Table Of ContentSPACE, MATERIALITY AND THE NORMATIVE
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I CONTROLLING URBAN EVENTS
ANDREA PAVONI
Controlling Urban Events
How does order emerge out of the multiplicity of bodies, objects, ideas and
practices that constitute the urban? This book explores the relation
between space, law and control in the contemporary city – and particularly
in the context of urban ‘mega events’ – through a combined geographical
and normative analysis. Informed by the recent spatial, affective and
material ‘turns’ in the humanities and social sciences, Andrea Pavoni
addresses this question by pursuing an innovative and trans-disciplinary
approach, capable of accounting for the emergence of order in urban
space both at the conceptual and empirical levels. Two overarching
objectives are pursued. First, to account for the increasing convergence of
logics, techniques and technologies of law, security and marketing into
novel, potentially oppressive spatial configurations. Second, to envisage a
consistent ethico-political strategy to counter this evolution, by rethinking
originally and in radically spatial terms the notion of justice. Forging a
sophisticated and original analysis, this book offers an analysis that will be
of considerable interest to those working in critical urban geography,
critical legal studies, critical event studies, surveillance and control studies.
Andrea Pavoni is post-doctoral fellow at DINAMIA'CET, Centre for
Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies, at the University Institute of
Lisbon, Portugal. He completed his PhD at the University of Westminster,
London, in 2013. He is a fellow at the Westminster Law and Theory Lab,
co-editor of the Law and the Senses Series (University of Westminster Press),
and associate editor at the journal Lo Squaderno, Explorations in Space and
Society.
Space, Materiality and the Normative
Series Editors:Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos and Christian Borch
Space, Materiality and the Normative presents new ways of thinking about the
connections between space and materiality from a normative perspective.
At the interface of law, social theory, politics, architecture, geography and
urban studies, the series is concerned with addressing the use, regulation
and experience of space and materiality, broadly understood, and in
particular with exploring their links and the challenges they raise for law,
politics and normativity.
Titles in the series:
Spatial Justice
Body, Lawscape,Atmosphere
Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
Urban Commons
Rethinking the City
Edited by Christian Borch and Martin Kornberger
Border Security
Shores of Politics, Horizons of Justice
Peter Chambers
Forthcoming:
Law,Art and the Commons
Merima Bruncevic
www.routledge.com/Space-Materiality-and-the-Normative/book-
series/SMNORM
Controlling Urban Events
Law, Ethics and the Material
Andrea Pavoni
First edition published 2018
by Informa Law from Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Informa Law from Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
A GlassHouse book
Informa Law from Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Andrea Pavoni
The right of Andrea Pavoni to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information
contained in this book is correct, neither the author nor Informa Law
can accept any responsibility for any errors or omissions or for any
consequences arising therefrom.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-1-138-64514-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-62832-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Baskerville
by Fish Books Ltd.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
1 Space matter event 11
2 Atmosphere rhythm tuning 45
3 Law space justice 69
4 Control urban event 108
5 Tuning the city 152
6 Law profanation justice 211
Conclusion 253
Bibliography 270
Index 301
Acknowledgements
Much respect to the hidden writers of this book, for stated and unstated
reasons: danilo (for the presence) andreas (for the lines of flights) mubi
(for the territories) la cherie (for the patience) cate (for being cate)
christian (for the atmosphere) cod (for the nest) val senales (for the
whiteout) joburg (for keeping it real) matteo (for the weeds) nicola (for
the pessimism) david(for the form) peter(for the interior) marco(for the
swing) tulu (for the pages) blub (for the disruptions) ubu (for the
meticulousness) pedro (pra capa) chris (for kick-starting) steven & vijay
(for the control), alex (for the shelter) michiyo (for the koto) mb (for
keeping on) madre e padre (for the support) david & kirstie (for the
brandscape) guy (for the encouragement) andrew (for the pragmatism)
giorgio (for the profanation) ai (for the seeds) gilles (for making this
happen) the others(who, though unmentioned, were indispensable).
Não cantes tua cidade, deixa-a em paz.1
Carlos Drummond de Andrade
A force de souffrir, je perdis les limites de mon corps et me démesurai
irrésistiblement.2
Henri Michaux
Jede derartige Grenze bedeutet Defensive und Offensive; oder vielleicht
richtiger: sie ist der räumliche Ausdruck einheitlichen Verhältnisses
zwischen zwei Nachbarn, für das wir keinen ganz einheit lichen Ausdruck
haben, und das wir etwa als den Indifferenzzustand von Defensive und
Offensive bezeichnen können, als einen Spannungs zustand, in dem
beides latent ruht, mag es sich nun entwickeln oder nicht.3
Georg Simmel
1 ‘Don’t sing your city, leave it be.’ (Drummond de Andrade, 2012[1936]: 11).
2 ‘By dint of suffering I lost the limits of my body and gave up my shape, irresistibly.’
(Michaux, 1966: 48).
3 ‘Each border means defensive and offensive, or more precisely: it is the spatial expression
of the unitary relationship between two neighbours, a relationship for which we lack a
unique term, and that we may define as the state of indifference between defensive and
offensive, a state of tension in which both persist at the dormant state, may it or may it
not unfold.’ (Simmel, 1908).
Introduction
1. City is contradictions, and seeking to overcome them is bad
utopia: the city cannot be their peace.1
At the turn of the millennium, Pierre Bourdieu and Loic Wacquant
defined neo-liberalism as the ‘new planetary vulgate’.2 About ten years
later, Neil Brenner described urbanisation as a planetary process.3 In the
mean while, as the early definition by Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer
is increasingly accepted in both the fields of science and humanities, the
concept of Anthropocene indicates the extent to which the human has
become a ‘planetary force’ in its own right.4Were it not such an ugly term,
perhaps the urbanocene would be a more precise approximation of the age
we are in.
In 1867, coining the notion of urbanisation, Ildefons Cerdà described it
as a natural, trans-historical and universal process, ‘an essential category of
humankind’, immanent to the coming-together of human beings in co -
habitation, and coessential with civilisation.5He had a point. As soon as the
human begins walking upright, the stability, and ‘intense sense of security’,
that the four-leg square provided is lost. Plunged into the dis equilibrium
and insecurity of verticality, the need to build a roof becomes paramount.
‘The very first cogito’ – Michel Serres writes – ‘was a plan for a refuge to
recover the lost ball’: architecture is born as an ontological necessity.6
However, if the Neolithic signals the advent of the new condition of
inhabitation within a designed and built environment,7 the urban may be
understood as a precise socio-historical condition, one which corresponds
with the affirmation of capitalism. It is not the factory, but the contem-
porary metropolis, to be the quintessential locus of capitalism, both in the
1 Cacciari, 2009: 42 (my translation).
2 Bourdieu and Wacquant, 2001.
3 Brenner, 2013.
4 Crutzen and Stoermer, 2000; Castree, 2014.
5 Adams, 2014.
6 Serres, 1999 (my translation).
7 Wilson, 2007.
