Nocturnal Otherness: Space and Difference in the City After Dark

Night expands our understandings of place. It offers alternatives to the patterns and practices of the diurnal city, but night also maintains its own diversity; an otherness exemplified in a multitude of situated and embodied perspectives, in shifting intersections of territories and communities, and the differentiated materialities of the nocturnal. In this session, we reflect on the factors shifting nocturnal spatial perspectives. And most importantly, on the emerging potential these shifts reveal. In times of over-illumination, increasing surveillance and re-gentrification, we look for insights as to how the nocturnal sensible is being redistributed around cities and beyond. In doing so, we seek to illuminate how, as territorial boundaries are blurred, the potentialities of emerging nocturnal spaces for LGBTQ+ and subaltern communities are revealed. We consider manifestations of other perspectives, other places, not as something that remains apart, but as acts of inclusiveness: practices that leave traces for the wider nocturnal populations to discover. Therefore, the session will consider work that situates otherness across multiple territories, opening the dialogue to diverse design methodologies and speculative approaches. Overall, our panel continues the ongoing investigations of the Architecture and Urbanism Working Group of the International Night Studies Network towards creative, equitable and sustainable nights.