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Conclusion

Guerrilla urbanism is a way for people to show resistance and refusal. By engaging in unsanctioned use of urban public spaces, they are demonstrating a refusal to be complacent in the capitalist neoliberal society that we live in. It is important for people to use urban space in these ways as it shows the government and/or other people in positions of authority that the people have a voice they are unafraid to use and a presence they are unafraid to assert. The photos in this blog, as well as the analysis that accompanied them, showed this in a variety of ways, such as graffiti, making political statements, protesting and celebrating differences, and using public spaces for unintended purposes. Some of the examples encompassed more than one of those things, such as the "Free Gaza" tag that was both graffiti and a political statement. There are so many other examples of guerrilla urbanism that exist, and though I only got to share a few, they were all important.

As for the importance of guerrilla urban tactics relating specifically to Sudbury, I thought this project was incredibly interesting and insightful. All the pictures I took are things I see around the city every day, but I've never really viewed them through the lens of guerrilla urbanism or resistance before. This project gave me a new perspective on a lot of phenomena I see daily, and allowed me to reflect on the potential meanings behind them (although it is impossible to know for sure without asking the people themselves).

Some of the photos I took, such as the Freedom Convoy or the Pride in the Park event, were more large-scale acts of guerrilla urbanism, but the other examples I included showed the more benign acts of daily existence that also count as resistance. Sudbury is a city I've lived in for most of my life, and though I love it and consider it home, it's not perfect by any means. Guerrilla urban tactics allow individuals or groups to point out these imperfections in the city and in the system. The only way for the oppressed and marginalized to make their discontent known to the rich and the powerful is through such acts, and it allows their voices to be heard. Graffiti, cigarette butts, and beer bottles left in urban spaces such as parks demonstrate dissatisfaction with the lack of space for youth to hang out for free. Vandalizing the Sudbury water tower with Indigenous slang serves as a reminder that the city exists on Indigenous land and profits off of its resources. Individuals organizing their own Pride march has a dual purpose of reminding the city and its citizens that LGBTQ+ individuals exist and deserve equal rights while also denouncing the co-optation of Sudbury Pride to serve neoliberal interests by collaborating with the police.

All of the examples noted in this conclusion and on this blog, as well as those that I was unable to share, show why guerrilla urban tactics are important locally. Change doesn't happen spontaneously; it only happens when people make themselves heard by resisting and refusing to maintain the status quo.

Word count: 523 (2 pages)

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Photo #5: Pride Parade

This is a picture of me at Sudbury Pride. I would've liked to have taken a picture of the full event, but I was wary of getting strangers in the frame and posting their faces all over the internet, so we'll have to make do with this selfie, although you can see some of the event going on in the background. There's a lot I can say about Pride being an example of guerrilla urbanism and resistance, from the origins of the celebration to the specific instance of me attending Sudbury Pride.

The reason why Pride Month is celebrated in June is because of the Stonewall Riots that took place on June 28, 1969 in New York City. After dealing with oppression from the government and the police for years, attendees of the Stonewall Inn began to riot after cops raided the bar and started arresting people. The riots took place over the course of several days and sparked a revolution for gay rights. Queer and trans people of all backgrounds occupied the streets, fought against the police, and handed out leaflets promoting pro-queer and anti-police sentiments. Although it would still be a long time before queer people started being treated more or less like equals in society, this revolt against oppression by the authorities kickstarted and paved the way for queer rights today, even though I wouldn't say we're fully liberated.

Fast forward 55 years, and queer people all over the world celebrate Pride Month in June. Sudbury Pride actually takes place in July, if we're going to get technical, but the point remains the same. The Sudbury Pride in the Park event counts more as an example of tactical urbanism than guerrilla urbanism though, as Sudbury Pride is an organization and we have seen examples of the movement being co-opted and diluted. As mentioned above, the first Pride was a riot against the police. It was headlined mainly by queer, trans people of colour. The Sudbury Pride parade has been cancelled (both in the literal and figurative sense) two years in a row because they keep trying to organize with the police for community safety during the parade, but, in doing so, are actively ignoring the safety of the queer people of colour in the community. As an example of guerrilla urbanism, I heard through word of mouth from the community that individuals were organizing their own pride march through downtown unaffiliated with the Sudbury Pride organization. I'm unsure if this actually ended up occurring though, as I didn't physically see it happening nor did I read anything about it online.

