Didem Ertem PhD

A Socio-Spatial Study of Small Scale Events and Everyday Multiculture in Finsbury Park

Supervisors:  Andrew Smith, Ilaria Pappalepore, Krystallia Kamvasinou

By virtue of being sites of leisure, public parks are distinguished from other kinds of public spaces as sites that can afford the conflicting claims to publicity and the mediation of difference in a non-coercive manner (Neal et al. 2015). On the grounds of their preference-based use, public greenspaces are inhabited by urban dwellers who choose to be where they are. Public parks can therefore be viewed as opportune sites where one acquires a casual familiarisation with being in close proximity to different identities without force. Paul Gilroy (2004: 105) conceptualises such learning of public at-ease-ness as ‘conviviality’, an everyday practice of being together that renders exposure to difference unremarkable.

In this thesis, I aim to bring forward a discussion of conviviality in public greenspaces, and the democratic ideals of publicity with a focus on antiracism. In line with this objective, I explore the quotidian practices of multiculture in Finsbury Park. These small-scale civic sociabilities include a wide range of activities and user groups in the form of friends’ gatherings, protests, ball games, free dance lessons, slacklining, and informal community events. Using the lens of conviviality, I study the site-specific formations of inter-ethnic interactions that engage individuals with different ethnic backgrounds in the park. I centre my focus on the ways in which these sociabilities are experienced, perceived and influenced by the socio-spatial composition of the park space. In doing so, I assess how Finsbury Park and the unplanned encounters between different users it accommodates, can or cannot translate into mutual respect and an easeful attitude towards mediating difference within this particular form of public space.