{"id":371,"date":"2014-03-26T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T01:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/?p=371"},"modified":"2014-03-28T17:34:13","modified_gmt":"2014-03-28T21:34:13","slug":"when-parisian-benches-have-politics-street-furniture-and-the-strategies-of-spatial-exclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/2014\/03\/26\/when-parisian-benches-have-politics-street-furniture-and-the-strategies-of-spatial-exclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"When Parisian benches have politics: Street furniture and strategies of spatial exclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Spikes<\/a>

Spikes in doorways are among a number of architectural street strategies used to deter homeless people. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 (copyright by Survival Group)<\/p><\/div>\n

Haussmannian fa\u00e7ades and art nouveau Metro entrances are what usually come to mind when one thinks of Parisian architecture, but the French capital has recently embarked on a new anti-homeless architectural trend, following the examples of other American and European cities (1). Of course, homeless people have long been the target of spatial segregation: from fencing to restrict access to delimited spaces to the locking of park gates and the installation of secure door entry system to bar entrance to apartment block staircases and communal areas. But beyond these traditional methods, usual elements of urban architecture are being increasingly redesigned to \u201csubtly\u201d deter long-term occupancy. From barrel-shaped benches, to cactuses, pebbles and spikes on ledges and doorways, these material strategies inspired by anti-skateboarder architecture (2) embody the same not-so-avowable objective: excluding homeless people from the use of public space.<\/p>\n

In his now canonical\u2014yet still controversial\u2014article \u201cDo Artifacts Have Politics,\u201d Langdon Winner put forward the provocative argument that technical things\u00a0in themselves\u00a0<\/i>have political qualities. Departing from the idea that technologies are neutral and only gain political dimension through the social circumstances of their development, deployment and use, Winner argues that technical devices \u201cembody specific forms of power and authority.\u201d His account of Long Island\u2019s low bridges, designed to limit the access of public transit users\u2014i.e., racial minorities and low-income groups\u2014to the area\u2019s resorts and beaches, reveals how the physical arrangement of urban space can embody political purpose. The notion of \u201cdisciplinary architecture\u201d is sometimes used to refer to such methods aimed at shaping behavior through the built environment (3).<\/p>\n

The development of anti-homeless street furniture tells a similar story; this time, it is a set of innovations in the design of devices that embody a strategy of spatial segregation against a particularly discriminated social group. This furniture was intentionally designed and installed in order to banish a social category from public spaces\u2014and, consequently, from the sight of their fellow citizens (4). STS stresses the idea that technological developments do not take place outside society, independently of social, economic, and political forces. Here, the installation of these devices tells us something about how France deals with a major political taboo (5): by making it\u00a0disappear<\/i>. By materially deterring \u201clong-term occupancy\u201d of park benches and bank frontages, anti-homeless street furniture has a direct impact on the (in)visibility of homelessness. Being physically banned from the\u00a0Polis<\/i>, the homeless are out of the sight of politics\u2014more than ever.<\/p>\n

Indeed, one of the most striking features of these new benches, spikes and cactuses, is the way in which they very often go unnoticed by the average citizen\u2014thanks to the \u201csubtlety\u201d of their design. In many cases, these installations are overlooked until they are made visible by activist groups.<\/p>\n

In 2006, a group of researchers from\u00a0the\u00a0European\u00a0Observatory\u00a0on\u00a0Homelessness<\/a>\u00a0detailed the deployment of these \u201cdeterrence by design\u201d devices across major cities in Europe: \u201cOne of the strategies purposefully implemented at Warsaw Central has been the removal of old wooden benches\u2014used by homeless people for resting and sleeping\u2014and their replacement with plastic seats designed to deter such activity.<\/i>\u00a0[\u2026]\u00a0Railway station managers are satisfied with the results as the seats are durable, easy to clean and deter long term occupancy by homeless people looking for somewhere to rest<\/i>\u201d (6). In France, the whistleblowers were members of\u00a0a collective of photographers, Survival<\/a>, who started to collect visual proof of these \u201canti-sites.\u201d After their artistic production was relayed by national media (7), the phenomenon eventually reached collective consciousness and entered public discussion. The photographers’ work resonates with the spectacular actions of the \u201cSons of Don Quixote\u201d activists who, in 2006, created\u00a0a\u00a0protest\u00a0tent\u00a0city\u00a0at\u00a0Canal\u00a0St-Martin<\/a>\u00a0in north-eastern Paris to bring the issue of homelessness\u2014however briefly\u2014out of obscurity and into public view during the 2007 Presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

