Walking the City

Evelyn Ruppert states that “any city-making project relies on practical discourses

consisting of rationalities, reasons, logic, arguments, and justifications” (2011).

George Street itself is of vital importance to how the city of Dunedin envisions itself

particularly as a neoliberal, post-industrial “creative city” situated within a society of

control. This envisionment is only realized through the enaction of technologies of

governance, consumption, commerce and leisure, including interactions between the

four factors. Throughout this essay I will examine how such devices of

governmentality are enacted every day on George Street; examining how “good” or

safe spaces for citizens are created, therefore indirectly conducting how citizens

govern themselves as an ideal public (or “governance at a distance"), through an

ethnographic approach. I conducted my ethnography research on Tuesday, 31st of

March at approximately 3-4p.m. All events or features noted further in this essay refer

to things I have noticed whilst walking the city during this time period and how they

reflect the nexuses of technology, governance, commerce and leisure through the

everyday practices of Dunedin’s inhabitants.

Aspects of governance on George Street include the use of surveillance amongst a

variety of other governing technologies. I will use Michel Foucault’s theory of the

panopticon to explain how this surveillance encourages people to become docile, self-

governing subjects, focusing particularly on the designated closed circuit television

(subsequently abbreviated to CCTV) area in and surrounding the Octagon located on

central George Street. The panopticon refers to a building designed by Jeremy

Bentham, adapted by Foucault to explain his concept governmentality or the ways in

which the state practices control over publics. The panopticon has a watchtower in the

center of a circular building with open cells facing it. The watchtower has mirrored

glass so it is not apparent to the “watchees” when the watcher is present or absent.

Because the individuals are constantly visible, they begin to self-regulate as the

source of power is invisible and could be watching, thus becoming their own jailor.

In a post-industrial economy there is a renewed emphasis on creating safe spaces for

consumption, for example the extra lighting around the entrance of the Meridian Mall

creating a welcoming affect later in the evening. This can be applied to the CCTV

area in the Octagon as the surveillance cameras give the aesthetic appearance of

safety, and reminds citizens with the use of signs to self-govern or else face discipline

from the state (in this case, the Dunedin City Council or Dunedin Police). The DCC

itself has stated that the objective of the CCTV cameras are to “reduce crime and

disorder levels by deterring potential offenders, reduce the public’s fear of crime, help

ensure a timely, effective police response and to assist in the detection and

prosecution of offenders (helping to) secure a safer environment for those people who

live, work and visit Dunedin’s city centre.” (DCC website, 2015) However, Hier

would disagree, stating that “the universal imperative to designate the 'normal' from

the 'abnormal', the 'disciplined' from the 'afflicted' finds resonance in the articulation

of dangerous others set in the binary context of apparatuses of security” (2004), in this

case DCC setting up a binary of offenders versus the people of Dunedin's city center,

creating milieus of paranoia which undermine the DCC's apparent goal of a “safer”

city center through spreading ideologies of fear.

As Foucault states in Discipline and Punish, “the body becomes a useful force only if

it is both a productive body and a subjected body” (p.25-26). By indirectly monitoring

Dunedin citizens through surveillance, the state is able to perform what Ruppert

names “governance at a distance” (2011), offering a “configured range of

unconstrained choice” (Garland, 1999) to reconfigure rather than forcibly remove

Dunedin citizen's agency into that which is reflective of neoliberal values – that is, to

consume and spend freely as opposed to committing crime. Most people I noted

during my ethnography seemed to observe the unspoken rules of the city, there was

no protest about being used as an object of surveillance. In fact, the people of the city

seemed to not notice the surveillance cameras scattered around George Street (there is

one on the wall next to Brent Wetherall jewelers) nor semiotic imagery referring to

active surveillance at all. This was especially evident when I noted skateboarders

using the Octagon as a site of leisure, ignoring notices of skating not being allowed.

This demonstrates that although the DCC has attempted to limit some people's right to

the city they continue to appropriate agency of the space through subversive acts.

Governance however is not enacted merely through more direct weapons of

governmentality such as the surveillance camera; less obvious technologies of

governance such as mere rubbish bins can be utilized by the state to promote

ideologies of beautification and environmentalism, evidenced by the lack of litter on

the streets. This is a necessity created by large amounts of commercial buildings

running down George Street. Litter is therefore an effect of commerce which can

visually cause disorder and disrupt our everyday. This rhetoric of environmentalism

was also evidenced by people utilizing the bike stands outside of the Meridian Mall

and the availability of public transport providing moralized ideas of concerned with

Dunedin's carbon footprint.

