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The purpose of this paper is to ask how forms of “performative” interventions can prompt processes of re-thinking, which can, in turn, instigate the critical production of public space. Most importantly, it also asks how this methodology can manifest within various cultural and political contexts. Today, public spaces tend to be controlled either by the state or by private corporations. Neoliberal policies promote commercial interests, which subsequently drives inequality and determines what can and cannot be accessed by the public. The public spaces that are currently present in the neoliberal cities are, in fact, “pseudo” public spaces.

In an attempt to form new understandings of this problem, the authors’ approach is rooted in feminist theories of performativity, which focus on how identities are persistently re-produced through performance. These theories consider how the “self” is always entangled within everyday life interactions and how it is shaped by both societal and bodily practices. Framing spaces as shapable, informed by the embodied dialectic relations between spaces and social relations, the study uses forms of performative methodology to create productive disruptions and “constructed situations” (Debord, 2012). This methodology consists of intervention within these spaces in order to produce alternative public space and forms of publicness. Based on research conducted at the Sheffield School of Architecture, as well as a four-day invited workshop at the Floating University Berlin, this study investigates applications of performative practice methodology in the cities of Amman and Berlin.

The paper will begin by exploring how the two cities are regulated through various political and planning policies that affect public spaces. This line of enquiry will also involve questioning physical, social and political access to public space in these contexts and analysing the various actants, performative actions and processes that were involved in producing performative interventions.

The paper will conclude by discussing the potential and limitations of applying and translating such approaches in public spaces within different cultural and political contexts. As such, the study proposes a new methodological framework for re-thinking and provoking the critical production of public space through forms of performative spatial practice.

Outdoor arts festivals have been proposed as a means of rehearsing democratic practices and of placemaking interventions in the space time of contemporary capitalism. I consider whether they are really able to repurpose civic and pseudo public space and challenge the production and reproduction of that space as a colonial and neoliberal territory, or are they merely examples of the ‘pseudo-fête’ prolonging such structures by other means?

This chapter uses case studies of two outdoor arts festivals in the United Kingdom, at which I have performed rhythmanalyses, to explore festivalised spaces and the extent to which they might empower people. Empowerment here relates not only to individual agency, autonomy and self-determination but also to the development of shared, social identity within crowds. The role of festival management, the arrangement of festival space/times and the codification of behaviour are of particular relevance to these effects. I use time-lapse videography to capture data around flows and accretions of audiences, combined with my embodied presence in the lived space of the festival, sensing its rhythms and atmospheres.

Using the concept of polyrhythmia to comprehend and unpick complex durational patterns, I focus on how public spaces are transformed when animated by performances and how public space can redefine both performance and audience dynamics. The adaptation and application of rhythmanalysis in this project has revealed patterns of behaviour and evidenced characteristic qualities of outdoor arts which were previously ignored or only assumed.

This chapter draws upon ethnographic observation and walking interviews with private security staff to offer in-depth insight into the hyper-regulation of the city and the lived dynamics of parkour’s inconsistent inclusion and exclusion from urban space. This chapter argues that the street-level governance of urban space is largely incoherent, fractured and characterised by a myriad of conflicting spatial interests. As neoliberalism has privatised and fractured the city into a series of microspheres of spatial sovereignty, there is a lack of any notion of the common urban good; therefore, what should be allowed and prohibited from urban space. This is a manifestation of the broader trend towards post-political forms of governance. It is argued that the confusion and contradiction that surrounds what city spaces should be for actively contributed to the forms of spatial compromise developed between private security and the traceurs.

This study aims to fill the lack of quantitative studies of user preferences in quasi-public spaces to observe the use of quasi-public spaces by questioning the contemporary needs of urban communities and to develop design strategies accordingly.

Within the scope of this study, public space design elements affecting users' preferences in the quasi-public spaces of the Podium Park shopping center in Bursa, Turkey were evaluated. By considering the spatial characteristics of the study area, 4 main and 15 subcriteria were determined and utilized by analytic hierarchy process (AHP). These criteria were evaluated by experts and locals with a participatory approach.

According to the obtained results, “events” (S2), “sun/shade” (C2), “safety” (P3) and “planting” (U4) subcriteria were determined as the vital elements for quasi-public spaces.

Although the concept of quasi-public space has been discussed for nearly 30 years, it has been observed that there are no quantitative studies to determine the criteria of user preferences in these open spaces in the literature. This study is the first quantitative research for user preferences in quasi-public spaces and there is no previous study on this subject and study area in Turkey.

