Spaces of exclusivity and exclusion

From the house to the neighborhood and from the city to the islet

Abstract

In the last decades we witness an urban transformation which is characterized by exclusivity. Gated neighbourhoods are being constructed all over the world in an attempt of the middle and upper-middle classes to protect themselves against the other, in this way perpetuating spatial methods of social injustice. What is distinct though at the case of gated neighbourhoods is the fact that the exclusion of the ‘other’ is combined with the (self-)restriction of the ‘normal’, while at the same time the concepts of interior and exterior, in reference to spatiality, are being reinterpreted and redefined. In this context the contemporary city appears in new forms that deviate from the Modern spatial normality and the usual correspondences of spatial and social structures. The following questions are explored here: What are the spatial and social qualities of the gated neighbourhoods? And, how has the socio-spatial phenomenon of gated neighbourhoods transformed the contemporary urban space? Based on theory and content analysis of a novel, this paper aims to investigate the ways that the urban landscape is being reversed through the contemporary urban reality of the socio-spatial exclusions.