periphery. Its contemporary placement is no different. Today, the Jam Handy sits on the spatial and social edge between what was colloquially known as “new Detroit”—an area of the central city seeing a boom of development, gentrification, and capital investments—and surrounding neighborhoods, who have seen increased disinvestment, abandonment, and decay. In the “tight” spaces of downtown and “new Detroit,” residents were routinely gathered in sterile conference rooms to

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harness their so-called participation in remaking Detroit (Laskey and Nicholls 2019). In contrast, the “loose” space of Soup represents a smaller, messier, but also more creative alternative for participating in urban change. In framing the space as peripheral, marginal or “loose,” we should remember Hetherington’s (1997, 7) caution against overly romantic and polarized interpretations of the margins. To slot the Jam Handy, or Soup itself, as representing a counter-hegemony and to see it mainly as a form of resistance to the political and economic order would be to simplify things. Soup is not a margin primarily founded in abjections of how the center is ordered; rather, it represents a point of passage, an alternative ordering of the urban that may pass from margin to center. Discussing the margins of Soup in this manner brings its “looseness” into dialogue with notions of heterotopia. Stavrides (2007, 174) argues “heterotopia can describe a collective experience of otherness, not as a stigmatizing spatial seclusion but rather as the practice of diffusing new forms of urban collective life.” Similarly, Hetherington (1997, 37) shows how sites of heterotopia “act as obligatory points of passage through which an alternate mode of social ordering is performed” (Hetherington 1997, 37), while simultaneously drawing connections to Marin’s (1984, 1992) work about the “utopics” of modernity as a form “spatial play.” Positioning the small space of Soup as a heterotopic site, concerned with the “spatial play” of “utopics,” does not make Soup a space of urban utopia. But, importantly, it is a site where ideas of the “good” city become spatialized on a miniature scale. In Marin’s (1984) terms, it represents the spatial play of utopics, a process that transforms the imaginative and abstract into the material and spatial. This is where Hetherington (1997, ix) locates heterotopia, in “spaces where ideas and practices that represent the good life can come into being, seemingly from nowhere, even if they never achieve what they actually set out to achieve.” As a heterotopic site, the small space of Soup is concerned with producing and prefiguring an alternative ordering of the city. By examining its materialization and spatialization of the “good” city and how it allows for new conditions of sociality to emerge, we are better positioned to understand how it seeds urban change.

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A Method Made in Detroit Soup began in 2010 at a more marginal site than the Jam Handy: the storage room above a Mexican bakery. Its initial purpose was to fund and connect artists and artistic practice to a wider urban community. Popular demand led to the organization of more Soups and its initial scope expanded. Nowadays, Soup incorporates a wide variety of projects, whose common denominator is their ambition to change and improve Detroit. Like Stehlin’s (2014) argument about Critical Mass, Soup is better understood as a method, rather than an organization. For its execution, it relies on the novel juxtaposition of more familiar elements, for example, crowdfunding, DIY-culture, community dinners, and television shows where contenders “pitch” a particular business idea. As a method, Soup has multiplied through imitation. In Detroit, Soup has spawned other iterations, so-called neighborhood Soups, which work in more circumscribed geographies. Additionally, the method has spread across the nation and the world with events in both the Global North and South (Soup 2020). Particular circumstances help explain why Soup emerged and grew in Detroit. Whereas DIY-urbanism may be part of romantic and countercultural middle-class ideals, the phenomenon has other qualities in Detroit. Kinder (2016) notes that a multitude of Detroiters engage in daily acts self-provisioning out of necessity since neither the market nor the municipal government adequately provide for their needs. For many observers, Detroit is a symbol and sometimes a warning for the risks of a mono-­ economy, and the negative effects that automation and globalization can have on urban life. Between 1950 and 2005, the city lost “29 percent of its homes, 52 percent of its people, 55 percent of its jobs, and 60 percent of its property tax revenue” (Galster 2012, 217), while the number of manufacturing jobs fell from 296,000 to less than 27,000 between 1950 and 2011 (Green and Clothier 2013). Over a third of the city’s population live in poverty (U.S. Census 2019), while common estimates of abandonment approximate forty square miles of urban space (Gallagher 2010; Pitera 2010). Detroit is characterized by deep racial and economic divisions (Farley et  al. 2001). The Detroit metropolitan region is the most segregated urban area in the United States (Logan and Stults 2011), forming an “extreme example of fragmented and polarized urbanism” (Doucet and Smit 2016, 635). On the metropolitan level, Detroit approximates descriptions of the “hyperghetto” (Wacquant 2008), where the racial and

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economic segregation of the postwar era (Sugrue 2005) is reproduced along the jurisdictional lines separating city from suburb. The distinctions between suburb and city, black and white, rich and poor, often map onto each other and figure in the everyday lives of residents. A poignant example of its severity is what local media describe as “dead flight,” a practice whereby white suburbanites exhume the remains of relatives in the city and rebury them in the suburb (LeDuff 2014). Soup’s proliferation as a method relates to the background of both prolonged and extreme delight and acute segregation. As a method, Soup has been able to build upon a history of self-provisioning, and as a method rather than organization, it represents and reflects the demographics of the neighborhood in which it is held.

An Evening of Soup The following introduces a so-called city-wide Soup event, held in January 2015. The city-wide Soups are the largest such events in Detroit, with an attendance between 150 and 200 people. Usually, around a quarter of those attending are there for first time. Participants come from across the metropolitan region and its established lines of division. Such events also attract visitors from around the world. Thus, the space of the “city-wide” Soup serves as a point of passage for urban dwellers in Detroit and beyond. Any Soup event offers unexpected interactions, episodic juxtapositions, and conversations that are neither wholly deliberate, nor entirely random, but always developing somewhere in between. The style of my description reflects these qualities out of a concern that a rigid textual “tightness” may hinder describing the “looseness” of a space. Arriving and Interacting Soup In the company of a neighbor, Martin, I am walking across deserted sidewalks filled with untouched snow. For a few months we have been talking about going together, but something always seemed to come up. Martin had never been to Soup, but he knew of it, and as we talked I could tell he was excited. When we turned a corner on East Grand Boulevard we started seeing other people. In the lights from the Jam Handy we saw a group standing at the entrance, hurriedly smoking and talking. At the entrance, two women sat behind a tiny table with a stainless steel pot on it. There was a line and we slowly made our way forward. At the table we saw that

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the pot was half-way full with bills. One of the women at the table told us that the recommended donation was five dollars. Martin turned to me and asked whether I could break a $20 bill, but I lacked change. He turned to the woman asking her the same question. She told him to put the $20 bill in the pot and take out whatever change he wanted. Carefully, Martin deposited his bill and retrieved his change. Turning away from the donations, we faced a rectangular and open space. Its ambiance felt like a mix of industry and theater with high ceilings and scratched and worn brown wooden floors. The brick walls were mostly exposed, its plaster and paint peeling off; only a few sections of the walls retained a beige and gray coating of paint, darkened by age and accumulated dust and dirt. Looking up, we could see wooden ramps running between light fixtures. In the middle of the space, to the far side of the entrance, stood a microphone, connected to speakers, lining the wall behind it. To the side of the stage were long tables, covered in black cloth with loaves of bread on them. Toward the far corner was a small bar, selling beer and wine. Next to the bar was the improvised voting booth, hand-made from wood and cloth. Being early, we found a place to sit, on bleachers at the back of the room that looked like a DIY project. Slightly irregular planks and irregularly placed screws were the telling signs of something that did not come in a box with instructions printed on it. From our position we observed a stream of people entering, donating, walking around, searching for a place to sit or someone to talk to. We noticed a man, walking around with heavy photography equipment. A middle-aged black woman, sitting behind us, leant forward, telling us that the BBC was here, doing a reportage on Soup. It aired a few months later in March 2015, with the title “Can soup change the world?” (FentonSmith 2015). Seating at Soup is limited, and the size of the space enforces both proximity and improvisation. In front of the stage, participants sat down on the floor, an unusual practice at public events in Detroit. Behind those sitting on the floor were people who had brought their own lawn chairs, recliners, or stools from home. This space impinges on both eyes and ears. We looked around and chatted about the different people that had gathered. By the longer tables was a group of older people. In their midst were youthful hipsters, who were the majority among those sitting on the floor. Meanwhile, middle-aged men and women walked around, keeping an eye on their children, who ran around and played. Many visitors vaguely looked like Martin and me: white, in their thirties or forties, presumably educated, presumably doing

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something creative in the city. But there were others too. We saw black, Latino and Asian guests. Some were wearing T-shirt and jeans; others were wearing dress pants and shirts. Some looked like newcomers to Detroit. Others looked like regional suburbanites; still others looked like those who proudly announce themselves as “life-long Detroiters.” Martin commented that this was good for “people watching,” because we could see different people whose everyday lives rarely crossed. As more people arrived, the murmur grew louder, compounded by the acoustics of this space. Almost without notice, one became immersed in a polyphony of voices and sounds. Almost everyone was talking to someone. Soon Martin and I were engaged in the unpredictable flow of conversations on the bleachers. The middle-aged black woman behind us introduced herself as Mary and asked if we saw the movie Birdman with Michael Keaton. She explained how she had seen it a few nights ago with her sister. We had not seen it, but a man next to Martin had and so he joined in the conversation. After a while, the topic drifted to a nearby urban farm, where both Mary and I had volunteered during the spring, but on different days. Somewhere in the conversation Mary mentioned her radiator. It was not working properly. Martin, who had fixed his own radiators this winter, offered to come by and have a look at it, and so he and Mary exchanged numbers. I excused myself from the bleachers to get beers from the bar. Next to the bar was a message board where people had written down projects they would like to do, but for which they lacked resources or skills, or they had written skills and resource they could offer. Somehow noted the desire to clean up a vacant lot used for illegal dumping, requesting power tools to do the job. Someone else added the contact information to “Lots of Love Detroit,” a previous Soup winner who operated a retrofitted icecream truck as mobile tool shed. As I read the board, a person next to me said hi. He asked about my glasses and we started talking. I asked him where he was from and he told me that he was from Russia and had come a few years ago to work for Chrysler. We talked about Americans in general, until he spotted a woman who walked alone through the crowd. He waved to her and she came over. She introduced herself as from the “metro area,” an urban code for having grown up in the suburbs. I asked them how they knew each other, and if they usually went to Soup together. They both laughed and told me that they just met ten minutes ago by the entrance. Both were here the first time. We talked about our experiences of Detroit but were soon interrupted. A voice came from the speakers; Soup was starting.

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Presentations and Questions Amy Kaherl, the founder of Soup, walked onto the stage and gave the introduction that started this chapter. Before leaving the stage, Amy emphasized that Soup was a social space, urging people to talk with one another, preferably with someone who they might not otherwise have talked to. She framed Soup as a space where people connected across differences and found new people to collaborate with. Soup was meant to be an opportunity for people to share an experience in the city and where they could form collective responses to issues they could identify themselves. First to enter the stage were two white, middle-age men. Their project—The Bike Detroit Log Cabin Farm (DLCF)—sought funding to restore a public space that had long been neglected by the municipality. By adding an urban farm around the log cabin, the project wished to improve its sustainability. They argued that a farm would help to mitigate the recurring water entrapment problems of the park—which had already killed several trees—while simultaneously serving as a source for healthy sustenance, thereby improving food security for disadvantaged residents. The audience asked questions about how connected this project was to communities living in the park’s vicinity. Participants wanted to know how this project benefited local communities and what sort of relations activists had established with local communities to this date. The second proposal, the “Detroit Little Library” (DLL), was presented by a white middle-aged woman from a northern suburb. This project was part of a wider micro-library movement that originated in Portland, Oregon. The Detroit Little Library facilitated free public book exchanges, through producing and installing quaint miniature “houses,” that gathered and protected the books inside. Volunteers placed these structures in their neighborhoods or at locations that were deemed in need of a book exchange. In a city of self-provisioning, building and erecting these “Little Libraries” had proved easy, but stocking them with books was another matter. The project thus sought funding to buy books by black authors with stories involving black children to promote literacy. Participants were concerned about how the project would prevent people from taking books and selling them for profit. The third proposal was presented by a black middle-aged male Detroit resident. He had already won two city-wide Soups for other projects. Now he asked for funding for the “Spiritual House Outreach” (SHO) project, which sought to provide a space where people could learn to read and

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write, while simultaneously providing shelter for the homeless and youths during the day. He had already acquired a property, a neighbor had donated a stove, and a local Catholic group had donated three computers. He noted he himself had learned to write at the age of twenty-two with the help of a charity and he now asked for funds to pass on the gift of literary. The audience wondered about the longevity and sustainability of the SHO project and asked how SHO would be funded once the capital provided through Soup was spent. The final presenter was a white woman in her thirties with a degree in law. Her project, the “Tricycle Collective” (TC), sought to address the current tax-foreclosure crisis in Detroit. Having previously worked with evictions, she had come to realize that many evictees lacked the resources and knowledge required to engage state and municipal bureaucracies. Since the numbers of residents facing eviction were in the tens of thousands at the time, the presenter had selected where to focus her efforts based on the existence of tricycles in the yard, seen as an indicator for the presence of small children in the household. Through aid and counseling, the project sought to help Detroiters keep their homes, providing stability for children while also helping to alleviate the city’s endemic problems of widespread abandonment and blight. Here, participants raised questions about the practical side of the TC project, asking what types of material or process the TC project would use to educate residents, but also if assistance would be based on a first-come, first-served principle, or if they would be based on their chance at winning, or if some other principle was at play. The size of the space and proximity between members of the audience and between audience and presenters made for intimate and lively stage interactions at Soup. The stage was inconspicuous, neither raised nor sectioned off. It was an undefined area that becomes larger or smaller as presenters walked back and forth, sometimes veering outward, into the groups who are sitting on the floor in front of them. During the presentations, there was subdued chatter, as people commented on things said or noticed. Occasionally, someone articulated their agreement by spontaneous cheers or by saying “preach” or “that’s right.” Breaking Bread After the presentations and questions, a line of fifteen people formed beside the stage who had brought contributions for the dinner that is

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offered at Soup. They briefly explained their dishes. Half of the food presenters were individuals. They emphasized the intimate and personal aspects of their food contributions. An older black woman spoke of a Gumbo, prepared according to her grandmother’s recipe; a man noted that his family came from Lebanon and he brought Tabbouleh; another man, from the region, had brought his favorite version of greens and beans. The other half of contributors represented Detroit businesses and organizations. They too sought to embed their offerings in layers of intimacy. The bakery that donated bread explained how they had served their local community for decades; a young woman brought cupcakes and introduced her new cupcake business, where she only wants to employ local residents; a fish and aeroponics farm—run by a Christian charity organization—presented Tilapia and herbs advertising their local non-­ profit grocery store. After the food presentations, a long food line formed. I chatted with Martin about the presentations we had just heard. The murmur of voices increased in volume. Around me, I heard the icebreaker, suggested by Amy: what presentation are you leaning toward? Moving forward, Martin and I were drawn into a conversation with two women and a man who was holding a child in front of us. Initially, we did some small talk and then moved to the merits and possible drawbacks of each proposal. We debated the question of what the city needed, but also the question of who among the presenters needed support the most. The conversation moved in ever wider circles, ending with contemporary urban issues of Detroit: development, gentrification, racial and economic disparities, how some neighborhoods were changing, how others remain unchanged. When we arrived in the smaller room, we were handed paper plates, napkins, and plastic utensils. I walked up and down the different tables, picking foods and looking over the display of culinary diversity. Back in the main room, I saw Martin waving to me as he had found a corner space at a long table by the side of the stage. He sat across from an elderly black couple. As soon as we had sat down, the woman asked us to break some bread. Her hands reached toward the center of the table, reaching for a loaf with her white paper napkin, handing it to Martin, who pulled of a slice and handed it to me. I repeated the motion and handed the bread to the man in front of me, who introduced himself as Wayne, who then handed it back to his wife, Rhonda, who passed it along to a young white man on her left. I watched the loaf of bread travel down the side of the table, shrinking in size, until it was gone. Wayne was talkative

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and asked us questions. Who are we? Where are we from? What were we doing in Detroit? We answered and then listened to his story of how he and Rhonda had lived most of their lives in Detroit. Rhonda joked that they had come to Soup to pray. I joked back at her and asked if she thought it was like a church. She told me no, shaking her head with passion and a smile. Wayne explained that they liked to say that to each other, the bit about praying. They went to church every Sunday, but this was different. But some things were similar, Rhonda interjected, saying it felt good to be here. Wayne nodded his head and explained that they enjoyed going to Soup because they could hear and meet people who were doing good, and that it made them feel more connected to the city. Holding up his piece of bread, he talked, as if addressing the bread, that this was what the city was supposed to be, people helping each other out, breaking bread, making things better for everyone. Crowning a Winner Toward the end of the dinner, Martin, Rhonda, Wayne, and I cast our votes. The booth, right next to bar and the message board, was a simple DIY construction. Voting consisted of writing the name of a project on a piece of paper and putting it in a bowl in the voting booth. Tallying the votes was a quick process. Ten minutes after the voting booth had been closed, Amy appeared on stage. The winner was the “Tricycle Collective” (TC) project. A total of $1151 was handed to the presenter in a brown envelope. The audience cheered, clapped their hands, and whistled. Standing on stage, receiving the money and the acclaim of the audience, the composure she had displayed during her presentation was fading as she was close to tears. When thanking the community for the support and trust, the woman’s voice shook and she was crying, which intensified the cheers from the audience. As the TC presenter left the stage, she was approached by members of the audience; they gave her hugs, shook her hand, and congratulated her. From interviewing past winners, I know that this is an emotional moment that can redefine a person’s life. More ­important than the actual money was that winning represented having the “support of the community,” that one’s ideas and vision had been ­acknowledged and others want them to succeed. After a few minutes, the room calmed down. Amy picked up the microphone and declared Soup to be over. People moved toward the door. Martin and I sat on the bleachers, finishing our beers and watching how

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this small space transformed. Now, we could make out individual conversations among the few groups who remained. Organizers and volunteers were busy putting things away. Individuals, associations, and businesses that had donated food came to collect their empty dishes. Exiting the Jam Handy, East Grand Boulevard, is just like we left it. Dark, snowy, cold, and desolate, like any other Sunday evening in January. Tracing our undisturbed footprints from a few hours earlier, Martin talked about how he wanted to build an outdoor gym on a vacant and unused plot of land. I asked him if he thought about returning to Soup and pitching his idea. Maybe, he said. But, as far as I know, Martin never returned to Soup, but a year and a half later he did complete some semblance of his idea.

Seeding Change Through Spatial Play As a spatial play of utopics (Marin 1984), the space and materials of Soup evoke notions of the “good” city, representing an alternative ordering of Detroit. Through juxtapositions of people, things, and practices, the space offers a view of how the urban could be otherwise. Emerging at the level of experience, this other Detroit is a city built on notions of trust, intimacy, altruism, and integration; or, to paraphrase Wayne, a city where people help each other, making things better for everyone. An introduction to this alternative ordering is given to participants as they enter the small space of Soup. New participants, like Martin, interact with a “donations box” that differs from the norm. Lacking a lid, the bowl is vulnerable and open to manipulation. It exists as a materialization of the event’s trust in strangers. Similarly, the voting booth, its lack of surveillance, and its vulnerability to manipulation symbolizes notions of trust in this space. The smallness of the space and the relative lack of seating create proximity among participants which is novel and differs from other public events, where seating is abundant, and people tend to create “spatial buffers” to others, spreading out their possessions on adjacent seats or otherwise avoiding sitting too close to others. Soup’s spatialization brings strangers closer together, accommodates forms of intimacy and unexpected interactions. Seating arrangements also reveal how participants aid, by their actions, in the creation of novelty. By bringing seating from home participants make the space “looser” (Franck and Stevens 2007), creating a link between this particular event and social gatherings, such as a picnic or backyard barbeque. Such links are further indicated by the practice of

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sitting on the floor. Sitting on the floor or ground is something that I mostly observed Detroiters doing in private, if at all. Notions of intimacy and altruism also materialize in the food consumed at the event. As the ethnography details, the intimate connections between a particular dish and a person or business is communicated upon eating. The room where the food is served displays the diversity of the event. Given food’s ability to act as both a material and a symbolic conduit between the self and the world (Fischler 1988), the potluck dinner allows for the incorporation and embodiment of many elements concerning the event’s alternative ordering. Ritual acts of “breaking bread” further articulate notions of coming together, sharing, and trusting strangers. Notions of altruism and of a city ordered through concerns for the wellbeing of others, rather than self-interest, are central to this space. The most visible representations of this ordering are the presentations of projects which are the raison d’etre of the event and provide a way for people to improve the city and the lives of others who they may never meet. The time limit for presentation (no longer than four minutes), the absence of technology, the lack of demarcation of the stage area, and proximity between presenters and audience make for succinct and intimate interactions. The audience carefully listens and presenters engage audience questions. It is important to look beyond the presentations, because altruism permeates the space and what people do. It materializes by the bar, on the message board where participants request and offer help or in the food people and businesses bring to the event. It constantly emerges in the spontaneous interactions between participants, becoming visible in the sharing of problems and solutions; a broken radiator that might be fixed, a desire to move to an area one knows little about. Just as the DIY-­ urbanism expressed in Soup’s presentations extends from an environment conditioned to self-provisioning, this mode of altruism extends from the same ground, where residents and neighbors offer help as a matter of everyday life. Through proximity and intimacy, the small space of Soup offers conditions for this mode of altruism to emerge more distinctly and regularly. Given segregation in the urban region, the trust, intimacy, and altruism of the space are entwined with notions of integration. The repeated calls for particular interactions—to talk with someone that one would not normally talk to—and the way in which interactions unfold create a space where people interact across perceived differences. The space encourages strangers to have unexpected and spontaneous conversations, which might

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never happen in “tighter” and segregated parts of the city. In the small space of Soup, I came to know people I would otherwise not have known, hearing about perspectives and histories that emanated from worlds I was unfamiliar with. In the mundane, miniscule, and sometimes trivial back and forth of interactions, Soup opens up, through the sharing of conversations, physical space, and food, toward a sharing of the city and how it could be otherwise. How, albeit limited in time and space, it already is otherwise. In comparison with the projects of Soup that alter the city elsewhere, the seeding of change within its small space is more elusive and intangible. It seeds experiences and sensations. It plants within participants’ feelings of community, connectedness, and hope. It accommodates an experience of a differently ordered Detroit, flowing from below and from the margins, rather than arriving top-down from its center.

