Edited by Jordi Nofre and Adam Eldridge (and including collaborations of many members from LXNIGHTS)  the new book on urban night Exploring Nightlife: Space, Society and Governance will be published by Rowman and Littlefield International this May 2018.

Description: While the night has long been associated with crime and fear, over recent decades ‘nightlife’ has become increasingly associated with the creative economy, tourism, sociability, job growth, and urban regeneration. Debates about anti-social behaviour, morality, and safety continue to shape our understanding of the night but newer concerns have also emerged about gentrification, economic and social exclusion, commercialisation, and over-development. Exploring Nightlife: Space, Society and Governance is the first edited volume that critically examines nightlife from a cross-disciplinary and international perspective. Comprising original contemporary research, the collection brings together case studies from across the globe that explore topics including nightlife and urban development, race, gender and youth culture, alcohol and drug use, and urban renewal. In doing so, each chapter explores nightlife in relation to local and global structures of power and governance. Exploring Nightlife is an ideal introduction to the emerging field of night-time studies and will be a valuable resource for students and researchers with an interest in geography, cultural studies, sociology, youth, leisure, and urban studies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction, Jordi Nofre and Adam Eldridge

Part I: Nightlife and Urban Change in the Neo-liberal City

1. Nightlife and urban change in Southern European cities: The case of Montpellier and Lisbon, Emanuele Giordano, João Carlos Martins, Dominique Crozat and Iñigo Sánchez-Fuarros

2. ‘Civilising’ by gentrifying: The contradictions of neoliberal planning for nightlife in Sydney, Peta Wolifson

3. Night-time economy and urban development in post-socialist Sarajevo, Jordi Martín-Díaz, Nihad Čengić and Jordi Nofre

4. The night in Maboneng (Johannesburg, South Africa): An urban frontier in-between securization, commodification and contestation, Chrystel Olouko

5. Kerameikos – Metaxourgio: Entertaining ourselves in Athens’ “ghettoes of the mind”, Penny Koutrolikou

Part II: Power, Culture and Identity

6. Cairo Nights: Mulids and the politics of Mahraganat music, José Sánchez-García

7. Consumption patterns of Erasmus students in Lisbon: Circulating between mainstream and alternative nightscapes, Daniel Malet-Calvo

8. Young People, Alcohol and Suburban Nightscapes in Manchester, Samantha Wilkinson

9. ‘I’m too old for that now’: The importance of life course in student nightlife normativities in Flanders, Valerie De Craene

10. Reviewing night-time economy policies through a gendered lens: gender aware or gender neutral?, Marion Roberts/ Part III: Law, Control and Governance of the Urban Night

11. Red Light Districts of Amsterdam, Irina Van Aalst and Ilse Van Liempt

12. Nightlife as an educational setting: the harm reduction perspective in Portugal, Helena Valente and Cristiana Pires

13. Policies for nightlife and the democratic city: from urban renewal to behaviour control in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Marcos Paulo Ferreira De Góis

Epilogue, Will Straw

The last March 22th LXNIGHTS member Daniel Malet Calvo presented his work on Erasmus students and urban change at MOB, Espaço Associativo (Rua dos Anjos, 12). The presentation was entitled: “Student mobility, lifestyles and urban change in Lisbon” and was part of a cycle of conversations around the transformation of Lisbon organized by HABITA and coordinated by Simone Tulumello (ICS – University of Lisbon).

Some LXNIGHTSers have participated in an article about Cais do Sodré district (Lisbon) published this month on the journal Urban Research & Practice, entitled: “The ‘Pink Street’ in Cais do Sodré: urban change and liminal governance in a nightlife district of Lisbon“. Here you can find the abstract:

The former harbour quarter of Cais do Sodré in central Lisbon has been recently transformed into the most crowded nightlife spot in the city, causing some negative social and spatial impacts such as the worsening of community liveability during night-time hours. In addition, the inefficacy of the latest community intervention project conducted in the area (SAFE!N) has been largely due to the liminal governance of the urban night applied in the area. In the final remarks, some actions are suggested to foster long-term sustainable coexistence between the right to the city and the right to leisure in the area.

