Introduction

The study of socio-cultural particularities that underpin the making of place has become relevant in the light of recent developments. In particular, events related to the Arab Spring, the Spanish 15M and Occupy movements have revealed the significance of particular instances of urban space for political action, in a way that challenges customary understandings of public space between an abstract locus for public opinion and an issue of planning and design. Underlying these standpoints is the widespread notion of urban space as a space for encounter, conflict and otherness (e.g. Barthes 1986; Jacobs 1996), in which the practical, the performative and the political converge.