The refeudalisation of parks: subduing urban parks in Bucharest

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper explores parks in Bucharest under regulations prompting greening projects and how, through these, the past has reclaimed markers evoking refeudalisation. Shifting the metaphor from a Western context to Bucharest, our approach extends the Jürgen Habermas’ refeudalisation of the public sphere to urban parks as they progressively become elements in the local framework of power. Based on fieldwork coupled with archival research, this paper identifies three major elements affecting the green spaces of Bucharest (the political imprint of political power, zoning regulations and leisure management) and how they support refeudalisation trends. From these perspectives, we infer the political and ideological character of Bucharest's urban space that is infusing its parks with refeudalisation tendencies. The explored directions assume the political power as a function of a distorted evolution with economic patriarchal interests arbitrating socio-natural reality. Accordingly, the refeudalisation of the public sphere found in marginal settings is likely to aggravate and disguise under specific discourses about planning, greenness and nature sustainability.