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Logan, John R., and Brian Stults. 2011. The Persistence of Segregation in the Metropolis: New Findings from the 2010 Census. Census Brief prepared for Project US2010. Lydon, Mike, and Anthony Garcia. 2015. Tactical Urbanism: Short-Term Action for Long-Term Change. Washington, DC: Island Press. Marin, Louis. 1984. Utopics: Spatial Play. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities. ———. 1992. Frontiers of Utopia: Past and Present. Critical Inquiry 19 (3): 397–420. Pitera, Dan. 2010. Detroit: Syncopating an Urban Landscape. Places Journal, July 2010. https://doi.org/10.22269/100713. Accessed 5 August 2020. Stavrides, Stavros. 2007. Heterotopias and the Experience of Porous Urban Space. In Loose Spaces: Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life, ed. Karen Franck and Quentin Stevens, 174–192. London and New York: Routledge. Stehlin, John. 2014. Regulating Inclusion: Spatial Form, Social Process, and the Normalization of Cycling. Mobilities 9 (1): 21–41. Sugrue, Thomas J. 2005. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Talen, Emily. 2015. Do-It-Yourself Urbanism: A History. Journal of Planning History 14 (2): 135–148. U.S.  Census Bureau. 2019. QuickFacts: Detroit City, Michigan. https://www. census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/detroitcitymichigan/IPE120218. Accessed 1 August 2020. Wacquant, Loïc J.D. 2008. Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Cambridge: Polity. Wortham-Galwin, Brooke D. 2013. An Anthropology of Urbanism: How People Make Places (and What Designers and Planners Might Learn from It). Footprint 7 (2): 21–40. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 10

Belonging through Bohemia: Queer Timespace and Possibility in Teresina, Brazil Timothy E. Murphy

It is well after one in the morning as we begin our drive from Mariel’s downtown apartment to the outskirts of the city. Passing through the East Zone along the river’s edge, I gaze out the backseat window, noticing how desolate the mall parking lots look. Women, men, and entire families who had paraded around the malls’ interiors just a few hours earlier, showing off their brand name T-shirts, new tennis shoes, designer jeans, and fancy accoutrements, are now surely fast asleep in their homes. Some of them might be pursuing other social activities after departing the malls, but even still, residents’ options are few and far between at this hour. Further down the same road, we pass a series of chic global fusion restaurants that are now void of couples and families feasting on individual dishes (popularly called “French” plates as opposed to more traditional family-style shared plates) and drinking lagers and wines nestled in table-side ice buckets dripping with condensation; these establishments evidence little to no movement at this hour, except for a partly uniformed server or two arranging outdoor furniture and shutting down patios. Indeed, only a limited

T. E. Murphy (*) Department of Urban Studies, Worcester State University, Worcester, MA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_10

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number of bars throughout the city remain open, and in the East Zone, an English-style pub popular among young professionals is one opportunity for Teresina’s middle-class residents to extend their night in the company of preppy-dressed peers, some dancing and others singing to Brazilian pop music and drinking authentic imported Black Label Johnny Walker—not to be confused with the fake stuff that has flooded the market in recent years. Our night, on the other hand, is just beginning. Within minutes of passing the last cluster of quiet commercial establishments, darkness surrounds us. There are no longer any stop signs or streetlights or roundabouts, only gravelly roads of dusty ochre and denser patches of giant-sized ferns jutting up out of the earth. Having been a couple of times before, Mariel and Henrique know where to slow down in order to turn down an even darker forest lane flanked with parked cars. After parking, Mariel exclaims, “This is it!” and leads us toward a small crowd of people gathered beneath a light, which hangs above an opening in a brick wall. Mariel greets a few of them and waves to Henrique and me to follow her, to the sound of distant drumbeats, into a dark, candle-lit labyrinth of sandy soil and twisted trees. For “Infinity,” as with a number of other underground parties hosted by this bohemian community as far back as 2003, party producers had transformed the poorly lit grounds of a modest country house with creative applications of dim lights, lanterns, candles, stretched Lycra, beanbag chairs and a number of other borrowed and rented decorations. Glow-in-the-dark streamers and psychedelic posters of Hindu deities all culminate in a handful of distinct environments—a dance floor, a lounge for relaxing or making out, and an area reserved for food and drink. The dance floor, ruled by a deejay, is marked by a clear open space made of grass in front of the turntables. Throughout the night and into the morning, deejays play electronic music beneath lofty palm trees and a glittering black sky. Lone bodies moving in harmony to the beats of House and Trance music populate the dance floor. Often with closed eyes, whether sober, drunk, stoned, or tripping, people bounce, swing, float, twist, and jump, losing themselves in the moment. In the other environments and in the dark spots between them, friends chat, and couples and strangers cruise, flirt, and make out with same- and opposite-sex partners. Having occurred only once, a pop-up party like Infinity taking place in such an unassuming location could easily appear fleeting and even inconsequential. However, it was an integral part of a much larger, ongoing

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transformation taking place in Teresina, Brazil: the formation of a bohemian community and a timespace I call “nocturnal bohemia.” By “timespace,” I am referring to the notion that particular moments and locations can be “fused” together to the extent that they are inseparable from one another, what Mikhail Bakhtin (1983), Keith Basso (1996), and others that have referred to as “chronotopes.” For its participants, who ranged in age from twenty-somethings to fifty-somethings, nocturnal bohemia is an emergent timespace of possibility, an opening for new ways of being and becoming to surface, and an opportunity for inclusion that is largely unavailable elsewhere in the city. The ethnographic portrait above is not what people typically imagine when they think of Teresina. The capital of Piauí, one of Brazil’s poorest states, Teresina is situated at the heart of a region long associated with devastating droughts and extreme poverty. As the only Northeastern capital not situated on the coast, it lacks much of the tourism, industry, economic prosperity, and national exposure of other major cities in the region. This lack of exposure coupled with the region’s association with poverty also tends to obscure the fact that Teresina has been growing and changing rather rapidly. Rural-urban migration has made a tremendous impact on the city over the past sixty years. In 1960, the population was approximately 90,000 residents, whereas today it is home to well over 800,000 (IBGE 2017). Combined with this growth, Brazil’s recent economic boom and changes to socioeconomic policies have dramatically altered the look and feel of the city. Between 2003 and 2010, while conducting ethnographic research on the community of bohemians described above, I watched the landscape transform. Dozens of ultra-modern towering condominiums popped up around two recently built shopping malls; car dealerships multiplied and brand-new cars flooded the streets; and an increasing number of people began standing in lines waiting to make their first purchases of all kinds of home appliances—from washing machines to laptops to air-conditioners to plasma TVs. What I witnessed in Teresina during those years was part of a widespread change: a reshuffling of social positions and the rise of Brazil’s new middle class (Barreto 2011). Greater purchasing power for a wider portion of the population has resulted in middle-class residents becoming increasingly preoccupied about their ability to maintain a position of distinction (Bourdieu 1984; Caldeira 2001; Liechty 2003; O’Dougherty 2002). While people from lower echelons move up in class position and gain greater physical

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mobility within and beyond the city, a growing number of residents previously considered middle class are becoming less certain about their ability to distinguish themselves from this new middle rising from below. To be considered among the ranks of Teresina’s most upwardly mobile residents, individuals and families must work harder for recognition, a process that is highly contingent upon one’s ability to perform distinction in virtually all realms of life, from the car a person drives to the clothes she wears, from the people he surrounds himself with to the restaurant he was seen eating at, from the school her child attends to the gym where she works out. As Teresina’s status-conscious middle-class proliferates so too does conspicuous consumption, staring, and gossip, rigidifying social norms and restricting individuals’ expression. For the community of bohemians, such a (hetero)normative world is mind-numbingly superficial if not down-right oppressive. As is evident in their participation in “Infinity,” they desire more. Some are unsatisfied with the limitations that aspiring to such a middle-class lifestyle in Teresina poses, whereas others are convinced that they will never measure up to mainstream middle-class standards, whether in terms of their physical appearance (e.g., body type, skin color and complexion), gender presentation, sexual/romantic attraction, or the inability to afford the appropriate clothing and accessories. Most bohemians consider mainstream anxieties about “keeping up with the Joneses” to be small-minded and provincial. They long for more, they need more, and so they create more. Together, Teresina’s bohemians carve out a different, more expansive, and cosmopolitan world for themselves than that which Teresina readily provides, offering them a greater sense of community, belonging, and acceptance for who they are. Forged around an ethos of queerness—in this case, fluidity, flexibility, and openness—nocturnal bohemia is made up of people who don’t fit in, including some who don’t entirely want to fit in. As a community, bohemians challenge convention and experiment with new perceptions, self-­ presentations, and relationships. Through events like “Infinity” the community manifests as a whole, providing opportunities for other outsiders in the city to come together, feel accepted, and experience a sense of belonging. In the pages that follow, I will show how, through the formation of a temporally and spatially fragmented bohemia, “ordinary practitioners of the city” (de Certeau 1984, 93) seed change by creating for themselves a queer timespace of possibility and belonging in an oppressively status-conscious urban milieu.

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The Queer Timespace of Nocturnal Bohemia Prato and Pardo (2013) point out that many urban anthropologists restrict their research spatially to specific neighborhoods in order to reduce the complexity of studying the diverse, populous, and dynamic realm of the city. However, due to the unique spatiotemporal nature of Teresina’s nocturnal bohemia—as portrayed by the drive with Mariel and Henrique at the start of this chapter—this investigation requires traversing numerous neighborhoods and sectors of the city and conceptualizing the community as a “social network that possesses a high density of ties” (Varshaver and Rocheva 2018, 45). Unlike other bohemia typically associated with a particular neighborhood of a city (e.g., Chauncey 1994; Graña and Graña 1990; Lause 2009; Levin 2010; Lloyd 2006; Tsibiridou 2018; Velho 2002; Wilson 2000) nocturnal bohemia manifests at night in a wide range of otherwise ordinary locales from small abandoned houses, to empty warehouses, to plots of land on the outskirts of town, to unassuming bars, to a business on the verge of going under, to the old train station. As such, nocturnal bohemia is fragmented, partial, and dynamic; so much so, that it goes unrecognized by the vast majority of Teresinenses—a fact that is not lost on its participants. In the absence of a bohemian neighborhood, participants of nocturnal bohemia tend to live in homes scattered around the city. One reason for this is Teresinenses’ reliance on familial support for housing: most people reside with relatives until marriage and/or relocate to housing that is partly financed by family members; those who do not marry or go on to start families of their own often continue living with family members. Without the conditions for a bohemia to emerge in a specific area of the city, then, establishing an alternative community occurs differently. Much like other urban anthropologists studying communities whose bonds cannot be reduced to neighborhoods of residence, then, whether in terms of ethnicity (e.g., Varshaver and Rocheva 2018), gender/sexuality (e.g., Shokeid 2018), or otherwise, I, too, seek to understand how establishing community occurs without the structuring element of a neighborhood. Though participants in nocturnal bohemia carry their queer and bohemian sensibilities with them throughout the day, the local, material existence of Teresina has a cunning power to root them in its mainstream society, namely in terms of family and employment, two topics I will return to later in this chapter. As such, this research can be seen as an “anthropology of the city” (Prato and Pardo 2013, 81) in that it requires close attention to the “ways in which local people relate to the

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wider social, economic, and political system” (2013, 96). And although nocturnal bohemia has undergone numerous transformations over time in terms of aesthetics and technological advancements, what allows long-­ standing participants to trace this social world’s origins to the not-so-­ recent past (the 1990s) is not only the continued involvement of particular people but, more importantly, a shared ethos and sense of belonging rooted in queerness. The queerness that underpins the unique timespace of nocturnal bohemia is distinct from the popular employment of “queer” as an umbrella term for the LGBTQ community. Instead, it refers to two other notions of queerness. On the one hand, the bohemian community’s ethos of queerness refers to shared identifications with alternative and non-­ normative ways of life existing at the margins of mainstream society be they explicitly related to alternative articulations of gender/sexuality or otherwise (e.g., McCallum and Tuhkanen 2011; Halberstam 2005). By collectively cultivating a life around avant-garde and unconventional aesthetics, practices, and perspectives—a process that takes shape through various types of events, projects, and interactions—nocturnal bohemia maintains itself as a community centered on an interest in the unfamiliar, the novel, and the strange. On the other hand, the community’s queerness refers to its approach to constructions of self and community—both of which are conceived of as unbound, in flux, and flexible, unencumbered by notions that identities are stable or essential (e.g., Allison 2001). Rather than taking a person’s gender/sexuality, socioeconomic status, neighborhood of residence, profession, self-presentation, or social affiliations to be essential or core characteristics of the self, nocturnal bohemians largely follow what might be described as “a critical antiessentialist line of thinking” (McCallum and Tuhkanen 2011, 3),1 in which such characteristics are conceived of as positions people take up, embody, and enact in specific moments under particular contexts (Butler 1990). Espousing a similar notion of identity, Anne Allison (2001), drawing on the work of Lee Edelman (1995), asserts: desire and identity always “exceed” (in being more ambiguous and complicated than) the names/categories by which they are routinely slotted. In queerness, the fictive borders demanded by straight society are refused rather than acquiesced to, and excesses (of body/sexuality/gender/subject ivity) are accepted. (261)

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Queerness, then, is something that acknowledges and allows for this—an openness to new experiences and the possibility of becoming something other than what dominant society allows. The bohemian community is similarly fluid, dynamic, multifaceted, and hard to pin down not only in terms of an identity category but also in time and space. Rather than a community rooted in a particular geographical location, nocturnal bohemia operates in a space of flux where participants connect to one another via social interactions in numerous and changing contexts both in person and via technology. In recent years, queer theorists have developed the notion of queer time and space under several different, yet related, rubrics. Some scholars have mobilized the concept of queer time to refer to the rejection of conventional emphases on the future and longevity (McCallum and Tuhkanen 2011; Dean 2009; Bersani 1996). Judith Halberstam (2005) formulates queer time and space as those forms of life that arise in the face of the norms that perpetuate “historical living” (McCallum and Tuhkanen 2011, 5). Halberstam elucidates, Queer uses of time and space develop, at least in part, in opposition to the institutions of family, heterosexuality, and reproduction. They also develop according to other logics of location, movement, and identification. (2005, 1)

If queerness may be understood in such a way—as an ongoing unconventional relationship to the world or as a process of “becoming” (McCallum and Tuhkanen 2011, 10) rather than “an essential definition of homosexual embodiment” (Halberstam 2005, 6), Teresina’s bohemian community may offer up a unique embodiment not only of queerness but of queer timespace as well. Rather than trying to establish permanent spaces or even neighborhoods of the city where they can count on experiencing a sense of belonging, bohemians are invested in an ongoing project of temporary placemaking in ordinary, unofficial, unassuming, and often small locations throughout their city. Such an approach is an example of what Michel de Certeau might have referred to as a “tactic,” in which actors “use, manipulate, and divert” spaces that are neither completely theirs nor fully under their control (de Certeau 1984, 30). Bohemians invest in the continual creation of fresh, new timespaces, which offer the potential for emergent ways of being—and becoming—to surface, rooted in “be-longing”—that is, “the experience of longing that takes place when

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one attempts to secure a rightful place for oneself both in the ‘world’ and at ‘home’ ” (Murphy 2019, 12).

Good Night Teresina While I was away from Teresina in 2005 for my graduate studies, the city government implemented a policy to reduce crime called Good Night Teresina (Boa Noite Teresina). The policy mandated that all bars and nightclubs close by 2 am on Saturday and Sunday mornings and that no alcohol be sold until the following day. Local officials claimed that by doing away with late-night opportunities for sociality, fewer people would be on the streets, which would result in a reduction of crime. Though its overall effect on crime was contested, Good Night Teresina most certainly impacted nocturnal bohemia. When I returned to Teresina in my summers during graduate school, the bohemian community felt tangibly different. For years, it had regularly manifested as an integrated whole around late-night encounters at small bars, performances, and parties like Infinity, in various ordinary and inconspicuous locales that remained undetectable by Teresina’s mainstream. By 2006, a number of bars we had frequented in 2004 had closed and elaborate all-night parties were no longer taking place. Such changes, however, did anything but stamp out the bohemian community. Instead, it shape-­ shifted, persisting through smaller gatherings, sometimes at restaurants and bars but increasingly at homes. As many as a dozen friends would convene at the home of one of our few friends who lived alone, or the home of another whose parents were out of town for the weekend. Deejays would play mixes they compiled from music they downloaded online, and hosts would update guests on their most recent projects, from home décor, to paintings, to crafts made of garbage, to graphic designs, sketches, and fashions. Over beers, joints, and cigarettes, we would spend our evenings sharing music, humorous stories, culinary experiments, musings about possible future social events, art projects, business opportunities, and visions of the future in terms of technology, sociality, and natural resources. More and more, we would find ourselves gathered around a computer, sharing images, YouTube videos, new music, and sometimes entire films. And while small, intimate gatherings like these have always been a structuring element of the bohemian community, during the initial years of Good Night Teresina, they were at its center, adding fuel to the community’s fire to dream,

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experiment, and create. Despite the informal, often impromptu, and otherwise ordinary setting of these gatherings, they provided time for the brewing of new ideas and the joining of forces that would seed change and later transform into larger events attracting new people also in search of a haven for challenging the status quo and engaging in fuller and more creative forms of expression. During these quieter years, the bohemians began to develop new projects that proved to be extremely important to the community at the time of my fieldwork in 2009 and 2010 when Good Night Teresina was seldom enforced. Like most bohemian events in the past, two new parties, “Rogues” and “High Jinks: uma festa para todos” (“High Jinks: a party for all”), relied on specific types of transformations that spoke to bohemians’ desire for novelty. Especially in its early days, Rogues carefully invested in creating a different theme for each week, denoted by an original flyer, as well as a variety of music performed by different rock bands and deejays, and hence, a varied public, whereas High Jinks, occurring once every few months and often in different locales, brought fans of rock and electronic music together in the same space around a unique theme with corresponding flyers and décor. Bazarro, attempting to circumvent Good Night Teresina altogether, was a monthly bazaar that took place on Sundays at dusk at an abandoned house-turned-punk bar that showcased independent films, electronic and rock music, and works made by artists and artisans from the bohemian community. Bazarro brought together painters and graffiti artists, film buffs, rockers, people with an itch to dance, designers, and others interested in buying locally designed and crafted merchandise. Though it lasted a short six months, Bazarro provided much inspiration for the creation of new projects in the coming years. A few men and women involved would eventually go on to start their own businesses, selling their own creations as well as merchandise they acquired in other cities, and two of them eventually opened their own store in Teresina’s prestigious East Zone, selling hip T-shirts and accessories, toy art, and an assortment of kitsch. While it would be shortsighted to posit Good Night Teresina as entirely responsible for the formation of these new projects, the policy did anything but stifle the community’s creativity, eventually resulting in its return to Teresina’s night (Fig. 10.1).

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Fig. 10.1  Recently built condominiums in Teresina’s developing East Zone. (Photo by the author)

Reviving Nocturnal Bohemia A couple of months after my arrival for fieldwork in 2009, I set up an interview with Bruno, the producer of Rogues. At the time, Rogues was one of the events most central to nocturnal bohemia, and I wanted to learn how it began. On the evening of the interview, Bruno suggested that we meet at a small bar in the food court of “Riverside,” one of Teresina’s two shopping malls in the rapidly developing East Zone. Cramped, shallow, and drab, with only five small tables and a counter, this unassuming bar had never caught my attention before; perhaps this was because it was overshadowed by other more impressive establishments that catered to the mall’s upwardly mobile, status-conscious clientele—a sushi restaurant, an American-style burger joint, a bar serving pricey draft beers, an Italian buffet, and so on. Bruno explained that there was no better spot for our interview as the bar that had been instrumental to the creation of Rogues.

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He told me that he and his friends used to hang out there all because of an online community they created on the social networking site Orkut.2 As Internet access increased throughout the city in the early 2000s—not only with PCs but also the opening up of numerous Internet cafés—people increasingly used email, Orkut, and MSN Instant Messenger (IM) to keep in touch at a rate cheaper than that for cell phones. A number of other bohemians told me that at that time, through the social networking sites of Fotolog and Orkut especially, people would see each other’s photos online, exchange a message or two, and become acquainted before meeting in person. Because Teresina’s options for listening to the music that he and his friends liked were limited, the online community served as a space to catalog an assortment of small businesses that they found around town where they could have some drinks and play their own CDs, and in some instances, even their own instruments. Ultimately, the point was to secure an unassuming place to bring people together, Bruno explained. For the most part, these friends were people he had met at the university and through performing in his indie-rock band. Offline, the community largely revolved around small dive bars located in the East Zone and downtown. When I asked Bruno how Rogues developed out of this community, he told me it all began downtown with Armazém, one of Teresina’s few gay, or GLS3 bars. Armazém, meaning “warehouse,” followed a long trend of disguising Teresina’s few and often short-lived gay bars with the names of radically different establishments—for example, body shops, factories, universities—so attendees could speak about them in mixed company without outing themselves and risking becoming victims to varying degrees of discrimination. Bruno explained that prior to this point he had not frequented GLS bars, but because he had begun dating a guy who liked to hang out at Armazém, they would go there together. We would go there about once a week after work, roll and smoke a joint outside, and then go in. At that time, they played only tribal and house music and the clientele was quite gay. Though it wasn’t always the case, by 2006 when Rogues began, alternative groups were pretty divided in the city: there were a couple of places in the East Zone for the rockers and there were a couple of gay bars and gay parking lot parties downtown that would play only gay dance club music. There really wasn’t anywhere in Teresina that was mixed, where both alternative rock and dance music and their people would mix together.

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Armazém was a small old house in the heart of Teresina’s downtown—an area of the city that was otherwise void of middle-class residents at night and largely associated with prostitution and other illicit activities (Fig. 10.2). In 2006, about one year after Armazém first opened and Good Night Teresina had been implemented, Teresina’s only other gay bar at the time

Fig. 10.2  A typical scene just outside Armazém, located in Teresina’s otherwise dark and desolate downtown. (Photo by the author)

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was closing, making downtown even more desolate than normal. Bruno convinced the owners to allow him to start producing the event by proposing that if he and his friends would be allowed just one night to play their music, they would attract an entirely different public. When Rogues first started, each Thursday night the small checkered dance floor would sweat, covered with a crowd of people dancing, flirting, and bonding over the shared high. Tightly packed together in an orange room off the back of the bar were a host of others hoping to catch a breeze through the windows. When I asked him to explain what he meant by “entirely different public,” he told me: It’s really more about the type of music that is played, I guess. Friday is definitely GLS, but Thursday is not specific, but it’s funny because people that go on Thursday end up going on other nights not knowing it’s different and end up liking those nights too! See, if you go on Thursday it doesn’t mean anything about your sexuality—no one could say you were gay for going there. On Thursday there’s no prejudice about who is there. And it’s only five reais4 to get in. I don’t think there is any other nightclub in Teresina where someone can go for that cheap.

As such, on these Thursday nights, Armazém would cease to be Armazém. Indeed, the timespace of Rogues would temporarily transform Armazém via a different “vibe” generated by a different public and by different music, but also by the collective effervescence experienced by the mass of moving bodies on the dancefloor, and thereby creating a feedback loop in which the bodies and the space they occupy continually and mutually shape one another (Bachelard 1954; de Certeau 1984). Similar to the freedom often felt by dancing alone in the privacy of one’s own home or room, Rogues encouraged play, letting loose, flaunting it, and sometimes laughing about it. Bodies joined one another and countered one another in their movements, collectively unmaking the formalized space of Armazém and remaking Rogues—a temporary yet familiar timespace to safely expand and push beyond the limits of daily life. Indeed, contexts of bohemian experimentation have been known to provide a space for alternative views about gender and sexuality to flourish (Brown 1985; Chauncey 1994; Lause 2009; Tsibiridou 2018). Non-­ normative expressions of gender and sexuality have always been part of Teresina’s nocturnal bohemia: women and men donning attire, dancing, and interacting with others in ways not normally considered appropriate

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for their respective genders. And while a great many participants in nocturnal bohemia engage in same-sex sexual practices and relationships, a fair number do not. As Bruno’s comments suggest, something more pervasive than same-sex attraction seems to underpin the community. For most participants in nocturnal bohemia, Teresina’s gay subculture is distinct from their community. Between 2003 and 2010, I attended numerous GLS bars, clubs, and parties, and learned more than a little bit about the increasing presence of LGBTQ social organizations and identity politics on the local landscape. Nocturnal bohemia, however, tends to differ from LGBTQ events in a few important ways. Bohemians are generally less separated along lines of gender and sexual orientation, and while single people are common to both spheres, they seem to place less emphasis on sex and sexual identity (e.g., finding someone to hook up with for the night, and engaging in discussions that reference sexual identity and a sense of belonging to a larger imagined LGBTQ community).5 In other words, taking part in the nocturnal bohemia seldom entails listening to deejays play exclusively “gay club” [boate gay] music or engaging in talk of romance and sexuality to the extent that people with opposite-sex and/or ambiguous sexual desires might feel excluded. It is as if the presence and growing visibility of a more normative LGBTQ community in Teresina has allowed nocturnal bohemia to construct community along lines other than gender and sexuality. Instead, what brings the community together is a shared passion for experimenting with novel aesthetics and creating ways of life that are not present in everyday local life. As such, nocturnal bohemia carves out a space where people can be relatively open with one another about their same-sex desires without their involvement in nocturnal bohemia being attributed to their same-sex desires. While select participants in nocturnal bohemia support the LGBTQ community through their expertise as deejays and event producers, its existence allows nocturnal bohemia to be more inventive and more specialized, taking participants’ interests far beyond sexuality or sexual identity and into the unchartered waters of queerness. Participants central to nocturnal bohemia of both past and present point to Rogues as a significant turning point for nocturnal bohemia. During a period of time when nocturnal bohemia’s social life had become quite limited in terms of locations for socializing, the Orkut community— meeting online and in a handful of tiny non-descript bars—seeded changes that would be felt by the community for years to come, bringing together a new combination of musicians, deejays, and friends that would become

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the very first phase of Rogues. By word of mouth, and the circulation of photos and flyers on social media, the word quickly spread to fans of electronic and rock music, forming a growing community that was mixed in terms of not only musical taste but also style of dress, neighborhood of residence, social standing, sexual orientation, and gender presentation.6 A new twist on nocturnal bohemia and its queer form of belonging began to take shape, giving rise to even more opportunities for bohemians to experience alternative and new ways of perceiving and being, and ultimately transforming, if temporarily, more small, ordinary urban spaces in the city.