Here and below (click to enlarge) you can read the definitive program.

The next week (12-15 March 2018) LXNIGHTS will be present in the International and Multidisciplinary Symposium “The city: images and imaginaries”, celebrated in the University Carlos III (Madrid).  Jorge Sequera (New University of Lisbon, LXNIGHTS) will present its work in a  communication entitled: “Alternatives to touristification in urban markets”, Tuesday 13th March from 10:00 in a panel about Madrid (Spain). You can see here the program of the event.

The International Conference: The City: Images and Imaginaries, will be celebrated in School of Humanities, Communication and Library Science, University Carlos III De Madrid (Getafe), on March 12^th -15^th, 2018. During the conference the following public activities will take place:

The conference opening keynote session, on Monday, March 12th: “Tramas Urbanas y Movilidad” [The Urban Plots and Movility] by Josefina Gómez Mendoza, Emeritus professor of Unversity Autónoma de Madrid and Doctor Honoris Causa by University Carlos III de Madrid and by the l’École Normale Superieur de Lyon.

On Tuesday, March 13^th an institutional ceremony will be celebrated in recognition of the outstanding professional and artistic trajectory (and their close links to the city) of the painter Antonio Lopéz and the architect Rafael Moneo.

In March 14^th the filmmaker Joaquín Oristrell and Professor Miguel de Moragas will debate in a roundtable discussion about Madrid and Barcelona depictions.

Professor Nancy Berthier (Université Paris-Sorbonne) will be the final keynote speaker at the Conference on March 15^th.

During the Conference, the participants can attend some parallel activities such as the photography exposition of Marivi Ibarrola’s works, the sound installation “Sounds of the City” and a continuous screening about the city in film.

As many central urban neighborhoods, La Latina (Madrid) has suffered during the last two decades an accelerated process of transformation, focused in nighttime tertiary activities. Begoña Aramayona has studied this process in short article in the anarchist journal Todo por Hacer: “Nightlife commercialization in the city of Madrid: the paradoxes of La Latina Neighbourhood“.

For two years (2014-2016) Begoña has been exploring the neighborhood and shooting an ethnographic documentary entitled: “Próxima estación: La Latina”, that you can see here:

Documental “Próxima estación: La Latina” from Imaginario Social on Vimeo.

“Próxima estación: La Latina” es un corto documental que explora los procesos de turistificación a través de la vida nocturna en el barrio de La Latina, en el distrito centro de Madrid. A través de las miradas de diversos habitantes del lugar (vecinas, vecinos y ex-vecinas; trabajadores de una carbonería y de un Mercado de Abastos en decadencia; visitantes nocturnos ocasionales o asiduos), así como voces respetadas en el ámbito de los estudios urbanos, como Michael Janoshka (Contested Cities) y Jorge Sequera (Oficina de Urbanismo Social), exploramos los distintos vértices alrededor de los cambios que están ocurriendo en el barrio. El documental fue rodado durante más de 2 años (2014-2016) y forma parte de un proceso de exploración etnográfica, que prefiere ofrecer más preguntas que respuestas: ¿Qué está ocurriendo en el centro de Madrid? ¿Quién es turista y quién habitante? ¿Hay portadores legítimos de la identidad de un barrio? ¿Qué es el desplazamiento y cómo se puede visualizar?

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Dirección, Guión y Fotografía: Begoña Aramayona
Montaje y Postproducción visual: María Ceinos
Postproducción de sonido y etalonaje: Nacho Zayas
Diseño gráfico: Julia Gil

Música: “Alegría” (Manos de Topo), “Macarena” (Espaldamaceta)

Personas entrevistadas:

María Jiménez (vecina)
Peter Galkin (vecino)
Lucas Esteve (vecino)
César Fraile (vecino)
Michael Janoschka (Contested Cities)
Jorge Sequera (Oficina de Urbanismo Social)
José (Bicicleta luminosa)
Arturo y Carboneros
María (frutería Mercado de la Cebada)

Our collegue Emanuel-Cristian Adorean, from the Faculty of Geography of the Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca (Romania) has published an article in the journal Territorial Identity and Development, co-authored with Oana-Ramona Ilovan and Viorel Gligor about nightlife and urban consumption in the Bairro Alto (Lisbon) based on a research developed during 2017.

