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Who has the right to the city?

This week my sister sold her house in Lancaster, California. I, German, traveled about 2 hours to reach her home, it felt like I would never arrive moving through an open desert that looked like it had no end. I used to live with her in this city, but it was short-lived and I did not explore the city because I worked in Chatsworth, California and I left early and came home late. Guessing by the amount of traffic that moved towards Los Angeles every day I assumed that the city was full of commuters like myself. She asked me for help to move and when I arrived I looked at the city with new eyes. Because of the subject matter that we have been discussing the city began to feed me information that I had not been aware of before. The information had always been there, but I did not have the information necessary to retrieve it. All of the streets started to look similar to the rest of the cities that I had visited. The distinction between the locality of work, housing, and shops became very clear. What was missing? I could not find public life outside of some parks that were hardly being used.

Lancaster according to some neighbors of my sister used to be a much more family oriented place, but recently many people have moved away from Los Angeles and moved out towards Lancaster because of the cheaper cost of living. Most people stay indoors and only leave to shop and go to work. As we covered this week in the readings the city has become a place of exploitation and the people who keep the city running live on the outskirts because they are financially obligated and relegated to it. Although many people may be in the same situation, it is more difficult to see they are not alone in their struggle and that perhaps there is something they can do because of the lack of spaces to become familiar with strangers. If we analyze this situation through Marxist eyes the desegregation of bonds between people allows for these tropes to continue in city life. My sister’s neighborhood has no sidewalks. There is no public park within walking distance and the public library is on the other side of town. When one drives down the streets of Lancaster it is not uncommon to see people riding bicycles or walking on the sides of the streets as if there were sidewalks. People convene around gas stations or other convenience stores, loitering some would say. I went to pick up Chinese food with my sister, and when I was waiting for her to come back to the car I looked out the window and there was a man who set up a plastic chair and faced it towards the street. He proceeded to sit down, take a sip of his drink and resume a phone call on his Bluetooth earpiece. He did not seem to be waiting for Chinese food as I was. He did not seem to be waiting for anyone in particular. He simply set up a chair, took a phone call, and basked in the smog congested street before him. As we spoke about in lecture, the right to the city is not about owning the spaces that we inhabit, but rather to demand the frugal life that has been taken from us by private interests that stem from capitalist ideals.

He made a place that was empty of no use and used it to his convenience to have a place to rest his feet and give a pause to his day. He did not destroy or reconstruct the place that he inhabited rather he injected himself in a temporary manner and gave me inspiration on the reclaiming of the city. David Harvey says that we have to look at the urban form and the building of the city as a search for profit. This man had no advertising on his chair, as many benches or public seating areas do. He was not selling anything to people as they passed by. What I would assume about this man is that he comes from a place where sitting down with no agenda is commonplace and perhaps he too feels like some of the theorists that we have been robbed of our right to the city. He made a statement in that action created his own script, and gave himself the lead role declaring his right to that public space.

To further investigate the potential politics embedded within the city, and examine who does and does not have the "right" to the city, our group decided to analyze the organization and urban form of Carlsbad, CA -- a small-ish beach town in North San Diego County. To be specific, we decided to explore the location of the Carlsbad Public Library (Dove Library) and the surrounding areas. The "public library" is meant to be a "public space" for "all"; with the new lenses we have gathered through multiple theorist perspectives, we were able to walk into a public space with a new perspective and an open mind. The Dove Library's location is approximately 7 miles away from Carlsbad's downtown area. The library situates itself within a shopping mall that also carries the corporate weight of a large grocery store, close to 10 restaurants, and is only about 100 feet away from a Cinepolis movie theatre. Our noted observations of the businesses that share the same parking lot as the public library allowed us to see the constructed space through the eyes of David Harvey. Harvey highlights the significant aspects of city life in which the urban and capitalist growth of the city manages the population through a feedback loop of supply and demand which is ultimately the cycle of process. One can no longer go to a "free" public place without being bombarded with capitalist companies and corporations. As we continued to walk through the library's surrounding area, we noticed that there were new apartment buildings directly across the street from the library. The large plot of land situates itself with investment products that some call home. The apartment complex also has an up to date park with a playground and a large grass area; from afar, the park looks like it is accessible for the public to enjoy, but as one gets closer they can see that there is a gate code and that this particular space restricts public access. The abundance of 180 low-income rental homes that make up the space, through Harvey's lenses, were not designed to develop houses rather they were constructed as an investment in hopes of getting a positive return in the end. To further emphasize Harvey's beliefs that one has the right to the city, the library space continues to add benches, picnic tables, local art, etc., to reclaim their space and position. The act of reclaiming the city mirrors Harvey's notion that there is a desire, and it is a right, to want to gain back this authority and to thrive in a space where one can create themselves. The city is not outside of us. It is within us.