Maintaining Queer Timespace and Possibility As I have attempted to show, the timespace of nocturnal bohemia seeds change for its participants through a number of ordinary and seemingly inconsequential locations, whether it be a modest bar, a warehouse, a living room, or the grounds of an unassuming country house on the outskirts of the city. It is in these common and shifting settings that women and men are offered the opportunity to collectively experiment with like-­ minded people in a safe timespace that is otherwise unavailable in Teresina. Nocturnal bohemia transforms its participants, offering them new perspectives on and possibilities for themselves, one another, and life more generally. Yet when these bodies leave the queer timespace of Rogues, and nocturnal bohemia more generally, they are forced to take their altered selves back out into the oppressively normative world of daily Teresina life, sometimes starting new businesses and selling new products, and often engaging in challenging relationships with family members, clients, and mainstream society more generally. Especially because bohemians tend to maintain close ties to family members and often are employed by clients who are well steeped in the mainstream, bohemians learn to straddle multiple spaces and take up a variety of different roles in order to maintain a middle-class quality of life on the one hand and involvement in nocturnal bohemia on the other. In this final section, I suggest that it is the ethos of queerness espoused by the bohemians that makes the emergent timespace of nocturnal bohemia (and all that entails—small, ordinary spaces that lead to transformation) within the greater context of daily life in Teresina possible. Bohemians’ shared ethos of queerness structures the nature of events central to nocturnal bohemia (openness to new ideas, ways of being, and opportunities

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for experimentation in changing locales unencumbered by notions of identity as static or fixed) as much as it structures how bohemians relate to and operate within other realms of daily life. To remain close with or be financially dependent on one’s conservative family or to be employed by conservative members of Teresinense society is part and parcel of being a bohemian in Teresina. Bohemians may indeed feel limited by these relationships in a number of ways like not feeling free or safe to share parts of themselves that they are able to express more freely in nocturnal bohemia—but bohemians’ ethos of queerness also allows them to see these people and relationships not as essentially other, or lacking in value, but rather as beneficial along other lines of alliance (familial bonds, economic support, investment in creative and financially lucrative endeavors, etc.) that make participation in nocturnal bohemia possible. For one bohemian, the timespace of the family may be a small old house with no air conditioning, segments of walls with crumbling plaster and exposed brick, and broken floor tiles located close to the city center where she lives with her mother and sister. For another bohemian, the familial timespace is a recently built modern condominium with minimalist décor owned by an aunt, a visit to the family’s country home for the Easter holiday, or a weekend brunch with relatives at an upscale restaurant. Still for others, it is an impromptu conversation with a live-in maid while eating the breakfast she prepared; running errands with a parent, grandparent, brother, or sister; or attending a cousin’s birthday party in an apartment across town on a Saturday night. Sometimes the timespace of the family entails concealing parts of one’s self (desires, relationships, and pastimes) in an attempt to make family members happy or to not ruffle feathers out of fear of rejection or ostracization. Such timespaces may also involve unintentionally internalizing family members’ prejudices (mistrust of strangers, homophobia, racism, classism, etc.) that are in direct conflict with the queer ethos shared by bohemians but are nevertheless sometimes difficult to shirk. For many bohemians, the familial timespace involves receiving gifts and some type of financial assistance (an allowance, free rent and/or food, transportation, etc.) that provides bohemians the comfort, time, and energy needed to participate in nocturnal bohemia and related activities (event planning, deejay set-curating, internet browsing, costume designing, art making, etc.). The employment timespace is equally variable for bohemians and may take shape around a small architecture office, a client’s home, a fabric store downtown, an impromptu encounter with an employer or client at a café

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in one of the mall’s food courts, a law office, a foreign language school, a “high society” gala attended by bohemians’ clients, relatives, and potential clients, an elaborate party or ceremony for an employer’s relative (e.g., a wedding, debutant ball, milestone birthday, or funeral), the reception desk of a local dance school, a dress shop, or any other experience out in the city in the company of employers, clients, or their friends and acquaintances, who are all, at best, potential sources of income, and at worst, guaranteed gossips. Most often, the timespace of employment involves bohemians engaging in pleasantries, conforming to employer and client social norms and values, and catering to their wishes. Occasionally, the employment timespace requires bohemians to cater to client/employer aesthetic preferences and thereby challenge bohemians’ artistic visions. Sometimes this timespace involves being employed by people who engage in corruption and exploitative business practices, and bohemians feel the need to remain tight-lipped about such illegal activities. What the employment timespace almost always offers are increased opportunities to generate additional income—exposure to new clients and exposure of one’s products (successful events, designs, projects, presentations, etc.)—as well as the connections necessary to be able to afford and have access to the means necessary for a number of bohemian events like Infinity and High Jinx—locations, decorations, lighting, speakers, furniture—that producers are often able to get at low cost or in kind due to connections made in the employment timespace. The timespaces of family and employment make nocturnal bohemia possible, whether through housing, financial support provided by family members, or through employment opportunities that afford bohemians the time to conjure new projects and possibilities. Yet, as the above examples suggest, these timespaces also pose a number of challenges to bohemians. Ways bohemians cope with such challenges include keeping nocturnal bohemia off the radar of family members and employers/clients, refraining from speaking about or engaging in behaviors in front of family members employers/clients that might ultimately result in discontinued financial support or employment, using in-group rhetorical devices in specific moments to temporarily “other” their employers/clients and family members—for example, mafrenses (local yokels), burocratas burguesas (bourgeois bureaucrats), filhos de papai (daddy’s boys)—and make it clear, at least to themselves, that they are different. That said, regardless of their occasional use of such rhetorical devices, bohemians do not generally view these people as essentially other. Rather, they understand that

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mainstream residents, too, are more than a fixed identity, and, just like themselves, are a product of positions people take up in particular moments and spaces. This reveals the extent to which bohemians cannot fully escape their material conditions. In as much as nocturnal bohemia is enabled by the financial support of family and employment timespaces, bohemians who alter their behavior and conceal parts of themselves in order to work for certain employers/clients or placate their families can be seen as reinforcing and reproducing class hierarchies (Levin 2010; Lloyd 2006; Velho 2002). And while bohemians do not deny the difficult choices they make in these situations, the opportunities for them to experience alternative ways of being, becoming, and be-longing in the emergent timespace of nocturnal bohemia largely outweigh their attempts to fully disrupt the social order. Still, the possibility for bohemians to seed minute changes beyond the context of nocturnal bohemia is palpable. Nocturnal bohemia opens up opportunities for employment, upward mobility, recognition, and creative expression in mainstream society that might not have been available to participants otherwise. Equally significant are increased opportunities for bohemians to influence social dynamics and the look and feel of the urban landscape more generally. By way of connections made and creative experiences shared in nocturnal bohemia, participants have gained employment and started their own businesses in the areas of interior design, architecture, large-scale event production, gastronomy, fashion, and deejaying that all cater to a clientele steeped in Teresina’s upwardly mobile mainstream society.

Conclusion Driven by the notion that cities are places of meaning for residents to understand themselves (Prato and Pardo 2013), this analysis of queer timespace in Teresina, Brazil contributes to theorizations of emergent spaces and seeding changes in hidden spaces by examining the actions taken up by participants in an alternative community in a rapidly urbanizing middle-sized “ordinary” city (Robinson 2006) of the global south— a category of city largely overlooked in urban ethnographic studies (e.g., Zhang 2006; Murphy 2019). It is within such a context that these individuals create a bohemia for themselves that, responding to local socioeconomic and familial structures as well as mainstream trends, is fragmented

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both spatially and temporally, cropping up only at night in changing and unofficial locations throughout the city. By centering on a shared ethos of queerness, this alternative community with neither a name for itself nor a fixed location for gathering nor official membership remains flexible and open to possibility in terms of how it manifests both aesthetically and spatially, what new creative projects its participants take up, and what new alliances it forms. As such, this analysis further reinforces Varshaver and Rocheva’s (2018) call to combine network research and urban anthropology in order to investigate urban communities that are not limited to any one neighborhood or sector of the city. Such an analysis also contributes to theorizations of potential changes originating in invisible and temporary spaces. Local outsiders in search of greater forms of self-expression and a sense of belonging in an otherwise socially conservative and normatively oppressive context engage with nocturnal bohemia and then borrow from and build on their experiences to create new projects and events that extend outward into different areas of the city, including different publics and different aesthetics, allowing more opportunities for a greater number of residents who feel like outsiders within their own city to experience self-expression and a sense of belonging. But potential for change born out of the queer timespace of nocturnal bohemia is not limited to other residents who feel like outsiders. By maintaining close ties to people heavily steeped in mainstream society and trends (family members, employers, and clients in particular) a number of bohemian aesthetics related to music, dance, graphic design, and the production of social events spill over into mainstream society. Whether it be people who learned how to deejay through nocturnal bohemia and later find employment spinning at fancy cocktail parties and galas, interior designers who acquire clients vis-à-vis other participants in nocturnal bohemia and are able to take on cutting-edge projects rooted in conversations and collaborations with other bohemians, or a small business owners who began selling clothing at events central to nocturnal bohemia and eventually opened up their own store in Teresina’s most prestigious commercial sector, bohemians seed minute changes beyond the context of their queer and off-the-grid timespace. Still, what is one to make of this spatially and temporally fragmented community of bohemians born out of a place like Teresina, a city once dominated by poverty, currently experiencing rapid urbanization? The proliferation of a largely conservative, (hetero)normative, and status-­ conscious middle class in a shifting terrain of social positions that leaves

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many residents uncertain about how they measure up to their neighbors in a city full of strangers. The seemingly perpetual experience of “be-­ longing”—a longing to belong on various registers and in multiple realms of life (Murphy 2019). One could certainly argue that bohemians introduced in this chapter are sell-outs, hiding important parts of themselves from the mainstream for the sake of materialism and middle-class comfort. Yet, one could also argue that their relationship to the mainstream is another expression of their queer ethos of non-essentialism that is nurtured within their community—that is, it allows them to identify in certain aspects with people who, on the surface, may appear to have nothing in common with them. Are we then to consider that Teresina’s bohemians are wise and pragmatic, knowing that they won’t ever be accepted in all realms of life and, thus, making the most of each situation by adjusting which parts of themselves they choose to expose to different audiences? What we do know is that Teresina’s bohemians have managed to creatively build a unique world for themselves by collectively and temporarily transforming a number of different ordinary spaces in the city—a home, an unassuming bar at the mall, a small gay bar in a desolate downtown, an abandoned house, a plot of land on the outskirts of town—to make room for ways of being and relating to one another that is not readily available to them. As such, nocturnal bohemia is an emergent timespace that allows for the continual expansion of new perspectives, of new ways of being and relating to the world, as well as the creation of new projects. Indeed, nocturnal bohemia seeds changes in those who take part in it, changes that they take with them when they leave nocturnal bohemia and engage with local residents of all walks of life. But to what extent are its transformative effects felt by Teresina’s wider society and do they in fact seed change indirectly in ways of which they are unaware? Would such possibilities for transformation exist if bohemians took a more essentialist approach to identity, fully rejecting all members of the mainstream, including family members and clients? Might it be the case that such an approach to interpersonal relationships among people with sometimes opposing viewpoints leaves room for the possibility of arriving at some kind of mutual understanding? Such questions are beyond the scope of this chapter but are significant and timely ones to consider, especially during a moment in which residents of numerous countries throughout the world, including Brazil, find themselves caught in a surge of socially polarizing discourses, practices, and policies.

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Notes 1. E.L. McCallum and Mikko Tuhkanen point out that this paradigm shift in understanding identity is “a philosophical scaffolding through which queer theory, impelled not only by Foucault but by deconstructionist critiques of identity and feminist contestations of constricting definitions of sexual differences, emerged out of a critique of Western metaphysics and its stable ontology” (2011, 3). 2. Launched in 2004, the same year as Facebook, Orkut was a Google-owned and Google-operated social networking site widely used in Brazil. 3. GLS is an acronym that came out of an identity politics movement to institutionalize gay spaces in Brazil as not exclusively Gay or Lesbica, but also “S,” standing for “sympathizers” (simpatizantes). 4. “Reais” is the plural form of Real, the Brazilian currency. 5. It is not to say that no participants in nocturnal bohemia are concerned with sex and sexual identity. Many are, but nocturnal bohemia as a whole is much less so. I take up this discussion in chapter six of Queerly Cosmopolitan (Murphy 2019). 6. Rogues brought together clothing styles as diverse as young women wearing tight pants, T-shirts, and short hair (a rarity in the city at the time), women with long curly hair wearing loose-fitting dresses and “hippy” jewelry, men with short hair wearing fitted T-shirts and pants emphasizing their muscles, and men with long/shaggy hair and beards wearing loose-fitting clothing.

References Allison, Anne. 2001. Cyborg Violence: Bursting Borders and Bodies with Queer Machines. Cultural Anthropology 16 (2): 237–265. Bachelard, Gaston. 1954. The Poetics of Space. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1983. Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel. In The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, 84–258. Austin: University of Texas Press. Barreto, Jamille. 2011. Brazil Goes Social: The Rise of the Brazilian Digital Middle Class. Sparksheet, June 30. http://sparksheet.com/brazil-goes-social-the-riseof-the-brazilian-digital-middle-class/. Basso, Keith. 1996. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscapes and Language among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Bersani, L. 1996. Homos. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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Brown, Marilyn. 1985. Gypsies and Other Bohemians: The Myth of the Artist in Nineteenth-Century France. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge. Caldeira, Teresa. 2001. City of Walls: Crime Segregation and Citizenship in São Paulo. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chauncey, George. 1994. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940. New York: Basic Books. Dean, Tim. 2009. Unlimited Intimacy: Reflections on the Subculture of Barebacking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Edelman, Lee. 1995. Queer Theory: Unstating Desire. GLQ 2: 343–346. Graña, César, and Marigay Graña. 1990. On Bohemia: The Code of the Self-Exiled. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Halberstam, Judith. 2005. In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives. New York: New York University Press. IBGE. 2017. Teresina. Censo. Accessed February 1, 2018. https://cidades.ibge. gov.br/brasil/pi/teresina/panorama. Lause, Mark A. 2009. The Antebellum Crisis & America’s First Bohemians. Kent: Kent State University Press. Levin, Joanna. 2010. Bohemia in America, 1858–1920. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Liechty, Mark. 2003. Suitably Modern: Making Middle-Class Culture in a New Consumer Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lloyd, Richard. 2006. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New York: Routledge. McCallum, E.L., and Mikko Tuhkanen. 2011. Queer Times, Queer Becomings. Albany: SUNY Press. Murphy, Timothy. 2019. Queerly Cosmopolitan: Bohemia and Belonging in a Middle-of-Nowhere Brazilian City. New York: Palgrave Pivot. O’Dougherty, Maureen. 2002. Consumption Intensified: The Politics of Middle-­ Class Daily Life in Brazil. Durham: Duke University Press. Prato, Giuliana B., and Italo Pardo. 2013. Urban Anthropology. Urbanities 3 (2): 80–110. Robinson, Jennifer. 2006. Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. London and New York: Routledge. Shokeid, Moshe. 2018. From Jaffa to New York: The Scope of Urban Anthropology. In The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B. Prato, 23–34. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Tsibiridou, Fontini. 2018. An Ethnography of Space, Creative Dissent, and Reflective Nostalgia in the City Centre of Global Istanbul. In The Palgrave

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Handbook of Urban Ethnography, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B.  Prato, 405–426. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Varshaver, Evgeni, and Anna Rocheva. 2018. Localized Migrant Communities in the Absence of Ethnic Neighborhoods: A Glimpse into Moscow’s Ethnic Cafés. Urbanities 8 (2): 42–58. Velho, Gilberto. 2002. A Utopia Urbana: Um Estudo de Antropologia Social. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Editor. Wilson, Elizabeth. 2000. Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Zhang, Li. 2006. Contesting Spatial Modernity in Late Socialist China. Current Anthropology 47 (3): 461–484.

CHAPTER 11

Sustainability and Small Businesses in Stuttgart, Germany Petra Kuppinger

Climate change, sustainability, and related environmental concerns are defining topics of our time. While some political actors and corporations deny or ignore such issues and deem work toward more sustainable lifestyles, economies, and futures irrelevant or not profitable, there are rapidly growing numbers of individuals, activist groups, and political movements across the globe that engage environmental challenges and seek to create a more sustainable and equal future. On the city level, organizations like the C40 Cities or the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance bring global cities together to confront ecological challenges, to discuss and design policy changes, and to implement innovative projects. Scholars debate details of future regenerative cities and a few cities have issued ambitious plans to reduce their carbon footprint. Copenhagen announced that it would be the first carbon-neutral city by 2025. Activists confront looming ecological threats and demand far-reaching climate legislation. Growing numbers of individuals commit to consumption and lifestyle changes. In myriad

P. Kuppinger (*) Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_11

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ways, diverse constituencies address current patterns of consumption, energy regimes, waste production and management, environment policies, laws, and regulations. Many question existing economic and value systems. Individuals share their experiences with living more sustainable lives, reducing their individual carbon footprint, identifying and avoiding unnecessary consumption, planting urban community, back yard or windowsill gardens, and many other small ideas and projects on social media where one can find endless accounts, videos, blogs, or advice about such efforts. Looking at individual and municipal efforts, a question emerges about a link in the middle: What about sustainable businesses and services? Who supplies urban residents with sustainable and fair products and services, beyond infrastructural ones, that they cannot provide for themselves? What businesses are there that operate within frameworks of sustainability and social justice and are committed to fair and equitable engagements with humans, animals, and planetary well-being at large? What role do they play in cities? Are these viable long-term businesses? Can such businesses help to seed long-term urban change? And finally, what can be done to foster the growth of alternative, sustainable, socially fair, and more circular urban economies? In this chapter, I examine elements in an emergent landscape of sustainable businesses in the southern German state capital of Stuttgart. I analyze projects that outline new economic models and illustrate that sustainable ventures can become viable businesses and seed robust and permanent change. I introduce three ventures that are inspired by ideas of more sustainable and equal cities. They address pressing issues of waste production, upcycling, recycling, healthy foods, fair wages, local sourcing, individual well-being, social justice, and circular economies. Their owners put ideas of sustainability and fair work at the core of their work while trying to provide a living for those involved. While each project works for or by itself, owners are keenly aware of the larger emergent scenery of similarly oriented businesses. Their projects are part of a loose network that relies on similar urban audiences/clienteles. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, I examine a store for unpackaged groceries, a fashion design company that works exclusively with upcycled materials and produces locally, and the work of a wood and glass upcycling artist/designer/ producer. I introduce these ventures and their owners, chronicle aspects of their histories, describe their guiding ideals, discuss obstacles they face, and illustrate how owners see their efforts as part of a larger landscape of political, cultural, and economic transformations. These enterprises

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combine ideas of sustainability with the quest to make a reasonable living. They suggest possibilities, highlight new economic and environmental practices, seed these in real spaces, and propose viable practices for their patrons and the city. They support individual efforts of growing numbers of urbanites who try to live more sustainable lives and consume more ethically. Owners understand that they are part of emergent networks of similar ventures that seed and support a more sustainable city, fair economy, and new modes of being in the city. As spaces of innovations, these businesses contribute to critical urban debates and the remaking of cities, spaces, and urban economies. I argue that they are emergent spaces that foreshadow different urban lifestyles and economies as they mediate between individuals, cities, and larger quests for sustainability. If cities pursue ambitious ecological goals, it is paramount to recognize these emergent spaces and to accommodate and grow a robust field of businesses that supports quests for sustainable lives and social justice. Cities that vie for regenerative futures need to work on large scale infrastructural projects and identify ways to support emergent businesses and lifestyles that complement urban environmental policies for public transportation, waste reduction, or recycling. Small ventures organized around principles of sustainability and social justice are vital in the making of sustainable or regenerative cities.

Seeding Change in the City Recent years witnessed the proliferation in Europe and North America of new projects and ventures inspired by ideas of sustainability, shared economies, circular economies, local sourcing, zero waste, accessibility, local arts and crafts, and crucially fair, economies and social justice. Projects and initiatives are framed by vibrant popular and scholarly ecological, philosophical, economic, political, and practical/DIY debates (Berglund and Peipinen 2018). Activists and observers debate climate change, environmental degradation and improvements, and the damage done and ecological results of diverse measures and projects (e.g., Klein 2019; Jahren 2020). Individuals or small groups discuss their projects in the hope of inspiring others to initiate similar projects (e.g., urban agriculture, see Ableman 2016; Allen and Wilson 2013). Some chronicle how they left established lifestyles and patterns of consumption behind and share their experiences and ideas about viable individual or household alternatives and projects that can contribute to a more sustainable future. They

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describe zero-waste householding and lifestyles (Johnson 2013; Korst 2012), plastic-free living (Terry 2012), minimalist lifestyles (Becker 2016), or limited lifestyle projects such as self-imposed shopping bans (Flanders 2018). They describe experiences of community gardens, local craft stores, farmers’ markets, composting sites, green roof spaces, bike lanes, or improved public transportation that have been expanding in recent decades (Bubinas 2015; Crouch 2010; Heying 2010a; Hou 2010, 2014, 2017; Mares and Peña 2010; Milbourne 2010). Yet, the quest for urban sustainability has been a mixed blessing and as it gained currency, the term is increasingly used and abused in questionable contexts and projects that ultimately increase urban inequalities. Scholars point to the complexity of the concept of urban sustainability and call sustainable cities an oxymoron or myth and highlight that “urban sustainability can entail both vital strategies for change and strategies for domination” (Checker et al. 2015, 2). Sustainable projects and ventures are located and unfold in cityscapes marked by social, racial, and ethnic inequalities. Observers point to the abuse of notions of sustainability, especially in neoliberal branding and profiteering contexts, where “sustainable” has become a fashionable term and profitable marketing device. Observers fear that urban sustainability becomes a “co-optable concept [that] risks becoming mere greenwash, with diminished relevance for both ecological improvements and social justice” (ibid., 5). Melissa Checker (2011) illustrates such dangers in Harlem NY where “sustainable” projects framed by larger neoliberal urban policies and renewal ushered in gentrification and pushed poor and minority residents out of the greened or green-washed neighborhood. Checker (2018) demonstrates how the greening of privileged urban quarters can result in the browning of low-­ income quarters as dirt, waste, toxic industries, and other environmentally damaging materials and activities are relocated there. Andrew Newman (2011) chronicles the efforts of a minority community in Paris to have an old industrial yard converted into a park only to see their neighborhood experience the onset of gentrification in the wake of the successful park protest. In the process, residents and activists lost control over their park project. Erin DeMuynck (2019) notes how farmers’ markets are often used as elements in neoliberal urban revitalization or gentrification projects. Some small green, alternative, and sustainable ventures are situated in middle- to upper-middle-class or gentrifying contexts marked by relative wealth and privilege, creating “new spaces of elite consumption” (Heying

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2010a, 14). Organic foods or locally produced arts and crafts are pricier than conventionally or mass-produced items. Only those who have consumed and accumulated a lot can start to clean out their overstuffed closets and cabinets, turn to a minimalist lifestyle, or start a shopping ban. Analyzing sustainability and sustainable projects, observers need to take into account the paradox and abuse of the term, instances of green-­ washing, profiteering, and the unintended consequences of well-­ intentioned activities (Zukin 2010). Regardless of the controversial use and abuse of notions of sustainability, the urgency for urban ecological transformations and related social justice efforts remains, and effective sustainable practices and robust political activism remain paramount in the making of future cities. These are very real challenges with regard to green businesses, but in this chapter, I will focus on possible long-term constructive contributions of such ventures with the clear understanding that they are part of a complex larger picture (Heying 2010a). Jerome Krase insists on the importance of “strong entrepreneurial cultures rooted in morality, and ramifications in practical life” (2015, 49) as relevant urban factors that can best be analyzed using ethnographic tools. New green projects and ventures are most likely to emerge in cities, which Italo Pardo, Giuliana Prato, and James Rosbrook-Thompson identify as the “challenging settings for future sustainable developments” (2020, 2). Urban sustainability as concrete “practice” (Isenhour et al. 2015) is crucial for seeding better and more equal cities. These practices are situated in a tense field of urban politics, economics, and justice. While there are limits to individual action and practices, people continuously “challenge and reshape myths of unlimited energy and progress, or of potential technofixes, or even of palliative or ‘feel-good’ environmentalism reduced to weekly recycling or LED light bulbs” (Checker et  al. 2015, 15). While merely “market-based approaches to environmental remediation and sustainability contradict environmental justice principles and goals,” there is potential for robust change in “local communities of practice” that produce moments and spaces of “local urban renewal and reinvention” (ibid., 19). Regardless of challenges in the quest for designing and creating more sustainable cities, observers point to the potentials of cities to become the vanguard for ecological change, because of their densities and relative political power over their territories (Thomson and Newman 2020; Gardner et  al. 2016). Despite urban complexities, the sheer size of the challenge, and possibilities for failures, it remains crucial to identify viable

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initiatives that seed more sustainable, livable, and just cities and address pressing issues of climate change and environmental degradation (Cohen 2018). Some projects (small or large) are win-win efforts that improve environmental and social issues and can be models for others. The Metrocable aerial trams project in Medellin, Colombia, is frequently hailed as an unequivocal success (Gardner 2016, 56–57). Metrocable was conceived within a framework of “social urbanism” and provides accessible public transportation for low-income residents with minimal interventions in the existing urban fabric and low environmental costs. Local workers were hired for the construction, and areas around the cable car pylons were turned into social spaces with benches and food vendors. Parks, libraries, and other services were added in the vicinity of the cable car stations (ibid., 56). Metrocable improved low-income communities and provided better access to the city and jobs to their residents. Other cities initiated less far-reaching legal changes or provided incentives for greening projects. In 1986, the city of Stuttgart introduced a program that offered financial incentives for the greening of roof spaces. Today “all new roofs with a slope of less than 12 degrees must be green” (Renner 2016, 129). The city now has “more than 2 million square meters of green roofs” (ibid.). Paris issued regulations that require “that all new commercial buildings must be partially covered in plants or solar panels” (ibid.). On a neighborhood level, there are many examples of urban farms and community gardens that contribute to the greening of neighborhoods (Ableman 2016; Susman 2013; Hou 2014), often involving disenfranchised constituencies (Allen and Wilson  2013; Mares and Peña 2010; Truitt 2012). They produce healthy foods for low-income community members (Sbicca 2018), create community ties and social networks, and contribute to larger circular urban economies (Sokolovsky 2018). They are noteworthy emergent spaces whose ideas radiate into their neighborhoods and beyond. Will Allen (Allen and Wilson 2013) started an urban farm in a disadvantaged African American neighborhood in Milwaukee in 1993 and since then has educated and trained hundreds of urban farmers. He left a considerable mark on the expanding landscape of urban farms across the United States, as his farm inspired numerous similar projects. Many such green projects are based on considerable voluntary labor and the dedication of individuals who spend long hours and often invest their own money. These are admirable efforts, but one wonders whether in the long run, they are viable and allow their initiators to make a reasonable living in the context of vastly competitive neoliberal urban economies?

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The potential of seemingly inconsequential activities in small spaces to change powerful urban structures has been widely debated (e.g., Franck and Stevens 2007a, b; Zukin 2010; Hou 2010; Heying 2010a; Chase et  al. 1999; Mitchell 2003; Mukhija and Loukaitou-Sideris 2014; Kuppinger 2014, 2018). Scholars examine activities such garage/yard sales and show how they illustrate the economic ups and downs of a neighborhood or city and challenge notions of the private and the public (Crawford 1999, 2014). They represent seeds of circular economies and some even become more permanent businesses. Michael Rios describes “adaptive” practices where residents appropriate unclaimed environments for their own “economic and social uses” (2010, 101). Norman Millar (1999) discusses the “plight” of street vendors in Los Angeles who claim spaces and a livelihood in the face of legal limits and constant threats of removal. Emergent spaces are not limited to informal or temporary contexts but also include formal ventures and businesses that seed new practices, lifestyles, and elements of more sustainable cities. While framed by the rules of the dominant economy, such projects showcase different elements, dynamics, and economic practices that seed alternative urbanities. Growing numbers of new ventures (e.g., organic stores, thrift stores, locally made fashion, arts, or crafts stores) illustrate residents’ shifting cultural, environmental, and economic perspectives. They represent critical sentiments about consumerism, food production, fast fashion, or the environmental harm that comes with contemporary mass/overconsumption. Charles Heying and his contributors discuss the far-reaching changes of Portland’s artisan economy which is not restricted to one “hip” quarter, but with its “four signature sectors: brew, food, fashion, and bikes” pervasively changed the city’s economy, culture, and spatiality (2010c, 19). Heying wonders whether this successful artisan economy is indeed “part of a seismic shift in values toward local, sustainable, self-reliant systems of making and using?” (ibid.). Charles Heying and Marianne Ryder explore how local and artisan economies can constitute responses to detrimental free market policies where “cities […] attempt to attract firms through tax abatement, land assembly, lax regulatory oversight, and the suppression of wage expectations [that] are engaged in a competitive ‘race to the bottom’  ” (2010, 33). They argue that small-scale projects that use locally sourced materials and employ local labor can be the start to counter exploitative urban economies. They identify “going local, going green, challenging the tyranny of work and consumption, rediscovering place

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and local knowledge, and rediscovering craft and the integrity of work” as powerful forces in such endeavors (ibid., 32). Heying insists that Portland is not simply the home of isolated sustainable or artisan projects but is unique in that these projects have not resulted in the creation of a few upscale spaces of green consumption. Instead, the city “stands alone as an urban economy that has broadly embraced the artisan approach to living and working” (2010a, 17) with a vast and growing scene of food, beer, fashion, coffee, music, and bicycle workshops and related businesses that successfully challenge “the typical patterns of gentrification and displacement that occur when cultural activities become concentrated in particular bohemian districts” (Wineman and Heying 2010, 253). Heying is optimistic about the emerging artisan economy which “suggests a return to an economy based on making things” (2010c, 267). He emphasizes the human and environmental potential of this economy that “engage[s] workers in a way that is more humane, flexible, and supportive” and that is involved in “complex systems thinking about work, waste, and use. Acting ethically and including the best sustainable practices are common themes for artisans” (ibid., 273). Ethnographic methods and a multi-sited approach to urban research, as outlined by Italo Pardo and Giuliana Prato (2012a, 2012b), are best suited to examine a dispersed urban phenomenon such as emergent green spaces, practices, and economies. I will turn to some exemplary sites next.

