Practice and Environment Let’s continue with a brief summary of conclusions made so far:
Chinatown
Brick Lane
Peacock
Crane
Duck
Decorated Shed
For Majority
For Minority
Created from necessity
Created from Community
Distortion
Displacement
Manipultyaed by majority
Overlooked by Majority
Static
Amorphus
The Event
The Everyday
Practices Influence Environment
Environment Influences Practice
To touch on the final three comparisons in the table; static and amorphous refers to the transiency of each place (in terms of cultural change and development), the ‘event’ and ‘everydayyday’ reflects how space is used as perceived by a majority and the final comparison suggests how environmental (and possibly historical) factors influence the spacial practices of communities within these places. This final point is interesting as it makes a strong contrast in terms of how these communities ‘practice’ everyday life in a dominant host society. The Chinese community, by shaping their environment to suit their own economic needs, operates cleverly within a system that isn’t particularly suited to them. As David Harvey explains in ‘Rebel Cities’, this system is the “golden chain that imprisons vulnerable and marginalized populations within orbits of capital circulation and accumulation.”24 They may not be quite as vulnerable as Harvey suggests however, managing to create a thriving honey pot right in central London tailored to their own economic desires. De Certeau explains this relationship with his theory of ‘tactics’ and ‘trajectories’, suggesting that the ‘other’ can develop guerilla-style ‘tactics’ in order to adapt and subvert a dominant system; “trajectories [of ‘tactics’] trace out the ruses of other interests and desires that are neither determined nor captured by the systems in which they develop.”25 It seems then that the trade-off is between cultural integrity and economic gain; Chinatown manages to sustain itself economically at the price of becoming a theme park and Brick Lane retains its cultural values in the face of majority capitalization and resultant displacement. This leads us to question whether there can be a compromise in this situation 24 Harvey, David, ‘Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution’ (London: Verso - 2012), p.20. 25 De Certeau, ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’, p.xviii 19