Property and carceral spaces in Christiania, Copenhagen

Abstract

<p>This article addresses the recent legal and property changes, and their socio-spatial </p><p>consequences in Christiania, Copenhagen. During recent years the community that has always </p><p>been against private ownership has lost its special legal status, and became a property owner </p><p>of a vast area in the middle of Copenhagen. We analyze the situation in relation to Christiania’s </p><p>current housing condition, individual residents’ privatization efforts, and decades-long </p><p>normalization efforts by the state. We argue that the processes of normalization, legalization, </p><p>criminalization and privatization are expressions of the carceral in more-than-institutional </p><p>context, and that questions of property are strongly involved in these carceral practices in </p><p>Christiania. Not only in the relations between Christiania and the state, but also in socio-spatial </p><p>relations inside of the community, defining who is included or excluded, or how people behave </p><p>towards each other. Moreover, a part of the community is cultivating a carceral culture </p><p>towards those in favor of privatization, using the rights of the property owner and the </p><p>community’s ideologies as justifications. <br /></p>