Wertschätzung or the Appreciation of People and the Planet Schüttgut1 (roughly: “bulk”) is a store for unpackaged goods that accommodates growing demands for low- or zero-waste lifestyles and organic and sustainable products. Situated on a side street in a residential middle-­ class neighborhood in Stuttgart-West, the store offers dry goods (rice, pasta, beans, grains, spices, etc.), fresh fruits, vegetables and cheeses, oils, jams, juices, soaps, shampoos, and liquid cleaners. Products are sold in bulk and unpackaged. Customers are asked to bring their own containers or sacks for dried goods or bottles to fill their oils and other liquids. The store also sells coffee and a few baked goods for immediate consumption. Schüttgut has a functional yet cozy interior that is dominated in the front room by more than 200 containers of different sizes that are mounted on the wall to the left and another 100 smaller containers in a shelf facing the

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entrance. To the right is a glass display case with cheeses and the cash register. Behind this counter are a coffee machine and a shelf with fresh bread and other baked goods. Oils and jams are in the smaller middle room. Soaps, solid/bar shampoos, and cleaners are in the well-lit backroom whose windows open into a backyard between buildings. Much of the store is kept white and beige tones. Wide green stripes just below the ceiling run through all rooms. I interviewed Jens-Peter Wedlich, the owner of Schüttgut, on a beautiful summer day in July 2018. We sat for more than two hours on the bench outside the store. He opened his store in early 2016 and after only two years in the neighborhood, Mr. Wedlich, a friendly and sociable man in his early fifties, has already become a fixture there. While we talked, he greeted about every other person who walked by, chatted with several, and knew the names of many. Mr. Wedlich describes the central feature of his store as a project of Wertschätzung (recognition, understanding, and respect for the value of) for humans, animals, and the planet. He emphasizes that all his food items are certified organic which he sees as a fundamental necessity for a better environment. That alone, however, is not enough for him. When looking at products, it is paramount that they are produced fairly, sustainably, and very importantly that they avoid packaging/trash. He insists that fair wages for all workers are crucial and adds that he knows most of his suppliers personally which is another vital element of his business philosophy. He emphasizes that he aims to sell items that will be used and not wasted (Verwendung statt Verschwendung) and notes that he would rather mark down a pricy fresh fruit before letting it rot. He routinely puts food out on the street in the evening in a basket for passers-by to pick up for free. He emphasizes that he sells items in the tiniest quantities (a Muggeseggele, he insisted that I use this very local term for a most minute quantity) which, for example, would help an elderly widow who only wants to cook a handful of pasta. He insists that his business model, which links up with many other enterprises, reflects vastly different values from stores where people just grab as many items as possible as they rush through the aisles. He offers foods that encourage customers to cook their own meals instead of reaching for processed items. Mr. Wedlich has a vision that transcends his store which he perceives as the outpost or forefront of a new way of living with nature, living together as humans, and living in the city. Together with his wife (who works part-time in the store), Mr. Wedlich has since 2016 created a viable business that now includes several

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part-­time employees. It took him and his wife two years (including the planning/preparation time) to be able to make a living from the store and allow themselves some free time. He notes that the beginning was rough and there were moments when he thought the venture would fail (the first premises he rented turned out to be moldy and he lost time and money getting out of this contract). With much experience in business (he had worked for many years in the chemical industry), a solid business plan, and the understanding that his project was right on target/in time (trifft den Zahn der Zeit), Mr. Wedlich was convinced that his venture would succeed. He had seen other unpackaged stores in Germany and set out to realize his vision in Stuttgart. He meticulously planned his store, exploring products and settled for 330 items to start (he now expanded to 600 and ultimately aims for 700 items). With regard to the store’s zero/low-waste philosophy, Mr. Wedlich notes that there can be no absolutes. If somebody comes with a plastic bag, that is fine too. He would like people to explore and learn different practices. If the store can be of any help in such transformative processes, that it is a success. He describes his customers as diverse; most are educated middle-class individuals. Children love his store as they can pick and pack things. Older people from the neighborhood love the small quantities. Locals often come two or three times a week. People from outside the city come once or week or month to stock up on their supplies. In only a short time, Schüttgut has gained many regulars and Mr. Wedlich knows many personally. Mr. Wedlich is part of larger movement of unpackaged stores nationally and globally. Over sixty stores in Germany are part a national association of unpackaged stores which is able to negotiate with large producers, for example, to deliver products in reusable glass containers. As an individual store and as part of a larger movement, Mr. Wedlich is optimistic about his store, the movement, and its potentials for larger social and ecological change. Not surprisingly, since he opened the first unpackaged store in Stuttgart in 2016, several others opened in the metropolitan area (e.g., Stuttgart-Ost, Stuttgart-Sillenbuch, Filderstadt, Ludwigsburg). Schüttgut is a hub in an emergent more sustainable and just cityscape.

Wood and Glass Upcycling To reach the studio of Markus Schäfer one has to cross a backyard behind a row of gray apartment buildings in the working-class and immigrant neighborhood of Stuttgart-Ost. A sizable backyard structure

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accommodates several workshops or studios of individuals who work there for fun or professionally. Markus Schäfer, who is in his early thirties, runs Wandelwerk (roughly: “changing works”), a small company out of two adjacent workshop rooms in the basement. His rooms are full of supplies of glass and wood, his preferred materials, but there are also boxes with all sorts of items and materials that might come in handy for future projects. As one of his central projects, Mr. Schäfer upcycles wine bottles into drinking glasses, storage glasses/containers, chandeliers, innovative light fixtures, and other objects. He upcycles wood (preferably construction waste, pallets) into uniquely designed pieces of furniture. Mr. Schäfer does not have his own store but markets his products in local crafts stores and on crafts and Christmas markets. Mr. Schäfer does not (yet) live off the proceeds of his company. Mr. Schäfer is a trained theater/stage designer and works full-time in the Stuttgart Opera. The work hours there with morning practices and often free afternoons accommodate his creative experiments. In 2009 he first encountered upcycling projects and liked the work and underlying ideas of upcycling. He started to work with wine bottles and upcycled them into drinking glasses. At his own leisure he worked on small projects, developed further ideas, and refined his skills. In 2013 he started to sell some of this work and a year later he created his own website. In 2015 he became more serious and started to consider turning this hobby/sideline work into a full-time job. He added larger wood pieces and furniture to his repertoire. He created a prototype of a pallet stool and was able to quickly sell ten stools. He recognized the potential of his creations and identified marketing venues beyond his website. He knew that opening an own store was too ambitious and turned to local and regional arts and crafts markets, pop-up stores, and stores that specialize in  local and regional arts and crafts. Occasionally, he does commissioned work. Mr. Schäfer emphasizes that it is vital that his work and creative process are fulfilling for him. It is important for him “to live sustainably.” He is pleased that he is able to situate his work in his larger life philosophy and adds that to recycle old materials and furniture and to “counter mainstream practices” is central in his work. Beyond his immediate engagement with discarded materials and the marketing of his products, Mr. Schäfer sees himself as part of a landscape of individuals and groups who are dedicated to similar goals of sustainability and social change. When he attends markets and sells his products among other like-minded producers, it is obvious that his work is part of larger networks where many share

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visions and goals. Clearly, he explains, there is a “larger sum total” (Gesamtergebnis) of these efforts that transcends individual projects. Taking a step back from his work, Mr. Schäfer looks at the contemporary consumer economy. “Really,” he reflects, “my business should not even exist, as I am completely living on/producing from garbage.” With a more conscious regime of consumption, his line of production would ideally disappear by itself. As such his current work constitutes a transitional phase on the way to drastically changed consumer practices whereby people would more consciously use items, use them multiple times, and as long as possible. A central element of Mr. Schäfer’s work is to showcase alternative ways of using and dealing with resources and materials. In the long run, Mr., Schäfer would like to work in his workshop full-­ time. If he had more time for his creative work, he could better contribute to transformations, spread his ideas, make others consider sustainable practices, especially waste reduction, and illustrate alternative lifestyles and more sustainable consumption. He is inspired by other artisans who make a living with their sustainable products and asks “so, why not me?” When I inquired where he would like to be in ten years, he explained he would like to have his own, possibly larger, workshop, may be with one or two employees. He thinks that an own store might be too ambitious, and he might be better off with a regular presence at markets and exhibits in niche stores. Regardless of the size of his operation, his central goal is to “contribute to change” and to make people think about pressing environmental and social issues and to “outline possibilities” of change. When asked about if and how small green businesses contribute to urban change, Mr. Schäfer notes: “yes, for sure in a small context.” He explains that some customers might buy his furniture simply for aesthetic reasons, but then he notes that many do reflect about the broader context of recycling and upcycling, which is a good starting point. He is aware that his customers are largely part of the middle to upper middle class and the green credentials of some might be questionable (“they drive their SUV to go shopping”). Regardless, he insists that even minute changes or rethinking are first steps toward larger goals. I asked Mr. Schäfer what larger municipal policies or changes would be helpful for a small business like his committed to goals of sustainability and justice. Like for the other two ventures, the central theme here is Stuttgart’s notoriously high rents. It is impossible to rent even small premises near the central Königstrasse shopping area. Short of rents, he suggests that the city could support more pop-up stores or events where artists and crafters

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can showcase their products at affordable fees. If the city wants to foster sustainable projects and push long-term goals of becoming a more sustainable city, it has to support various types of affordable work and commercial spaces and support innovative projects, for example, a food-sharing restaurant.

Slow Fashion Wiederbelebt (revived) is an upcycling fashion company located on the edge of the hip old city quarter of Stuttgart. The company, owned by Sarah Kürten and Oğuzhan Deniz, designs, produces, and sells upcycling fashion in a 300-square-meter facility where the store is located in the front and production is visible and accessible in the back. Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz upcycle industrial textile waste materials into a unique line of slow fashion. They acquire overstock or flawed or damaged materials from large producers, including smaller quantities of items like buttons, some of which are flawed and would not be worth sorting in mass production. Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz studied fashion design. Ms. Kürten added a graduate degree in fashion management and Mr. Deniz one in textile technology. Studying and working in mainstream companies, they witnessed the enormous waste that characterizes the industry. A bale of otherwise perfect fabric might be discarded (and often burned) for minor flaws or mis-­colorings. In mass production, it is not worth to identify these flaws and cut around them. Instead, the entire bale is thrown away. As students, Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz designed a project to develop more sustainable clothes to address this wastefulness. Initially they experimented with small quantities of waste textiles and created singular pieces. They recognized the future potential and environmental benefits of this project and started to contact regional producers asking for access to their rejects/warehouses. Initially they were met with skepticism or rejection, but eventually they convinced several producers to provide them with materials. All companies inserted non-disclosure clauses into their contracts with Wiederbelebt, as they do not want their customers to know that their fabrics are upcycled into another fashion line. Ms. Kürten notes that this way of acquiring materials is exciting and challenging as “one never knows what one will get.” Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz started in Mr. Deniz’s father’s basement. In 2015 they rented a small store in their current quarter. Initially they worked alone but soon hired help. Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz were

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surprised that the store carried itself almost from the start. The company soon outgrew its first store. Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz managed this unexpected growth carefully (wollten auf dem Boden der Tatsachen bleiben). In early 2018 they moved to their current premises. They now employ one full-time and one part-time employee and an intern. Production entirely unfolds on their premises. The owners first examine the (unpredictable) incoming materials. Then they develop patterns according to type, quality, and quantity of the materials. Clothes are sewn by an expert employee. From the production in the back finished items reach the sales room with no resources wasted on transportation. From start to finish a Wiederbelebt collection takes about four months. Ms. Kürten is proud of the open production in the back of the store and emphasizes that it is important that customers can see people at work (Menschen am Werk) and that clothes are produced under fair conditions and not in invisible sweatshops halfway around the world. Wiederbelebt does limited marketing. It is not worth their while to travel to large trade shows (Messe) for three days to show their collection. They have attended smaller events like the Berlin Fashion Week. Wiederbelebt depends more on the small-scale promotion of fashion bloggers and other local channels. They also sell their products via their website (“not very sustainable,” Ms. Kürten notes). Ms. Kürten explains that at this point they are not centrally interested in fast growth (via larger or faster collections) and stick to the current volume and further consolidate their work. Mass production is not their goal, and they will make small decisions for further development along the way. Wiederbelebt is unique in Germany, and Stuttgart was a favorable location because of the availability of high-quality fabrics including some organic materials. Ms. Kürten also mentions the density of sustainable projects in the city even though it is difficult to bring projects together as they are all too busy with their own work. Wiederbelebt, Ms. Kürten notes, “it is not really work, but it is a dream.” She wants to continue developing skills, insights, and ways to improve fashion which overall is a rather “dirty industry.” “How can anyone produce a T-Shirt that sells for 3 Euro?” she asks. She insists that we need to develop more Wertschätzung (recognition, understanding, and respect; see also above) for people’s work, the planet, the value of materials, and fashion at large. Ms. Kürten and Mr. Deniz are committed to such values and are “trying to improve things” in their field. They know their impact is limited, and as long as large companies do not change their ways, theirs

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will be an uphill battle. Ms. Kürten explains that it is hard to establish a small business without larger public or political support. She recognizes the larger field and potential for sustainable products in the city, especially the growing demand for sustainable food. This can translate into changing consumer behaviors with regard to clothes. She has seen “customers who came from H & M to us” and is convinced that it is possible to interest people in more sustainable consumption. There are larger companies that work with organic fabrics and produce in fair local workshops (e.g., the jeans company Armedangels with a workshop with fifty employees in Cologne). Ms. Kürten explains that consumption patterns are generational; some twelve- to twenty-year-old consumers “need to buy a new piece every day” and fast fashion provides such items. Many people over forty, she notes, buy a good piece and are willing to pay more for it. More people buy second-hand clothes or attend clothes-swap parties, which illustrates a changing consciousness and consumption patterns. Wiederbelebt’s central customer base is between twenty-five and forty-five years. Some are “accidental” customers who happen to like the clothes but do not initially know about their background. The central challenge for businesses like Wiederbelebt in a high-rent city like Stuttgart is affordable space. If the city wants to live up to some of its green claims,2 Ms. Kürten adds, it needs to provide more support or interfere in the rental market. Small companies are priced out of spaces on or near the central Königstrasse (main shopping street). Only large chains and upscale stores can afford central spaces. Small stores or start-ups are pushed to the sidelines and struggle to find appropriate premises. She notes that cities like Hamburg or Cologne have support programs for small businesses. Asked whether she thinks that individual sustainable projects can produce permanent change in the city, Ms. Kürten notes that there is a need for these ventures to move to the center to of society (sollen nicht Nischenprojekte bleiben). If the store is able to make one person per week reflect about current social or environmental issues, that would be a success. She is happy when she sees customers come back because they are convinced by the Wiederbelebt philosophy. In ten years, Ms. Kürten hopes that the store will be solidly established in a way that she does not have to think about survival every day. She would also like for their clothes to be sold in other stores which would decrease the pressure on the store. If all goes well that would allow her to take more time off. In the meantime, she

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and Mr. Deniz work hard to spread the message and grow the name-­ recognition and reputation of Wiederbelebt.

Transforming the City in Many Small Steps Schüttgut, Wandelwerk, and Wiederbelebt are robust ventures that engage contemporary urban and indeed global social and environmental challenges. They are innovative projects and emergent spaces that are based on innovative ideas, hard work, and commitment to changing lifestyles and consumer awareness and patterns. They foreshadow a different urban culture and economy and offer urbanites products and services that challenge mainstream consumer practices and inspire consumers to improve their ecological footprint. Simply stated, every plastic bag or package not used, every piece of clothes or furniture made from upcycled fabric, and every recycled product reduces waste and gets the city one tiny step closer to becoming regenerative. The owners of these ventures understand the importance of these individual steps, but also very realistically see their limitations. Schüttgut, Wandelwerk, and Wiederbelebt are three ventures among many others that work within similar frameworks locally and globally. They recognize the importance of small seeds for change they plant and hope for more individuals and ventures to join them. They appeal to the city for support (especially with regard to spaces and rents) as they cannot compete with those who mass manufacture their products without concerns for workers and the planet. Without the existence of emergent space like Schüttgut, Wandelwerk, and Wiederbelebt, concerned urbanites would be much harder pressed to practice aspects of their personal ecological and social commitments. While these businesses are busy working and making a living, all owners noted that they are ultimately part of larger networks and benefit from their synergy. Owners are aware of this larger scenery and that their efforts are linked, fostered, and strengthened by those of like-minded ventures. This momentum is vital for them even when in their daily work they are mostly focused on the continued success of their own businesses. Mr. Wedlich, Mr. Schäfer, Ms. Kürten, and Mr. Deniz are committed to sustainable urban futures and social justice. Ms. Kürten insists that it is crucial for Wiederbelebt that production is visible to their customers. Mr. Wedlich buys local/regional products and is concerned about fair wages for workers/producers. He knows and occasionally visits farms and producers. Mr. Schäfer produces all his merchandise himself and notes that he

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calculates about 35 euro (about $40) for his hour to be able to live in the city. Schüttgut, Wiederbelebt, and Wandelwerk eliminate unfair labor practices, and their production and supply chains are transparent. Their products have the smallest possible ecological footprint and are grown or created with a clear view onto planetary health. These efforts make their products more expensive and out of reach for low-income customers. All owners are aware of this and hope that in the long run they help create more awareness, attract new customers, move their ventures to the mainstream, and open them to larger audiences. They challenge overconsumption and highlight mindful consumer practices which would allow more people to buy their products (buying less clothes and instead purchase a few more expensive and sustainable pieces; reducing food waste and cooking from scratch would allow more consumers to buy sustainable food items). At present, businesses that commit to sustainable and fair practices are not competitive with mass-manufactured goods whose production exploits people and the planet. In their uphill battle to survive in this economic climate, they seed a different urban economy and culture. They need care to grow. The city needs to recognize their invaluable contribution and support them accordingly, for them to remain viable and unfold their ecological and social potentials. Ms. Kürten asks the city to be more supportive of sustainable businesses who compete with global chains for affordable real estate. Mr. Wedlich reports about his struggles over a public start-up loan that went sour over mold in a store and how he ended up in court and officials were neither willing nor able to understand the unique mission of his business. Mr. Schäfer thinks that to open his own store is too ambitious, because of prohibitive rents. Schüttgut, Wandelwerk, and Wiederbelebt are among a growing number of spaces in Stuttgart’s commercial landscape that challenge existing economic models, urban lifestyles, and consumer practices. They use alternative ways of production and marketing. They are guided by more than profit-maximization and see themselves as part of an emergent economic and cultural regime. They are vibrant emergent spaces that outline a more sustainable and just urban future.

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Notes 1. All individual and business names are real names. As the businesses are public and their owners make public statements with their work, they all chose to be identified by their real names. All interviews were conducted in late July 2018 in the respective stores/workshops. 2. From 2012 to 2020 the city had a Green Party Mayor. The state government has been headed by a Green Party Governor (Ministerpräsident) since 2011.

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Milbourne, Paul. 2010. Growing Places: Community Gardening, Ordinary Creativities and Place-Based Regeneration in a Northern English City. In Spaces of Vernacular Creativity, ed. Tim Edensor et al., 141–154. London: Routledge. Millar, Norman. 1999. Street Survival: The Plight of the Los Angeles Street Vendors. In Everyday Urbanism, ed. John Chase et al., 136–151. New York: Monacelli Press. Mitchell, Don. 2003. The Right to the City. New York: Guilford Press. Mukhija, Vinit, and Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, eds. 2014. The Informal American City. Cambridge: MIT Press. Newman, Andrew. 2011. Contested Ecologies: Environmental Activism and Urban Space in Immigrant Paris. City & Society 23 (2): 192–209. Pardo, Italo, and Giuliana B.  Prato. 2012a. Introduction: The Contemporary Significance of Anthropology in the City. In Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory, ed. Italo Pardo and Giuliana B.  Prato, 1–28. Farnham: Ashgate. ———, eds. 2012b. Anthropology in the City: Methodology and Theory. Farnham: Ashgate. Pardo, Italo, Giuliana B.  Prato, and James Rosbrook-Thompson. 2020. Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections. In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, ed. I.  Pardo, G.B.  Prato and J.  Rosbrook-Thompson Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10 (S3):2–12. Renner, Michael. 2016. Reducing the Environmental Footprint of Buildings. In Can a City Be Sustainable? ed. Gary Gardner et  al., 115–134. Washington: Island Press. Rios, Michael. 2010. Claiming Latino Space: Cultural Insurgency in the Public Realm. In Insurgent Spaces, ed. Jeffrey Hou, 99–110. New York: Routledge. Sbicca, Joshua. 2018. Food Justice Now! Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sokolovsky, Jay. 2018. Elders, Community Gardens, Civic Ecology, and the Quest for Community. In Urban Life, ed. George Gmelch and Petra Kuppinger, 6th ed., 399–412. Long Grove: Waveland Press. Susman, Dan. 2013. Growing Cities. First Run Features. DVD. Terry, Beth. 2012. Plastic Free. New York: Skyhorse. Thomson, Giles, and Peter Newman. 2020. Cities and the Anthropocene: Urban Governance for the New Era of Regenerative Cities. Urban Studies 57 (7): 1502–1519. Truitt, Allison. 2012. The Viet Village Urban Farm and the Politics of Neighborhood Viability in Post-Katrina New Orleans. City & Society 24 (3): 321–338. Wineman, Bridger, and Charles Heying. 2010. Beyond Bohemian Enclaves: Spaces for Artisans to Live and Work. In Bikes to Brews, ed. Charles Heying, 251–262. Portland: Ooligan Press. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 12

Food Is a Right Not a Privilege: Punk Anarchism, Ephemerality, and Seeding Change in Vancouver Sarah Fessenden

This is an official call out for volunteers to get involved with the Vancouver chapter of Food not Bombs. Msg me to find out how you can get involved. We have a kitchen and will be collecting food donations so bring yo mama and yo bff and lets get some punk rock DIY belly feeding. The more the merrier! (Fessenden, Fieldnotes August 20, 2014)

Even before the table was set, people came up to ask if we were giving away food. We put the cooked food on top of a bright purple tablecloth and the loaves of bread, boxes of fresh plums, bags of kiwis, and bags of carrots near where the line was beginning to form. As people came to the table, we asked them what they might like: zucchini salad? Soup? “It’s potato leek,” we said. Baked butternut squash? Sliced bell peppers? Plums?