Another thing that I wanted to mention here was the location of Sudbury Pride. It took place in Memorial Park, which is a park right in the downtown core. As do most cities nowadays, Sudbury has a pretty large unhoused community. Many of them make their home in this park. There used to be a tent city in the park, but they were kicked out and I'm not sure where the individuals living there went after that. There are still a lot of unhoused individuals who live in the park, which is an act of resistance, not only by virtue of simply being unhoused, but also by continuing to live in Memorial Park after the tent city was evicted. One of the booths at the Pride in the Park event was a free clothing drive. The main purpose of it was for trans and gender-non-conforming individuals to be able to get new clothes for free, we also donated a lot to the unhoused individuals.

Word count: 597

Works cited: 1969: The Stonewall Uprising. (n.d.) Library of Congress Research Guides. Retrieved July 26, 2024, from https://guides.loc.gov/lgbtq-studies/stonewall-era#s-lib-ctab-24103782-0.

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Photo #4: Tire track marks

I took this photo as I was parking for work one morning. The picture shows skid marks from people's tires going around the parking lot. Obviously, I don't know for sure how these tire marks got there or why they were made, but my assumption is that they come from people practicing drifting or doing doughnuts in the parking lot. The lot where I park for work is shared between the main branch of the public library, the indie cinema, and a long-term care home. Despite the many uses of the parking lot, it's pretty empty most of the time, especially in the early mornings, evenings, and weekends. I've never witnessed anyone using the parking lot for stunt driving, but I have seen it used for other instances of guerrilla urbanism.

One such instance is skateboarding. There are only two skate parks in Sudbury, and while I believe they are used fairly often, I also see people street skateboarding a lot. It's not uncommon for me to see kids (or teens or young adults - sometimes it's hard to tell) skateboarding around the parking lot when I leave work. I don't know much about skateboarding aside from what we learned through the readings and the lectures, but from what I can tell, it doesn't seem to be a particularly challenging environment for skateboarding. The parking lot is well-paved with no speed bumps, but there are medians between the lanes. Still, I've seen plenty of people skating around this parking lot, either for fun or for practice. I've also witnessed people riding scooters or BMX bikes in the parking lot. This is an unsanctioned use of this space, as parking lots are meant for cars to park in, and there are designated places in the city meant for skateboarding (ie. the skate parks).

To return to the photo, I imagine that in addition to using the lot to practice skateboarding, people also use it to practice doing cool things in their cars. The skid marks in the photo clearly show someone drifting, and given its direction and orientation compared to the lines of the parking spots, I'm going to assume that this was done intentionally rather than someone doing such a terrible job parking that they ended up drifting into their spot. Although I've never specifically witnessed it at this location, I have seen people visiting empty parking lots specifically to do doughnuts and other stunt driving maneuvers in other places, such as a nearby high school and the not-quite abandoned mall in the South End. Even though parking lots are designed for cars, this is obviously not the intended use of it. The people who are performing the stunt driving techniques are doing so in a rebellious manner, counter to legal and safe driving practices.

Words: 464

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Photo #3: Freedom Convoy

This is a picture of the Sudbury branch of the Freedom Convoy. Every Saturday afternoon, from 12:30 until about 5:00, they gather in their pickup trucks in the public parking lot across from Bell park, which is the biggest and most frequented park in the city, along Paris Street, one of the main thoroughfares throughout Sudbury. They park their pickup trucks along the street, set up their tent, and walk around waving their Canada flags and "Fuck Trudeau" flags and hoisting their signs for everyone driving by to see. I'm not even entirely sure what it is they're protesting anymore, since the Freedom Convoy was originally conceived to protest mask mandates and vaccine protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they seem to have their fair share of causes. I've seen signs about protecting the children (I'm not sure from whom, probably transgender people), distrusting the government, and encouraging people to do their own research before labeling them as conspiracy theorists.

I decided to use the Freedom Convoy as an example of resistance because I feel like it goes against what we normally expect of resistance and guerrilla urbanism. A lot of the examples we discussed in class, whether from Cartographies of Youth Resistance (Magaña, 2020) or from the lectures, along with the rest of the photos on this blog, tend to focus on forms of resistance from more leftist or centre-left political perspectives. I would consider the Freedom Convoy to be a far-right organization, and I'm sure many of the individuals belonging to the Convoy would consider themselves to be conservative or right-leaning as well, but they are also participating in a form of guerrilla urbanism. In Sudbury, they are gathering in a parking lot and occupying public space in order to protest against the government, as well as gathering at Tom Davies Square (municipal government office) to disrupt an open house town hall meeting and protest government actions. During the COVID-19 lockdown, a much larger group of them from across the country drove to Ottawa and occupies the capitol in order to protest COVID-19 mandates. Although we generally tend to associate guerrilla urbanism and resistance with more left-leaning groups, it's not fair to discount right-leaning groups using the same tactics (eg. occupying public spaces for protests, leaving signs and stickers on public infrastructure to promote their cause without permission) to combat oppression (whether real or perceived).

