The 'problem' of skating has been conflated with a 'problem' with young people in public spaces reflecting a rise in fear of crime from the mid-twentieth century and referencing more general questions about public space and citizenship. My task in this paper is to highlight some of the tensions between skating and urban governance in Franklin Square, Hobart, the capital city of Tasmania in Australia. This task is indebted to ideas about governance and citizenship advanced by Nikolas Rose; about the proper city as conceived by Michel de Certeau; and about fortress strategies and species of spaces promulgated by Stephen Flusty. Franklin Square functions in two ways in this work. First, its examination encourages consideration of local cases. Second, it can be deployed as a heuristic device through which to explore the edges of public space and citizenship. The essay is intended to make two contributions to social and cultural geography, one enlarging on some well-rehearsed debates about situated and contested socio-spatial relations in what I hope are innovative ways, the other unsettling particular strategies that place skaters 'on the edge' and yet draw them into particular domains of citizenship via specific practices of urban governance. © 2002 Taylor & Francis Ltd.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Studies in Human Society
Research Group:	Human Geography
Research Field:	Social and Cultural Geography
Objective Division:	Law, Politics and Community Services
Objective Group:	Government and Politics
Objective Field:	Civics and Citizenship
UTAS Author:	Stratford, E (Professor Elaine Stratford)
ID Code:	24585
Year Published:	2002
Deposited By:	Geography and Environmental Studies
Deposited On:	2002-08-01
Last Modified:	2007-10-23
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