S. Fessenden (*) Department of Anthropology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Surrey, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_12

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Bread? Some people said thank you, performing their part of the exchange, some gave specific appreciation for the whole, vegetarian foods that we served, saying they were relieved not to have “bologna sandwiches” again, and some expressed disdain that we did not serve meat, arguing that people in this neighborhood need the nutrition that comes from meat. People came to eat, to take some produce to share with their neighbors, to stand in solidarity, and sometimes all of these. It is always challenging to describe a Food Not Bombs table from a distance because I was always there, carrying cardboard boxes that were there to keep the heat from the hot serving pan inside from burning our hands, wresting with the plastic fold-out table, strategically setting a tattered reusable bag full of utensils and plates on the sidewalk in such a way as to avoid any used needles or questionable “dirt.” In a sense, “being there,” in the most activist-engaged and embodied sense, provided a deep, on the ground perspective to see the emergent power of the small spaces created by Food Not Bombs. In these small spaces of anarchist-inspired becoming, setting up a table in public spaces and giving away otherwise-­ wasted food asserted, against capitalist forms of production and distribution, “food is a right, not a privilege” (Food Not Bombs slogan). Rather than being merely “against,” Food Not Bombs seeds change in ways that both challenges dominant spaces and ideas about the city and provides new ways of living. On public sidewalks, in parks, or in subway terminals in cities across the globe, this anarchist-inspired social justice project shares food with people. In these small and often ignored urban spaces, Food Not Bombs meets an immediate need while strategically disrupting capitalist economics and undermining hierarchical organization. Reclaiming “rotten” food from dumpsters or wholesale warehouses is seen as a revolutionary act against capitalist consumerism, waste, and alienation. Sharing that food with the most vulnerable in public spaces, volunteers claim a right to the city for those who would otherwise be relegated to the shadows. In recovering and sharing food, they (re)make the urban landscape and themselves. In this chapter, I look at how Food Not Bombs seeds change in temporary urban spaces. Recovering otherwise-wasted food and sharing resources following an anarchist ethic of mutual aid, Food Not Bombs challenges dominant spatial practices in the city. By situating their practices in public spaces, they seed change by provoking questions and creating alternative practices. Through their counter-discourse and alternative practices, they highlight wasteful food systems and pervasive inequality while also

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participating in urban beginnings. Inspired by Sharon Zukin’s (2010) work along with that of Situationists such as Lefebvre (2003), I ask, how does temporality affect change in small urban spaces? While much has been written about the use of visible public spaces such as Cairo’s Tahrir Square for radical political transformation, less attention has been given to the radical potential of emergent spaces found in the quotidian and temporary. In this volume, we share the perspective that emergent spaces are not always public but, rather, may be semi-public spaces (Johannson, this volume) or private spaces (Zaman, this volume). We also affirm the role of small spaces—that Kuppinger (Introduction) describes as spaces of ordinary dwelling—in urban beginnings. The small urban spaces where Food Not Bombs seeds change transverse the public, semi-public, and private. The work of gathering, cooking, and sharing food moves along well-worn paths of provisioning. And, yet, there is a nascent insurgency to this work, seeding change and prefiguring a different social order today. From the collective kitchen that transitions a volunteer’s apartment into a semi-public space to the public city sidewalk where an “anarchist soup kitchen” (Giles 2013, 12) is momentarily held, Food Not Bombs seeds urban change in these temporary and transient spaces. It was the practice of the Situationists to create revolutions in the small spaces of everyday life (Vaneigem 2012). Rather than create a worldwide revolution, they sought to create temporary, autonomous spaces in the city where creativity, energy, and freedom would flourish outside state control (Bey 1985). As anthropologist David Graeber (2009) observes, punks are “the new Situationists” and, I suggest, Food Not Bombs encapsulates a punk, DIY (Do-It-Yourself) aesthetic. As others have observed (Clark 2004; Giles 2013; Spataro 2016), Food Not Bombs chapters can be located in punk subcultures, where recovering food from dumpsters and sharing that food in putatively public city spaces are part of a radical political project to counter the alienation of late capitalism. It is this punk ethic that motivates the temporary revolution of small urban spaces rather than a permanent occupation of visible, public space. In this chapter I examine the role of small, temporary spaces in Food Not Bombs practice and show how these spaces are important sites of urban beginnings. I introduce Food Not Bombs work with and in warehouses and bakeries, dumpsters, kitchens, and sidewalks in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). Moving from the wholesale produce distributor to tiny apartment kitchens and into the streets of the DTES, I analyze how food acquisition, preparation, and distribution embody a

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punk, DIY logic. In these small spaces of everyday life food becomes revolutionary and cities, individuals, and collectives are (re)made. While the DTES may provoke a sense of hopelessness, it is a space where Food Not Bombs Vancouver sees possibility—perhaps even autonomy. Within the utopian imaginary of this project, where food is a right not a privilege, sharing de-commodified, non-alienating, non-violent food in spaces such as the sidewalk at the infamous Main and Hastings corner provides hope and change. Looking at these emergent spaces of Food Not Bombs praxis provides a unique vision to how the “authentic” city is made. In these small spaces, warehouses, dumpsters, bakeries, kitchens, and sidewalks, Food Not Bombs volunteers seed change. Welcoming anyone who, at least under the banner of Food Not Bombs, shares two common values (nonviolence, non-hierarchy), the project of Food Not Bombs is one of transformation. People who volunteer with Food Not Bombs are changed. Working in provocative spaces, Food Not Bombs challenges the status quo of capitalist wastefulness. Supporting broader social movements such as Occupy Wall Street and Idle No More, Food Not Bombs reaches for more extensive social justice. Their work seeds change all along the way from the kitchen to the mass protest.

Joining Food Not Bombs As Pardo et al. (2020) observe, “urban anthropology” is simply anthropology carried out in urban settings. Rather than bringing uniquely new theories to the city, urban anthropology recognizes the linkages and frictions between the rural and urban, the city and country. Using Pardo and Prato’s (2018) distinction, my own research is an anthropology in the city, following Food Not Bombs chapters and describing their work in cities in the United States, Spain, and Canada. At the same time, this research hints toward an anthropology of the city. The spaces of the city are also spaces of ethnographic possibility (Pardo et  al. 2020). To consider emergent spaces is to consider the making of urban possibilities or, perhaps, possibilities in the urban. While this particular chapter offers a qualitative description of emergence, it also suggests the question of the urban itself: what is it about the urban that gives rise to anarcho-punk ideology and practice? From my research, I have found that this global project speaks to the quality of the urban as a space for emergent possibilities. It is the urban that provides a point where inequality, capitalism, and violence as well as

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social justice, fairness, and peace uniquely condense. It is at this point of condensation that Food Not Bombs strategically seeds radical possibility. Food Not Bombs is an anarchist-inspired social justice project that was born in the anti-nuclear protests in the 1970s’ United States and has since spread globally. Each chapter is autonomous and creates its own unique scenes in countless cities around the world. While distinct, chapters are unified in their commitments to nonviolence, vegetarianism, and non-­ hierarchical organization to bring about social change by providing “food, not bombs.” Inspired by anarchist, feminist, and Quaker practices, Food Not Bombs strategically highlights cracks in urban capitalist economies through their non-hierarchical organization and non-violent direct action1 tactics such as dumpster diving and serving food without permits in public spaces. Sarah:

How do you describe Food Not Bombs when someone asks you what it is? Jacquie: Like a disorganized group of little feeders … there’s different chapters all over the world that all fall under the blanket of lawlessness: the three ‘no rules’ where there’s no leadership, or no leaders, there’s no hierarchy—I guess is better to say, there’s no agenda of politics or religion, and the only real goal is vegan/vegetarian. It’s really just about feeding people. (Jacquie, personal communication, September 7, 2015) While it may not be just about feeding people, the sharing of food is central to Food Not Bombs activism. The central guidelines that each chapter agrees to when they put up a Food Not Bombs banner are as follows: each chapter is autonomous, makes decisions by a consensus process, serves vegetarian food, is non-violent, and everyone is welcome. These principles are put to practice in the acquisition, preparation, and distribution of food. In this way, non-hierarchical organizing and anti-­capitalist consumption replace alienation and wastefulness in small spaces and, from them, emerge new beginnings. While many of the world’s urban centers are home to Food Not Bombs chapters, each chapter translates Food Not Bombs’ three principles (or “no-rules,” as the Vancouver Food Not Bombs volunteer called them) into a unique socio-cultural milieu. I first encountered Food Not Bombs in Santa Ana, California. Wanting to do something constructive to protest the US-led war in Iraq, the idea of showing where government money

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would be better spent appealed to me: why spend trillions of US dollars on war when people are in need? In Santa Ana, Food Not Bombs was hosted in a collective house by two primary organizers. Two other volunteers found all of the food we served in dumpsters in the greater LA area. Dumpster diving in this sprawling suburb involved going in the middle of the night, around 3:00 in the morning, to a market that put their (almost) expired foods, wrapped in plastic, in the dumpster. We found discarded bread, produce, eggs, and even wine that was all perfectly safe to eat (though the eggs caused some controversy among vegetarian and vegan volunteers). The next year I conducted research with Food Not Bombs in Barcelona. Here, Food Not Bombs was hosted in an anarcho-punk squatter community. Here, too, dumpster diving was the primary food acquisition method, but the dumpsters and the food looked rather different. In the middle of this urban center, three dumpsters held the refuse from that particular city block (one for recyclables, one for organics, and one for garbage). While dumpster divers paid attention to when each street corner market discarded food, often dumpster diving was more opportunistic. We pulled bruised peaches, moldy mushrooms, and chocolate donuts from household trash and turned those discards into a “punx picnic” (Fessenden 2011). I joined the Vancouver chapter shortly after arriving in British Columbia in 2013. I worked alongside a group of volunteers who picked up food in a bike trailer from a local wholesale organic produce distributor, cooked in an apartment next to Vancouver’s Commercial Drive (“The Drive”), and served that food next to the sidewalk in Grandview Park on The Drive. This particular area of Vancouver, East Van, is home to an eclectic mix of immigrants, artists, and local vendors and is generally thought of as the heart of Vancouver’s countercultural scene. Tourism Vancouver calls it “a culturally rich and authentic neighborhood” in which Grandview Park hosts “seemingly constant drum circles.”2 By summer 2014 a new crew had emerged. With a tent occupation popping up in Oppenheimer Park, a new iteration of Food Not Bombs Vancouver was born. Even within the same geographical area, a given chapter changes over time. It, too, regularly (re)creates Food Not Bombs. David Boarder Giles (2013) likens their changes to a body renewing its cells over time. I suggest the change goes even further, as each chapter emerges anew with different materials, spaces, resources, times, and people. The first Food Not Bombs chapter in Vancouver appeared in the height of the 1990s anti-free trade/alter-globalization protests (see Khasnabish 2013 for a

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discussion on the labeling of this movement; Della Porta 2007 for a description of the wider Global Justice Movement of which it was a part). Food Not Bombs Vancouver served protesters in the 1990s at the “Unfree Trade Tour” and “Reclaim the Streets” and, more recently, in 2011 at Occupy Vancouver. While these more visible protest moments punctuate Food Not Bombs actions, their weekly food distributions are the heart of their protest. Over the years Food Not Bombs Vancouver has served at Grandview Park, Victory Square, Pigeon Park, the Commercial-Broadway station, Oppenheimer Park, on the sidewalk in front of the Smiling Buddha Cabaret Restaurant, Jonathan Rogers Park, and back to Grandview Park (among other locations). The volunteers themselves identify as anarchist, feminist, environmentalist, artist, punk, hippie, vegetarian, vegan, or any number of identity markers that sympathize with the overall ideas and practices of Food Not Bombs.

Food Not Bombs in Vancouver’s Small Spaces Before we got out onto the sidewalk and set up a table in front of the Smiling Buddha Cabaret restaurant (SBC), we recovered squashes and turned discarded potatoes into a potato leek soup. On a weekly basis we set out to a wholesale organic produce distributor and a local artisan bakery to pick up donations. Either with a bike towing a trailer or a car, we picked up as much as we could carry (and sometimes more than we really could manage). We took these foods back to a volunteer’s apartment in East Vancouver and started sorting, peeling, chopping, roasting, and boiling. We picked through a cardboard box full of green beans laced with mold. We teared up while chopping onions. Should we serve apple slices or apple crisp? Slices. Because the apples were “sexy” (fieldnotes, September 28, 2014). And we talked, laughed, planned, became frustrated, sorted, and got excited, while creating transformative spaces and encounters. Jacquie encountered Food Not Bombs around the time of Occupy Vancouver in 2011: “My ex-girlfriend and I used to go around making sandwiches and joints. I’d smoke joints and bring sandwiches to the Downtown Eastside and my girlfriend was like, ‘have you heard about Food Not Bombs?’” (personal communication, September 7, 2015). A few years later, Jacquie and her girlfriend, Jane, took up the Food Not Bombs Vancouver banner (I mean, literally, there was an old banner that the previous iteration of Food Not Bombs Vancouver passed on) and began to serve at Oppenheimer Park. From their kitchen, with food they

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had recovered from dumpsters and donations, they set out a call for volunteers: This is an official call out for volunteers to get involved with the Vancouver chapter of Food not Bombs. Msg me to find out how you can get involved. We have a kitchen and will be collecting food donations so bring yo mama and yo bff and lets get some punk rock DIY belly feeding. The more the merrier! (Fessenden, Fieldnotes August 20, 2014)

Having been a part of Food Not Bombs Vancouver the year before, I messaged Jacquie and found myself back in a private apartment-turned–Food Not Bombs kitchen. Kitchen Jacquie led me and my partner through the locked outer door and onto a faded turquoise carpeted staircase. We went up two flights of stairs and down a hall to their door. Jacquie opened the door, and we went into her and her girlfriend Jane’s beautifully cluttered apartment, furnished thanks to some obliging dumpsters. Entering, it felt immediately familiar: the punk vibe, the eclectic décor, the slight hint of sourness from dumpster diving, the private space that was shifting into a semi-public collective kitchen. The three of us carried boxes of plums, kiwis (ready to hand out in bulk with six in each plastic bag), rutabaga (known only to us by a label on the plastic bag that held them), an unknown large radish-like root (Jane and I had a conversation about this: none of us had any idea what it was), butternut squash, yellow potatoes, leeks, yams, green bell peppers (only one was moldy!), baby carrots held in numerous small plastic bags, and bunches of green onions. Shortly after we arrived, Jane came back empty-handed from a dumpster diving attempt—no “squidgy” tomatoes today (fieldnotes September 19, 2014). The plan was to sort, prep, cook, and serve: we are cooking TONIGHT … we have loads of squash, potatos, rutabaga(?!), and hella bread so if you’ve got ideas then come over and let’s make it happen. sunday morning we’ll be doing some last-minute cooking too i think? and finally sunday afternoon we will be serving outside the fabulous SBC at 109 e hastings, from 2pm till we run out of food.

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see you lovelies there (Facebook post to FNB Vancouver Facebook Page by Jane. September 20, 2014)

Around the stove, many of the issues we discussed concerned foodways. We debated events such as a chicken slaughterhouse protest and baking for a vegan bake sale. We contemplated questions from more peripheral volunteers over whether meat or eggs have a place at Food Not Bombs table. While what we served and ate occupied much of our attention, we also turned to broader issues and implications of eating. In these moments, we considered our and our community’s approaches to animal welfare, waste, and the environment. Jane and Michael advocated for keeping pure to veganism; Jacquie and I tended to support foods that might have animal products such as eggs or milk as long as they had been donated or recovered from a dumpster. Each person who came to cook with Food Not Bombs was introduced to new ideas and challenged to think through their current ones. While not everyone agreed on any single approach to such issues, most of us shared (or came to share) similar ethics at least around the Food Not Bombs table. We all supported nonviolence (toward humans and animals), practiced consensus for decision-making, and used direct action tactics to claim space and resources today rather than wait for a more equitable society to emerge later. Sitting on the floor with occasionally washed knives and cutting boards, we began to prepare food. Hygiene itself is a site for punk critique of capitalist society. The use of the floor for food preparation, reclamation of “squidgy peaches,” and creating “sketchy” purple (eggplant) soup were spaces where marketing, wastefulness, and consumerism were discarded in favor of creation, resourcefulness, and imagination. While volunteers did not prepare or serve food that was dangerous to eat (and, certainly, threw away the “disgusting lettuce slime”), they did engage in some “unhygienic” practices. We pushed aside bongs on the apartment floor to carve out some space for a cutting board. One volunteer went through a box of discarded Brussels sprouts a second time just to reclaim a few more that were still (relatively) good to eat. Clark (2004) observed that the appeal of rottenness is in stark contrast to the appeal of commodification. Punk foods were anything but the well-packaged, uniform in shape and size, “clean” foods sold and demanded in supermarkets.

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Sidewalk Dinner Party At around 3  pm every Sunday, we arrived on the sidewalk in front of Vancouver’s historic punk venue, the Smiling Buddha Cabaret restaurant (SBC). The SBC still held its punk vibe, hosting punk shows at night and doubling as a skate park and community gathering place during the day. It appealed to younger people in the neighborhood whether they were living on the streets or in more or less temporary housing. Here, we set up a table in the heart of the DTES. The sidewalk in this part of town is always in transition: shifting between home, pedestrian use, and small business. Some people live and sleep on the sidewalk, some pass through, and others sell their recovered or created goods. Food Not Bombs and other mutual aid and charity groups use this sidewalk to set a table. We brought out the boxes, pots, pans, and bags filled with food. Some cooked and some raw, we filled the table and put the remainder on the concrete underneath until it was needed. The moment we arrived, as if the table itself was the invitation, people began to line up. Sometimes we had time to set out a three-panel cardboard sign with “Food Not Bombs” and its goals written on it. Sometimes we just handed out bananas while people waited for us to finish unloading the food, plates, cups, and utensils (which were somehow always in short supply). All of the sudden, there was a dinner party on the sidewalk. With some coming and going, others stuck around and conversed. Sometimes it was a political conversation, like whether Food Not Bombs should serve meat. Sometimes it was a warm encounter where people shared stories from both sides of the table. Jacquie, for example, had lived on the streets for a time and was particularly adept at engaging people for a quick chat or a smoke. Often, people expressed gratitude for the warm meal and whole foods that we were privileged to share. These moments of encounter provided opportunities for transformation. We were transformed. Perhaps those we shared food with were also transformed in some small way. While intended for the movement of people along businesses for the continued expansion of capital, the small, everyday space of the sidewalk temporarily became a kind of anarchist dinner party that refuted capitalist waste, welcomed anyone, and where everything was free.

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Do-It-Yourself Punk Cuisine What appealed to Jacquie about Food Not Bombs was its unstructured, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethic: “It had no rules … It seemed a little bit more punk rock and that’s what I liked about it. It was kind of like the cool kids badass kitchen” (Personal communication, September 7, 2015). This DIY ethic is part of a punk aesthetic that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s to counter the alienation of capitalism. As Holtzman et al. (2007) note, DIY is more than just symbolic; DIY practices provide substantive alternatives to capitalism. For Food Not Bombs, these alternatives notably include consensus rather than oppression, mutual aid rather than exploitation, and (recovered, de-commodified) food rather than commodified food. DIY literally means “do it yourself.” So, each decision by consensus, each time community is built through sharing time and resources and ideas, each recovered potato intentionally creates an alternative social space “within the shell of the old.” Rather than a large-scale movement or revolution, these small spaces are where Food Not Bombs activists create change. While food is continuously used as a tool of power in communities around the world, a North American countercultural approach to food harkens back to the subcultures of the 1960s. These hippie, punk, and hipster countercultures brought new forms and meaning to clothing and music (see Hebdige 1979) but also food. They noticed that food was political. Whether in the micro-politics of the family or local community (Appadurai 1981) or in the national or global stage (Belasco 2007), food is ideological, food is economic, food is power. Rummaging through boxes of produce and planning meals was an exercise not just in food preparation but in non-hierarchical organizing. Serving recovered food not only minimizes waste and helps alleviate hunger in the present but raises questions about the efficacy of capitalism to provide for all. Don’t get it twisted that Food Not Bombs is just some sweet little group that provides food for events and feeds people once a week. We are interested in smashing the state – a state that sees food as a commodity, in terms of salable, over-priced “units”-not as a source of nourishment for hungry people. Sourcing and giving away free food is a revolutionary, anti-capitalistic act. … and Food Justice ties in with Racial Justice and ties in with Earth Justice and ties in with Class Warfare … Food insecurity is yet another means of terrorism and violence that the system perpetrates. Food is a Human Right, not a privilege to be earned,

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and free food is yet another building block of the Revolution! (Facebook post, Food Not Bombs volunteer Cindy Lu, February 15, 2015)

For Food Not Bombs, food-as-commodity means that food is a privilege, rather than a right. As a commodity, people can only access food if they have the resources to purchase it. Further, if food is a commodity, then its exchange value is also more important than its use-value. To recover food, to reclaim it, means to make it food again. It means that its use-value is reclaimed: “By bathing corporate food in a dumpster … punk food is, in a sense, decommodified, stripped of its alienating qualities, and restored to a kind of pure use-value as bodily sustenance” (Clark 2004, 21). Recovering food is punk insofar as it aligns with a DIY, political project. To recover food is to find food for oneself, to subvert some measure of alienation. To recover discarded food is to curb the wastefulness of capitalism (Barnard 2011; Black 2007; Edwards 2006; Gross 2009). Whether in the kitchen or the sidewalk, Food Not Bombs utilizes these punk tactics to seed change. The desire for authenticity (against alienation) or the project of curbing wastefulness is focused in small, temporary spaces. The kitchen. The sidewalk. The kitchen temporarily shifts from private to semi-public as it becomes a collective kitchen where anyone is welcome to come and cook. The sidewalk becomes an anarchist dinner party where temporarily the otherwise commercialized public space is open to people to share recovered, vegetarian, protest food. These are emergent spaces where food is a right not a privilege.

Food Is a Right Not a Privilege The refusal to hide the poor away—to expose poverty to the glare of those who do not want to see it—often leads to conflict with authorities. (Heynen 2010, 1229)

In Naked Cities, Sharon Zukin (2010) describes how the concept of authenticity is used primarily in two ways. First, authenticity can link to a sense of “origins” and provide an argument for continuity of a place or the right to “put down roots” (Zukin 2010, 6). Alternatively, authenticity in marketing refers to an experience people seek to consume. As urban developers change the landscapes of cities like New York, both of these senses of the authentic are at play. For developers, it is often the consumable experience that is for sale. By drawing attention to diversity and

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continuity, Zukin re-inscribes authenticity in order to open up possibilities for a more just city. At the same time, her idea of “new beginnings” suggests that authenticity arises in emergent spaces that are less subject to rezoning and more dependent on local creation. It is in the tension between origins and new beginnings that Zukin sees the social creation of authenticity and asks, for whom is this city created? Because of their countercultural (punk) ideology and through their direct action tactics, Food Not Bombs volunteers create spaces in the city where all people have a right to be (and to eat). As a political project, Food Not Bombs argues with their actions for the right of everyone, and importantly the most vulnerable, to inhabit a city. As a direct action project, rather than appealing to authorities or going through indirect processes such as voting, Food Not Bombs claims rights for themselves and others in spaces where those people are not necessarily wanted. Historically, the strategy of direct action has been identified with Civil Rights and Global Justice Movements and includes tactics such as sit-ins and blockades. Food Not Bombs shares food in public spaces, without permits, to anyone who would like to eat. Heynen (2010) draws attention to this direct action logic, showing that Food Not Bombs opposes both capitalist commodification and the containment of people who are housing insecure. Furthermore, Heynen (2010, 1229) and others (Giles 2013; Spataro 2016) observe Food Not Bombs’ strategic use of visible public spaces: “FNB also turned its attention to exposing hunger, to ensuring its visibility. FNB thus seeks out not just public spaces, but especially visible (or symbolically important) public spaces.” In this way, Heynen (2010, 1229) argues that volunteers with Food Not Bombs refuse “to hide the poor away—to expose poverty to the glare of those who do not want to see it.” Sharing food in public spaces is itself an assertion of rights to the city. Food is essential to survival, and therefore serving food is both a practical and metaphorical assertion of the right to dwelling, a right to live in the city. Since its inception in 1970, Food Not Bombs chapters all over the world have encountered resistance from police and city officials when they share food with people experiencing hunger. While each situation is unique and would require more context than is possible in this chapter, there are two frequently shared attributes. Often, conflict between those sharing food with people who are hungry and city officials is heightened in a) globalizing cities in b) spaces that are marketed to tourists and higher-­ income residents. While the first arrests of Food Not Bombs volunteers

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sharing food happened in 1988  in San Francisco, laws that criminalize survival in public spaces (including, for example, food sharing and sleeping on sidewalks) have expanded dramatically (Parson 2015; Stoops 2014). Each time Food Not Bombs volunteers share food they assert a right to the city—a right that has been denied to many.

Anarchist Spaces and the Ephemeral-Authentic As “the new Situationists,” punks use these tools and practices to combat the alienation they argue is inherent in capitalism. One of the targets of the Situationists of the 1960s and 1970s, like Debord (2002) and Vaneigem (2012) and their sympathizers Lefebvre (1991, 2003) and de Certeau (1984), is everyday urban space. Rather than looking to find structural, systemic, or institutional power of elites, the everyday provides a view into micro-politics or the “not” political (de Certeau 1984; Guillaume and Huysmans 2019; Scott 1990). Their goal was to (re)make urban space in a way that it would serve people rather than capital. Even before the defeat of the 1968 uprising in Paris, they tactically turned to small spaces to make social change. It was in small, everyday spaces that tactics such as talking or walking had the power to subvert circumscribed ways of being (de Certeau 1984). Drawing on this spirit, Hakim Bey proposed a spatial solution to the problem of revolutionary action: the temporary autonomous zone. To say that “I will not be free till all humans (or all sentient creatures) are free” is simply to cave in to a kind of nirvana-stupor, to abdicate our humanity, to define ourselves as losers. (Bey 1985, 96)

Anarchist essayist Peter Lamborn Wilson, known pseudonymously as Hakim Bey, was inspired by Debord’s Society of the Spectacle (2002) as well as the emergence of cyberculture and cyberpunk (Sellars 2010). Supported by modern technologies, Bey (1985) argued that the world is claimed and policed by nation-states and, yet, there might be cracks that could be temporarily opened for desire to again flourish. He imagined an autonomous zone to be a geographical and ideological space free of political repression. Rather than attempting to permanently claim an autonomous zone, Bey suggests a “temporary autonomous zone” (TAZ). In this idea is the possibility for liberation and creativity here and now. He imagines this zone as a zone of insurrection rather than revolution. Revolutions intend to claim

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space, and yet, he argues, the permanence that follows is a return of the state. A temporary autonomous zone, therefore, is the space of insurrection, of energy, desire, creativity, and festival. Projects such as Food Not Bombs and Reclaim the Streets do just this: disrupt the ordinary everyday through moments of festival. These projects do not directly engage the state and, instead, are both performative and transformative moments (Juris 2008). People are changed. Space is changed. And movements such as Occupy Wall Street transform into ever-increasing moments of autonomy (e.g., one of the projects that began from Occupy Wall Street and continues today is Strike Debt!). Like other autonomous projects, Food Not Bombs strategically does not engage with the state: they refuse to take out permits to serve food and they do not apply for charitable status in order to officially receive donations. While Bey acknowledges that TAZs may last for decades, implicit in its design is ephemerality. Like Italian Autonomist movements and following Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) rhizome theory, the TAZ is meant to appear, disappear, then (perhaps) reappear elsewhere (see Hardt and Negri 2001; Katsiaficas 2006). Consisting of insurrectionary force, the TAZ is energy and desire meant to appear for a time. It is this temporality that helps it to evade capture by the state or capture by any other overarching ideology. A permanent revolution, on the other hand, would arguably fall to another ideology or, in Bey’s vision, the Spectacle would simply overtake it. It is this ephemeral aspect of the autonomous zone that, in part, ensures its authenticity. Like de Certeau’s (1984) vision of tactics, the TAZ is unexpected. In the city, the TAZ is a multivocal space with the potential to support both rootedness and new beginnings. While this is a much more radically politicized turn of Zukin’s (2010) vision, it speaks to the tension Zukin highlights in the concept of authenticity. When Food Not Bombs volunteers set up a table, they not only exploit cracks, they point to them as well. They note that so many are excluded from the right to inhabit the city. For people to dwell, they must have food. And yet, they do not. Meanwhile, so much edible food is thrown away. Why? Food Not Bombs’ practices address these questions while, simultaneously, drawing people out of the cracks so they can be seen and known. Pushing aside used needles, Food Not Bombs Vancouver sets an abundant table. Overflowing with artisanal breads, curries, roasted vegetables, fresh slices of avocado, and steaming apple crisp, Food Not Bombs provides barrier-free foods to anyone who desires it. These foods are served to

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anyone, “stoned or sober” (Food Not Bombs guideline). They are free of cost, de-commodified from the point of distribution to the moment of consumption. They are vegan and vegetarian to accommodate dietary preferences or restrictions. For a few hours, everyone is welcome, and everything is free. “The TAZ as festival … as an image of anarchist society, the dinner party, in which all structure of authority dissolves in conviviality and celebration” (Bey 1985, 102–103). Whether on the sidewalk in Vancouver’s most economically depressed neighborhood, in front of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia Cathedral, or in a park in front of Orange County’s primary courthouse, Food Not Bombs chapters all over the world share food without hierarchy, structure, or alienation. In these moments, food and those partaking in it experience autonomy.