Her you can read the article

ABSTRACT: The urban nightlife consumption is an important anthropogenic phenomenon that should be taken into consideration within the urban and spatial planning context, especially because its effects influence territorial evolution, as well as the population’s lifestyle and well-being level. The aim of the present investigation was the assessment and the radiography of the nocturnal urban life of Bairro Alto neighbourhood, in Lisbon. For this purpose, we combined a series of research methods, such as the literature review, the semi-structured interview, the participatory observation, the photographic collection, the cartographic method, the analysis, and the synthesis. Findings showed users´ profiles and highlighted their visions and preferences regarding the usage and functionality of Bairro Alto, yet revealing that night-time activities play a crucial role for territorial identity consolidation within the urban space, by fostering the social and economic dynamism of the city.

LXNIGHTS will be present in another conference centered in urban night. Jordi Nofre and Adam Eldridge will be in the city of Sofia (Bulgaria), attending the International Conference on the Urban night: Governance, Diversity, Mobility (7-8 June, 2018).

Apart from giving a communication about the challenges and opportunities of nighttime governance for the Horizon Lisbon 2022, they will present the book “Exploring Nightlife. Space, Society and Governance” that will be published by Rowman and Littlefield International in May 2018, edited by Jordi and Adam and with the participation of several LXNIGHTS members.

——————— THE CONFERENCE IN SOFIA

The night-time city has been the subject of both romanticising and commodification. Efforts to politicise, monetise, police and reclaim it have been intensifying in many cities worldwide. From quantifying the value of a night-time economy to campaigning for night-time public transport, various urban actors have sought to shape how the night is governed, and to what ends.

This conference seeks to bring together geographically diverse contributions on the urban night, from academia and beyond. Our aim is to provide a space for critical debate across a range of perspectives on urban night governance; to identify opportunities for international collaboration; and to promote engaged academic research. In particular, the event seeks to generate dialogue between diverse disciplines and/or research topics, identifying connections across aspects of the night-time, from transport to culture and from gender to tourism.

The topics include, but are not limited to:

• Governance and contestation of the urban night;
• Night-time transport, including public transport at night; delivery services and logistics; ride-hailing;
• Night-time work;
• Safety and diversity n in the night-time city: income, age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, (dis)ability;
• Tourism, leisure and culture;
• Illumination, sound and design.

Keynote lectures will be given by Prof Dr Get Duijzings (University of Regensburg) and Prof Marion Roberts (University of Westminster), with further keynote speakers to be announced shortly.

During this week (12th – 16th September) an important international seminari is currently in progress: the IV edition of the International Seminar “City, Retail and Consumption”, titled “Retail, Consumption and the New Forms of Urban Governance”.

In the IGOT (Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território) more than 90 works will be presented in four discussion axes: retail urban landscapes, the rationales of new businesses, consumption-led urban regeneration and consumption lifestyles.

Our LXNIGHTS member Jorge Sequera is doing a presentation of his work in the Lavapiés market (Madrid): “Mercado Habitado: el mercado de Lavapiés (Madrid) en disputa”. The presentation will take place in the framework of Discussion Axe III: Retail- and consumption-led urban regeneration and the new forms of city governance: projects, actors and processes. Specifically in session 6: Public Markets and consumption, that will be occur Thursday, September 14th from 11:00 to 12:45.

We are waiting for you!

