New Spaces of (Dis)engagement? Social Politics, Urban Technologies and the Rezoning of the City

Abstract

This paper discusses the changing nature of urban space and urban technologies, using various conceptions of engagement in social politics to illuminate contemporary understandings of cultural change and social exclusion and the role of housing within this. The progressive reorganisation of urban space, which is at least partly a result of global economic changes, is producing complex forms of social politics organised around newly emerging varieties and scales of engagement and disengagement. These are cross-cut by a number of cultural themes that play out differently in different spaces. Thus ‘fear’ is universally significant, but perceived ‘differentially’ according to space, culture and socio-economic status. ‘Excitement’ is also an important theme, though more for some groups than others. The capacity to use resources—material, cultural, technological—and particularly the reflexive utilisation of these resources, also affects the nature of social politics and the specific nature of proactive and defensive (dis)engagement. The paper argues that the social scientific analysis of housing would do well to take cognisance of these debates if it is to continue to produce nuanced analyses able to take account of the socio-spatial, cultural and political realities of informational capitalism.