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The political agency of cityscapes

Spatializing governance in Ceausescu's Bucharest

Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, USA, boneil02{at}stanford.edu

How does spatial organization contribute to the governance of a population? This article explores how the construction of monumental streetscapes turns city spaces into technologies of political control. It is the central claim that monumental spaces are not just static representations of particular ideologies; rather, the production of monumental spaces contributes to the project of autocratic governance. It is an argument rooted in the claim that governance and spatiality exist dialectically, structuring and reinforcing one another. The discussion is centered on the case of Nicolae Ceausescu and his construction of the Victory of Socialism Civic Center over historic Bucharest, Romania. Linking the construction of the Civic Center's space to Ceausescu's practice of governance demonstrates that the organization of space structures bureaucracy, people and thought.

Key Words: Bucharest • built-form • city-as-text • governance • memory • Romania

Journal of Social Archaeology, Vol. 9, No. 1, 92-109 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1469605308099372


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