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Do informal practices and make-shift devices have politics?

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Do informal practices and make-shift devices have politics?

Do informal practices and make-shift devices have politics?

24 February 2019

Cities are made through a diverse combination of different formal and informal practices. Attention is usually focused on the formal such as planning, regulation, law, and economics over the informal. The informal consists of below-the-radar practices of everyday life and culture which hold just as much if not more important than the formal domain. It seems that informality is no longer an exceptional or radical condition in cities, in fact, it is arguably the defining quality of many cities today. The communities and even the streets within them are a representation of the informal because we get to see the culture of everyday life there, as well as what diversity there is. The buildings, stores, and cleanliness of each street can tell you a lot about the commonalities of the community regarding race, economics, and in some cases religion. For instance, when visiting the small community of Kearny Mesa, you get the feel of commercialization and industrialization. On one of its more popular streets, Convoy, which is right off the I-805 freeway, you see immediately why it is nicknamed Asian Row by some. Convoy and other neighboring streets in Kearny Mesa provide many, particularly minority cultures, space and opportunity for economic survival. When walking up and down the street, you will see a lot of smaller Asian family owned and operated business. There are a lot of auto sales shops, small (Asian) restaurants and bakeries, (Asian) supermarkets, and small businesses. As exemplified by the nature of the stores that are beside one another we noticed that there was a lack of uniformity in what could be next to each other. A tofu house was next to an acupuncture clinic and a hair and nails salon was next to a floral arrangement shop. This type of arrangement is not often seen in other commercial plazas. However, we did notice that there is a segregation of business when it comes to American places of business. It is much less likely to see an American storefront between two Asian places of business. People who move to the nearby areas accustomed to Asian cuisine and products most likely travel to Convoy to find products and services that are more difficult to find in other areas.

In order to minimize the distances that are needed to be traveled for the patrons of this area, there are various types of goods for sale found in one plaza. There are no close residential areas next to these stores, so it makes sense that a family would find convenience in different types of establishments being next to each other rather than having to traverse the city while running errands.

Most stores are located in small plazas with limited parking that they have to share with the other establishments. The street is also not dominated by one Asian culture, there are a variety of cultures that are prevalent on Convoy Street such as Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Thai establishments. When the highway engineers were planning the I-805 Freeway they did not foresee people opening restaurants and auto shops and dealerships right off the freeway exit, but many minority store owners did and this expands the use of this infrastructure. Also important to note is that the largest dealerships that are in the area are Subaru, Honda, and Infiniti which are all Japanese companies adding to the Asian element of the area. Store owners on Convoy add importance to the streets of Kearny Mesa by bringing services to people. Their stores provide a community to people and bring them together. These uses enriched the urban landscape by adding more activity to the commercial corridors and residential streets.

