The transformation of urban space: Agency and constraints in a peripheral district in the post-industrial city of Madrid

Luisa Martín Rojo1 & Cristina Portillo
1Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

This paper draws attention to the ways in which spatial configurations operate as constitutive dimensions of sociolinguistic phenomena and vice versa; that is, the way in which communicative practices frame daily life and the broader urban reality. The paper presents an approach which integrates the study of Linguistic Landscapes, the dynamics of deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation, proposed by Deleuze and Guattari (1987), and Bourdieu’s concept of social field. The paper shows that whilst there are possibilities of agency in urban space transformation, such opportunities are restricted by social agents’ positioning in the different social fields (e.g. tourism vs. local commerce), and by their positioning in relation to the social processes of assimilation, integration, segregation or marginalization.

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