City Seminar - 11 March 2014 - Mapping Urban Spatial Practices and Cultures of Dissent in Lahore and London

Nishat Awan (University of Sheffield) What role do dissenting practices have in the making of urban space? Using two diverse examples, from London and Lahore, I will focus on the performativity of such practices and on the support structures required to make them successful. In London, the focus will be on the recent Occupy movement, and occupation itself as a mode of urban spatial protest. In Lahore, the focus will be on the role of satire and mediatised modes of protest.Drawing on mapping work carried out by Masters students in Architecture at Sheffield University, the analysis in London will focus on the role of everyday practices in the day-to-day running of the St Pauls camp. The Occupy movement has brought occupation as a mode of protest to a wider audience and has shown how everyday practices of cooking, sleeping and learning together can become powerful modes of action in urban space. In the case of Lahore, the focus will be on forms of political satire and how these ma