As Daniela Fabricius discusses in, “Looking Beyond Informality”, informality is a postmodern approach to design that is not formally planned yet is a representation of social and cultural practices and movements in society -- spaces become places for reasons such as unplanned architecture. The Convoy area is the perfect representation of an area that developed through social progress and “counter-modernist” movements in order to embed cultural practices into the daily life of society; with the abundance of amazing food and places to shop in mind, it is quite a challenge to not embrace the informality in the Convoy area. Fabricius writes, “Informality was seen as a way to move beyond the exhaustion and failures of the modern movement, and a way to critique the ideology of state-controlled planning. The rhetoric of informality –flexibility, spontaneity, desire, choice” (145). The presence of informality in this particular San Diego area can be viewed as a form of cultural resistance in which spontaneous businesses and informal practices develop through forms of agency and informal social planning. It should be noted that the presence of informality in San Diego, as well as around the world, carries a political weight in which new “social possibilities” alter the way in which our bodies move and participate in society.

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Do sidewalks, cars or steps have politics?

German- For my drift I chose to explore the old town of my neighbor city. I have visited a coffee shop at the entrance of the district many times, but have never taken the time to explore it. I parked my car at the very beginning of the old town strip and decided that I would walk down one side of the street and enter places that were not food related. I had a pen and a notepad to help me jot things down as they came up. As I walked down the street many of the food places were at the beginning of the strip and they have tables outside for people to eat. As I passed by I looked at all of the people and my gaze was reminiscent of the look that one gives to storefronts as one passes by when curiously looking in. The first small shop that I entered had some mannequins in the window wearing fancy clothes, and I entered. I was the only one in the store and a woman approached me asking me if I needed help, and I explained that I was just exploring and that I was new to this part of the town.

I crossed the street once I reached the end of the strip and walked through the backside of the street rather than the main street. I entered other small shops up some stairs where there were many people who seemed to be exploring just like me and there was has hardly any space to move around in the shops because of the limited space. Also, the rain was pushing everyone inside. Contrary to department stores where one can easily lose their way, these small shops forced people to be in close quarters with one another. De Certau says “The act of walking is to the urban system what the speech act is to language or to the statements uttered… it is a process of appropriation of the topographical system on the part of the pedestrian; it is a spatial acting out of the place…” (98). I felt like through the process of drifting in this new area while being aware of the urban system allowed me to make inferences about why this area was designed in this particular way. The small shops gave me a feeling of closeness and personal attention. The people sitting out in the patios talking and eating made me feel like I could just walk over and sit with them. A couple of bars that I walked by also had this type of design and people would walk from the curb directly to a bar seat. Also, the curbs were very small in comparison to other parts of the city, so there was a constant reconfiguration of people when walking in groups. As I drifted, I was learning the language of the area and the conversation made me realize that this part of the city has stayed true to old town values of camaraderie and closeness rather than space and separation. A renovation has probably taken place many times since the original completion of this district, but it is clear that the ideals of the design have been kept intact upon my analysis through drifting.

Abraham- In the rain I decided to drift in my own neighborhood which I have never done. I have driven countless times but I have never walked. I immediately took a right from my driveway and started to go down the main street. After about five minutes I reached a house that had barking dogs, not too far was a bus stop that I have never used. I decided to keep going straight through the hilly terrain of my neighborhood. There were no painted crosswalks but luckily there were stop signs. Harkening back to Baudelaire’s idea of a flaneur, I was not seen, but differentiating from the same idea I was not seeing anyone. No one was out in my neighborhood. I get to very steep hill and go down. Making a right, I am thrust into a bustling intersection with a shopping center and a public transit stop. The hill I had to go down to get to the trolley could not have been navigated by anyone in a wheelchair. I smell food and start heading in that direction and am met with a Church’s chicken. There was a deal for a $5 fried chicken combo. By this point I had walked nearly a mile and a half and had encountered a Food 4 Less, Starbucks, trolley stop, and various restaurants. I could not have walked this route at night because there were no lights. This walk was physically taxing as well. The food offered was junk food that allowed for EBT purchases. All in all I noticed a disillusionment from the ideal city proposed by the likes of De Certeau, for the path to anything of value was obstructed by physical barriers.  Steep hills and a lack of curb cuts made my drift difficult. I was deeply aware of the politics of the sidewalk and was appreciative as well as saddened by my reliance on a car to get around.

