The Institutionalization of the Night: a Geography of Geneva’s Night Policies

Abstract

This paper is about the institution of the night as a public problem in Geneva. The main arguments can be summarized as follows. First, the urban night is a permanent construction, never stabilized, of a non-linear and contentious process of institution as a public problem. Secondly, this process produces more than the urban night as a space-time but also enables sets of practices and subjectivities. Institutional practices as well as from the civil society are produced through a complex process of what has been conceptualized as governmentality by Michel Foucault. Thirdly, night studies benefit from a geographical approach in terms of policy mobility. Night policies are circulating between cities through global microspaces such as public events, conferences, seminars and by way of experts, consultants and researchers. Consequently, their movements are the result of an uncertain topological process of relations. Finally, it is assumed that urban night could be part of what McCann proposed as an agenda for research into the spatial, social, and relational character of globally circulating urban (night) policies, (night) policy models, and (night) policy knowledge.