Spikey Posters: Street media and territoriality in urban autonomous scenes

TY - JOUR

T1 - Spikey Posters

T2 - Street media and territoriality in urban autonomous scenes

AU - Gerbaudo, Paolo

PY - 2014/8

Y1 - 2014/8

N2 - This article discusses fly-posting practices performed by radical urban activists in Rome and Berlin. It suggests that political posters cannot simply be understood as channels of information about events and activities of a political and subcultural “autonomous scene” encompassing squats, occupied social centres, political bars, bookshops, cafes and similar activist hang-outs. Rather these “street media” are crucially involved in processes of spatial appropriation and in the construction of an antagonistic territoriality. Fly-posting exposes its practitioners to police repression and attacks by right-wing groups, and given the risks involved, it also becomes a form of demarcation, alerting that a certain wall, street, area is symbolically claimed by the movement. Looking at fly-posting we can thus better understand the nature of the movement scene activists construct as an antagonistic and exclusive space, whose internal communitarianism is premised on the symbolic and material repulsion of authorities and political enemies who put the scene's fragile existence in constant peril.

AB - This article discusses fly-posting practices performed by radical urban activists in Rome and Berlin. It suggests that political posters cannot simply be understood as channels of information about events and activities of a political and subcultural “autonomous scene” encompassing squats, occupied social centres, political bars, bookshops, cafes and similar activist hang-outs. Rather these “street media” are crucially involved in processes of spatial appropriation and in the construction of an antagonistic territoriality. Fly-posting exposes its practitioners to police repression and attacks by right-wing groups, and given the risks involved, it also becomes a form of demarcation, alerting that a certain wall, street, area is symbolically claimed by the movement. Looking at fly-posting we can thus better understand the nature of the movement scene activists construct as an antagonistic and exclusive space, whose internal communitarianism is premised on the symbolic and material repulsion of authorities and political enemies who put the scene's fragile existence in constant peril.

KW - fly-posters

KW - radical scenes

KW - urban activism

KW - territoriality

KW - boundaries

U2 - 10.1177/1206331213501127

DO - 10.1177/1206331213501127

M3 - Article

SN - 1206-3321

SP - 239

EP - 250

JO - Space and Culture

JF - Space and Culture

ER -