Enforcing ‘rules’

Interviewees did not only talk about the various principles they felt were important for their practice and others engaging with their practice, but also about how they reacted when ‘rules’ were broken or how they attempted to prevent this from happening.

A few interviewees mentioned that they will undo or remove whatever harm has been done to their practice. For instance, one interviewee mentioned that she was planning to check the book shelves in a homeless shelter and a nearby pub to see whether any of those books had her book swap’s stickers on it, and if so, she would take the books back.

Other people would go beyond this to try and find out who committed the offence and to confront them about it or to refer them to the relevant authorities.

This includes a few “quiet words” with people who were taking too many books or had taken freshly planted plants, or collaboration with public authorities to ensure that fines for littering or spitting are imposed. One member of a guerrilla gardening project who had plants repeatedly stolen from a tree pit in front of her house went even further. With the help of a neighbour working in an electronics shop, she installed CCTV at her window for a period of time. Once she had identified the thief, she performed a citizen’s arrest on him, before handing him over to the police.

Perhaps more often, interviewees talked about how they tried to prevent people from breaking their rules, for instance by codifying them. In order to encourage people to return books, several of the book swap organisers mentioned that they put labels or stickers on the books that indicate that they belong to a particular book swap. A couple of other interviewees, who told me that they did not put stickers in the books because they felt it was too much work, still agreed that it would probably incentivise people to bring them back, and to discourage people from trying to sell them. Many book swap organisers and guerrilla gardeners also put up notices or signs to explain the basic principle (for example, taking a book and returning one) and who was behind the initiative (for example, a certain community group or individual). Several interviewees felt

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that this might make people think more carefully before taking any plants or trampling on them.

Another way in which interviewees tried to prevent any offence was to try and remove the incentives for vandalism or theft, including by using low value plants or by physically fixing components to make any potential theft harder. One book swap organiser, who had received quite a lot of media publicity for his initiative, also recounted that he stopped wearing his football scarf to interviews. His rationale for doing so was that most people in the local area supported a different club and he was worried that any aggression against him would be transferred to his book swap.

Other interviewees also counted on social surveillance in order to deter any undesirable behaviour. For instance, many book swap organisers mentioned that they deliberately chose a “semi-supervised” public space. It is worth noting that people have different definitions of what that means. While for some, it was inside the waiting room of a train station, for others it consisted of a place where there was some CCTV, or of a visible, well-lit part of the road. Nonetheless, they all felt that in these spaces “there’s a bit of surveillance” and that people were likely to stop anyone who might attempt taking larger amounts of books. In the cases where the book swap was located within a station, organisers also often mentioned their good relationship with station staff who takes on a certain surveillance role. In other case studies, people talked of a more direct form of surveillance, including through allocated personnel who was moving around the Equal Streets event to check that all the activities complied with the rules.

Another way of pre-empting unwanted behaviour was to restrict access, at least at certain times. For instance, a couple of the book swaps organisers highlighted that the book swap could only be used as long as the station ticket hall was open. In one of the spot fix projects, the initiator got the railway to erect a wall to prevent direct access from neighbouring informal housing onto the platform – something that he hoped would help reduce the waste and garbage.

The Equal Streets case study went furthest in ensuring that their rules were adhered to, as the organisers decided that people who wanted to do an activity

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at the open street event needed to ask for permission. They had to send an email, setting out the objectives of their activity, and if these were judged to fit with the overall ethos of the Equal Streets campaign, they would be sent a confirmation letter. On the day of the event, the organisers then had dedicated staff to check whether people had confirmation letters or not. These permits were not a requirement from public authorities put on the organisers. Rather, there was a consensus among the group that they needed to ensure that the activities did not undermine their overall objectives and that the event would not turn commercial.

Despite these various attempts to ensure that other people do not behave against the interviewees’ own principles and values, there was a proportion of them who argued that they either could not, or did not want to enforce these rules. For instance, several book swap organisers pointed out that although the idea was that people take a book and bring one back, this was very hard to police or pursue. Indeed, many felt that following this rule was “not absolutely required”, “not compulsory”, “all very flexible” and “not a problem”. This was partly because the book swaps tended to replenish regardless, for instance when people de-clutter and put in a lot of books at once, and partly because organisers showed some understanding for people breaking the rules. For instance, a couple of interviewees explained that – given the low re-sale value of second hand books – if someone had so little money that they needed to take books from the swap to sell them, then they “can’t get upset about it”.

Interestingly, even in the case of Equal Streets, one interviewee told me that their checks on whether people had a confirmation letter or not, were not very stringent:

“So we did not ask the police to do it very strictly. It’s because we do not want to be very authoritative. Six and a half kilometres and we don’t own it. Let people do something. If they get away, they get away.” (ES1, interview, 2015)

This quote also aptly illustrates the fluidity that exists between informal and formal ways of doing things – a theme that runs through this entire first part of

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the chapter. Indeed, while some actors have a preference for acting informally (e.g. spontaneous and non-bureaucratic), or formally (compliant with law), in most cases their overall ‘ethical’ concerns or values take precedence. On the one hand, this implies that actors are willing to change their initial idea about how the practice should look like if it better achieves their overall purpose (as exemplified in the above quote, where the organiser of the Equal Streets event was willing to renounce on a strict obedience of their rules in favour of an enhanced sense of ownership that people develop for the public space). On the other hand, this suggests that even a firm subscription to a ‘formal’ or ‘informal’

way of doing things is motivated by actors’ desire to achieve their larger purpose (e.g. their requirement to obey the law is due to them wanting to contribute something to the entire community; or their insistence on spontaneity and lack of processes is a way of guaranteeing access for all). In this sense, acting informally or formally primarily becomes a tool to achieve their larger aims and purposes. The extent to which this is also true for actors’ actual practices (as opposed to their theoretical principles and values) is subject of the second part of this chapter.