In the Midst of the Revolution
The 'Rond-Point' as Media of Contention
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.14.2.4735Abstract
Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to explore the political agency of the rond-point, an element of infrastructural design which, since the 1980s, has become a ubiquitous feature of urban planning across the French territoire. Doesn’t the fact that the gilets jaunesseem to choose the peripheral roundabouts as their preferred sites of political contestation – while ignoring the square in the town centre – attest to a proverbial political unconscious? What makes the centres of the roundabouts amidst the informal peri-urban space such attractive mediators for the political causes of the gilets jaunes? The fact that thousands of yellow vests perseveringly chose to assemble at or on roundabouts requires us to come up with alternative ways of thinking the spatial settings for the appearance, the representation and the practice of ‘the political’, the res publicaor public matter.
Keywords
Architectural theory, political theory, contention, infrastructure
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