This paper examines the planning and staging of the 1984 Louisiana Exposition, the last world’s fair in the United States, and makes comparisons with other US world’s fairs, to provide insight into the sources of opposition and resistance to urban spectacles. Drawing on the work of Guy Debord and his concept of the ‘society of the spectacle’, this paper advances a conception of mega events as spectacles of contestation that embody contradictory tendencies and articulate conflictual and opposing meanings of urban space and reality. Rather than obscuring and camouflaging urban problems, mega events like world’s fairs express social inequalities and display highly contradictory urban representations that can spawn resistant agendas, complicate élite redevelopment agendas and divide pro-growth coalitions. Through a critical interrogation of the Debordian concept of spectacle, the analysis in this paper suggests a new theory of mega events as sites of struggle and articulators of political dissent, a conception that helps to explain the increasing international opposition and protest against the Olympics and the mega-event strategy.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Andranovich, G., Burbank, M.J. and Heying, C.H. ( 2001) Olympic cities: lessons learned from mega-event politics , Journal of Urban Affairs, 23(2), pp. 113-131.
2.
Benedict, B (Ed.) (1983) The Anthropology of World Fairs. London: Scolar Press.
3.
Benjamin, W. ( 1978) Reflections, Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writing . New York: Harcourt Brace and Company .
4.
Broudehoux, A.-M. ( 2007) Spectacular Beijing: the conscious construction of an Olympic metropolis, Journal of Urban Affairs, 29(4), pp. 383-399.
5.
Burbank, M., Andranovich, G. and Heying, C. ( 2001) Olympic Dreams: The Impact of Mega-events on Local Politics . New York: Lynne Rienner Publishers .
6.
COHRE (Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions) ( 2007) Fair play for housing rights: mega-events, Olympic games and housing rights. COHRE, Geneva .
7.
Debord, G. ( 1957/1981) Report on the construction of situations and on the international situationist tendency’s conditions of organization and action, transl. by K. Knabb (http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/).
8.
Debord, G. ( 1967/1994) The Society of the Spectacle, transl. by D. Nicholson-Smith. New York: Zone Books.
9.
Debord, G. ( 1988) Comments on the Society of the Spectacle, transl. by M. Imrie. London: Verso. Delaney, K.J. and Eckstein, R. ( 2003) Public Dollars, Private Stadiums: The Battle over Building Sports Stadiums. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
10.
Eisinger, P. ( 2000) The politics of bread and circuses: building the city for the visitor class, Urban Affairs Review, 35(3), pp. 316-333.
11.
Flyvbjerg, B. ( 2007) Policy and planning for large-infrastructure projects: problems, causes, cures, Environment and Planning B, 34, pp. 578-597.
12.
Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N. and Rothengatter, W. ( 2003) Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Gardiner, M.E. ( 2000) Critiques of Everyday Life. London : Routledge.
14.
Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. ( 2005) Cities of Culture: Staging International Festivals and the Urban Agenda, 1851-2000. Burlington, VA: Ashgate Publishing.
15.
Gold, J.R. and Gold, M.M. ( 2007) Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning and the World’s Games, 1896-2012. London: Routledge .
16.
Gospodini, A. ( 2009) Post-industrial trajectories of Mediterranean European cities: the case of post-Olympics Athens, Urban Studies, 46(5/6), pp. 1157-1186.
17.
Gotham, K.F. ( 2007) Authentic New Orleans: Race, Culture, and Tourism in the Big Easy. New York: New York University Press.
18.
Gotham, K. and Krier, D. ( 2008) From culture industry to the society of the spectacle: theoretical affinities of the Frankfurt school and the situationist international , Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 25, pp. 155-192.
19.
Hagan, P.E. ( 1994) The history and impact of the 1984 Louisiana world exposition . PhD thesis, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA.
20.
Hall, C.M. ( 2006) Urban entrepreneurship, corporate interests and sports mega-events: the thin policies of competitiveness within the hard outcomes of neoliberalism, Sociological Review, 54(2), pp. 59-70.
21.
Harvey, D. ( 1989) The Condition of Postmodernity. London : Basil Blackwell.
22.
Hiller, H. ( 2000) Mega-events, urban boosterism, and growth strategies: an analysis of the objectives and legitimations of the Cape Town 2004 Olympic bid, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research , 24(2), pp. 439-458.
23.
Hirsch, A.R. ( 1983) New Orleans: sunbelt in the swamp, in: R. M. Bernard and B. R. Rice (Eds) Sunbelt Cities: Politics and Growth since World War II, pp. 100-137. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
24.
Hirsch, A.R. (1992) Simply a matter of black and white: the transformation of race and politics in twentieth century New Orleans, in: A. R. Hirsch and J. Logsdon (Eds) Creole New Orleans: Race and Americanization, pp. 262-320. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.
25.
Horne, J. ( 2007) The four ‘knowns’ of sports mega-events, Leisure Studies, 26(1), pp. 81-96.
26.
Horne, J. and Manzenreiter, W. ( 2006) An introduction to the sociology of sports mega-events , Sociological Review, 54(2), pp. 1-24.
27.
International Trade Administration (1985) Final report on United States participation in the 1984 Louisiana World Exposition . Office of World Fairs and International Expositions, International Trade Administration.
28.
Jansson, A. ( 2005) Re-encoding the spectacle: urban fatefulness and mediated stigmatisation in the ‘city of tomorrow’, Urban Studies, 42(10), pp. 1671-1691.
