(Re-) Bordering Public Spaces in Budapest

The use of borders, both real and imagined, has emerged as a powerful political resource.

The use of borders, both real and imagined, has emerged as a powerful political resource

Prof. James Scott is a regular collaborator of our institute and especially of our department Urban Development and Mobility. We for instance collaborate on the research project EUBORDERSCAPES, financed though the EU’s 7^th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development that tracks and interprets conceptual change in the study of borders.

He is currently Professor of Regional and Border Studies at the Karelian Institute of the University of Eastern Finland, and Associate Professor of Geography at the Freie Universität Berlin. His scientific interests gravitates towards the following thematic: Urban and regional development, border regions, regional and urban governance, metropolitan area problems, European and North American Geography.

In the frame of his visit in our institute Prof. James Scott made a presentation of one of his papers in preparation titled: “(Re-) Bordering Public Spaces in Budapest – National versus Liberal Appropriations of Urban Space ».

The presentation followed by the researchers from our department dedicated to the Geography allowed to prof. James to receive a direct and interactive feedback on his work.

If you ask Prof. Scott to sum up his presentation, he does it in these words:

” Budapest's post-socialist transformation is reflected in political struggles and public debates over its role as a (national) capital city and/or a (liberal) European metropolis. This has been accompanied by an extreme politicization of both governance and development issues and of the identity of Budapest in political, economic and cultural terms. Here the use of borders, both real and imagined, has emerged as a powerful political resource. Employing the concept of bordering, the paper relate the symbolism of urban development (e.g. the revitalization of inner-city areas, environmental issues, re-naming of streets, creating new and restoring old monuments) to processes of border-making within the city. It will be argued that the re-bordering of inner city Budapest is inextricably linked to attempts to politicise public spaces and thus extract political capital from strategic uses of the urban fabric. The most general pattern that emerges is that of an ideological fault line between notions of an open, 'liberal' European city and attempts to “re-nationalise” Budapest as the capital of the Hungarian nation. Surprisingly, this general narrative is only partly nuanced by the need to pragmatically address critical administrative, environmental and social problems facing the city. “