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Civic identity and public space, focussing on Belfast, and bringing together the work of a historian and two social scientists, offers a new perspective on the sometimes lethal conflicts over parades, flags and other issues that continue to disrupt political life in Northern Ireland. The first part of the book shows how these disputes had their origins in the changes that took place during the nineteenth century in the character of urban living, creating new forms of public space whose regulation was from the start a matter of contention and debate. Later chapters show how the establishment of a new Northern Ireland state, with Belfast as its capital, saw unionism and Protestantism achieve a near-complete monopoly of public space. In more recent decades, this monopoly has broken down, partly as a result of political violence, but also through the influence of new ideas of human rights and of a more positive vision of political and cultural diversity. Today policy makers and politicians struggle to devise a strategy for the management of public space in a divided city, while endeavouring to promote a new sense of civic identity that will transcend long-standing political and sectarian divisions.
Introduction Pavements are research sites sui generis . This chapter discusses identifiable pavement cultures as members’ methods in public space. Pavement cultures are constituted by cohorts of pedestrians within urban spaces. A key reference point is a landmark video-based study (Lee and Watson 1993 ), which set new parameters for doing ethnography by studying members’ methods in urban social spaces. This was a trailblazing report that, by applying the conceptual insights of conversation analysis to non
Part II The visual liberation of public spaces In 1900, the liberation of sexuality came in the guise of public visibility. Instead of demanding, as Feydeau did, that people be allowed to walk around nude in their homes, the movements that fought against Article 330 claimed the right to reveal themselves and to be seen in public places. It was as if that which was to be repressed “even at home” sought to be expressed outside the home. Even though it was sufficient to be seen in one’s bedroom through a hole in the wall to be punished for indecent exposure
2 The conquest of private space by public space Article 330 prohibited violating “public” modesty. Publicity was therefore the central element of the offense, which gave the crime its specificity within the penal framework to punish crimes and offenses against morality. Publicity was constituted either by space—in this connotation, juxtaposing public with private spaces—or by (institutional) structures that helped congregate a group of individuals in a certain space. A public space was, just like the public, a type of meeting of individuals in which the
unionist meetings, assuming a particularly prominent place in the Home Rule crisis of 1912–14. 9 The third major development that helped to shape conflicts over access to public space was the new status of the city centre. By now both much expanded and largely non-residential, this had been dramatically reshaped by the construction in 1880–81 of Royal Avenue, and given an additional grandeur by the erection at the southern end of the new artery of a set of monumental buildings, culminating in the completion in 1906 of the City Hall. Already in
sides of the River Farset, but now culverted for part of its length; and Bridge Street (later Ann Street), carrying traffic to and from the celebrated Long Bridge. Between them shorter connecting streets formed a rough grid pattern. To the west three other roads, Mill Street and North Street, both already lined with houses, and the more recent Linenhall Street, radiated outwards to join the main road to Carrickfergus. But the whole town The origins of public space was still comfortably enclosed by the line of the defensive earthen ramparts that had been erected as
6 4 Common spaces of urban emancipation 4 Reclaiming public space as commons: the squares movement and its legacy Between 2011 and 2013, an important kind of shared experience activated by the potentialization of public spaces became prominent in many cities throughout the world. What came to be named as the squares movement includes instances of the Arab Spring (especially in Tunis and Cairo), square occupations in Europe (in Madrid, Barcelona, London, Athens, and many more), Gezi Park mobilizations in Istanbul, Hong Kong “umbrella” demonstrations, and the
the British and Americans as, in a multitude of ways, one people. As the Anglo-American alliance intensified in the twentieth century, both nations experienced the proliferation of public building projects that were designed to venerate the shared history and values of the United Kingdom and the United States, celebrate Anglo-American cooperation, and cement perceptions of a collective culture and transatlantic community identity. As a result, both countries are replete with public spaces that reflect the perceptions and agendas of the builder generations and
to a new civil conflict in Ireland. 7 What all this meant in practice was a wholly new approach to the regulation of public space. Up to 1914, despite the recurrent and sometimes lethal episodes of violence that arose out of disputes over parades and processions, the principle of access to streets, squares and public buildings for the expression of competing political and religious allegiances had continued to be respected to a surprising degree. The new Unionist Government, however, abandoned all pretence of even-handedness. A wide
This article investigates the role of the corridor in Gothic fiction and horror film from the late eighteenth century to the present day. It seeks to establish this transitional space as a crucial locus, by tracing the rise of the corridor as a distinct mode of architectural distribution in domestic and public buildings since the eighteenth century. The article tracks pivotal appearances of the corridor in fiction and film, and in the final phase argues that it has become associated with a specific emotional tenor, less to do with amplified fear and horror and more with emotions of Angst or dread.