“First- and Second-Hand Actants at Van Beuningenplein, Amsterdam – Investigating the Role of Material Agency in the Formation of Human-/Non-Human Collectives”

The objective of this paper is to develop conceptual tools that can contribute to a relational and non-reductive approach to the analysis and design of public space. A key ambition is to investigate the role of material agency in the formation of collectives and collective spaces. In particular, the study focuses on urban artefacts, such as furniture, bollards, fences, walls, platforms etc., as mediators of social exchange and as important actors in the production of collective space.

      Public life can be seen as performed by coexisting collectives, or human-/non-human assemblages. Collective space can be regarded as temporal territories, produced by civic or private administration, different tactics, corporeal appropriation and heterogeneous materialities.

      The fieldwork entails ethnographic studies of a selection of Amsterdam playgrounds with a specific focus on the van Beuningenplein playground. The van Beuningenplein offers rich settings for human-/non-human interactions, and the role of the playground as a vital neighborhood meeting place makes it particularly interesting as a collective space.

      Through a close study of various on-going socio-material interactions and assemblages at the playground, I identify a series of concepts in order to describe how materialities take on different roles in the formation of temporary collectives. First- and second-hand actants are concepts enabling an analysis of direct and indirect relations between humans and multiple objects. First-hand actants imply personal artefacts (cell-phones, handbags, takeaway food etc.) that are carried around and of which we have direct control. Second-hand actants imply impersonal artefacts (benches, bollards, walls etc.), usually are attached to material spaces, and where human interaction sometimes need to be mediated through first-hand actants.

Further examples of concepts explored in this paper are anchors, polyvalent artefacts and base camps. Together these concepts are used to explore the material agencies that are active in the production of collectives and collective spaces.