The authors begin the chapter with the contemporary discussion on the crisis of public spaces and use a Simmelian regarding to focus on two dimensions of this debate. First, the meaning of the thesis that argues the death of the public areas of large cities. Then, the relevance of the category public spaces, using the diversity of types of spaces and types of interaction that are associated with and try to show why they cannot be reduced and homogeneously represented. Hence, from research conducted in Brazil and Portugal, the authors illustrate the various dimensions of public spaces with examples of conflicts and appropriations from its everyday uses.

This paper argues that this animal surveillance has the potential for considerable function creep going far outside the scheme's original objectives and acts as a conduit for more problematic surveillance of humans. This results in social sorting of people with subsequent unforeseen consequences leading to discrimination and curtailment of freedoms for both animals and their owners. Ultimately this opens people up to further intrusive targeting by commercial interests and, more alarmingly, scrutiny from law enforcement agencies.

An empirical study examining an initiative involving the collection of canine DNA sources data from publicly available Cabinet, Select Committee and Scrutiny Committee records from the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (LBBD). It also draws on news media sources, publicity material from the company running the scheme and from this and other local authorities. Methods include analysis of documents, semiotic and discourse analysis.

This paper highlights the importance of animals to surveillance studies and examines the extent to which animals are a part of the surveillant assemblage in their own right. It also demonstrates how nonhuman animals extend the reach of the surveillant assemblage.

The scheme was called a badge of considerate dog ownership, yet it is one that can be franchised to tie up with diverse income streams being described as advantageous in the age of austerity. In 2017, it was reported that this scheme was to be rolled out in other areas and was moving from being voluntary to being mandatory with the enforcement of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs). These have been described as “geographically defined ASBOS” that have come into force under the Anti-social Behaviour and Policing Act (2014); they often work to criminalise activities that were not previously considered illegal.

In the theorising of surveillance, animals have been largely overlooked. Epidemiological studies proliferate, yet the role of animals in many aspects of everyday surveillance has been neglected.

The cultural imperative for public buildings in countries like Australia to maintain their intrinsic “openness” – physically and symbolically – faces particular challenges in the context of current global terrorism concerns. Building regulations and counter-terrorism guidelines coexist uneasily, with implications for both public amenity and safety. This is particularly evident in the context of current approaches to hostile vehicle (HV) mitigation.

Based on a review of comparative literature, this multidisciplinary project assimilates design aesthetics and security expertise to assess the advantages and limitations of current counter-terrorism design approaches in Australia, the UK and the USA. The research focusses on public buildings of high cultural symbolic value (e.g. concert halls) in the context of HV mitigation.

Two key recommendations emerge. The first presents the benefits of adopting a layered security strategy tailored to a building's security and symbolic profile mix. The second proposes enhancements to the existing counter-terrorism guidelines based on a model that accounts for both symbolic value and openness.

The research presents new strategies for urban design and security stakeholders to balance openness and security in the design of publicly accessible buildings. While existing research addresses the challenges of terrorism in the design of public space, a literature (and practice) gap exists in Australia, the UK and the USA regarding current approaches to the design of public buildings. Using Australia as a case study, the findings will inform government and industry practitioners seeking more complementary approaches to public amenity and safety in comparable counter-security design contexts globally.

This chapter aims to make a contribution to recent debates on the ‘governance of security’ (Johnston & Shearing, 2003) by drawing upon empirical research conducted by the author and other writers on ‘plural policing’ and the construction of closed circuit television (CCTV) surveillance networks. The chapter attempts to avoid the tendency in some of the ‘governmentality’ literature to ‘airbrush out the state’ (Hughes, 2007, p. 184), whilst at the same time showing that the aims and intentions of dominant state forces and elites are not always realised in practice. The chapter also tries to avoid any simplistic notion of a shift in policing strategies from ‘crime fighting’ to ‘risk management’. The aim instead is to show how the construction of surveillance networks is blurring the boundaries of the ‘public–private’ divide along the ‘sectoral’, ‘geographical’, ‘spatial’, ‘legal’ and ‘functional’ dimensions (Jones & Newburn, 1998), giving rise to a plural policing continuum.

This chapter brings the book to a close by summarising the overall argument and looking to the future of commodified lifestyle sports and post-industrial cities under an ailing capitalist economy. Most importantly, it calls upon academics to abandon concepts of resistance and social scientific approaches rooted in symbolic interactionism and discursive meanings in order to return to a critical analysis of the real generative mechanisms of political economy. This chapter closes with a brief epilogue that returns to the traceurs and the parkour community in this study one year after the ethnographic fieldwork ended.