Call for papers
Artistic and cultural praxes in the transitional and contested territory
of urban public space

A stream at Critical Legal Conference, 5-7 September 2013 in Belfast.

Conveners:
Peter Bengtsen & Matilda Arvidsson (Lund University, Sweden)


In their presentation of the "Reconciliation & Reconstruction" theme of
this year's Critical Legal Conference, the organisers suggest that a
pertinent topic of discussion might be the role of art and culture in
contested political territories.

While the notion of political territory may immediately bring to mind a
specific contested geo-political location, this stream proposes a take
on the theme that invites submissions which specifically consider the
urban public space as a contested territory.

Where people meet, so do conflicting interests and ideas: in cities,
which are characterised by - among other things - a high population
density, this invariably leads to incompatible spatial claims and
on-going clashes between diverging agendas of a political, commercial,
legal, moral, social, cultural, and artistic nature. This is reflected
in, for instance, people's everyday praxes on city streets, where
legislation, social norms, and notions of spatial justice help regulate
interaction in - and with - urban public space. While in this sense
constricting, these elements of social control also constitute a nexus
of creativity as they continuously incite individual agency, as people
seek to circumvent them.

While laws, regulations, and norms play an important role in maintaining
the relative openness of urban public space (by limiting what any one
agent - an individual, organisation, a company, or other legal entities
- can legitimately do there and lay claim to), this space is arguably
also constituted by the individual and collective agency which takes
place within this cross-field of diverging interests. The collaborative
or conflicting acts, resulting from the multiple agendas and visions of
the nature and purpose of urban public space, leaves it in a state of
constant transition and contestation. This can be seen in for instance
authorities' removal of graffiti writing, which not only restores urban
public space to its intended (material, visual, and legal) state, but
also leaves a blank canvas for someone else to engage with.

In thinking about urban public space as a contested political territory,
this stream invites participants to discuss a range of topics including,
but not limited to:

- the transitional nature of urban public space and the artistic and
cultural expressions found within it
- artistic and cultural praxes which investigate, problematise and/or
actively challenge urban public space and its dominant uses
- artistic and cultural praxes as a means of regenerating urban public
space
- the materiality and agency of artworks and their potential to address
and/or resolve conflicts in urban public space
- the strategies and voice(s) of the marginalised in urban public space
- personal appropriations of urban public space and their (positive or
negative) contribution to the publicness of urban public space
- the role of critical legal theory in investigating and understanding
artistic and cultural praxes within urban public space
- the effects of legislation, legal decisions, and law enforcement on
individual praxis in urban public space and/or the effects of individual
praxis in urban public space on law enforcement, legal decisions, and
legislation

The stream welcomes traditional papers/presentations as well as formats
which transgress or transform the traditional framework of an academic
paper presentation. Participants are thus encouraged to actively combine
academic reflection and commentary with alternative ways of finding,
presenting and representing findings and ideas (e.g. presenting - or
creating/conducting - an installation, a performance, or other artistic
or cultural praxes).

Please submit your abstract (250-300 words) to either
Peter.Bengtsenkultur.lu.se or Matilda.Arvidssonjur.lu.se by 15 June
2013.