29.
Jappe, A. ( 1999) Guy Debord, transl. by D. Nicholson-Smith. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
30.
Jay, M. ( 1993) Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-century Thought. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
31.
Katz, A. ( 1984) Rescue mission at the fair, Times-Picayune , 24 June, section 1, p. 31.
32.
Kotler, P., Haider, D.H. and Rein, I. ( 1993) Marketing Places: Attracting Investment, Industry, and Tourism to Cities, States, and Nations. New York: Free Press.
33.
Lefebvre, H. ( 1979) Space: social product and use value, in: J. Freiberg (Ed.) Critical Sociology: European Perspective, pp. 285-295. New York: Irvington Publishers.
34.
Lefebvre, H. ( 1991) The Production of Space. New York: Blackwell.
35.
Lemann, N. ( 1987) Hard times in the Big Easy, The Atlantic , 259.
36.
Ley, D. and Olds, K. ( 1988) Landscape as spectacle: world’s fairs and the culture of heroic consumption, Environment and Planning D, 6, pp. 191-212.
37.
Linden, G. and Creighton, P. ( 2008) The Expo Book: A Guide to the Planning, Organization, Design, and Operation of World Expositions. New York: Gordon Linden Publications.
38.
Lowes, M. ( 2002) Indy Dreams and Urban Nightmares: Speed Merchants, Spectacle, and the Struggle over Public Space in the World-Class City. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
39.
Massa, J. ( 1980) Fair is expected to bring significant economic boom, Times Picayune/States Item, 20 September, p. 1.
40.
Osborne, M. ( 1984) 1984 World’s Fair, New Orleans: The Official Guidebook , ed. by L. C. Delery.New Orleans: Picayune Publishing.
41.
Presley, M. ( 1976) Corporation formed to plan exposition in N.O., Times-Picayune, 20 July, section 2, p. 2.
42.
Richards, G. and Williams, J. ( 2004) The impact of cultural events on city image: Rotterdam, cultural capital of Europe 2001, Urban Studies, 41(10), pp. 1931-1951.
43.
Ritzer, G. ( 2005) Enchanting a Disenchanted World: Revolutionizing the Means of Consumption. New York: Pine Forge Press.
44.
Roche, M. ( 2000) Mega-events and Modernity: Olympics and Expos in the Growth of Global Culture. London: Routledge .
45.
Rydell, R.W. ( 1984) All the World’s a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International Expositions, 1876-1916. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
46.
Rydell, R.W. ( 1989) The culture of imperial abundance: world’s fairs in the making of American culture, in: S. J. Bronner (Ed.) Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in America, 1880-1920, pp. 191-216. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
47.
Rydell, R.W. ( 1993) World of Fairs: The Century of Progress Expositions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
48.
Rydell, R.W., Findling, J.E. and Pelle, K.D. ( 2000) Fair America: World’s Fairs in the United States . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books .
49.
Schmidt, W.E. ( 1984) Doubts are on exhibit also as fair nears opening day in New Orleans, New York Times, 6 May, p. 23.
50.
Shlay, A. and Giloth, R.P. ( 1987) The social organization of a land-based elite: the case of the failed Chicago 1992 World’s Fair, Journal of Urban Affairs, 9(4), pp. 305-324.
51.
Shoval, N. ( 2002) A new phase in the competition for Olympic gold: the London and New York bids for the 2012 games, Journal of Urban Affairs , 24(5), pp. 583-599.
52.
Simmel, G. ( 1896/2000) The Berlin Trade Exhibition, in: D. Frisby and M. Featherstone (Eds) Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings , pp. 255-258. London: Sage Publications.
53.
Smith, A. and Fox, T. ( 2007) From ‘event-led’ to ‘event-themed’ regeneration: the 2002 Commonwealth Games legacy programme, Urban Studies, 44(5/6), pp. 1125-1143.
54.
Smith, M.P. and Keller, M. (1986) Managed growth and the politics of uneven development in New Orleans, in: S. S. Fainstein, N. I. Fainstein, R. C. Hill et al. (Eds) Restructuring the City: The Political Economy of Urban Redevelopment , pp. 126-166. New York: Longman.
Times-Picayune (1984c) Fair passes deadline with large bills unpaid, 24 April.
67.
Times-Picayune (1984d) House OKs bailout for world’s fair, 24 April.
68.
Times-Picayune (1984e) Edwards: new loan should save fair, 23 June.
69.
Times-Picayune (1984f) Fair contractors sign up for payments, 12 July.
70.
Waitt, G. ( 1999) Playing games with Sydney: marketing Sydney for the 2000 Olympics, Urban Studies, 36(7), pp. 1055-1077.
71.
Whelan, R.K. ( 1987) New Orleans: mayoral politics and economic development policies in the postwar years, 1945-1986, in: C. N. Stone and H. T. Sanders (Eds) The Politics of Urban Development, pp. 219-229. Lawrence, KS : University of Kansas Press.
72.
Whelan, R.K. and Young, A. ( 1991) New Orleans: the ambivalent city, in: H. V. Savitch and J. C. Thomas (Eds) Big City Politics in Transition, pp. 132-148. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
73.
Whelan, R.K., Young, A. and Lauria, M. ( 1994) Urban regimes and racial politics in New Orleans, Journal of Urban Affairs, 16(1), pp. 1-21.
74.
Whitelegg, D. ( 2000) Going for gold: Atlanta’s bid for fame, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 24(4), pp. 801-817.