Keaton- When I, walked out my front door, I did not know what direction I wanted to go in initially. As I walked to the sidewalk I made a left turn walking up the street. As I reached the stop sign, I made a left turn going up the hill and once I reached the top, I crossed the street making a right and proceeded down the long busy street. While walking in that direction, I passed an elementary school, Chase Bank, Carl’s Jr, and small shopping center before I made it to the 76 gas station. From there I made another right turn, making my way down a large hill passing apartment complexes, housing, and a middle school. That hill luckily had sidewalks for me to walk down, which I never noticed before because I usually drive down it and I never paid any attention. This was my favorite part of my walk, because that hill has a lot of trees and bushes and it makes me feel at ease. I love the smell of trees and plants and it gave me a small dose of nature being in a large city. Then came a small bridge that I crossed when I looked to the left of me across the street, I saw the starting point for a trail hike, and when I looked to my right I saw the small canyon below the bridge but one thing that I was able to see for the first time was the small creek below it. It might have just formed from all the rain but it was still beautiful to see. Making this walk, has shown me how much I miss when I am driving and have a destination in mind. Just walking and taking in my surroundings makes see the beauty around me and how much I am missing because I am so focused on getting to my destination.

Kerry- I, decided to embark on a journey that allowed me to drift to an unknown destination through the means of transportation of a motor vehicle. I began my journey by getting my belongings ready and hoping into my 2007 Ford Mustang -- I believe this is the first time in my many years of owning my vehicle that I did not have a particular destination in mind as I turned on the engine. As cliche as it sounds, I went with the flow of my mindset and drifted my vehicle and body in motion with the current climate on the roads of Carlsbad. As I began my drift-like drive, I noticed that a bright blue, old school Volkswagen Bug coasting down the hills of my neighborhood; to be completely transparent, this is not the type of vehicle that I am accustomed to seeing in my neighborhood. My neighborhood consists of many retirees with their Mercedes’, BMWs, and Audis’. I took the viewing of the blue bug as a sign to follow the flow in which they were moving (in the most least creepy way possible, I promise you). As I made my way down the hills of Carlsbad which consists of mainly residential neighborhoods, I reached the freeway entrance of the I-5 with the bright blue bug just a few car lengths ahead of me. I noticed that the bug was about to merge onto the freeway; with this, I took my culturally constructed agency and continued to drift on the roads of Carlsbad, now inching much closer to the coast (it is to be noted that I did not follow the bug due to not wanting to reach a designation based on another human’s actions and mindset). I began to cross over the freeway when I noticed the lack of sidewalks. In my residential neighborhood, there is an abundance of sidewalks and areas for pedestrians to walk safely as well as near the coast. It can be rightfully argued that the lack there of sidewalks near the freeway entrances could be a social sign to not loiter in that specific area. I continued to drive south on the Coast Highway 101; as I was driving, I noticed that there were bicyclists on the road, pedestrians walking and running on sidewalks, as well as signs reading “Don’t be a toad, share the road. This is a bike town!” (I felt like a postmodern version of the flaneur, seeing the people but they cannot see me). The politics embedded within the signs that are projected in the small town of Leucadia remind the docile bodies of the city to conform to the laws and respect all forms of transportation. As Mimi Sheller and John Urry mention in their academic journal, “The City and The Car”, the car allows for an abundance of agency to be put on humans and society as a whole. The car has transformed the way in which people go about life -- they can now leave later and can now change their entire time clock based on how long it takes them to get to a certain designation, at a certain time, all through the technology of a motor vehicle. My drifted drive led me to the local coffee shop, Pannikin Coffee and Tea, where there is “no wifi, just coffee”. Sheller and Urry further mention “people lose the ability to perceive local detail, to talk to strangers, to learn local ways of local life…” (747); with that being said, it would be likely that I would have a much more free-spirited and less structured of an experience if I took the one hour and forty five minute walk to the Pannikin rather than a thirteen minute drive -- revealing the politics embedded within the beachtown of Leucadia.

