The paper addresses the contemporary features of aesthetic capitalism (Böhme, 2001; 2017) in the city, connecting beauty studies with established analyses of ‘territorial stigmatization’ (Wacquant, 2007) in the framework of critical whiteness studies. My argument is that beautification practices in marginal public spaces can be regarded as an attitude of aesthetic neocolonialism. The text investigates the role that art plays in establishing spaces of difference, focusing on the analysis of the idea of beauty exhibited and used in processes of urban transformation. This beautifying operation could mask the intent of domesticating the ‘urban exotic’, representing the aesthetics of the ‘urban other’, overlapping processes of hypervisibilization and invisibilization within the production of normative white visual domains. The resulting transformation is viewed as a new field of value extraction from the urban space while at the same time being a new arena for privilege and inequality production.

Raccanelli, L. (2023). Varnishing Facades, Erasing Memory: Reading Urban Beautification with Critical Whiteness Studies. ESPES, 12(2), 88-102 [10.5281/zenodo.10498887].

Varnishing Facades, Erasing Memory: Reading Urban Beautification with Critical Whiteness Studies

Raccanelli, L
2023

Abstract

The paper addresses the contemporary features of aesthetic capitalism (Böhme, 2001; 2017) in the city, connecting beauty studies with established analyses of ‘territorial stigmatization’ (Wacquant, 2007) in the framework of critical whiteness studies. My argument is that beautification practices in marginal public spaces can be regarded as an attitude of aesthetic neocolonialism. The text investigates the role that art plays in establishing spaces of difference, focusing on the analysis of the idea of beauty exhibited and used in processes of urban transformation. This beautifying operation could mask the intent of domesticating the ‘urban exotic’, representing the aesthetics of the ‘urban other’, overlapping processes of hypervisibilization and invisibilization within the production of normative white visual domains. The resulting transformation is viewed as a new field of value extraction from the urban space while at the same time being a new arena for privilege and inequality production.
Articolo in rivista - Articolo scientifico
Aesthetic Capitalism; Camouflage; Critical Whiteness Studies; Street Art; Territorial Stigmatization; Urban Beautification;
English
2023
2023
12
2
88
102
open
Raccanelli, L. (2023). Varnishing Facades, Erasing Memory: Reading Urban Beautification with Critical Whiteness Studies. ESPES, 12(2), 88-102 [10.5281/zenodo.10498887].
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Raccanelli-ESPES-2023-VoR.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia di allegato: Publisher’s Version (Version of Record, VoR)
Licenza: Creative Commons
Dimensione 171.83 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
171.83 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10281/462738
Citazioni
  • Scopus 0
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 0
Social impact