contested public and private spaces in England. By Dr Katrina Navickas
some recorded thoughts inspired by Aya Sakai, ‘Reassessing London Squares; the development of preservation policy, 1880-1931’, Town Planning Review, 82: 6 (2011).
See also: H. Lawrence, ‘The greening of the squares of London: transformation of urban landscapes and ideals’, Annals of the Association of American Geography, 83 (1993), 90-118; H. L. Malchow, ‘Public Gardens and Social Action in Late Victorian London’, Victorian Studies, 29 (1985), 97-124.
Further reading: (h/t to Chris Williams)
Urban Governance: Britain and Beyond Since 1750, ed. by Robert J. Morris, Richard H. Trainor (Ashgate, 2000)
Michael Winstanley, ‘Oldham Radicalism and the Origins of Popular Liberalism, 1830-52’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 619-64
Feed by the human rights barrister Adam Wagner :
Link to the legislation changes here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/684/pdfs/uksi_20200684_en.pdf
And here are some maps from the mid 18th century of some of the organisations land holdings (in red).
— Matthew *wash-your-hands* Taylor 🔶🇪🇺 (@mat8iou) June 8, 2020
The first is Clifton in Bristol. The second is the Manor of Locking near Weston Super Mare, the third is the Manor of Beere near Cannington in the Somerset levels. pic.twitter.com/rXLqvKEFt7
I'm intrigued at how often closed groups originating from early modern or 18th century financial or merchant guilds still have an input into council decisions. It's like 19th century incorporation & 20th century administration of governing structures never happened.
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) June 8, 2020
Foucault called it heterotopia – a temporary moment during periods of structural dislocation, where the protestors enact a ‘world turned upside down’ using forms of carnivalesque symbolism (such as attacking an effigy).
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) June 7, 2020
Doreen Massey theorised this local to global brilliantly. I also recommend Dave Featherstone’s rethinking of Raymond Williams’s concept of ‘militant particularism’ in this respect too. The local matters. We protest locally to join the global movement.
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) June 7, 2020
Then it proved impossible to find a wording that everyone accepted. The first plaque that it bore, added when it was erected in 1895, said ‘Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city’. NO mention of slavery. (2)
— Prof Kate Williams (@KateWilliamsme) June 7, 2020
Bristol Radical History group: https://www.brh.org.uk/site/
Iwan Sudradjat, ‘Foucault, the Other Spaces, and Human Behaviour’, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82579543.pdf
Angharad E. Beckett, Paul Bagguley & Tom Campbell, ‘Foucault, social movements and heterotopic horizons: rupturing the order of things’, Social Movement Studies, 16 (2017), http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/101839/3/Heterotopia%20Article%20Beckett%20et%20al%20Final%20Edited.pdf
Horrid Covid! online zine invited me to do a conversation with the curator, Helen Kaplinsky, for their issue 4, ‘Parks’. Listen to 30 mins of us talking about parks, privatisation, public space and protest.
We cover discussion of the origins of parks and ’emparkment’, access to public space, pandemics and legislation, and the development of protest from the local to the global.
Listen now:
https://hc4thepark.hotglue.me/?Scroll
now the site of the new council building
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) May 28, 2020
[we still miss Taberner House 😢] pic.twitter.com/AUcYqDkVdw
which I think is where the *so not dated* Virgin Media building is pic.twitter.com/wC1uq4Jz65
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) May 28, 2020
further reading:
John Broughton, Municipal Dreams
There have been some great contributions to the #heritageofprotest tag on Twitter this week. Here’s Dave Steele on the protest sites of Birmingham. I like the materiality of the site being carved out of the sandstone.
#heritageofprotest
— dave (@history_dave) May 27, 2020
I have been doing some work on sites of protest in Birmingham and have come up with no less than 18 meetings over 21 years from 1817-1838. Eleven of these were at Newhall Hill a former sandstone quarry on the Colemore Estate which left a perfect amphitheatre pic.twitter.com/h8v2HTMhSD
#heritageofprotest a thread on the history of protest meetings and public space
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) May 25, 2020
In the early 20th century, planners and societies like the NPFA were obsessed with a minimum standard acreage per 1000 people (the aim was 4 acres).
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) May 7, 2020
By the 1960s, the association realised this was too crude a measure that did not take into account the inequalities of access
the general secretary at that time (1960) even mooted that the only solution was legislation governing the price of land and permitting compensation from central government funds to landowners.
— Katrina Navickas (@katrinanavickas) May 7, 2020
For why land reform failed, see Michael Tichelar, https://t.co/3w7bG4FpCm