Gentrification, Criminalisation, and the Occupation of Found Spaces as Skate Spots: An investigation into the contested social production of urban space.

: Gentrification, Criminalisation, and the Occupation of Found Spaces as Skate Spots: An investigation into the contested social production of urban space.

Abstract

This thesis is an ethnographic exploration into the intriguing relationship between skateboarders’ urban exploration, their use of found spaces and their resistance to measures that are put in place to prevent them from using modern capitalist city centres. The thesis considers processes of gentrification, with a focus on the Manchester skateboarding scene and the Undercroft at South Bank, London. Despite the social, legal and physical controls that are in place to prevent skateboarding in Manchester there remains a strong street skateboarding scene, and skateboarders continue to occupy popular found spaces. This study seeks to understand the extent to which skateboarders perceive that being excluded from skateboarding in the city centre is unjust and analyses how skateboarders view the legality of using found spaces. By applying the theories of Lefebvre, including a ‘right to the city’ and ‘rhythmanalysis’, to the ways that skateboarders view and use the cityscape this research opens ideas of skateboarders bringing micro-gentrification to city centres and the found spaces that they occupy. Skateboarders use public space like no-one else and reinvent the cityscape by making use of buildings, stairs and street furniture as part of their skateboarding performance. According to Stevens (2007) play is an important but largely neglected aspect of people’s experience of urban society and urban space. Skateboarders are creative and artistic, viewing the city as their urban playground. However, they are often faced with exclusion, therefore, a criminology of play, or following Groombridge (2008) a ludic criminology, is suggested. This research provides a conceptually insightful original contribution to the current knowledge in this area, namely skateboarding, exclusion, criminology of play and micro-gentrification. Ideas of social exclusion, rhythm analysis, skateboarding atmospheres and Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ are explored.

Date of Award	25 Apr 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Edge Hill University
Supervisor	ELEANOR PETERS (Director of Studies), AGNIESZKA MARTYNOWICZ (Supervisor) & ANDREW MILLIE (Supervisor)