Public Space in Conflict: Conceptual Coordinates and Ideological Tensions

Abstract

In this article we provide conceptual and argumentative tools to think and to problematize the notion of “public space”. We start outlining the main discursive frames that are usually used to define “the public space” as a research object in urban studies. Drawing on the neo-Marxist critique to the normative ideal of public space as an ideological standard that mystifies structural social inequalities, we underline the theoretical and political inadequacy that derives from ignoring the contested nature of public space as an arena for the territorialisation of broader social struggles. We develop this critical view of public space as a site in which an ideological dispute takes place, revolving around the definition of the boundaries of the legitimate publics and the classist naturalization of the right to exclude. Finally, we outline some of the most common modalities of urban conflict that underpin this destabilizing view of the normative public space.