The DCC was also able to limit the mobility or “the material or virtual movability of

individuals or objects through space time, within and between places of its citizens”

(Leitner et al. 2008) through the use of devices such as traffic lights and pedestrian

crossings, and even how the roads are configured themselves, for example no right

turns are allowed coming into the Octagon. However there is a dualism as

simultaneously the state encourages the use of alleyways and exploration of Dunedin

itself for example street art has been newly painted down Bath Street, a narrow street

just off George Street which does not have much foot-traffic. By creating this

spectacle, citizens will be encouraged to spread their money on Taylor-like shops

selling individualized goods. This reflects a post-industrial society as the public is

encouraged to see themselves as individuals and their consumption habits reflect this,

preferring specialized goods in order to express identity over mass-produced ones. As

Henry Lefebvre is quoted in David Harvey's The Right to the City, “urbanism is

essential to the survival of capitalism” (2008). Charles Baudelaire's concept of the

flaneur would to Harvey be the perfect Dunedin capitalist citizen; fully immersed in

the public, the flaneur must struggle through the imagery, noise, disturbances and as a

individual is anonymous while maintaining a level of autonomy. I myself felt the

flaneur whilst conducting the ethnographic study, attempting to derive meaning from

the masses of people striding out in front of me but at the same time the sense of

“collectiveness” was lost as I wrote down notes on their actions, marking myself as

individual. George Street has an affective pull that creates a curiosity as to what is

down those side streets which enables a neoliberal consumer culture which is capable

of constantly expanding ways how they consume goods and services.

Governing technologies and techniques are not exclusive from consumption,

commerce and leisure in regards to the public and creating safe public spaces. Under a

neoliberal regime, space becomes a rule-making apparatus. Beggars appropriate space

and disrupt our everyday (Leone, 2012). It is interesting to note that George Street did

not have any beggars at 3p.m. on a Tuesday, although that would be naive to say that

Dunedin citizens living below the line employing such a precarious labour as begging

simply do not exist. We must examine what it is about George Street that makes it

unwelcoming to beggars. I would argue that a resulting effect of urbanization or the

absorption of surpluses combined with a neoliberal regime has displaced beggars as a

“non-public” from George Street. Harvey states that “the right to the city, as it is now

constituted, is too narrowly confined, restricted in most cases to a small political and

economic elite who are in a position to shape cities more and more after their own

desires” (ibid). The Octagon is an important middle of town – it has an art gallery,

many restaurants to encourage a “high class”, wealthy public – intellectuals might

appreciate Robbie Burns statue and public library. Institutions like St. Paul's

Cathedral and Dunedin City Council headquarters are also there, echoing tensions of

industrial era. Dunedin has recently attempted to brand itself as a creative city, and

the Octagon reflects this with access to free WiFi encouraging people to linger in the

CBD. However not everyone can enjoy leisure activities such as visiting restaurants

and using their iPhone 6 to access Wi-Fi. According to Harvey “receiving alms from a

citizen ... means nothing more ... than appropriating a small part of power that, under

the form of money, unceasingly circulates through the fluxes of people and objects

running in the city's veins” (ibid). This political ideal of a creative city (as neoliberal

capitalists now sell services rather than mere goods) is not democratized. The DCC

prioritizes those with expendable income. As beggars were not visible our everyday

remained undisrupted by what Harvey calls “micro-interactions” (ibid) and are

excluded from exclusive, “safe” environments of belonging through no fault of their

own excepting living in a neoliberal, capitalist country.

This exercise of walking the city represented a chance to play the flaneur,

defamiliarizing myself with a familiar space in order to analyze everyday, taken-for-

granted techniques of governance, technologies, commerce and leisure present in

George Street and the Octagon. Having a more critical mindset allowed me to notice

the assemblage of objects, materials, designs and people to attract the attention of

those passing by. However many of the technologies used by the state were connected

to commercial, post-industrial ideologies, such as the lighting around the Meridian

Mall creating an affect of safety and enabling longer shopping hours for consumers or

rubbish bins collecting the leftovers of consumption, emphasizing the need in post-

industrial society to create safe public spaces suitable for consumption.

Those “assemblages” were used as apparatuses of the DCC or state to “configure

people's choices” (Ruppert, 2011) and prioritize the wealthy and intellectual whilst

simultaneously problematizing groups of people, creating a binary of non-public and

public, problematic and ideal, for example skaters in the Octagon or beggars

contrasted with the wealthy explorers of a creative city. The technologies of

governance were often spatially limiting such as the roads around the Octagon

preventing right turns therefore limiting mobility, also consistent with traffic lights

and crossings - although in my experience as flaneur I did notice some subversion of

rules within a space, for example skaters skating for leisure in the Octagon. There

seems to be a struggle between the ideologies of the DCC particularly in the kind of

publics necessary for the heavily-marketed creative city, with citizens themselves

employing tactics of subversion and occupation of space.

Bibliography

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