Urban Improvisations: The Profanatory Tactics of Spectacularized Spaces

Abstract

How can we think of micro-resistances or critical deviations to the contemporary process of urban spectacularization? This process generates both the pacification and the sacralization of public spaces in current projects of so-called urban regeneration. An interesting suggestion proposed in this paper is to think of improvisations as urban tactics of desecration in spectacularized public spaces, with a focus on the uses, practices, and popular appropriations already existing in the city—in particular in the opacity, vitality, and intensity of public life in the most popular and informal areas of the cities.