Seeding Change As Howard Zinn observed, their name “says it all” (Henry 2012). Every person who encounters Food Not Bombs is implicitly asked to consider what we should value: food or bombs? Every time a volunteer takes the time to go through a box of moldy green beans, our society’s wastefulness is highlighted, and we are asked, what causes this waste? And each planned or impromptu meeting of volunteers is an opportunity to challenge dominant hierarchical structures, asking, do we have to have leaders? These everyday spaces of food acquisition, preparation, and sharing are sites where questions are inspired and new meanings and new forms of social organization emerge. In short, where change is seeded. From the warehouse to the kitchen and from the kitchen to the sidewalk, Food Not Bombs leaves in its wake seeds of change. Countering dominant narratives of the city that create further exclusions, Food Not Bombs focuses on food. Mundane provisioning including food collection, preparation, and distribution become sites of urban beginnings. By collecting food that would otherwise have gone to waste, Food Not Bombs opposes wastefulness inherent in capitalist food systems. Preparing food, Food Not Bombs volunteers turn private kitchens into semi-public spaces for political organizing and socialization. Sharing food on the sidewalk creates temporary autonomous zones which, particularly through repeated use, begin to inscribe a liberatory ethic in the urban. While these spaces may be small, they are no less important for new beginnings in the city. Hope and creativity are central to this project. From my years with Food Not Bombs and countercultural activists, I learned to imagine and

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believe that a different world is possible. Hope in the possibility of new beginnings is a constructive, proactive force that leads volunteers to imagine and create. What is unique about these anarchist-activists is their work in building a new social order today. Rather than appealing to existing institutions and authorities, volunteers create spaces of autonomy. These spaces are not intended for worldwide revolution but, rather, are temporary protests that preserve the energy of insurrection by moving in and out of existence. Kitchens and sidewalks provide the opportunity to create and practice autonomy often outside of the view of authorities. Driven by hope, Food Not Bombs is a project that continues to remake the urban. While small and even common (Food Not Bombs tables sometimes are confused for a charity), the seeds that take root in these urban spaces spread spatially and ideologically. Food Not Bombs creates individual, local, and movement-level change. It is not an accident that one of the original organizers with Occupy Wall Street began with Food Not Bombs. With Food Not Bombs, they learned and practiced non-hierarchical organizing and direct action tactics. Even in their own local spaces of food distribution, when volunteers are arrested, more volunteers show up and more chapters spring up. Since the 1970s, Food Not Bombs has “fed the revolution” whether at a protest in Burnaby to stop the expansion of the Kinder Morgan’s Transmountain pipeline or blockading the port entrance in Vancouver alongside Idle No More for #ShutDownCanada. Getting food. Cooking food. Sharing food. While these spaces could be easily overlooked, these are the everyday, temporary spaces where Food Not Bombs creatively innovates and strategically seeds change.

Notes 1. Direct action is commonly understood as in opposition to indirect actions (such as voting). Politically, it is a tactic that allows people to act justly in the midst of injustice. For example, the sit-ins of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement were a direct action tactic wherein protesters sat at “white only” counters. In essence, they acted as if that unjust law was already abolished. 2. Tourism Vancouver. https://www.tourismvancouver.com/vancouver/ neighbourhoods/commercial-­drive/ Accessed July 16, 2020.

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References Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8 (3): 494–511. Barnard, Alex V. 2011. ‘Waving the Banana’ at Capitalism: Political Theater and Social Movement Strategy among New  York’s ‘Freegan’ Dumpster Divers. Ethnography 12 (4): 419–444. Belasco, Warren. 2007. Appetite for Change: How the Counterculture Took on the Food Industry. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bey, Hakim. 1985. T.A.Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Autonomedia. Black, Rebecca. 2007. Eating Garbage: Socially Marginal Provisioning Practices. In Consuming the Inedible: Neglected Dimensions of Food Choice, ed. MacClancy Jeremy, C. Jeya Henry, and Helen Macbeth, 141–150. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Clark, Dylan. 2004. The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine. Ethnology 43 (1): 19–31. De Certeau, Michel. 1998 [1984]. The Practice of Everyday Life. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Debord, Guy. 2002 [1967]. The Society of the Spectacle. Canberra: Hobgoblin Press. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. 1987[1980]. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Della Porta, Donatella. 2007. The Global Justice Movement: Cross-National and Transnational Perspectives. Boulder: Paradigm Publishers. Edwards, Ferne. 2006. Dumpster Dining: Freegans Consume Waste Food to Protest Consumer Waste. Alternatives Journal 32 (3): 16–17. Fessenden, Sarah. 2011. Recycled Identities: Anarcho-Punx, Organization, Style, and Reciprocity in Barcelona, Spain. MA Thesis, California State University, Long Beach. Giles, David Henry Galen Boarder. 2013. “A Mass Conspiracy to Feed People”: Globalizing Cities, World Class Waste, and the Biopolitics of Food Not Bombs. PhD diss., University of Washington. Graeber, David. 2009. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Edinburgh: AK Press. Gross, Joan. 2009. Capitalism and Its Discontents: Back-to-the-Lander and Freegan Foodways in Rural Oregon. Food and Foodways 17: 57–79. Guillaume, Xavier, and Jef Huysmans. 2019. The Concept of ‘the Everyday’: Ephemeral Politics and the Abundance of Life. Cooperation and Conflict 54 (2): 278–296. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2001. Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.  Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd. Heynen, Nik. 2010. Cooking up Non-Violent Civil-Disobedient Direct Action for the Hungry: ‘Food Not Bombs’ and the Resurgence of Radical Democracy in the US. Urban Studies 47 (6): 1225–1240.

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Holtzman, Ben, Craig Hughes, and Kevin Van Meter. 2007. Do It Yourself… and the Movement beyond Capitalism. In Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations, Collective Theorization, ed. David Graeber and Stevphen Shukaitis, 44–61. Oakland: AK Press. Juris, Jeffrey S. 2008. Performing Politics: Image, Embodiment, and Affective Solidarity during Anti-Corporate Globalization Protests. Ethnography 9: 61–97. Katsiaficas, George N. 2006. The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. Oakland: AK Press. Khasnabish, Alex. 2013. Tracing the Zapatista Rhizome, or, the Ethnography of a Transnationalized Political Imagination. In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, ed. Jeffrey Juris and Alex Khasnabish, 66–88. Durham: Duke University Press. Lefebvre, Henri. 1991 [1974]. The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 2003 [1970]. The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. McHenry, Keith. 2012. Hungry for Peace: How You Can Help End Poverty and War with Food Not Bombs. Tucson: See Sharp Press. Pardo, Italo, and Giuliana B. Prato, eds. 2018. The Palgrave Handbook of Urban Ethnography. New York: Macmillan. Pardo, Italo, Giuliana B.  Prato, and James Rosbrook-Thompson. 2020. Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections. In Ethnographies of Urbanity in Flux: Theoretical Reflections, ed. I.  Pardo, G.B.  Prato, and J.  Rosbrook-Thompson Urbanities-Journal of Urban Ethnography 10 (S3):2–12. Parson, Sean. 2015. Parks, Permits, and Riot Police: San Francisco Food Not Bombs and Autonomous Occupations of Space. New Political Science 37 (3): 346–362. Spataro, David. 2016. Against a De-Politicized DIY Urbanism: Food Not Bombs and the Struggle Over Public Space. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability 9 (2): 185–201. Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sellars, Simon. 2010. Hakim Bey: Repopulating the Autonomous Zone. Journal for the Study of Radicalism 4 (2): 83–108. Stoops, Michael, ed. 2014. Food-Sharing Report: The Criminalization of Efforts to Feed People in Need. Washington, DC: National Coalition for the Homeless. http://nationalhomeless.org/wp-­c ontent/uploads/2014/10/Food-­ Sharing2014.pdf. Accessed 20 Oct 2014. Vaneigem, Raoul. 2012 [1967]. The Revolution of Everyday Life. Oakland: PM Press. Zukin, Sharon. 2010. Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Spaces. New York: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 13

“If He Has a Shack Like That …”: Infrastructural Labor and Possibility in Cape Town’s Informal Settlements Angela D. Storey

With the backlog for public housing in Cape Town, South Africa, estimated to exceed 60 years (Maregele 2017), expanses of informal settlements seem a permanent urban fixture. These communities of self-made shacks, often on squatted land and with limited access to basic services for water, sanitation, and electricity, remain a constant reminder of the country’s deep socio-economic inequality and unfulfilled promises of housing for all (Bank 2011; Beall et al. 2002; Murray 2008). Housing and infrastructure were deeply politicized aspects of the struggle against apartheid, and they remain so today (von Schnitzler 2016). Inequalities in access are also remnants of late apartheid’s “provision of housing and basic infrastructure … as a strategy of divide and rule, turning those with housing against those without it” (Makhulu 2015, 63). Two and a half decades after the end of apartheid, access to formal housing and infrastructure remains concurrent with persistent racial divisions. Even though adequate

A. D. Storey (*) Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3_13

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housing is a constitutionally protected right for all (Strauss and Liebenberg 2014), distinctions in housing realities are stark: while 99.5% of households headed by a white individual in Cape Town live in formal dwellings, only 65% of households headed by a Black individual do so as well (City of Cape Town 2017).1 South African municipalities are obliged to deliver basic services to informal settlements (Graham 2006), but many areas experience extreme limitations in connectivity to formal infrastructural systems, inconsistent access, or are provided with undignified and inadequate modes of delivery (ibid; Dawson 2010; Storey 2014). For residents of informal settlements in the Khayelitsha area of Cape Town, maintaining daily access to necessary infrastructures in the face of disconnection and exclusion requires frequent material, social, and political labor: purchasing wires for extended electricity lines, fixing slow-dripping water taps, and participating in local social movements to struggle for expanded and consistent access. This work includes constant maintenance, repair, and construction labor in order to keep everyday life possible within informality’s suspended development trajectory. In a space defined in many ways by waiting for service delivery (Oldfield and Greyling 2015), informal settlements are also sites filled with the labor of making-do and of scrambling to connect to the ends of systems that seem from the perspective of the periphery built to exclude marginalized residents from reliable services (Rodgers and O’Neill 2012; von Schnitzler 2016). Such spaces of exclusion are thus filled with extensive maintenance labor, as residents must meet daily needs by diverting, extending, and reworking the edges of infrastructural and material systems. This daily work is consistently framed by residents as evidence of their exclusion from a post-apartheid citizenship seen as much in material terms as through legal categorizations (Robins 2014; von Schnitzler 2016; McFarlane and Silver 2017). This chapter examines the material and symbolic work of self-made infrastructures within informal settlements, asking how the creation of small, concrete spaces reveals the socio-political complexity of making-do. Specifically, I explore how residents of long-term informal settlements in Cape Town’s suburb of Khayelitsha frame the illegal taps, toilets, foundations, and electricity lines that they must build for themselves in the absence of state and city fulfillment of post-apartheid obligations. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted over the past decade (2010–2019), I highlight the specific infrastructural labor of residents in two informal settlements in Khayelitsha. I ground this discussion within the origin

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stories (Zukin 2010) of small, emergent sites created by household labor, examining how residents mediate the potentialities and spatio-temporal vagaries of informality (Yifchatel 2009) through the symbolic impact of this material reworking. Such labor, and the reworked spaces it creates, are ways of claiming a place within the city through struggle, work, and persistence. These claims, though, are always framed by residents in the context of the city’s abandonment of its material responsibilities and the impossibility that their labor will ultimately transform their homes into formal dwellings. Although often set inside individual homes, infrastructure remains a key part of public space and shared experience within informal settlements. The emergent spaces crafted by household-level labors are not bound solely to one shack, or to its residents. Instead, they are compelling symbols of potentiality made real through the work of neighbors, and, simultaneously, of the impossibility of fully framing a new life against structural constraints. Private spaces thus carry significant shared and public meaning. Although infrastructural labor constantly seeds the possibility of change, it also highlights the tensions of carving space against the marginalizing power of centralized municipal processes.

Urban Place, Change, and Contention Cities are constantly in flux, their whole reflecting the sum of parts often set uneasily alongside each other within their geographic, social, and economic confines (Prato 2020; Watson 2006). We experience cities not only as physical backgrounds to our lives, but as a cacophony of spaces filled with the social meanings, political tensions, and everyday struggles of forging a life (Low 1996; Simone 2004). Amid this expanse, public spaces and infrastructures frequently center struggles around urban power and legitimacy (Pardo and Prato 2011). This chapter frames a discussion of emergent urban spaces within scholarship exploring the grounding of localized experience in origin stories (Zukin 2010), the role of insurgency in claims-making (Brown 2015; Holston 2008; Miraftab and Wills 2005), and the material tenuousness of long-term life within informality (Oldfield and Greyling 2015; Yifchatel 2009). New spaces emerge constantly within cities, set against the backdrop of local histories and broad dynamics of power. With roots that reach tendrils throughout global popular culture, New York is known as a city of neighborhoods, each with an authenticity predicated upon unique histories,

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built environments, and the racial, ethnic, and cultural make-up of residents. Science fiction writer N.K. Jemison plays with this trope in a recent book, the boroughs literally coming to life as individuals who reflect each area’s traits (Jemison 2020). Neighborhood claims to uniqueness and authenticity, Zukin argues, are not equivalent: some are founded in the slow accretion of place-based lives and experiences across time, while others are the result of newer, shallower claims to space resulting from the sweeping power of capital (Zukin 2010). To parse varied claims to an “authentic” place within the city, Zukin argues for the importance of origin stories that ground communities, actions, and forms of sociality. Neither an impermanent built environment nor relative newness prevents a space from holding an origin story that makes a powerful claim. As Zukin discusses through the contested experiences of Latin American food trucks in the Red Hook neighborhood, ideas of belonging can emerge through interactions both in place and in relation to central processes of bureaucracy or cosmopolitan taste-making (Zukin 2010, 189). Indeed, the lack of a permanent, material space does not preclude the creation of narratives and feelings that center a group within a specific locale; such identities and connections can emerge from the shared conceptual frameworks and labor of groups (Azzara 2019). Origin stories provide a way for small, discrete spaces within the city to define themselves as used, useful, and tangible parts of changing urban worlds. Making a place within the city is, however, framed not only by the specificity of spaces and their narratives, but also by the relative power of different urban groups. Indeed, contestation about belonging frames endless struggles over space within global cities. As Holston argues for Brazil, claims to the city made through insurgent action name a kind of citizenship and positionality that is neither beholden to central processes nor entirely beyond them; instead, communities redefine ideas of belonging through their actions and claims to place (Holston 2008). This “unsettling” of urban citizenship often emerges at peripheries, within working-­ class and landless movements that push back against the political processes and definitions that keep them at arm’s length. Insurgence is deeply connected to the material spaces of peripheral lives, and the ways in which socio-economic and political differentiation maps onto the visible differences between center and edge (Holston 2008, 156). Holston does not posit such work in a celebratory light, though, and notes that insurgent modes of belonging remain tightly bound to normative, entrenched ideas of citizenship.

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Across South Africa, movements within geographically and politically marginalized communities make claims within a framework of insurgent urbanism, seeking rights to both space and the remaking of political practices around their peripheralized position (Brown 2015; Miraftab and Wills 2005). As activists work to craft their own participatory spaces (Storey 2014), they often navigate tensions between positions of engagement and opposition to the city and state (Oldfield and Stokke 2007). Such political labor is closely tied to the material conditions of life within marginal and informal spaces, as activists push to expand access to basic infrastructure and seek fulfillment of promises of formal housing (McFarlane and Silver 2017; Robins 2014). Municipalities and service delivery have become the focus of political activism and myriad forms of protest against a disappointed new nationalism (Hart 2013). Although informal settlements are often set within the popular imagination—and in the South African development framework—as impermanent sites, Cape Town’s informal spaces experience a “permanent temporariness” (Yifchatel 2009; cf. McFarlane 2012) defined by both an inability to formalize their lives or built environment, even after decades, and an absence of alternative plans from the city. Such sites exist in what Yifchatel names a “gray space,” defined by potential future moves toward vastly different possibilities: either destruction or formalization. In such spatio-temporal vagaries, residents are caught in cycles of activism, waiting, and frustration (Oldfield and Greyling 2015), seeing their relation to the state through processes of formalization and service delivery (Dubbeld 2017) that are often suspended, concealed, or absent. This on-going impermanence closely shapes the political and material actions of informal settlement residents. As with many global cities, distinctions between formal and informal areas can profoundly shape perceptions of power and frame everyday experience (Prato 2020). In the following sections I explore the symbolic work that infrastructural labor does within informal settlements, examining the complex outcomes of individual objects like self-made flush toilets, illegal electricity lines, and concrete floors, and the emergent spaces they define.

The Unremarkable Toilet: Infrastructure and Labor On a winter’s afternoon in June 2014, I walked through the Golden informal settlement with Malusi and Siseko,2 two community leaders, and my colleague Minah. We were on a casual infrastructural tour of this small

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informal settlement in Khayelitsha. We had been following the site’s sandy, single-lane roads and talking about the services provided by the City of Cape Town, the city’s private contractors, and other public services providers. Shared water taps sat at road junctions, often surrounded by small pools fed by dripping faucets. Outside every second or third shack sat the universally hated bucket toilets, plastic tubs set inside concrete shells that symbolized for many the hold-over of apartheid-era services. In this community each bucket toilet was shared by multiple households. The wires of hard-fought-for legal electricity connections traced arcs between wooden poles, extending above the neighborhood of low, self-built shacks. We also commented on the visibility of other linkages—often called “people’s connections”—that the community must extend, craft, and patch together themselves in order to pull these formal connections into fuller and more needed forms of access (Dawson 2010). These latter kinds of linkages were readily present on each street but were often not as overt: extended taps built by plumbers sat outside a few shacks; illegal electricity lines wound low over rooftops to those denied service; and inventive work-­ arounds for sanitation supplanted some bucket toilets inside the same concrete shells (Fig.  13.1). Malusi and Siseko were both connected to the Street Committee in this community, the most local level of governance. The younger and the older man, both amaXhosa, were frustrated by the persistent limitations in formal, legal services, but also proud of what they and their neighbors had managed to do to make this site more livable for residents. Khayelitsha sits near the Southeast edge of the City of Cape Town, positioned between a national highway, the curve of False Bay, and the open space of a military range. About half of the residents of the suburb live in informal dwellings—self-built shacks consisting of myriad materials, located either in the backyards of other dwellings or in wide expanses of informal settlements (City of Cape Town 2013). Although the last census put the population at approximately 400,000 (ibid.), the difficulty of such counts and the variability of informality has resulted in estimates of a million or more residents (Brunn and Wilson 2013). In a deeply segregated city, Khayelitsha is home to an almost entirely Black African population (City of Cape Town 2013). Indeed, the material life and political context of peripheral areas like Khayelitsha are deeply entwined with the city’s starkly racialized past and present (Makhulu 2015). Unlike informal dwellings and settlements in other countries and regions, residents in South Africa are actively dissuaded from constructing

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Fig. 13.1  Looking from the doorway of a backyarder’s shack in Khayelitsha to a central road, the concrete shells of two bucket toilets behind a pedestrian and electricity wires overhead. 2015. Photo by Shachaf Polakow, used with permission

formal homes on squatted sites or expanding informal settlements. In Cape Town, the city’s Anti-Land Invasion Unit seeks to prevent the occupation of new areas with a staff of nearly 100 full-time law enforcement personnel (City of Cape Town 2019), and residents report that city workers demolish expansions on existing shacks. Although housing rights are guaranteed in the post-apartheid constitution and have been reiterated in high-profile court cases, in practice many informal sites and dwellings that appeared to meet protected status were nevertheless subject to destruction (Huchzermeyer 2003; Strauss and Liebenberg 2014). In July 2020, a case of such an eviction in the eThembeni area of Khayelitsha became the focus of national news when authorities pulled a four-month resident of the site, Bulelani Qolani, from his shack while in the middle of a bath and threw him into the street without clothes (Stent 2020). An activist captured this violent eviction on video, which resulted in its widespread circulation on social media and coverage in news outlets, as well as a prompt response from social movements that marched to a city council-member’s home

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and protested outside municipal offices (ibid.). The city condemned this specific action following broad distribution of the video, but evictions and demolitions remain woefully common occurrences (Mafolo 2020). While South Africa has undergone a massive push to construct formal houses across the country post-apartheid, the extensive need and the slowing pace of delivery mean that recent estimates in Cape Town put the waiting period at 60 years (Maregele 2017) and some residents say their names have been on such a list since before the end of apartheid (Levenson 2017). The national strategy around delivery of formal houses has shifted since 1994, with an expanded focus on in situ upgrading—the slow accretion of services and changes on a site, instead of the full, simultaneous delivery of a formal house and full services (Huchzermeyer 2006). Such in situ movement toward formalization does not include the work of residents to build more permanent homes or infrastructure on squatted land, but, rather, focuses on re-blocking sites to allow for the slow, piecemeal provision of formal infrastructure. Many informal settlements, like Golden, have been on the same piece of land for decades. The initial residents of this site were moved here by the city in the 1990s, and were told that this site would be suitable for building formal houses. Although city workers stated during the time of this fieldwork in 2014 that long-distance infrastructure around the area prevented its use for permanent housing, residents knew of no plans for removing them to other plots. Promises for improvements in sanitation or the creation of other infrastructural access on this site have been ephemeral, flexing often with the cadence of elections (Storey 2020). Malusi, Siseko, and other residents were thus wary of statements made by the city or public entities about future infrastructural expansion, but still worked through both official political channels and social movements to campaign for resettlement to a site suitable for formal houses and for expanded daily access to basic services needed on this site. As our walking tour rounded the curve to the back of the settlement, Malusi suddenly turned left, walked into a small yard demarcated by upright shipping pallets, and knocked on the door of a nondescript shack. One resident of the shack was at home, and, despite our surprise appearance, she showed us down a short hallway to the bathroom. In a community provided only with bucket toilets, this home’s toilet was exceptional because it was so unremarkable—or, rather, it would have been unremarkable if it were inside a formal structure. Instead of a bucket sitting inside a concrete shell in the yard between this house and its neighbor, this

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household had a full inside bathroom including a sink with piped water, a flushing toilet, a bathtub, and a water heater. The bathroom was white and shining: the hygienic image of a modern sanitary ideal (Morales et  al. 2014). Water in this bathroom was supplied by a pipe extended illegally from a shared tap, and the waste and graywater went out another pipe that emptied into a drain at the edge of the settlement. To install these linkages, the household had hired a plumber to survey the area, make the connections, and lay many meters of pipe—all at significant expense. Although this family had not yet experienced disconnection by city workers of these illegal extensions, it was a constant possibility. Although neither lived in this shack, Malusi and Siseko were both very proud of the presence of this full-flush, private bathroom within their community. As we left, they joked with the owner of the home about coming by later to take hot baths. Although this toilet was exceptional, the necessity that individual households expended significant time, energy, and resources to make up for missing public infrastructure remains resoundingly common in informal settlements across South Africa. Malusi, Siseko, and the dozens of Golden residents that I interviewed engaged in many such small acts of infrastructural extensions, work-arounds, or repurposing. These actions constituted a set of infrastructural labors that changed material access for one household, or for a small set of households, and remade the daily life of residents in small but critical ways. Indeed, new spaces emerged from this labor: small assemblages of the material work-arounds, forms of access, varied labor, and ideas that cohered to them. Such work forged new spaces that were simultaneously material and deeply symbolic. Indeed, the presence of the full-flush bathroom in Golden that Malusi and Siseko showed off on our walk was a critical part of the area for them. Even though the bathroom was not theirs, they both felt deep pride that a neighbor had created this infrastructural assemblage on their own—defying the exclusions of the city that left much of the community using reviled bucket toilets and lugging buckets of water down sandy paths. In this way, the private space of this bathroom became a highly public piece of infrastructure, one that Malusi and Siseko felt was not only necessary to share with us but also that they fully expected their neighbor would want to show off. This small, emergent space thus moved easily from the private domain into the public realm, a symbol of the community’s resilience and the possibilities of their own labor.

