Patrick Henry

Research project: The Material Production of Transformative Community Space

Abstract

My research is concerned with the micropolitics of physical, grassroots community spaces. Such spaces can play an important role in the formation and development of the identities and solidarities, capacities and practices, that underpin political action. Potentially, they can make a significant contribution to strategies for macropolitical social change.

My focus is on spaces that assert emancipatory values and have explicit political goals - spaces that run against the grain of dominant social relations in terms of both cultural forms and individual motivations. Within such spaces, my research focuses on the material production of subjectivities and cultures. It foregrounds physical structures, spaces and objects - material elements that are both formed by and formative of social arrangements. It pays close attention to the affective circuits through which social and material dimensions interrelate.

My study takes the form of an ethnographic case study of Marsh House, a community centre and 'social action hub' on the Marsh Farm estate in Luton, South East England. Run by and for the local community, Marsh House is also connected to a wide array of struggles and movements for wider social change. The driving force behind the space is a community collective with roots in the free rave sound systems and squatting scene of the 1990s. Marsh House houses an events space and cafe-bar, music studios, a community radio station, and various community enterprises and arts projects.