Resisting Urban Spectacle: The 1984 Louisiana World Exposition and the Contradictions of Mega Events

Abstract

This paper examines the planning and staging of the 1984 Louisiana Exposition, the last world’s fair in the United States, and makes comparisons with other US world’s fairs, to provide insight into the sources of opposition and resistance to urban spectacles. Drawing on the work of Guy Debord and his concept of the ‘society of the spectacle’, this paper advances a conception of mega events as spectacles of contestation that embody contradictory tendencies and articulate conflictual and opposing meanings of urban space and reality. Rather than obscuring and camouflaging urban problems, mega events like world’s fairs express social inequalities and display highly contradictory urban representations that can spawn resistant agendas, complicate élite redevelopment agendas and divide pro-growth coalitions. Through a critical interrogation of the Debordian concept of spectacle, the analysis in this paper suggests a new theory of mega events as sites of struggle and articulators of political dissent, a conception that helps to explain the increasing international opposition and protest against the Olympics and the mega-event strategy.

Unequal cities of spectacle and mega-events in China

“…But when this contradiction emerges in the spectacle, it is itself contradicted by a reversal of its meaning: the division it presents is unitary, while the unity it presents is divided." This point about spectacles as possessing both unitary and divided was taken up by Kevin Gotham (2011) who looks at the example of Louisiana's hosting of the 1984 World Expo to argue that mega-events are also 'spectacles of contestation', as they exhibit "highly contradictory representations that can generate intense conflict and contestation" (p.209). Unlike in the US, China's social, economic and political environment does not permit the bottom-up contestation of the ruling regime to blossom in the open public sphere.…”

“…For instance, Kevin Gotham (2005Gotham ( , 2011 examines the US experiences of hosting urban festivals and world's fair to discuss the extent to which mega-events that functioned as a means to conceal inherent social inequalities could also operate as 'spectacles of contestation', giving rise to the formation of resistant agendas.…”

“…More socially oriented attentions have often highlighted detrimental impacts on the urban poor as part of beautification projects to transform host cities' urban landscape (Bhan, 2009;Greene, 2003;Newton, 2009). While maintaining a critical political economic perspective, this essay attempts to build upon the emerging literature of viewing mega-events as societal spectacles (see Broudehoux, 2010;Gotham 2011), and put forward the proposition that these megaevents in China are promoted as a means to create 'unified space' (Debord, 1967) for the purpose of both capital accumulation and socio-political stability for further accumulation.…”

Cidades e Exposições Internacionais: da “Stone in a Pond” ao “Meteorite from Another World”

“…Tal qual se observa ainda hoje quando da realização de grandes eventos ou da implantação de grandes projetos urbanos (vide Gotham, 2011, para a Louisiana World Exposition, de 1984e Olds, 2010, a implantação das cinco Exposições selecionadas acima impõe uma política de redução de eventuais conflitos com seus interesses, seja no uso direto dos terrenos escolhidos, seja até mesmo na eliminação de estruturas civis, usos e apropriações que possam "desfigurar" a nova imagem oficial da cidade que se pretende criar.…”

Annual City Festivals as Tools for Sustainable Competitiveness: The World Port Days Rotterdam

“…Leisure visitors search for spectacle and entertainment, and thus visit events for recreational purposes. This is widely discussed in urban studies literature on mega events (e.g., Garcia, 2005 [24]; Gotham, 2011 [25]) or on city festivals (e.g., Quinn, 2005 [6]; Van Aalst and Melik, 2011 [7]) and it is shown that such events have especially impact on societal development, such as social exclusion, economic development linked with the entertainment and tourism sectors, or urban generation in general. Events for business visitors, such as trade fairs and congresses, are discussed in literature in economic geography (Maskell et [4]).…”