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In contrast, however, the need to build such infrastructure themselves simultaneously marked for residents their abandonment by the city and other public entities. Indeed, extended water pipes could be disconnected by city workers, and residents were readily fined by the parastatal Eskom for forging illegal electricity connections. Residents feared that making their own linkages would result in ire from the city, and Malusi—despite working in plumbing—said that he had not constructed a flush toilet for himself because he worried about the city’s actions if they discovered it. Indeed, he was concerned not only that a disconnection would render his investment worthless, but that the prevalence of illegal connections may dissuade the city from bringing in formal infrastructure or building houses for them. These multiple, seemingly conflicting sentiments—that of pride, frustration, and concern—were present in many of the interviews I conducted with over 100 residents of informal settlements in Khayelitsha between 2013 and 2015. These feelings arose from the emergent spaces of infrastructural labor, and, likewise, were read back into them. Residents often grounded discussions of developmental hopes in the specific labor of their household and that of their neighbors, but also found the necessity of this labor to be a source of anger and of worry. In other words, residents spoke about their hopes and fears, and their position within the city itself, by talking about the specific infrastructural spaces that emerged from their own work. The emergent spaces were thus deeply symbolic and held critical meanings shared and circulated by residents (Low 1996). The toilet we visited that winter day in 2014 was a symbol—a tangible space that named what gave hope and framed possibility, while also positioning the necessity of such labor within the exclusions of the city. The toilet showed the power of small spaces to express the complexity of daily life and belonging in the city’s periphery (Fig. 13.2). Informality is filled with such emergent spaces defined by everyday material labor—new beginnings that define how informal settlements are always in a state of both becoming and of potentially ending (Yifchatel 2009). As individual households and entire informal settlements fluctuate in their access and their labor, residents move between states of fixity. The construction of a homemade flush toilet was a way to claim not only a right to be in the space, but a right forged through your own labor, sacrifice, and persistence. The detailed stories I heard for that toilet, and for many other toilets, taps, and self-made connections in Khayelitsha, were pieces of evidence, claims to an authenticity forged not only by presence but by a moral right to be there. Such narratives and ways of dwelling are

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Fig. 13.2  A self-made flushing toilet built within the concrete shell that previously held a bucket toilet. 2015. Photo by Shachaf Polakow, used with permission

origin stories that present an urban authenticity crafted through “a continuous process of living and working, (and) a gradual buildup of everyday experience” (Zukin 2010, 6).

“Yho! If He Has a Shack Like That …”: Perceptions of Repair Work in Khayelitsha The last time I’d visited Tata Menzi’s home he lived in a small, single-­ roomed shack in a narrow informal settlement only a short walk from Golden. On this visit—a June day in 2017, three years after the walk with Malusi and Siseko—Menzi met my research colleague Minah and me at the edge of the community. We followed him through the community’s familiar sandy paths, around the abrupt corners of self-built shacks. Following the path over a small rise and through shacks set more densely than in Golden, he surprised us by walking up to the door of a taller and broader structure, one set atop a new concrete foundation and next door to his old shack. I remembered that his family had lived on this spot before,

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in a three-room shack supplied with illegal electricity connections and holding a washing machine that could be run with water carried in buckets from the nearest tap, fortunately only several meters away. Like the majority of dwellings in this site, the City of Cape Town had yet to provide legal electricity connections, toilets, or individual taps. The limited infrastructural systems here were nearly all built by residents, extended illegally from limited structures built in the site or from formal houses nearby. Menzi smiled broadly and unlocked the metal gate to this new shack, and then its green wooden door. Inside, the floor was neatly surfaced in half-meter square tiles, variously patterned and in neutral shades of white, gray, black, and brown. The floor was painstakingly set and the tiles evenly and firmly fixed in a thick layer of concrete atop the sand of Khayelitsha. Many shacks in this site and others had a thin, poured concrete floor to keep out the water from winter floods, and the small spaces were usually meticulously kept, but Menzi’s new shack was among the most formal of informal dwellings I had seen. Menzi had taken a significant risk in building this shack, hoping that it would be more work for the city to chastise him or to destroy a robust concrete foundation than it was worth. The space inside had been re-organized into a single large room from the previous three smaller areas. Menzi beckoned us to sit on a small couch and he leaned back in a white plastic chair. A middle-aged Xhosa man, Menzi was active in a social movement located in his community and many neighbors came to him with local concerns, questions, and especially for help accessing illegal electricity connections. Our visit occurred on a colder day, and Menzi wore a blue fleece jacket and black fleece pants, his white socks revealed through the sides of flexible plastic slip-on sandals. He sat askew on the chair, angled toward Minah and me on the couch. An illegal electricity connection that he created and maintained brought relatively consistent power to his shack, and while we talked through several hours a television in the corner played a series of programs: wrestling, children’s cartoons, an American talk show, and then a dance competition. At times, behind the TV sound, we could hear the noise of people filling buckets from the city tap located nearby. With Menzi we talked about recent shifts in activism on the site and modifications in infrastructure. Menzi told us about changes in the tactics of the community as they sought improvements in access to legal water, sanitation, and electricity infrastructure, and worked—ultimately—to be moved to a site where formal houses could be built. We spoke about the difficulty of getting information from the city on upgrading plans, and

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frustrations within the community over empty promises made by politicians and municipal workers. Menzi said, after discussing the absent leadership within the country and contestation over charges of corruption to community leaders, that poor people are “like someone looking in the dark for things,” seeking what should be there but is elusive in the absence of information. Menzi told us that some people here still believed they would be moved to another site for the construction of formal houses, but that others were working to make houses like his on this site. Some residents had been here for more than 20 years by then, weathering the everyday struggles of absent access and the frustrations of incredibly slow change. When Menzi finished his improved home, he told us that people said of him, “Yho! If he is building a shack like this, then we’re not leaving anytime soon.” Although Menzi had no information about municipal plans beyond what was widely known by other residents, and his firmer shack was built for his own quality of life, its completion was a symbol to neighbors. The shack’s solid foundation, even tiles, and consistent, self-made electricity linkage spoke volumes of the necessity to make-do on this site. Menzi told us that it took two years of saving, collecting materials, and laboring to move from the earlier iteration of the dwelling to this one. He was resoundingly proud of what he had created, and excited to show off the detail and care with which the building had been constructed. Although the walls were still of tin and plasterboard, the feel of the shack was of a more permanent place. Menzi had always been proud of his work to bring electricity linkages to his neighbors that—like him—had been denied legal connections, framing his labor as overtly political. Menzi was trained in electrical work by a social movement that helped residents of informal areas claim access to resources that had been denied or disconnected by increasingly neoliberal municipal and parastatal providers. His “people’s power” connections were linkages made both to improve quality of life and to make a statement about the necessity of still using illegal connections decades after the end of apartheid. Each electrical wire pulled illegally from lines on nearby streets was a claim on the resources of a city and state that continued to exclude Menzi and his neighbors. It was, likewise, a claim to a place within the city, on this site or another, where their future daily lives could be forged through the legal connections that they fought for with protests, everyday actions, and political coalitions. Each line was a kind of origin story, tracing a claim to be here and to have their lives made more solid.

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To extend the concept of origin stories for small urban spaces into informality requires us to confront assumptions about informality itself. As Goldstein argues, “Informal spaces and the activities within them are often characterized as chaotic, disorderly, criminal, and dangerous, as lacking a state authority to regulate them” (Goldstein 2016, 6). Such assumptions ignore both the myriad processes of local self-governance within informality and the ways in which centralized political processes frame informal areas through modes of distant control, intentional abandonment, or irregular intervention. In Cape Town, the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers defied a violent eviction from formal housing that they had been told to occupy by a local elected official, and persisted in occupying a space alongside the nearby road for nearly two years (Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers 2011). Such work requires not only an incredible determination to claim a space in the city, but also a solid internal community structure. Informal settlements like Golden, and like the area in which Menzi lived, also experienced a high degree of internal organization. Although structures changed and experienced contention, these sites were the opposite of chaotic. Menzi and his neighbors could share detailed information not only about the governance workings of their community, but also of the material connections that they used and created. Each extended electricity wire or self-made tap was a reflection of the work that was possible as the result of individual and collective labor. Menzi’s poured concrete floor made a statement to neighbors, similar to that of his pulled electricity connection, and drew together myriad political ends in its materiality. The foundation was a very tangible thing— literally and metaphorically concrete—that symbolized to residents that a future could be made, but that it would be framed by the expanded necessity and risk of their own illicit labor. Although the city’s perspective on illegal construction and infrastructure has not eased with the extension of informality into a third decade post-apartheid, the needs for such work have deepened within communities as they persist on sites with deeply inadequate formal and legal access. As residents feel that cities vacate their responsibilities to a citizenship represented as much by material change as by legal status, political tactics have expanded into frequent street protests as residents grapple with the need to make everyday life more livable (Brown 2015, 16; Hart 2013). Unlike the “alternate futures” that emerged from auto-constructed peripheries in Brazil (Holston 2008) where neighborhoods grew and changed with the small labors and lasting investments of households and

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communities, South African informality remains highly temporary. The spaces of alterity that are crafted within Cape Town’s informal settlements remain deeply incomplete. While expressing the capability of marginalized residents to reshape their lives, the small sites that result from infrastructural labor are also markers of the impossibility that such labor will fully reshape the city’s edge. Such peripheries are critical sites for political mobilization and urban imaginaries, but, materially, small changes are unlikely to accrete. In this way, such spaces are constantly in the process of emergence (Watson 2006), never fully realized and never expected to be so. The change that they thus seed is always tenuous, always incomplete, and always contextualized by the political failures of the post-apartheid era.

Conclusion Two months before my walk with Malusi and Siseko in 2014, I interviewed Mongezi, a Xhosa man in his 40s who had lived in Golden since the initial residents were moved there by the City of Cape Town in the 1990s. He was seen by his family as the owner of the plot on which his shack was built, and his siblings lived with their families in other shacks built in a small backyard. Although all were squatters on this publicly owned land, the community recognized specific sites as belonging to certain residents. Even though he usually worked outside in construction, Mongezi was youthful, without a crease in his face. He had experience in drainage work, but he did not have an extended tap at his shack or a flush toilet. He said that the water connection wasn’t necessary, as his shack was located not three meters from a public tap. He did want to build a flush toilet but knew that it would be difficult to lay the drainpipe: he would need to go around bends and such joints were more likely to cause blockages. He had been slowly purchasing pipe, however, with the hope to build a toilet before too long. He also had a washing machine in his shack but used it infrequently because it required carrying multiple rounds of water from the tap in order to run a single load of laundry. Mongezi said that when they were moved to Golden the promise had been that this would be a permanent home; a place where formal houses would be built for them. When I asked what he would do if he were in charge of the developmental trajectory for this area, Mongezi said he would build houses; that, he said, “is the only way we’ll know this is our permanent place.” His comment

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notes that despite promises, despite plans, despite it all, this site is still a temporary one, tenuous until brick houses are built. In the context of material instability, the daily labor of maintaining a dwelling and keeping functional its tenuous connections to infrastructural systems requires a tremendous amount of household time, energy, and resources. In spaces defined by exclusions from formal housing, and frequently omitted from reliable connections to wider service systems, this everyday labor can seem to create the possibilities for new beginnings, defined by more reliable access to needed resources within the small spaces of the household. However, the need for individuals and neighbors to build such connections reiterates the systemic disconnection and infrastructural violence (Rodgers and O’Neill 2012) of such urban peripheries and becomes a marker of further abandonment by the city. This work of everyday connections sets informality on a seemingly never-ending knife’s edge, teetering constantly between the possibilities of future destruction and of formalization. The mundane work of maintenance creates new modes of sociality and emergent spaces that work within, against, and beyond the frames of neoliberal service provision that define the approach of the City of Cape Town and municipalities across South Africa (von Schnitzler 2016). This everyday labor crafts infrastructural assemblages that simultaneously mark structural exclusions and the defiance of these exclusions. Such work can be cast as insurgent, in that it pushes back against the exclusions of dominant political and urban paradigms (Holston 2008), but it is also an obligatory mode of making-do. By focusing on these small sites of infrastructural labor, informality can be seen as a space that participants simultaneously work to cement—by forging better modes of informal infrastructural access—and to undo—by agitating for full access and resettlement in formal housing. For every new electricity line strung, or concrete foundation built, a contradiction is present: as informality is made more solid and, in small ways more survivable, the possibilities of true improvement seem more distant. Small spaces, crafted by household labor, hold both the seeds of change and the grounds of collective frustration.

Notes 1. Of other racial groups counted in this survey conducted by Statistics South Africa, 90% of Cape Town households headed by a Colored individual (a multiracial descendant group) and 98% of Asian-headed households lived in

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formal dwellings (City of Cape Town 2017, 25-26). In terms of numbers of households in informality: a total of only 189 households headed by a white individual were found to live in informal dwellings, while 204,803 households headed by a Black individual lived in informal dwellings; of the latter group, 66,492 households lived in informal dwellings in the backyards of other dwellings, and 138,311 households were in informal dwellings not in backyards (ibid.). 2. All names used for individuals that participated in this research and for specific informal settlements are pseudonyms. However, the names of sites and individuals reported in national news or formal reports are retained.

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Index1

A Abandonment, 168, 170, 175, 249, 256, 260, 262 Accessibility, 209 Accountability, 166 Aesthetic, 11, 12, 28, 36, 37, 39, 41, 42, 131, 133, 188, 196, 199, 201, 218, 229, 237 Aesthetic of resistance, 28 Africa, 76, 127 Africa Day, Rushville, IL, USA, 55, 61n3 African, 52–57, 61n3, 252 African American, 6, 134, 135, 212 Ahmedabad, India, 96 Al-Huda Welfare Trust (movement), 148 Allen, Will, 209, 212 Allende, Salvador, 34 Alley, 11, 114 Alternative spatial and social ordering, 167 Altruism, 178, 179

Anarchist, 228, 231, 233, 236, 238, 240–242 Anarchist-inspired, 228, 231 Anarcho-punk, 230, 232 Anti-Land Invasion Unit, 253 Anti-Muslim, 128, 137 Apartheid, 247, 254, 259 Apartment, 38, 114, 115, 117, 121, 183, 198, 216, 229, 232–235 Arab, 135 Arabic, 90, 128, 136, 140n1, 148, 154 Argentina, 26, 98, 100n4 Arica, Chile, 63, 64 Art, 9, 12, 93, 127, 137, 139, 165, 190, 191, 198, 209, 211, 213, 217 Artisan, 191, 214, 218, 233 Artisan economy, 213, 214 Artist, 12, 17, 68, 131, 170, 191, 208, 218, 232, 233 Asian, 9, 109, 173 Assemblage, 60, 88, 130, 255, 262

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 P. Kuppinger (ed.), Emergent Spaces, Palgrave Studies in Urban Anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84379-3

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268 

INDEX

Australia, 94 Authentic, 6, 93, 147, 148, 157, 184, 230, 232, 238, 250 Authenticity, 129, 139, 257 Authenticity, urban authenticity, 5, 65, 66, 88, 93, 129, 133, 139, 238, 239, 241, 249, 250, 256, 257 Authority, 5, 13, 111, 119, 136, 137, 139, 146, 147, 159, 238, 239, 242, 243, 253, 260 Autoconstruction, 14, 25–42, 260 Automation, 170 Autonomous zone, 240–242 B Bachelet, Michelle, 94 Backyard, 11, 52, 178, 215, 216, 252, 261, 263n1 Bain, Alison, 12 Bakery, 8, 170, 176, 229, 230, 233 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 185 Baptist, 168 Bar, 6, 10, 30, 95, 172, 173, 177, 179, 184, 187, 190–197, 202, 215 Barcelona, Spain, 232 Basic services, 247, 248, 254 Basso, Keith, 185 Bathroom, 17, 151, 254, 255 private, 255 Bayat, Asef, 49, 66, 88, 89 Beardstown, IL, USA, 8, 47–50, 52–60 Bedoya, Roberto, 11 Beginning, new beginning, urban beginning, 1, 3, 5, 56, 65, 66, 68, 88, 129, 133, 140, 168, 184, 216, 227, 229, 231, 239, 241–243, 256, 262 Beijing, China, 9 Beirut, Lebanon, 109

Belonging political, 28, 35, 39, 51 politics of, 131, 133 Berlin Fashion Week, 220 Berlin, Germany, 8, 88 Bible, 114 Bible study, 111, 114, 121 Bicycle, bike, 210, 213, 214, 232, 233 Bohemia, 183–202 Bohemian community, 184, 185, 188–191 Bolivia, 26, 37, 68, 86, 89, 90, 93, 97, 98, 100n3, 100n4 Bolivian, 36, 70, 71, 81n5 Boston MA, USA, 6 Branding, 210 Brazil, 4, 17, 26, 91, 95, 100n4, 183–202, 250, 260 British Columbia, 232 Bucket toilet, 252–255, 257 Buddhist, 93 Bumper sticker, 15, 108, 115, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123 Burmese, 88 C Caldeira, Teresa, 25, 26, 33, 35, 38, 65, 67, 77, 78, 80, 185 Campamento, 26–29, 32–34, 36, 37, 41 Canada, 17, 230 Cape Town, South Africa, 17, 247–262 Capital accumulation, 60, 118, 122 Capital investment, 92, 168 Capitalism, 50, 58, 112, 229, 230, 237, 238, 240 Capitalist, 66, 166, 228, 230, 235, 236, 239, 242 Capitalist economy, 17, 231

 INDEX 

Car, 11, 52, 95, 108, 116, 117, 184–186, 212, 233 Carbon footprint, 207, 208 Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance, 207 Care, 4, 38, 53, 56, 70, 108, 116, 119, 121, 136, 223, 259 politics of, 4, 88 Catholic, 109, 123n2, 175 Celebration, 36, 49, 55–56, 58, 60, 61n3, 69–71, 85, 242 Central American, 48 C40 Cities, 207 Charity, 12, 175, 236, 243 Chicago, IL, USA, 59, 134 Chicureo, Santiago, Chile, 37 Childcare, 48, 51, 56–57, 155 Chile, 4, 14, 15, 25–42, 63–81, 85, 86, 89, 90, 93–96, 98, 99, 100n4 Chilean, 26, 27, 29, 36, 37, 39–42, 63–65, 67, 68, 70–76, 78–81, 81n2, 85–100 China, 107, 108, 111–113, 151 Chinese Christian, 108, 114, 117, 122 Christian charity, 121, 176 Christian Gospel, 115, 121, 122 Christianity, 109, 121 Church evangelical, 107 formal, 114 state-sanctioned, 120 Cinco de Mayo, 55 Circular economy, 10, 208, 209, 213 Citizen, 4, 13, 14, 25, 26, 34, 35, 37, 38, 42, 49, 59, 79, 113, 129, 134 Citizen city-maker, 39 Citizenship, 4, 14, 25–42, 79, 130, 248, 250, 260 City making/city-making, 26–28, 33, 35, 38, 41, 88 Civic participation, 26, 38, 41 Civic recognition, 48

269

Civility, 15, 107, 108, 115, 116, 119–123 Civil Rights Movement, 243n1 Claim to the city, 15, 140 Class, see Lower class; Middle class; Upper middle class; Upper class Classism, 198 Climate change, 207, 209, 212 Climate legislation, 207 Club, 193, 196 Co-ethnic male space, 86 Colina, Santiago, 27, 30–32, 36, 37 College, 93, 94, 137, 148, 150, 152 Colombia, 26, 32, 68, 94, 98, 212 Colombian, 32, 36, 37, 97 Common good, 108, 112, 119–122 Community center, 6, 16, 129, 134, 137, 140, 145–160 Community dinner, 165, 170 Community garden, 9, 210, 212 Community space, 134, 156, 159 Comunas, 30 Connectivity, 74, 117, 248 Consumerism, 213, 228, 235 Consumer society, 11 Consumption, 10, 112, 186, 207–210, 213, 214, 218, 221, 231, 242 Convert (to Islam), 127, 128, 135 Copenhagen, Denmark, 207 Coronavirus pandemic, 98 Corruption, 95, 199, 259 Cosmology, 109 Cosmopolitan, 93, 186, 250 Counterculture/countercultural, 170, 232, 237, 239, 242 Courtesy, 116, 119–121 Crafts, 75, 76, 79, 190, 209–211, 213, 214, 217, 251, 252, 262 Crawford, Margaret, 10, 213

270 

INDEX

Creative, 4, 5, 8–12, 17, 28, 33, 38, 41, 58, 139, 168, 169, 173, 184, 191, 198, 200, 201, 217, 218 Creativity, 9, 11, 12, 137, 191, 229, 240–242 Crime, 67, 77, 78, 80, 190 Criminality, 76, 77 Cross-ethnic, 87, 97 Crowdfunding, 168, 170 Cuban, 110 Cuisine, 15, 36, 93, 97, 99 Culinary, 190 diversity, 176 landscape, 15, 87 Cyberculture, 240 Cyberpunk, 240 D Dapuqiao, Shanghai, China, 114 Daycare, 51, 58, 132 De Certeau, Michel, 8, 147, 186, 189, 195, 240, 241 De Valdivia, Pedro, 67, 70 Debord, Guy, 240 Decentralization, 113, 122 Deejay, 184, 190, 196, 198, 201 Delhi, India, 26, 93, 95 Demolition, 254 Demonstration, 10 Día de los Muertos, 13 Dinner, 4, 93, 165–180, 236, 238 Disconnection, 248, 255, 256, 262 Discrimination, 26, 27, 30, 34, 37, 63, 80, 193 Discursive association, 76 Disinvestment/disinvested, 86, 87, 92, 168 Displaced populations, 48 workers, 49, 55, 56, 60 workforce, 48

Displacement, 48, 88, 214 Diversity, 61n2, 61n3, 81n4, 99, 129, 131, 136, 166, 167, 176, 179, 238 racial and national, 77 Divine, 119, 120 Divine plan, 122 DIY culture, 170 DIY project, 172 DIY-urbanism, 166, 170, 179 Do-It-Yourself (DIY), 177, 209, 227, 229, 230, 234, 237–238 Dominican, 27, 36–38 Dominican Republic, 26, 76, 79 Donation, 16, 165, 166, 172, 227, 233, 234, 241 Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, Canada, 229 Drainage, 261 Drawing room, 150–152, 156, 157, 159 Dumpster, 228–230, 232, 234, 235, 238 Dumpster diving, 231, 232, 234 Dupatta, 145 E East Asia, 127 Ecological footprint, 222, 223 Economy of generosity, 12 Ecuador, 68, 86, 89, 90, 93, 100n3 Ecuadorian, 93 Education, 4, 57, 69, 111, 135, 147, 148 Egypt, 138, 150 Eid-ul-Fitr, 148 Electricity, 17, 30, 168, 247, 248, 252, 253, 258–260, 262 illegal, 251, 252, 256, 258 Employment, 47, 94, 187, 188, 198–201

 INDEX 

English as a second language (ESL), 50, 57 Environment, 4, 5, 12, 92, 109, 110, 112, 168, 179, 184, 208, 213, 215, 235, 250, 251 Environmental, 1, 2, 4, 207, 209, 211–214, 218, 219, 221, 222 degradation, 209, 212 justice, 211 Estación, Santiago, Chile, 30 Ethic, 228, 229, 235, 237, 242 Ethical self-fashioning, 146 Ethical subject, 129, 136 Ethnicity, 50, 187 Ethos of queerness, 186, 188, 197, 198, 201 Europe, 42n1, 86, 90, 209 Evangelical, 68, 107, 110, 114, 117 Evangelism, 108 Eviction, 34, 175, 253, 254, 260 Exclusion, 6, 26–29, 33, 66, 80, 88, 110, 242, 248, 255, 256, 262 F Facebook, 93, 98, 203n2, 235, 238 Factory, 48–50, 58, 114 Fair economy, 209 Faith-inspired/faith inspired, 16, 132 Farmers’ market, 8, 210 Fashion, 17, 66, 159, 190, 200, 208, 213, 214, 219, 220 Fast fashion, 213, 221 Fatwas, 153 Festival, 13, 15, 76, 91, 132, 241 Filipina, Filipino, 9 Flexible topography, 7, 8 Food insecurity, 237 organic, 211 recovered, 237, 238 is a right, 227–243

271

sharing, 219, 240, 243 waste, 223 Food not Bombs, 17, 227–243 Formalization, 251, 254, 262 Foucault, Michel, 39, 132, 203n1 Franck, Karen, 5, 8, 13, 26, 41, 167, 168, 178, 213 Francophone, 54 French, 57, 61n2, 85, 183 G Ganapati Festival, Mumbai, 131 Garage sale, 10, 11 Garbage, 190, 218, 232 Gay, 193–196, 202, 203n3 Gender, 30, 35, 127, 151, 186–188, 195–197 Gender-segregated, 151 Gentrification/Gentrifying, 66, 88, 168, 176, 210, 214 Germany, 8, 17, 207–223 Gezi Park, Istanbul, 13 Global city/globalizing city, 5, 13, 207, 239, 250, 251 Global economy, 113 Globalization, 170 Global Justice Movement, 233, 239 Global North, 170 Global South, 25, 42, 42n1, 88, 200 God, 15, 37, 108, 115, 117, 118, 120, 122, 128, 154, 158 “God loves taxi drivers,” 107–123, 123n4 Golden, Cape Town, 251, 254, 255, 257, 260, 261 Good Night Teresina, 190–192, 194 Good Tree Institute (GTI), 128, 129, 132–140 Governmentality, 39 Graeber, David, 229 Graffiti, 11, 191

272 

INDEX

Grand Mosque, Mecca, Saudi-­ Arabia, 134 Grassroot, 13, 15 Green business, 211, 218 Green-wash/green-washing, 210 Guanajuato, Mexico, 53 Gujarat, India, 92, 96 Gujarati, 93 Gulf (Arab), 90 H Hadith, 148, 149, 153–156 Haiti, 26, 29, 32, 68 Haitian, 26, 36–38, 76, 94 Hajji Ali, Hi Jolley, 134 Hakim Bey (Peter Lamborn Wilson), 240 Harlem, NY, USA, 210 Hashmi, Dr. Farhat, 148, 153, 156 Headscarf, 146 Henna, 96 Hetero-normative, 186, 201 Heterotopia, 165–180 Heying, Charles, 210, 211, 213, 214 High Jinx (event), 199 Hijab, 145 Hindi, 90, 93, 99 Hindu, 96, 97, 100n6, 132, 184 Hippie, 233, 237 Hipster, 172, 237 Holston, James, 25, 26, 28, 33–35, 40, 41, 79, 249, 250, 260, 262 Home building, 36 permanent, 254, 261 Homophobia, 198 Hong Kong, 9, 131 Hospitality, 66, 157 Hotel, 148–150 Hou, Jeffrey, 9, 13, 73, 166, 210, 212, 213

