Youth-Driven Tactics of Public Space Appropriation in Hanoi: The Case of Skateboarding and Parkour

Starting in the 2000s, there has been a rise in youth-led appropriation of public spaces in Hanoi, Vietnam. Through case studies of skateboarders and traceurs (practitioners of parkour) in two of the city’s formal public spaces, we explore and analyze the tactics deployed by these young urbanites to claim a part of the characteristically overcrowded and socio-politically restrictive public spaces of the Vietnamese capital. These case studies show that, by seeking to access public spaces for their new activities, skaters and traceurs have had to confront multiple sets of rules, imposed by not only the state, but also corporate actors and resident-driven surveillance. We find that skateboarders and traceurs deal with these forms of control largely through small-scale, non-ideological, and non-confrontational tactics. As a result, these youth practices have become normalized in Hanoi’s public spaces. These findings broaden the discourses on everyday urbanism and social-political transformations in post-socialist urban contexts, and shed light on the ways in which contemporary youths engage with the city.

青年主导的占用河内公共空间的策略：以滑板和跑酷运动为例

关键词：青年，日常城市主义，战略，公共空间，河内，越南。

二十一世纪起，越南河内兴起了以青年为主导的占用公共空间的潮流。通过对河内在两个正式的公共空间活动的年轻滑板爱好者和跑酷者的案例研究，我们探讨分析了这些城市青年在越南的首都城市里占领部分限制性的公共空间时所采用的策略。这些案例表明，为能够在公共空间进行他们的新型运动，滑板爱好者和跑酷者必须面对多种规则和规范–不仅有来自政府的，还有来自企业以及居民发动的监控。我们进一步发现，滑板者和跑酷者主要通过小规模、非意识形态化以及非对抗性的策略来对付这些形形色色的控制形式。这种小心谨慎、缓慢推进的行动策略不仅有助于滑板和跑酷运动在河内的正常化，而且还为更多各种各样的青年主导的活动在整个城市里打开了大门。这些发现扩充了现有的对后社会主义国家城市环境中日常活动和社会-政治转型的关系的研究，也对更好地理解青年政治及青年在城市的活动做出了贡献。

Translated from English by Li Guo