Experiencing european streets: tactics for a translocal narrative

The thesis engages in the debate on the experience of a specific kind of streets as part of the cultural life of cities.The density and richness of de Michel Certeau’s pages on spatial practice and his ideas on the relation of walking with an appropriation of everyday tactics are an essential foundational perspective for this study. Unlike what is accepted in traditional history, de Certeau posits tactics not as subordinate to strategy but as opposed to it. Just like strategy presumes control, tactics appears as the purview of the non-powerful, and informality of experience as well. In an era in which accelerated processes of consumption and gentrification require creationand cultural work to be responsible, there is an urgent need to combat processes that obscure the wealth and potential of the various layers that make up the urban environment and locality. The research undertaken in this thesis thus aims to understand the potential relevance of a new cultural concept - that of creative street - which is based on values and experiences to be shared among a community of partners, stakeholders and the public(s). Making explicit the conceptual narrative mechanisms of an inspiring, inclusive and participatory approach of the street, the work delivers a specific and innovative framework.The research addresses topics such as place, street, walking, experience and narrative; operative notions such as creativity, learning, connectivity, locality, mobility, interface,experience; and eventually on the practice of walking in traditions such as the flânerie, strollology, the Situationist dérive, errance, and contemporary artistic experimentation. All these frames the proposal of a European 'cultural' street circuit or network as the stage for connected locality. The outcome is a translocal tactic connecting a nomad community, through an open cultural concept to be shared across diverse urban contexts, nevertheless facing the same globalization issues and a cultural horizon anticipated by both contemporary thought and artistic and literary wanderings. The case studies discussed inthis thesis are streets in Portugal, Estonia, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands.