Crime Scenes in a Ghost Town: The Atmospherics of Lockdown
Public Webinar
Alison Young, with Bianca Fileborn Social & Political Sciences, The University of Melbourne
4 August 2020, 5pm AEST via zoom
The global COVID-19 pandemic has led to lockdowns being implemented around the world. In Victoria, the imposition of a State of Emergency has resulted in a series of regulations about physical distancing that insisted people ‘stay home, stay safe’ except for strict reasons specified by the government. This has had a profound impact both inside the home and outside in the streets; with cities from London to New York and Sydney being emptied of their usual crowds and described as ‘ghost towns’.
In this presentation, Professor Alison Young will reflect on how lockdowns have transformed space and how it is regulated. In conversation with Dr Bianca Fileborn, they will together consider what a city street looks and feels like without crowds, the shifting notions of ‘crime’ during the pandemic, and the consequences of how emergency powers have been implemented. These issues which lockdown has brought into focus have serious implications for our future uses of public space and for the ways in which we experience cities.
Alison Young is the Francine V. McNiff Professor of Criminology at the University of Melbourne. Her work has engaged with many aspects of the governance of urban public space including graffiti, street art, homelessness and political dissent. She is currently researching ride-sharing and public safety, homelessness and hostile design, and the atmospherics of criminal justice institutions. She is the author of Street Art World (2016), Street Art, Public City (2014), The Scene of Violence (2010), Street/Studio (2010), and Judging the Image (2005) and founder of the Urban Environments Research Network.
Dr Bianca Fileborn (she /they) is an ARC DECRA Fellow and Lecture in Criminology at the University of Melbourne. Her current work examines the development of victim-centred justice responses to public harassment as well as safety and harassment in ride share and taxi services. She is the author of Reclaiming the Night-Time Economy: Unwanted Sexual Attention in Pubs & Clubs (2016) and co-editor of #MeToo & the Politics of Social Change (2019). They can be followed on Twitter @snappyalligator.
