Performing Belonging in Public Space

Abstract

Playing soccer in public parks, participating in parades, or marching in religious processions are public performances that express membership in a political community. When these practices are performed by noncitizens, they highlight how the public space—in its physical and symbolic character—is not a space exclusive to members of the political community. Rather, public space is a terrain subject to contestation. In this article, I explore the ways Mexican migrants in New York City use and appropriate public spaces and in doing so expand the boundaries of the political community. I argue that by gaining access to public spaces, appropriating them, and then transforming them, noncitizens claim recognition as members of the political community and thus unsettle its boundaries.