ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on Latour’s (2005) Actor-Network Theory to examine the diverse and dynamic pluralities of actors who have recently come together to facilitate new kinds of urban open spaces that are very temporary and malleable. These actors and processes are illustrated by the example of artificial ‘city beaches’ installed on formerly-industrial riverfronts throughout Germany. Six different categories of actors are examined. Underused spaces need to be reconnected to the wider city through the agency of new stairs, signs, maps, and place identities. These combine with cheap, moveable landscaping elements including sand, pools, palm trees, thatched huts, and deck chairs; and human actors including entrepreneurs, regulators, facilitators, staff, suppliers, patrons, and opponents. Three other sets of influential actors are intangible: various forms of energy (creativity, excitement, political power, weather); material and administrative schemas; and austerity (a shortage of money). Actor-Network analysis of city beaches highlights the complex and dynamic relationships and processes through which these various actors are brought together, and the diverse forms of power that stabilise or transform these relationships, which serve to re-imagine, re-develop, and re-purpose urban spaces to bring new public benefits.