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Do cities have politics?

When I, Abraham, receive my first billing statement of the year from UCSD there is only one charge, the almost $700 that I pay for the Student Parking Permit that allows me to park on campus for the entire year. There aren’t many spots for students but that is not what I am here to discuss. Instead I would like to discuss the circumstances that force me, countless peers, and a majority of the residents of Southern California and elsewhere, to pay for expensive permits and endure traffic and gas costs to commute to work and school. Below is the suggested route for me to take using public transportation from my house in San Diego to UCSD. The estimated route times average about 2 hours and 30 minutes including a lot of walking to and from bus stops. The actual distance from my house to school is only 18 miles. Luckily enough I am able to afford the parking permit but many in my neighborhood and similar ones to mine can not. They are forced to endure the nearly 3 hour commute to work or school every day. The navigation instructions for this public transportation route are long and there are several stops that force the rider to step off and get on a different trolley or bus. I took this route to get to campus to see what it would be like and was surprised at just how many people in my community rode public transportation into La Jolla. As I took this particular route, my group members took alternate routes to get multiple perspectives on moving through the city. Each of us noted that, not only do the public transportation passengers wake up before dawn to get to work or school on time, they also have to suffer the silence of the trolley car. No one speaks to one another. Analyzing this trolley route for its incessant stops and muted silence allow us to answer how cities have politics.

As the readings explained, sidewalks and roads were expanded to give one the sense of freedom. In a similar way, the city is designed in a way where people can spread out and live in places that are more affordable, which seems like it affords people the freedom to choose how they want to spend their earnings. However, what is missing from the center of the discussion is the lasting effects of city designing into future generations. As we can see from any map of San Diego people are traveling from the periphery to the center where most businesses and places of education are located. As stated, the amount of time and sacrifice that it takes for people to travel to their destinations is unreasonable.

If one person or a couple makes the decision to move out of a certain area, it often dictates the opportunity of future generations. In many cases the ability to attend a school or training of some sort to further one’s possibility of financial improvement is highly based on the geographical area that one can or can not get out of, and this can include the possibility of being realistic about being able to get to a workplace day in and out. As Simmel tells us, “In order to find a source of income which is not yet exhausted, and to find a function which cannot really be displaced, it is necessary to specialize in one’s services.” (57). In effect, the city pushes us to produce identities that are useful for the machine in order to be seen as a functioning part of society or in this case the city. Yet, the places that help people in crafting their individualized skill sets are often out of reach, and that is without getting into the tuition portion of the matter, only speaking of distance. The design of a city is so intertwined with our lives and we do not realize how much it dictates our possibilities, it opens our eyes to see how little is done to remediate and reorganize the city to serve the general population. This analysis of transportation allows us to see who and where the population that is best served is located, and it demonstrates the difficulty that the rest of the population is just asked to deal with.

As we each took alternate routes to get back to campus, there was an overwhelming feeling of  “freedom” in regards to our movements and journey through the city. This was not a feeling of freedom that meant we were free to do whatever we wished (as laws and policies prevent us from doing so); rather, the freedom to move through the city as if it were an empty space with several directions to choose from allowed there to be agency in our movements -- allowing the way we move through the city to become political. This ability to move freely through the city by one’s self allows for modes of individualism to arise; and it should be explicitly noted that the city does not provide “freedom” for all, and recognizing who is granted these accessabilities is equally as important. Baudelaire and Benjamin describe the “flaneur” as being a new kind of individual walking through the city in which the individual can see everyone around them but no one sees them. As we moved through the constructed infrastructures, it was clear that the power of the gaze was within our group. The feeling of Benjamin’s “flaneur” especially resonated with our group as we migrated through the many sidewalks and crosswalks that make up the city. The various infrastructures have not only adapted to the “new ways” of moving through the city -- but has the potential to change the way in which we mentally perceive ourselves as individuals...or are we just one of the masses?