House, 11, 12, 14, 32, 33, 36–40, 42, 56, 77, 91, 92, 135, 149–159, 168, 174, 184, 187, 193, 194, 197, 198, 202, 232, 254, 256, 261, 262 formal, 254, 258, 259, 261 House and Trance music, 184 Housewives, 150 Housing access to, 30, 32, 34, 247 formal, 30, 34, 247, 251, 260, 262 informal, 30 market, 34 rights, 25, 26, 39, 41, 253 Hunger, 237, 239 I Identity ethnic, 87, 128 religious, 128, 140 Iftar, 155 Illegal connections (infrastructure), 256, 259 Illegal extension (infrastructure), 255 Immigrant, 1, 2, 4, 6, 11, 12, 14, 15, 26, 34, 37–42, 47–52, 54–56, 58–60, 89, 94, 97, 99, 100n1, 127, 128, 131, 134, 135, 216, 232 Immigration, 15, 39, 48, 50, 56, 75, 86, 87, 89, 90, 94, 98–100 Immigration politics, 99 Inclusion, 26, 29, 35, 49, 50, 88, 185 Independencia, Santiago, Chile, 29, 30 India, 86, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 99, 100n4, 100n6 Indian, 86, 87, 90, 92, 94, 96, 98, 99, 100n4, 149 Indonesia, 150 Inequality ethnic, 210

 INDEX 

racial, 210 social, 210 structural, 6 urban, 2, 210 Informal dwelling, 252, 258, 263n1 Informality, 42n1, 88, 248, 249, 252, 256, 260–262, 263n1 Informal settlement, 17, 32, 34, 42, 247–262, 263n2 Informal space, 251, 260 Infrastructural, 17, 88, 208, 209 labor, 247–262 violence, 262 Infrastructure formal, 254, 256 informal, 262 Innovation, 1–18, 117, 133, 209 In-placement, 60 Insurgence, 250 Insurgency, 13, 96, 249 Insurgent, 26, 250, 251, 262 space, 13–14 urbanism, 251 Intercultural, 49, 50, 54, 56, 57 dialogue, 49 Internet, 193, 198 Interracial interaction, 49 romance, 57 Intimacy, 57, 93, 114, 176, 178, 179 Invisibility, 133 Iquique, Chile, 15, 85–87, 89–91, 93, 95–99, 100n1, 100n5 Iran, 150 Iraq, 231 Islam cultural, 135 localizing, 129 pure, 135 Shi’i, 109 Sunni, 134 Islamabad, Pakistan, 16, 145–160

273

Islamic Center of North East Valley, Phoenix, 132 Islamic Cultural Center, Tempe, 135 Islamic law, 149 Islamic movement, 146, 148, 150 Islamic revivalist movement, 146, 148, 150 Islamic school, 135 Islamic tradition, 139 Italian, 192 Italian American, 6 Italian Autonomist movements, 241 J Jama’at Islami, 157 Jam Handy, Detroit, USA, 168–171, 178 Jesus, 108, 131 K Kaherl, Amy, 165, 174 Karachi, Pakistan, 147, 150 Kathmandu, Nepal, 93–95, 98 Khayelitsha, Cape Town, 248, 252, 253, 256–261 Kilometer Zero, Santiago, 67, 72 Kitchen, 17, 38, 57, 85, 89–93, 95, 97, 151, 152, 227, 229, 230, 233–235, 237, 238, 242, 243 Krase, Jerome, 6, 89, 132, 166, 211 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 88 Kürten, Sarah, 219–223 L Labor conditions, 87, 89, 90 Lahore, Pakistan, 147, 150, 153, 156 Lampa, Santiago, Chile, 30 Latin American, 25–27, 30, 32, 33, 54, 67–69, 79, 100n6, 250

274 

INDEX

Latino/Latina, 47, 52–54, 56, 57, 60, 173 Lebanon, 100n4, 176 Lefebvre, Henri, 65, 72, 78, 122, 229, 240 Leisure, 4, 111, 217 LGBTQ, 196 LGBTQ community, 188, 196 Liberalization, 86, 89, 113 Library, 212 Lifestyle, 4, 16, 17, 39, 42, 186, 207, 209–211, 213, 214, 218, 222, 223 Lima, Peru, 25 Living room, 10, 16, 145–160, 197 Localization, 3, 4, 15, 50, 58, 60 London, UK, 132 Los Angeles CA, USA, 213 Low, Setha, 6, 65, 79, 249, 256 Lower class, 1, 12, 32, 35, 57, 69, 86, 89, 97, 98, 146–150, 152–159, 185, 200 M Machu Picchu, Peru, 93 Madrassa, 159 Mainstream, 186–188, 190, 197, 200–202, 217, 219, 222, 223 Malaysia, 90, 150 Mall, shopping mall, 85, 90, 92, 100n4, 183, 185, 192, 202 Manaus, Brazil, 26 Manchester, UK, 12 Marginal, 35, 90, 167, 169, 170 Marginalized, 3, 11, 12, 55, 58, 140, 168, 248, 251, 261 Marginal space, 58, 167, 251 Marketing, 210, 217, 220, 223, 235, 238 Market rationality, 28, 37 Masjid Jauharatul-Islam, Phoenix, 134

Massey, Doreen, 59 Meat-packing plant, 47, 51, 56 Medellin, Colombia, 212 Mexican, 47–49, 53–57 Mexican American, 11 Mexican bakery, 170 Mexican Independence Day, 55 Mexico, 47, 52, 98 Mexico City, Mexico, 25 Miami, FL, USA, 110 Middle class, 4, 16, 32, 35, 57, 69, 86, 89, 97, 98, 145–159, 170, 184–186, 194, 197, 200–202, 214, 216 Middle East, 66, 127 Midwest, USA, 4, 14, 52, 61, 96 Migrant, 3, 4, 8, 9, 14, 15, 26–32, 35–39, 41, 42, 63–66, 68–76, 78–81, 81n2, 81n3, 81n5, 85–100, 100n1, 131, 148 Migrant community, 4, 14, 26, 27, 72, 74 Migrant identity, 99 Migrant infrastructure, 89 Migrant perspective, 27 Migrant space, 99 Migrant worker, 9, 47, 87, 107 Migration, 4, 25–42, 63–81, 87, 90, 93, 100, 185 Migratory flow, 64, 68, 75, 76 Milwaukee WI, USA, 212 Minaret, 135 Minimalist, 198, 210, 211 Ministry of State Security, China, 119 Mobility, 87, 118, 149, 186, 200 Modernity, 109, 130, 152, 169 Moral architecture, 109 Moral compass, 135 Moral right, 133, 140, 256 Morelia, Mexico, 53 Mosque, 8, 134, 135, 137, 138, 147, 160n1

 INDEX 

275

Muhammad, Elijah, 134 Muhammad, W.D., 134 Multicultural, 80, 81, 93, 140 Multi-ethnic, 54, 60 Multilingual, 48, 51, 93 Multiracial, 48, 51, 52, 262n1 Multivocality, 65 Mumbai, India, 109, 131 Municipal, 30, 36, 66, 74, 150, 170, 175, 208, 218, 249, 254, 259 Municipality, 168, 174, 248, 251, 262 Music, 9, 55, 140n1, 184, 190, 191, 193, 195–197, 201, 214, 237 Muslim community, 129, 132, 134, 137 non-Muslim, 136, 138, 139 practices, 137 second-generation, 135 women’s piety movement, 138 Muslim American, 129 Muslim Ban, 128

Nepali, 15, 85, 86, 89–100, 100n3, 100n4 New Delhi, India, 93 New York, NY, USA, 8, 66, 88, 145, 238, 249 Nightclub, 190, 195 Night market, 9 Niqab, 145 Nocturnal bohemia, 185–190, 192–202, 203n5 Non-hierarchical, 7, 231, 237, 243 Non-normative expressions of gender and sexuality, 195 Nonviolence/non-violent, 230, 231, 235 Normative, 186, 196, 197, 201, 250 North America, 209 North American, 12, 237 Norway, 98 Nueva Esperanza, Santiago, Chile, 27, 36–39, 41, 42

N National citizenship, 35 Nationalism, 87, 251 Nationality, 30, 35, 36, 71, 76, 100n3 Nation of Islam (NOI), 134 Neighbor, 17, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 57, 77, 115, 152, 154, 159, 171, 175, 179, 202, 228, 249, 252, 254–256, 258–260, 262 Neighborhood, 5, 6, 9, 16, 17, 26, 27, 29, 30, 33, 38, 48, 51, 58, 59, 66, 77, 88, 89, 91, 97, 114, 134, 147–150, 157–159, 168, 170, 171, 174, 176, 187–189, 197, 201, 210, 212–216, 228, 232, 236, 242, 249, 250, 252, 260 Neoliberal, 5–7, 9, 17, 34, 42, 88–90, 99, 100, 133, 210, 212, 259, 262 Nepal, 86, 91, 98

O Occupy (Wall Street) movement, 230, 241 Occupy Vancouver, 233 Office, 74, 94, 115, 117, 121, 131, 135, 137, 198, 199, 254 Oğuzhan, Deniz, 219 Oldenburg, Ray, 6, 10, 114 Online community, 193 Oppenheimer Park, Vancouver, 232, 233 Oppressive labor conditions, 89 Ordinary practitioners of the city, 186 Organic (food, produce), 211, 232, 233 P Padua, Italy, 9 Pakistan, 4, 16, 100n4, 138, 145–160

276 

INDEX

Pakistani, 128, 146–152, 159 Pardo, Italo, 5, 7, 26, 64, 66, 110, 129, 130, 187, 200, 211, 214, 230, 249 Paris, France, 210, 212, 240 Park, 4, 6, 8, 17, 48, 50–56, 58, 77, 107, 117, 132, 134, 137, 174, 210, 212, 228, 236, 242 Participation, 2–5, 9, 11, 14, 33, 48–51, 54, 55, 58, 60, 118, 146, 147, 149, 152, 156, 169, 186, 198 urban, 2, 6, 7, 16 Party (celebration), 4, 17, 54, 155, 184, 191, 198, 199, 236, 238, 242 Pentecostal Prayer Walk, Singapore, 131 Performance, 60, 96, 190 Peripheral, 25–42, 88, 167–169, 235, 252 lives, 250 Periphery, 28, 33, 38, 42n1, 68, 92, 167, 168, 248, 250, 256, 260, 261 urban, 41, 262 Peru, 26, 29, 32, 98, 100n4 Peruvian, 36, 37, 63, 68, 70, 71, 73–77, 79, 80, 81n3, 97 Philadelphia, PA, USA, 130 Phoenix, AZ, USA, 8, 16, 127–140 Phoenix metropolitan area, the Valley, 128 Piñera, Sebastian, 94 Pinochet, Augusto, 34 Place claiming, 249 claims to, 250 of diversity, 138 gendered, 87 Place-based, 250 Place-keeping, 133

Place-making/Place making, 3, 4, 14, 15, 48–51, 58, 61, 89, 112, 127–140, 189 religious, 132, 133 Playground, 6 Plaza, 4, 7, 15, 63–81, 85, 97 Plaza de Armas, Santiago, Chile, 15, 63–77, 79–81, 81n3 Plumber, 252, 255 Plumbing, 256 Police, 52, 68, 95, 136, 239 Political activism, 159, 211, 251 Political coalition, 259 Political incorporation, 38 Political mobilization, 261 Political movement, 111, 207 Pop-up event, 4, 218 party, 17, 184 Portland OR, USA, 174 Post-apartheid, 248, 253, 254, 260, 261 Prato, Giuliana, 5, 33, 42n1, 64, 68, 110, 129, 130, 187, 200, 211, 214, 230, 249, 251 Pray, prayer, 93, 111, 132–135, 157, 177 Precarious labor conditions, 87 Prejudice, 26, 77, 118, 136, 195, 198 Privatization, 113, 122, 123 Production of space, 65 Prophet Muhammad, 128, 139, 149 Proselytize, proselytization, 108, 120, 121 Prostitution, 194 Protest, 9, 11, 49, 210, 230–233, 235, 238, 243, 251, 259, 260 Protestant, 109, 123n2 Public discussion, 115, 116 Public event, 172, 178 Public good, 119 Publicity, 107–123

 INDEX 

Public piety, 148 Public religious space, 111, 120 Public sphere, 79, 109, 122, 129, 147 Public transportation, 209, 210, 212 Public worship, 114 Puebla, Mexico, 53 Punk, 227–243 Purchasing power, 185 Purdah, 146 Q Quartzsite, AZ, USA, 134 Queer, 3, 4, 17, 187–189, 197, 198, 201, 202, 203n1 Queerness, 186, 188, 189, 196–198, 201 Queer timespace, 183–202 Quiet encroachment of the ordinary, 66, 88 Quilicura, Santiago, Chile, 30 Quito, Ecuador, 98 Quran/Qur’an, 128, 132, 135, 136, 138, 139, 148, 149, 152–159 R Racial and economic division, 170 Racial and economic segregation, 171 Racial division, 247 Racialization, 27, 81n2 Racialized, 59, 75, 80, 252 Racial justice, 237 Racially segregated neighborhood, 59 Racism, 53, 54, 58, 128, 136, 198 systemic, 136 Racist, 29 discourse, 29 Ramadan, 155 Recoleta, Santiago, Chile, 29, 30 Recycling, 10, 208, 209, 211, 218 Redemption, 119, 120

277

Regenerative city, 207, 209 Religion majority, 131 migrant, 131 Religiosity, 15, 16 Religious actor, 15, 131 authority, 137, 147, 159 community, 129–133, 137, 158, 159 discourse, 120 gathering, 120, 147, 150, 152 innovation, 130 knowledge, 16, 137, 156, 159 learning, 4, 158 life, 130 minority, 133 movement, 146, 147 practice, 112, 130, 137, 159 practitioner, 109, 110 publicity, 122 space, 10, 110, 111, 120, 122, 123, 131 urbanity, 129–133, 137 Renovation, 38, 73, 96 Reordering the city, 166 Representational space, 65, 78 Repurpose, repurposing, 255 Resentment, 48, 49, 72 Resilience, 1, 9, 128, 255 Resistance, 26, 110, 128, 135, 239 political, 33, 169 Restaurant, 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 85–89, 92, 93, 95–100, 183, 186, 190, 192, 198, 219 ethnic, 85–100, 134 Revivalist movement, 138, 146–148, 150 Revolution, 229, 237, 238, 240, 241, 243 Right to housing, 26, 33, 40, 41 Right to place, 58

278 

INDEX

Right to the city, 2, 11, 108, 133, 140, 228, 240 Ritual, 13, 77, 99, 109, 110, 132, 159 Rock band, 191 Rogues (event), 191, 192 Rushville, IL, USA, 54, 55, 61n3 Russia, 173 S Sacred, 109, 129 Sacred space, 131, 132, 137, 140 temporary, 132, 133, 135, 137 Sacred text, 128, 158 Same-sex, 196 San Francisco, CA, USA, 240 Sanitation, 247, 252, 254, 258 Santa Ana, CA, USA, 231, 232 Santa Cruzan procession, 9 Santiago, Chile, 14, 15, 25–42, 63–81, 86, 93, 94, 97, 98 Metropolitan Region, 29, 32, 34 São Paolo, Brazil, 67, 89 Schäfer, Markus, 216–218, 222, 223 School, 50–52, 56, 58, 61n2, 132, 146, 150, 153, 155, 165, 186, 190, 199 Schoolroom, 152 Schüttgut, 214–216, 222, 223 Secular, 111, 120, 130–132, 136 Secular city, 2, 15 Secular geography, 122 Secular imagery, 111 Secularism, 130 Secularization, 109, 111 Segregation, 80, 171, 179 Self-expression, 201 Self-governance, 260 Self-made, 17, 247, 248, 256, 257, 259, 260 Self-making, 129 Self-presentation, 188

Senegalese, 56, 57 Señor de los Milagros celebration, 69 Sensibilities, 138 queer and bohemian, 187 Sexism, 136 Sexual identity, 196, 203n5 Sexuality, 187, 188, 195, 196 Sexual orientation, 196, 197 Sexual/romantic attraction, 186 Shanghai, China, 4, 15, 107–123 Shared economy, 209 Sheffield, UK, 12 Shelter for the homeless, 175 Shopping ban, 210, 211 Sidewalk, 86, 92, 171, 228–230, 232, 233, 236, 238, 240, 242, 243 Sikh, 134 Simone, Abdoumalique, 64, 88, 99, 249 Sink, 255 Situationist, 229, 240 Smiling Buddha Cabaret Restaurant (SBC), 233, 234, 236 Soccer, 15, 49, 50, 52–56, 58, 61n2 Soccer field, 4, 8, 48, 49, 52–54, 60 Sociability, 4, 5, 26, 33 Sociality, 4, 7, 8, 13–15, 48, 114, 169, 190, 250, 262 Social justice, 2, 4, 11, 100n1, 128, 137, 208–211, 222, 228, 230, 231 Social media, 11, 81n2, 96, 197, 208, 253 Social movement, 13, 33, 34, 123, 230, 248, 253, 254, 258, 259 Social networking site, 193, 203n2 Social services, 48, 51, 109 Socioeconomic status, 188 Solidarity cross-ethnic, 87 social, 139 Soup (event), 16, 167, 171

 INDEX 

South Africa, 247, 251, 252, 254, 255, 262 South America, 86, 94, 95, 100n3, 127 South American, 90, 93, 97 South Asia, 90 South Asian, 4, 15, 85–100, 135 South Asian food, 97 Space alternative, 17 assertive, 13 autonomous, 229 of autonomy, 243 of civility, 108 of cooperation, 13, 59 of cultural sanctuary, 89 of debate, 4, 16, 123 discursive, 108, 111, 120 domestic, 145–160 ephemeral, 7 of exclusion, 248, 262 flexible, 7 of flux, 189 gray, 251 of inclusion, 49 of innovation, 209 invisible, 3, 5, 17, 18, 58, 201 loose, 5, 8, 41, 167–169 marginalized, 3, 58 of migration, 64–65, 67–72, 75, 80 neglected, 3, 88 of participation, 49, 60 permanent, 58, 121, 189 private, 10, 16, 18, 52, 93, 117, 133, 137, 151, 157, 159, 229, 234, 249, 255 public, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 29, 48, 49, 52–56, 59, 60, 64, 66–69, 71–73, 79, 80, 87, 88, 109, 113, 116, 120, 122, 132, 133, 147, 159, 174, 228, 229, 231, 238–240, 249

279

of resistance, 129 safe, 128, 137, 140 semi-public, 10, 15, 16, 18, 229, 242 social, 15, 86, 93, 112–114, 121, 122, 154, 174, 212, 237 of solidarity, 91 supportive, 138 temporary, 17, 134, 201, 229, 238, 243 tight, 5, 7, 13, 168 of transformation, 121 transformative, 51, 233 transient, 3, 15, 229 Spain, 230 Spatial association, 64–66, 75, 77, 79, 80 Spatial discourse, 67, 72–79 Spatiality, 7, 8, 14, 99, 110, 168, 213 Spatializing culture, 65 Spatial meaning, 66 Spatial play, 169, 178–180 Spatial practice, 77, 122, 150, 228 Spatiotemporal, 187 Special Economic Zone, 113 Speculation, 33 Spiritual, 2, 8, 109, 122, 129, 136, 137 landscape, 146 and material reordering of the city, 120 Sports, 4, 48, 50, 52, 56, 58, 116 Squatted land, 247, 254 Squatter community, 232 Squatter settlement, 4, 26–28, 32, 34–40 State-building, 111 Status-conscious, 186, 192 Stereotype, 12, 42, 66, 75, 77, 79, 80, 90 Stevens, Quentin, 5, 8, 13, 26, 41, 178

280 

INDEX

Store, 6, 10, 53, 56, 70, 89, 97, 134, 139, 165, 176, 191, 198, 201, 208, 210, 213–221, 223, 224n1 Street, 52, 56, 58, 70, 77, 97, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 130, 185, 190, 214, 215, 221, 229, 232, 236, 252, 253, 259, 260 corner, 6, 108, 117, 122 vendor, 213 Strike, 108 Structural exclusion, 262 Stuttgart, Germany, 8, 17, 207–223 Subculture gay, 196 punk, 229 Subjectivity, 109, 111, 114, 137, 188 Subway, 68, 71, 228 Superstition, 111 Sustainability, 8, 174, 175, 207–223 urban, 210, 211 Sustainable, 16, 17, 207–214, 216, 218–223 business, 4, 208, 223 city, 209–211, 213, 219 clothes, 219 lifestyle, 207 practice, 211, 214, 218 Symbolic representation, 13, 80 Syria, 128 T Tactic, 189, 231, 235, 238–241, 243, 243n1, 258, 260 Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt, 13, 14, 229 Taipei, Taiwan, 9 Tap, 248, 252, 255, 256, 258, 260, 261 public, 261 Taxi, 4, 15, 86, 107, 108, 115–118, 121–123

Taxi driver, 15, 107–123 Technologies of the self, 132, 136 Temple, 93, 111, 134 Teresina, Brazil, 17, 183–202 Theology, 159 Theology of the city, 117, 118, 122 Third space, 6, 7, 10, 114, 147 Thrift store, 213 Timespace, 183–202 Togo, 48, 54 Tohà, Caroline, 74 Toilet, 248, 252–258, 261 flush, 251, 255, 256, 261 Toluca, Mexico, 53 Toronto, Canada, 88, 148 Tourism, 94, 185 Tourist, 68, 74, 75, 86, 87, 95, 99, 114, 239 Traffic, 15, 95, 107, 108, 118, 148 Transient/temporary Muslim space, 2–4, 7, 15, 18, 108, 120, 123, 129, 132, 133, 166, 229 Tribhuvan University, Nepal, 98 Turkey, 85 U Ukraine, 109 United Kingdom (UK), 109 United States (US), 4, 8, 10, 47, 48, 53, 54, 56, 64, 86, 90, 93–95, 98, 109, 134, 139, 170, 212, 230–232 University, 114, 193 Unpackaged (groceries), 17, 208, 214, 216 Unpredictability, 167 Upcycle/upcycling/upcycled, 208, 217, 219, 222 Upper class/Upper-class, 32, 35, 57, 69, 86, 89, 97, 98, 146–159, 185, 200

 INDEX 

Upper middle class/Upper-middle-­ class, 16, 32, 35, 57, 69, 86, 89, 97, 98, 146–150, 152–159, 185, 200, 218 Upwardly mobile/upward mobility, 186, 192, 200 Urban agriculture, 209 Urban aspiration, 131, 133, 137, 140 Urban authenticity, see Authenticity Urban citizen, 39–41 Urban citizenship, 28, 33–35, 41, 250 Urban economy, 6, 17, 208, 209, 212–214, 223 Urban farm, 174, 212 Urban future, 1, 3, 8, 117, 222, 223 Urban imaginary, 261 Urbanism everyday, 166 guerilla, 166 open-source, 166 tactical, 166 Urbanity, 1–9, 12, 13, 16, 129–133, 209, 213, 222 Urbanization, 25, 35, 111, 113, 117, 122, 201 state-led, 122 Urban landscape, 13, 67, 99, 111, 112, 129, 140, 200, 228 Urban planning, 65, 112, 113 Urban religion, 109, 112, 129–133 Urban religious aspiration, 137 Urban renewal, 88, 211 Urban restructuring, 88 Urban revitalization, 30, 210 Urban rights, 4, 14 Urban social movement, 34 Urban transformation, 1, 3, 10, 16, 17, 66, 81n2, 99 Urban utopia, 169 Utopia/utopian, 122, 169, 230 Utopics, 165–180

281

V Vancouver, Canada, 17, 227–243 Vegan, 93, 95, 96, 231–233, 235, 242 Vegetarian, 86, 93, 95, 96, 99, 228, 231–233, 238, 242 Veil/veiling, 146, 157 Venezuela, 26, 29, 68, 94 Venezuelan, 68, 94, 97 Vernacular, 11, 89 Vernacular creativity, 12 Virgin of Copacabana celebration, 70, 71 Virtue, 139, 147 Visa, 86, 93–95, 98, 100n3 Visibility, 4, 9, 11, 15, 29, 49, 52, 54, 58, 60, 77, 108, 122, 131, 140, 196, 239, 252 Visible, 4, 6–8, 11, 14, 15, 18, 36, 37, 49, 51–56, 87, 95, 97–99, 109, 121, 131, 133, 134, 166, 179, 219, 222, 229, 233, 239, 250 Vivir bien, 36, 38, 39, 42 Vivir mal, 39 Vulnerable urban space, 99 W Wandelwerk, 217, 222, 223 Warehouse, 187, 193, 197, 219, 228–230, 242 Warmipura Association of Women Migrants, 30 Washing machine, 185, 258, 261 Waste, 208–210, 214, 217–219, 222, 223, 228, 235–237, 242, 255 Wastefulness/wasteful, 219, 230, 231, 235, 238, 242 Waste production and management, 208 Waste reduction, 209, 218

282 

INDEX

Water, 17, 174, 196, 247, 255, 258, 261 pipe, 255, 256 Wedlich, Jens-Peter, 215, 216, 222, 223 Wertschätzung, 214–216, 220 West Africa, 47 West African, 48, 49, 54, 56, 57, 60, 61n3 Whyte, William F., 6 Whyte, William H., 7 Wiederbelebt, 219–223 “Work-around” (infrastructure), 252, 255 Workers struggle, 12, 47, 48, 60, 85, 87, 96 Workplace, 7, 49, 51, 57, 58 Workshop, 4, 128, 138, 214, 217, 218, 221, 224n1

X Xenophobia/xenophobic, 94, 128 Y Youtube, 96, 136, 190 Z Zain, Maher, 127 Zero waste, 209, 210, 214 Zinn, Howard, 242 Zofri, free trade zone, Iquique, 85, 90, 92, 100n5 Zukin, Sharon, 5, 9, 66, 88, 129, 133, 139, 140, 147, 157, 168, 211, 213, 229, 238, 239, 241, 249, 250, 257