Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona

Megan Saltzman will present her new book--Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona--which explores how everyday practices in public space (sitting, playing, walking, etc.) challenge the increase of top-down control in the global city. Public Everyday Space focuses on post-Olympic Barcelona—a time of unprecedented levels of gentrification, branding, mass tourism, and immigration. Drawing from examples observed in public spaces (streets, plazas, sidewalks, and empty lots), as well as in cultural representation (film, photography, literature), this book exposes the quiet agency of those excluded from urban decision-making but who nonetheless find ways to carve out spatial autonomy for themselves. Absent from the map or postcard, the quicksilver spatial phenomena documented in this book can make us rethink our definitions of culture, politics, inclusion, legality, architecture, urban planning, and public space.

Megan Saltzman (PhD, University of Michigan) is a teaching professor at Mount Holyoke College in the department of Spanish, Latin American, and Latinx Studies, where she also contributes to the Five Colleges of Massachusetts Architectural Studies Program. Her research focuses on contemporary urban culture of Spanish cities with a transnational and ethnographic approach. Her 2024 book, combines literary and visual arts with fieldwork to expose how everyday practices in public space (sitting, playing, street selling) not only challenge the city’s policed image but also serve to carve out autonomy from below. Megan has published on urban cultural themes in Spain related to gentrification, spatial in/exclusion, immigration, nostalgia, recycling, urban furniture design, grassroots cultural centers and “artivism.” Most recently Megan has been teaching courses that revolve around three themes: (1) urban studies, (2) material and non-human culture, and (3) ethnically hybrid identities. Besides teaching at Mount Holyoke, Megan has enjoyed teaching at a variety of colleges, including the University of Otago (New Zealand), Grinnell College, the University of Michigan, Amherst College, West Chester University, and this coming fall at Sophia University in Tokyo.

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