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Do Buildings Have Politics?

     As we walked into Geisel library and observed each floor of it, we noticed the built-in “politics” of the library because of the way it has been structured and divided. Each floor is designed for a specific style of study. The 1st floor or the lower floor is designed to be for collaborative study, although only in the West wing. The East wing is a study area dedicated to silent study. The 2nd floor or main floor is for collaborative study throughout. There is no 3rd floor, it is the outside “forum” level; people generally take pictures outside in that area by some of the statues and beautiful bushes that surround the area. You are also able to look out and see students walking through library walk and get a feel for the pace of the day for the students. The floors 4th through 7th are designated for quiet study areas like the East wing on level 1. And the 8th floor is designated for silent study.

     The structure of each floor inside of Geisel library shows how buildings are a representation of imperfect stabilizers of social life. Each floor is designed to separate those with different goals, study styles, and social behaviors. I, Keaton, for instance, am a social butterfly and tend to spend my time on the West wing in Level 1 and level 2. I never noticed how I subconsciously gravitated towards the main floor especially. I think because when I hear an abundance of people speaking, I get excited and want to join the conversation. I found myself, following my usual routine when I enter Geisel, which involves myself following the crowd noise and searching for my friends or anyone else that I might know so I can sit and start a conversation. Though libraries in general sense are supposed to be a place of silent study like on level 8, the designers of Geisel cleverly created an environment that accommodates all peoples personalities and study preferences, while also being mindful of each and separated them so each style did not disturb one another.

     As Le Corbusier relates to us the division of spaces inside of an enclosed structure is necessary in order to organize the chaos of life. Although these subdivisions are not perfect in the stabilization of natural social organization, they are a starting point for people to feel some sense of direction upon entering the building. The social design of keeping noise levels in different areas is not one that is materially represented, but rather through the division of space with walls and floors people are able to designate areas for a certain type of student, and in this way, the student is designed by the building. The building separates one type of student from another and hence generates a type of student that can work in a specific way.

     Diving deeper into the politics of Geisel Library prompted our group to analyze the smaller elements that make up the library’s various spaces. Geisel Library is constructed into eight distinct levels all which have similar political structures and essential features that construct the behavior of individuals who use the library space and resources. The eight levels of Geisel Library each have their own noise level and social expectations for those actively participating as a spectacle on that particular floor. Each noise level expectation is represented in a hierarchy of color codes (green, yellow, and red) to represent the intentional architecturally developed noise levels. For reference, the first, second, and third floors are considered “active” spaces, while floors four through seven are quiet spaces, and the eighth and highest floor where one is expected to discipline their body to remain silent. In order to deeply understand the politics that are embedded within each floor, our group decided to examine the components that make up the spaces. On the first floor, Audrey’s Coffee Shop is situated amongst a social gathering of students who are studying in an “active” environment where voices and actions are not under surveillance as much as they would be on other floors. The element of the coffee shop within Geisel allows for the notion that “one does not need to leave this space as we have everything here” which reflects Natasha Dow Schull’s analysis of the structural elements within Las Vegas casinos and how almost anything one could want or need is readily available in the space. This type of architectural like manipulation has a much more positive connotation as students are expected to study as much as they can. Some structural elements that our group recognized on each floor were the abundance of charging stations, the need to walk through library resources or books to get to a study space, bright lights, and a literal open book floor plan (Geisel is built to resemble hands opening a book) promotes a scholarly environment where one is encouraged to stay a while, stay awake, and study. In Kaika’s study of the domestication of nature, she tells us buildings are designed in order to manipulate the natural phenomena of the outside to bring it inside. Geisel is designed to keep the natural elements out, yet it is also designed to bring in a certain percentage to avoid the perception that one is trapped inside. Natural light helps people to work for longer periods and the air conditioning and central heating allows one to be comfortable during different seasons. The restrooms and drinking fountains are also vital to the efficacy of the building in managing the resource of water for our use. As Dow Schull rightfully argues, these socially constructed elements are more absorbed when we are consciously unaware of the space around us -- allowing the political power and agency to lie in the architectural structure of buildings as the structure ends up structuring one’s behavior. This can be viewed as what Schull calls “behavior modulators” where essentially buildings and their construction, such as Geisel Library, are carrying a social signal to the human mind which is then transmitted into their politically and socially structured actions.