Hence, the latest deployment of disciplinary architecture in Paris demonstrates once again that we need to pay careful attention to what\u2014and who\u2014is made invisible, for such moves very often hide the exercise of power and authority. Writing about such phenomena, aimed at bringing the dark to light, remains a critically important project for STS.<\/p>\n

Keywords:\u00a0<\/b>visibility; spatial exclusion; disciplinary architecture; technology studies<\/p>\n

References:<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The phenomenon, indeed, is not so new. In\u00a0City of Quartz<\/i><\/a>,\u00a0his classical study of the city of Los Angeles published in 1990, Mike Davis already noticed how street furniture was increasingly integrated in social segregation schemes.<\/li>\n
  2. Skateboarders have indeed been increasingly excluded from the streets by the invention and the quick spread of \u201cskate deterrents<\/a>“\u2014typically metal brackets that attach to benches or low walls.<\/li>\n
  3. The method echoes with\u00a0the\u00a0recent\u00a0controversies\u00a0over\u00a0the\u00a0infamous\u00a0Mosquito<\/a>\u00a0technology<\/a>, a device used to deter young people loitering by emitting a high frequency sound (see\u00a0this coverage broadcasted by CNN in 2010<\/a>).<\/li>\n
  4. For a broader illustration of these questions, see T. Gieryn, \u201cWhat Buildings Do,\u201d\u00a0Theory and Society,\u00a0<\/i>Vol. 31, No. 1 (2002), pp. 35-74.<\/li>\n
  5. In July 2013, the French National Institute of Statistics (INSEE) released a report showing that the number of homeless people in France has risen by 50% between 2001 and 2012, despite repeated political commitment of eradicating homelessness.<\/li>\n
  6. European Observatory on Homelessness,\u201cHomelessness\u00a0and\u00a0Exclusion: Regulating\u00a0the\u00a0Public\u00a0Space,<\/a>\u201d\u00a02006, p. 9.<\/li>\n
  7. Le Monde<\/i>,\u00a0\u201cParis\u00a0se\u00a0h\u00e9risse\u00a0contre\u00a0les\u00a0SDF,\u201d\u00a031 December 2009.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Further Reading:<\/b><\/p>\n

      \n
    • M. Foucault,\u00a0Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.\u00a0<\/i>New York: Vintage, 1979.<\/li>\n
    • L. Winner, \u201cDo Artifacts Have Politics,\u201d in\u00a0The Whale and the Reactor<\/i>:\u00a0A Search for Limits in an Age of High Technology.\u00a0<\/i>Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 19-39; but see B. Joerges, \u201cDo Politics Have Artefacts?\u201d\u00a0Social Studies of Science<\/i>, Vol.29, No. 3 (1999), pp. 411\u2013431.<\/li>\n
    • S. Woolgar, \u201cThe Turn to Technology in Social Studies of Science,\u201d\u00a0Science, Technology & Human Values<\/i>, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1991), pp. 20-50.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Haussmannian fa\u00e7ades and art nouveau Metro entrances are what usually come to mind when one thinks of Parisian architecture, but the French capital has recently embarked on a new anti-homeless architectural trend, following the examples of other American and European cities (1). Of course, homeless people have long been the target of spatial segregation: from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","author-abouayad","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stsnext20.org\/vignettes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}