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Street Skateboarding and the Aesthetic Order of Public Spaces

Author

Listed:
  • Sharon Dickinson
  • Andrew Millie
  • Eleanor Peters

Abstract

Street skateboarders are often excluded from public spaces with skating viewed as anti-social or uncivil. In this article, we argue that it can also be regarded as problematic as it interferes with the look and feel of cities as promoted by late-modern capitalism. The article contributes to an aesthetic criminology by arguing that street skateboarding is itself an aesthetic practice, but that this practice challenges the functionality and aesthetic order of the city. The article is supported by evidence from interviews with skateboarders in Manchester, UK. The context is the duel position of skateboarding, being regarded as both deviant and serious leisure (for instance, featuring for the first time in the Olympics in 2021). Rather than criminalizing and excluding skateboarders, it is argued that their aesthetic appreciation of public spaces could add value to city life, that they see and feel the city in ways that ought to add to our emotional and affective appreciation of what it means to live in a city.

Suggested Citation

  • Sharon Dickinson & Andrew Millie & Eleanor Peters, 2022. "Street Skateboarding and the Aesthetic Order of Public Spaces," The British Journal of Criminology, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, vol. 62(6), pages 1454-1469.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:crimin:v:62:y:2022:i:6:p:1454-1469.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/bjc/azab109
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Adam Jenson & Jon Swords & Michael Jeffries, 2012. "The Accidental Youth Club: Skateboarding in Newcastle-Gateshead," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 371-388.
    2. Peter Rogers & Jon Coaffee, 2005. "Moral panics and urban renaissance," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(3), pages 321-340, December.
    3. Helen Woolley & Teresa Hazelwood & Ian Simkins, 2011. "Don't Skate Here: Exclusion of Skateboarders from Urban Civic Spaces in Three Northern Cities in England," Journal of Urban Design, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(04), pages 471-487.
    4. Kurt Iveson, 2013. "Cities within the City: Do-It-Yourself Urbanism and the Right to the City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 941-956, May.
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