The Freedom Convoy demonstrates resistance and refusal by protesting the government and its laws that they deem unjust and/or unfair, creating online and in-person counterspaces to organize grassroots campaigns and spread their message, and choosing not to follow laws that they believe violate their freedoms. Whether you agree with them or not - and it's definitely a polarizing issue for a lot of people in Canada (although I'm not entirely sure the Freedom Convoy still exists and regularly gathers anywhere else but Sudbury_ - they are a good example of a small group's guerrilla usage of urban space for resistance.

Word count: 497

Works cited: Clarke, T. (2024, March 21). Protesters disrupt open house at Tom Davies Square. Sudbury.com. https://www.sudbury.com/city-hall/protesters-disrupt-open-house-at-tom-davies-square-8490527

Magaña, M.R. (2020). Cartographies of Youth Resistance. University of California Press.

Parliamentary Committee Notes: Evolution of the Freedom 2022 Convoy. (2022, December 20). Public Safety Canada. Retrieved July 11, 2024, from https://www.sudbury.com/city-hall/protesters-disrupt-open-house-at-tom-davies-square-8490527.

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Photo #2: Graffiti at Fielding Park

I took this photo while I was on a hike at Fielding Memorial Park. It's a beautiful park in the city with lots of hiking trails and some amazing views. The hike I was going on has some gorgeous views of a river/stream and some beautiful greenery. Part of it also passes under Highway 17. The supports for the Highway 17 bridge are covered in all sorts of graffiti: lots of tags from what appears to be various experienced artists as well as lots of more amateur drawings, perhaps done by teens to be rebellious. Around the area that passes under the highway, there are some flat rocks that are pretty good for sitting on. I didn't get any pictures of this part, but there were lots of cigarette butts and beer cans left on the ground, along with evidence of some fires.

Again, since I don't know the people who made the graffiti or left behind their items, this is all conjecture, but I assume that people are using this section of the trail as a hangout spot to illicitly smoke cigarettes, smoke weed, and drink alcohol, as well as tag the supports for the bridge above. I assume it's teens and young adults doing these things. In a city where there is not much for teens to get up to, lots of people end up resorting to underage drinking/smoking, and they often end up doing so in private outdoor areas under the cover of night, where they are less likely to be caught by anyone, especially their parents. Pretty much the only activities that my friends and I did as teens was go to the mall, go to the movies, and hang out in parking lots. We never went out to the woods to go drink or smoke or anything, but we knew a lot of people who did so. It was a thrill, specifically because of the rebellious nature of the pursuit. By using an urban park for their illicit activities, they're rebelling against the authority of both their parents and the government. Some of the graffiti that I could read in this photo say "be happy", "705" (the area code for Sudbury and much of the rest of northeastern Ontario), "XO", and some larger tags that I presume belong to some more accomplished graffiti artists. I also saw some swastikas that had been covered up, but I elected not to take a photo of that.

Word count: 411

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Photo #1: "Free Gaza" graffiti

This is a picture of the words "Free Gaza" spray-painted on the back of a street sign int he South End. The sign is located on regent Street at a major intersection heading northwest into town from Highway 69. It's a spot that sees a lot of traffic every day, from people heading into town for work in the morning on weekdays to people headed north to their camps on the weekends.

Graffiti itself is inherently an act of resistance because it involves an individual or group leaving their mark on a public space in an unsanctioned way, either to send a specific message or to simply assert their presence and occupy a space. This was shown in Magaña's Cartographies of Youth Resistance (2020) with his discussion of the Oaxacan street art collectives and the many example photographs, such as El Juarez Punk. There is obviously nothing quite on the same level as the Oaxacan street art collectives here in Sudbury, but we do have our fair share of graffiti artists who leave their tags all over the city.

One example that I would've loved to have shared has unfortunately been cleaned up, so there's nothing to take a picture of. In 2018, somebody climbed up the water tower and painted the word "skoden" (Indigenous slang for "let's go then") over the word Sudbury. The man arrested for it was a mixed Cape Verde Creole and Anishinaabe artist. I couldn't find whether he has made any comments about the reason or meaning behind the painting - so this is completely my own interpretation and it very well could be wrong - but I believe that intentionally covering the word Sudbury with an Indigenous slang word was probably a statement on the fact that we are living on, using, and profiting off of Indigenous land. The word "skoden" could have been chosen as a way of telling settlers and colonizers to leave the land. There are plenty of other tags I've seen around and couldn't get pictures of, but that one is probably the most meaningful to me.

