The transformative potential of dissensus. Contesting hegemonic agendas of urban regeneration in El Cabanyal, Valencia

Navarro Eslava, Luz 2023. The transformative potential of dissensus. Contesting hegemonic agendas of urban regeneration in El Cabanyal, Valencia. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis sets out to explore the potential of dissensus as a concept and practice in order to contest hegemonic discourses and narratives in the context of urban regeneration. Particularly, I look at the spatialisation of dissensus within what I identify as counter-hegemonic spatio-temporal sites. I show how these practices, which I refer to as ‘agonistic urbanisms’, have the potential to be sources of alternative practices of urban transformation and how they can facilitate the inclusion of political subjects currently left outside the mainstream production of space and knowledge within the city. I do so by looking at the case of El Cabanyal in Valencia (Spain), a coastal neighbourhood that has been the focus of intensive speculation and regeneration planning in recent years. Ultimately, I argue for how ‘agonistic urbanims’ can repoliticise what neoliberal governance arrangements have profoundly depoliticised worldwide. Through the research, I looked at how dissensus has shaped urban development and regeneration processes in El Cabanyal through two main periods, including their impact on citizens who have resisted and contested them. In connection to this, the thesis has looked at the ways in which hegemonic discourses have been challenged through the materialisation of dissensus as agonistic spaces in El Cabanyal. The first period between 1998 and 2015, under the government of conservative mayor Rita Barberà’s, was characterised by the staging of dissensus from those who resisted the neoliberal entrepreneurial urban agenda that sought to erase El Cabanyal from the map. The second period extends from May 2015 to late 2017 under a new progressive left-wing government, which has seen the emergence of new hegemonic discourses and new dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. The transformative potential of dissensus and its materialisation into agonistic spaces has been investigated by looking at resistance and contestation practices to hegemonic discourses and urban agendas, together with shifting identities during these two different political contexts in Valencia. My original contributions to knowledge are two-fold. First, I add to existing scholarship by showing how dissensus is not an instance or a rupture in El Cabanyal’s history but a long process that has shaped the place and its inhabitants. Second, I reveal how that dissensus is materialised through a variety of practices that can contest hegemonic urban agendas and empower people to negotiate and reach their goals, desires and aspirations. In doing so, I show how agonistic urbanisms can challenge the consensual giveness of a place by materialising urban imaginaries that stage and define equality and have the potential to inform an alternative to the planned city. In conclusion, I argue that spatial practices must move from their technocratic and managerial 14 approaches and deal with dissensus and embrace agonism to escape non-critical engagements with spatial and designs practice, resisting static Cartesian solutions and profit-based visions of urban futures.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Architecture
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	28 February 2024
Last Modified:	08 Mar 2024 10:17
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166607

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