   The flow of study at Geisel Library mirrors Schull’s reference to Gilles Deleuze’s theory that “discipline, formerly the dominant mode of power in Western societies, had been modified and to some degree overtaken by a logic of “control” that worked not by confinement or restriction of movement, but by the regulation of continuous, mobile flows”. The open floor plan of Geisel Library encourages a “flow like” feel and “flow like” behavior although the discipline of academics and social expectations of a library space continue to remain constant.

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Does technology have politics?

The fluorescent lights of the Target department store hit our faces as we walked into the Santee branch, T1485. I, Abraham, needed to pick up some groceries for my family, German needed a new charging cord for his phone, Keaton wanted some new workout clothes, and Kerry needed some tools to work on fixing her desk at home. As we entered the Target we split up in search of our items. As I walked towards the produce, all the way to the back of the store I passed by the pharmacy and housewares. I remembered I needed some toothpaste and bodywash and added it to the cart. German noticed a set of headphones on sale, the deal was too enticing.

Keaton had to go all the way to the back of the store by the fitting rooms to find the men's clothing and in the process noticed a nice Champion fleece in the women's section that he passed that he thought might look good on a friend of his. As Kerry walked through the heart of the store to get the hardware section she observed the Target brand towels were only $3 a piece and she needed a new color for her bathroom. The lighting in that store really does something to you. Or at least that's what I’ve heard from countless soccer moms that enter that depths of the store with the Bullseye and exit with a receipt longer than my homework assignment for the week. I’ve heard, “My husband is going to be so mad at me, HA!” countless times. Even my group members and I fell victim to the bloated shopping cart. In all of these examples there is something more going on that we are not always conscious of when we walk into a store. Our inner thoughts and feelings of what we think we might have forgot we needed or what we think a friend might like are triggered as we walk the maze of the store to get to what we really came for. In a sense we are “nudged” into a larger realm of buying options. This strategy employed by architects, planners, and those in power serve to make humans choose and for the most part choose to buy more. Even if you might not have needed something the temptation of the large SALE sign at the front of an aisle might just be enough to get you to walk down and buy something. The politics of these objects and technologies seem to be overtly manipulative but the reality is most of us don’t see it.

The layout of the store is not accidental and the distribution of commodities are telling. The architecture of Target is not arbitrary, but it is naturalized because we are people of habit and routine who become accustomed to a certain layout and we don’t think much of the commercial maze that we enter. For example, to reach any department one has to physically cross other departments that through the social construction of gender identity individuals are targeted. The design is not necessarily malicious, rather because of the constraints of a building there is only a limited amount of space where merchandise can be distributed in a convenient manner for the customer.

As Thaler and Sustain mention, “Choice architects must think about incentives when they design a system. Sensible architects will put the right incentives on the right people. One way to start to think about the incentives is to ask four questions, Who uses? Who chooses? Who pays? Who profits? (97)”. When one examines the design of this particular store it is clear to see that the “choice architects” generalize the needs of specific customers to maximize the chances of the customer picking up other items and minimize the options for certain customers to venture into particular departments. Molotch notes this in saying “One must go beyond the surface of a piece to examine the decisions that went into making it, including the constraints imposed by the available technologies, gender relations and other aspects of social organization. (13)” In an alternate universe the architecture of Target could be designed to ask the customer for their list of needed items upon entering and have unique paths for the customer to put other options out of sight that aren’t on the list. However, that wouldn’t be in the interests of the store and it would in turn also ruin the possibility of the customers stumbling upon goods that aren’t necessarily marketed to them.