To get back to the point of the post and the photo I took, I chose to highlight this "Free Gaza" tag not only because of graffiti being an intrinsically subversive act, but because of the message. The movement to free Palestine has existed for years, but has gained much more traction since October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on Israel and started the Israel-Hamas War, exacerbating the already tenuous Israel-Palestine conflict. The Free Palestine movement has been an incredibly prominent example of guerrilla urbanism in recent months. From graffiti to protests to encampments, people have been using urban space in unsanctioned ways to bring awareness to the conflict and give voice to the oppressed (ie. Palestinians) who cannot use their own voices. One incredibly relevant example is the Occupy UW movement, where pro-Palestine students created an encampment on the lawn of the Grad House to boycott against entities complicit in the Gaza genocide and encourage the university to divest its pro-Israel affiliates. I haven't been in Waterloo, so I couldn't get a picture of it, but encampments like this have popped up at universities around the world for guerrilla grassroots organizers to show their support for Palestine.

Word count: 547

Works cited: Magaña, M.R. (2020). Cartographies of Youth Resistance. University of California Press.

Occupy UWaterloo [@occupyuwaterloo]. (n.d.) Posts [Instagram profile]. Retrieved July 15, 2024, from https://www.instagram.com/p/C66FGP2rTuD/?img_index=1.

Skindigenous. (2021, November 24). Facebook. Retrieved July 15, 2024, from https://www.facebook.com/Skindigenous/photos/a.1608856999409979/2693191534309848/.

Sudbury police make arrest in 'skoden' graffiti water tower case. (2018, November 27). CBC News. Retrieved July 15, 2024, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/arrest-skoden-water-tower-1.4922768.

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Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog! For anyone reading this who doesn't already know me, my name is Lauren and I'm a fourth year anthropology student at the University of Waterloo, but I'm originally from (and am currently living in) Sudbury, Ontario. I've attached some photos of myself and of Sudbury to this post in order to make the blog seem a little bit less impersonal and a little bit more real. This blog is the final project for my Urban Anthropology class, and it will be documenting traces of guerrilla urbanism and resistance that I've noticed in Sudbury while I've been taking this class.

Guerrilla urbanism was coined by Jeffrey Hou in his 2020 article Guerrilla urbanism: urban design and the practices of resistance as a term both akin to and distinct from Lydon and Garcia's (2015) concept of tactical urbanism. Both terms refer to unsanctioned and counterhegemonic use of public (urban) space; however, they differ in terms of who performs these practices, what their intent is, and the effects.

Tactical urbanism is an approach to using urban space to promote the building and activation of neighbourhoods and communities through fast and cheap interventions and actions (Lydon & Garcia, 2015). Guerrilla urbanism, on the other hand, is a much more insurgent, subversive, and rebellious approach to creating urban counterspaces.

At its heart, tactical urbanism is meant to be subversive and rebellious as well, and it normally is when performed by individuals or small groups; however, its cause can be diluted, sanitized, and co-opted when carried out by organizations and/or corporations. These institutions will strip the tactical urbanism of its true intentions in order to make it more palatable for the general public (ie. neoliberal capitalist audiences).

Guerrilla urbanism is the answer to the co-optation of tactical urbanism. This movement is more fluid and transgressive, unconcerned with appealing to hegemonic, neoliberal ideas. These are everyday acts of resistance that are inherently political and performed only by individuals or small groups.

Generally, proponents of guerrilla urbanism are those who are the most critical of the political-economic system: the underprivileged, disenfranchised, and oppressed. They are resisting the rich and the powerful (often one and the same) by asserting autonomy over their lives and livelihoods. More than just resistance, it can also be seen as a form of refusal, which is discussed by Mauricio Magaña in Cartographies of Youth Resistance (2020) in the context of Indigenous Oaxacan comunalidad. I believe that it also applies here, as guerrilla urban tacticians are not only resisting economic oppression, but they are also sometimes refusing to engage in the neoliberal environment in which we live.

The series of photos on this blog will showcase examples of both tactical and guerrilla urbanism in Sudbury, along with some explanations of the context of the photos and the reasons why I believe they showcase urban resistance. Once I started looking around for it, I was surprised by how many examples of urban resistance could be seen around town, and there were unfortunately so many examples that I wasn't able to get pictures of for various reasons. Nonetheless, it was a really eye-opening endeavour.

Word count: 524 (2 pages)

Works cited:

Hou, J. (2020). Guerrilla urbanism: urban design and the practices of resistance. Urban Design International, 25, 117-125. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41289-020-00118-6

Lydon, M., & Garcia, A. (2015). Tactical Urbanism: Short-Term Actions for Long-term Change. Island Press.

Magaña, M.R. (2020). Cartographies of Youth Resistance: Hip-Hop, Punk, and Urban Autonomy in Mexico. University of California Press.