The journal ‘City & Community’ of the American Sociological Association has published this August a work written by some members of LXNIGHTS team: Jordi Nofre, Íñigo Sánchez Fuarros, João Carlos Martins and Patrícia Pereira from CICS.Nova (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Daniel Malet Calvo from CIES-IUL (ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa) and Miguel Geraldes and Ana López Dìaz (IGOT – Universidade de Lisboa).The presented article summarizes several topics explored in our researches, such as touristification, studentification and gentrification, using a case study in the Bairro Alto, Lisbon

Exploring Nightlife and Urban Change in Bairro Alto, Lisbon

Here an excerpt of the ‘Introduction’:

Over the last three decades culture has played a central role in the urban renewal of many cities worldwide. The inner city has thus become a socially, politically controlled “theatre of consumption” (Ritzer 2010). Correspondingly, the urban night has emerged not only as a significant space–time of productive economic activity but also as a key strategy in the urban regeneration of downtowns (Chatterton and Hollands 2003; Farrer 2008, 2011; Hae 2011, 2012; Tadie and Permanadeli 2015; among others). In some Southern European cities the rise of new urban nightscapes in their historical neighborhoods (Crivello 2009; García-Perez 2014; Nofre 2013) is largely connected to urban, social, and economic impacts caused by the neoliberalization of the city (Brenner and Theodore 2005). This is the case of Bairro Alto in Lisbon (Portugal), where the university student and tourist nightlife in this historical neighborhood of the Portuguese capital may be seen as part of a broader public and private-led strategy of internationalization of the city as advertised on the website of the Lisbon Tourism Promotion Agency: “Lisbon’s nightlife is known as one of the longest and most vibrant in the whole of Europe and the world.” Indeed, over the past 10 years, the exponential growth of international tourists visiting Lisbon and the increasing attractiveness of the Portuguese capital for hosting national and international university students have caused some social, spatial, economic and cultural impacts in the inner city (Galhardo 2014; Malheiros et al., 2012; Mendes 2006, 2011, 2014; Nofre 2013; Rodrigues 2010). But how is student and tourism-related nightlife contributing to the urban change in Bairro Alto?

Two members of LXNIGHTS will participate in the “Tourism & The Night Symposium“, that will be held in London on July 14th and 14th.

Click here to download the programme

João Carlos Martins will present first scientific results of the community-based intervention project SAFE!N, with a presentation entitled “Social, Public Health and Urban Governance Impacts: On Safe!N Project Implementation”

Jordi Nofre will present first preliminary results on a new co-authored research on nightlife in Porto: “Tourism and Nightlife Gentrification in Porto: Partying in an UNESCO City”. Other authors include Paula Guerra and Célia Marisa Ferreira, from Porto, and Jorge Sequera and João Carlos Martins from Lisbon.

A new article about international students and urban change in Lisbon (Portugal) was published this June in Urban Studies by Daniel Malet Calvo, a member of LXNIGHTS:

Understanding international students beyond studentification: A new class of transnational urban consumers. The example of Erasmus students in Lisbon (Portugal)

“The growing presence of international students in the city of Lisbon attracted my attention ten years ago, when I started my PhD on the occupation by different social groups of the most emblematic central square in Lisbon: Praça do Rossio. As a foreigner, I shared several apartments with international students, at a time when the city of Lisbon was not renowned as a tourist or student destination. I got to know a group of exchange students that had developed a particular alternative lifestyle in the patio where they lived. They organized several meals outside and installed improvised benches to spend time in the patio, as well as sharing a communitarian style of living with their Portuguese neighbours. Next year, when the students left, the next-door Hostel bought those apartments and converted them into suites for tourists. Replicating the students, they installed permanent benches and even imitated their new-age tastes in the decoration. In other words, the hostel reproduced the students’ creative ways, making products for tourists. When I started to study Erasmus students back in 2013, I borrowed the term ‘studentification’ to assess the significance and impact of those populations in Lisbon. However, as an anthropologist, it was unsettling for me to isolate the housing question from the wide variety of practices and relations that students established within Lisbon’s urban processes”.

Jorge Sequera (LXNIGHTS) has recently written an article in Seres Urbanos (El Pais) where he stress the social consequences of the privatization, touristification and ‘gourmetization’ of urban markets. These processes threaten the old functions of markets as places of closeness for the neighbors, where gather and coexist reproducing rooted and local  practices of solidarity.

You can read here the complete article

For those researching in Lisbon the situation expounded by Jorge Sequera could be comparable with Mercado da Ribeira, where the powerful presence of the ‘Time Out Gourmet Market’ has created a situation of marginalization for several traditional activities in and around the market.

