Contesting the Divided City: Arts of Resistance in Skopje

Abstract

This paper examines issues of power and resistance in "divided cities". Basing my analysis on fieldwork I carried out in Skopje, Macedonia, I look at how urban space may be constructed and used by hegemonic groups as a means of asserting their power and how, in turn, the city may be a place of resistance where power is contested and public space reappropriated. Drawing on Lefebvre's perspective on the production of space, I compare the conceived city to the lived city and examine how urban inhabitants may resist the division of the city and challenge hegemonic representations. I also draw on Debord's psychogeography to define an artistic, active and participatory approach to urban space through which the inhabitants may re-conquer their right to the oeuvre and to the city. I argue that the city as a lived environment may offer narratives other than division and that there are alternatives to the divided city. Résumé: Cet article a pour objet d'analyse les questions de pouvoir et de résistance dans les "villes divisées". M'appuyant sur un travail de terrain mené à Skopje, en Macédoine, j'examine comment l'espace urbain peut être construit et utilisé par des groupes dominants à des fins de pouvoir et comment, en retour, cet espace peut devenir un lieu de résistance, de contestation et de réappropriation citoyenne. La perspective développée par Lefebvre sur la production de l'espace me permet de comparer la ville conçue à la ville vécue et d'ainsi analyser la manière dont les habitants s'opposent aux divisions urbaines et défient les représentations dominantes. Je m'appuie également sur Debord et son concept de psychogéographie pour formuler une approche artistique, active et participative de l'espace urbain, à travers laquelle les habitants peuvent reconquérir leur droit à l'oeuvre et à la ville. Je conclus en défendant l'idée que la ville, en tant qu'espace vécu, a la capacité d'offrir d'autres voix que celles des divisions et qu'il existe en conséquence des alternatives à la ville divisée.

Spatial Poetics Under Authoritarianism: Graffiti and the Contestation of Urban Redevelopment in Contemporary China

“…A sensitivity to the contestation of spatial coding reveals a diversity of counter‐hegemonic practices and suggests a promising agenda for further research. For instance, a variety of artistic practices engage in poetic manipulations of space, from broadcasting sounds of past riots that disturb the pacified spatial order of a public park (Pinder :400) to installing a sculpture of a golden toilet to encourage passers‐by to question the neoliberal aestheticisation of urban exclusion (Véron :1457–1458). Play, gamification, and creative re‐appropriation are also used to destabilise hegemonic spatial rules and build new socio‐spatial relationships (Crossa ; Pinder ).…”

Routine failure in Macedonia: a critique of the Global Financial Crisis from the periphery

“…What was the economic value of (re)building twenty‐eight government buildings, five squares, eight parking lots, several bridges, two fountains, eighty or more statues and monuments, a triumphal arch, and even a replica of the London Eye except for lining the pockets of oligarchs with over 660 million euros? In 2017, after years of more or less successful protests (Veron 2016), only hardcore supporters of Gruevski justified the project. Most citizens, and especially international critics, openly criticized its rationale and aesthetics, which included plenty of plastic façades glued to older brutalist buildings, as a kitsch, corrupt project (Holleran & Mattioli 2022; Pojani 2015; 2018).…”

The Evolutions, Transformations, and Adaptations in Beirut’s Public Spaces

“…Lefebvre's triad has been widely used in various disciplines (Dorsch, 2013), more specifically in relation to public space to explain, for example, its resistance to commodification (Tornaghi, 2015), its co-production and reshaping (Wolf & Mahaffey, 2016), factors influencing its variations in Qatar (Salama & Wiedmann, 2013), or its state in neoliberal urban dynamics and regeneration in South Africa (Landman, 2019;Nkooe, 2018). More specifically, in the context of divided cities, the triad served to explain power relations and the construction of urban divides, or how lived space could counter divisions reinforced by conceived space (Nagle, 2009;Véron, 2016). Regarding Beirut, the triad has been used to explain the promotion of public space identity (Saksouk-Sasso, 2015) and people's role in shaping reconstructed urban spaces (Deeb & Harb, 2013;Fawaz, 2014).…”