As our shopping at the socially structured environment came to an end, it was time to use our available currency in exchange for our selected goods. In order to further understand the politics imbedded within the advanced technologies at Target, each of our group members decided to use the self-checkout option. During the self-checkout process, each of us were “prescribed” tasks by the non-human actant. In reference to Latour’s ideas on human’s tight-knit relationship with artifacts, it became very clear that the technology within the self-checkout device was being delegated the responsibilities of traditional human cashiers. The self-checkout device greeted each of us, kept track of our items, prompted us with a total amount, accepted currency, and sent us on our way. The “delegation” placed upon the non-human-self-checkout-actant allows the technology to have agency as it is taking place of a human actor and also “prescribing” tasks to humans. In particular, the self-checkout technology prescribes humans with prompts telling us what to do next (i.e., scan your next item, place item in the bagging area, etc); and when there is an issue with the device, there is a human actor (Target employee) being prescribed a task in order to override the given issue. The constant shifting of responsibility between non-human and human actors creates the actor-network theory where agency is given to both non-human and human participants to create a social and political structure (Latour). This tight-knit relationship creates a network where non-human and human actors work together to create the social system we know today where there is a constant exchange between delegation and prescription -- with of course noting that during the entire checkout process, each of us was under the surveillance of a camera -- creating the notion of Foucault’s panopticon effect. 

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Please click the images and zoom in to read the text, the quality of the image did not render adequately. 

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Where Is the Political?

K is the interviewer and J and R are responders. 

K: What do you think about when you think of politics? J: Drama. K: Could you elaborate a little more? J: When I think of politics I think about older people arguing...and rather than arguing about the people...they are arguing over the politics of greed. R: When I think of politics, I think about the importance of votes...and how votes are the only way to make fair decisions. K: What is politics to you personally? J: Politics is a way of expressing oneself through the means of rules and regulations. R: The democratic process of supporting the people and listening to the voices of the people is something I personally think is necessary for a fair society. K: Why do you think you have these views on politics? J: Politics is on more media outlets than ever. It is difficult to have a fair understanding of what information is valid...and what politics actually are...with the various messages on different news outlets.   R: Agreed.

It can be rightfully argued that the interviewees have a personal, and even private, relationship with politics. Both individuals suggest how critical it is for the people in society to be acknowledged as a top priority. The acknowledgement of the people includes representatives having open ears and an open mind when it comes to the ideologies and belief systems of everyday people. Arendt writes, “The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves, and while the intimacy of a fully developed private life, such as had never been known before the rise of the modern age and the concomitant decline of the public realm, will always greatly intensify and enrich the whole scale of subjective emotions and private feelings, this intensification will always come to pass at the expense of the assurance of the reality of the world and men” (Arendt, p. 50). Arendt sheds a significant light on the aspect of the common which represents what it is that brings individuals collectively together -- it is not only the physical space in which individuals meet, it is the intellectual speech that delivers an abundance of ideologies that ultimately join us or divide us as social beings. It can be indicated that the interviewees have practiced politics in both the public and private sphere; with that being said, all individuals collectively contribute to the intersection of both worlds allowing for a life to be worth living -- all through the art of speech and action.

Similarly Aristotle humanizes politics when compares the state to a living body composed of multiple elements (Aristotle 107). In this one interview it is clear that people have a sense of politics that is at a base level, more complex than simply grand figures ruling from far away lands. Not only are the subjects understanding of the role people play in the performance of politics but they are also, if only subconsciously, acknowledging that their bodies are in some way political.