Last months, the members of LXNIGHTS worked together on the establishment of a new framework to study, analyze and recommend new policies for managing nighttime leisure challenges in Lisbon. Here you can read, in Portuguese, the founding act of the “Observatório do Lazer Nocturno em Lisboa” (Lisbon’s Night Leisure Observatory):

LXNIGHTS CRIARÁ O OBSERVATÓRIO DO LAZER NOCTURNO EM LISBOA 

Em Lisboa, os setores da restauração e do lazer noturno têm adquirido, ao longo das duas últimas décadas, uma crescente importância nos processos de regeneração urbana e revitalização socioeconómica nos bairros históricos do centro da cidade como resultado da crescente interação entre (1) a intensificação do processo de turistificação do centro da cidade, (2) a consolidação de Lisboa como destino europeu de estudantes estrangeiros de ensino superior, e (3) a rápida expansão e mercantilização da vida noturna nos bairros históricos do centro de Lisboa. Com efeito, a noite constitui hoje um dos principais produtos centrais no processo de “urban branding” de Lisboa, o qual encontra-se enquadrado na recente estratégia desenvolvida pela administração local de reforço do posicionamento de Lisboa no mercado turístico nacional e internacional. Todavia, a recente e rápida expansão e mercantilização da vida noturna de Lisboa têm produzido, entre outros desafios, uma deterioração das condições ambientais relativas à habitabilidade dos bairros históricos do centro da cidade onde as atividades de lazer noturno se encontram presentes (Bairro Alto, Cais do Sodré, e Santos), tal e como tem sido largamente relatado desde o âmbito da comunicação social. Face aos crescentes desafios na governança da noite na cidade de Lisboa, o LXNIGHTS tem decidido criar o Observatório do Lazer Noturno em Lisboa, o qual será plenamente operacional em Abril de 2017.

Com 10 investigadores, 6 consultores e sob a Direcção do Prof. Doutor Jordi Nofre (CICS.Nova/FCSH/UNL e Investigador Principal LXNIGHTS), o Observatório do Lazer Nocturno em Lisboa irá realizar ao longo do primeiro biénio 2017-2018 um conjunto de atividades de investigação e intervenção comunitária que será definido por 6 eixos temáticos de trabalho de recolha de informação, análise, monitorização, discussão e proposta de novas políticas públicas.

Figura 1. Eixos temáticos de investigação Vs. Áreas Científicas

Fonte: J. Nofre.

Em suma, o Observatório do Lazer Nocturno em Lisboa na estratégia europeia sobre cidades smart, sustentáveis e inclusivas (EUROCITIES, 2014). Nesse sentido, as ações de investigação e intervenção comunitária que irão ser realizadas através do Observatório do Lazer Noturno em Lisboa têm uma visão estratégica tripartida sobre a economia da diversão noturna, a qual será considerada como:

(a) Elemento fundamental para a promoção de um consumo de lazer e um turismo urbano sustentável em termos sociais, espaciais, económicos e ambientais;

(b) Espaço-tempo, estratégia e mecanismo de promoção das indústrias criativas de Lisboa, nomeadamente no campo da música, “design”, e arte; e, ainda mais importante, como da divulgação do património material e imaterial;

(c) Estratégia e mecanismo para a promoção de uma diversão noturna inclusiva através da implementação de (c.1.) novos instrumentos de políticas públicas, estratégias, boas práticas e ações conjuntas institucionais e/ou comunitárias que visem um lazer noturno mais inclusive e igualitário; e (c.2.) novas ações (auto-) empoderamento dos diferentes atores do lazer noturno de Lisboa, visando conseguir uma melhor coesão social e habitabilidade nos bairros com forte presença de atividades de diversão noturna.

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Para mais informações, não hesite em contactar com o Prof. Doutor Jordi Nofre: jnofre@fcsh.unl.pt. Ao longo dos meses de Fevereiro e Março, o blogue do LXNIGHTS comunicará de maneira continuada os avanços na formalização legal do Observatório e a sua inauguração oficial que terá lugar num espaço de diversão nocturna de Lisboa no fim do mês de Abril de 2017.