En heterotopologisk analys av den kulturella infrastrukturen i Göteborg: Rio Rio-båten på kollisionskurs med ett stadsplaneringsmaskineri på drift.

This essays overarching aim is to contribute to the theoretical discussion of transformation processes that are shaping the urban landscapes and further to problematize contemporary planning discourses in Sweden. Drawing on the concept of Foucault’s heterotopia and actor-network theory for spatial analysis, the paper seeks to analyze the complex urban landscape transformation process as an emergent property of human and non-human actor-networks seeking to transform and order space. With the district of Rosenlund in Gothenburg as a starting point, this thesis intends to examine how the cultural infrastructure - used by the residents and visitors of the city - are related to the city's planning and development processes. The case study is based on a boat (Rio Rio) in Rosenlund canal that is defined as a cultural infrastructure. The ethnographic part of this essay confirms that the boat serves as an important meeting place for different generations and ethnicities and as a facilitator for diverse cultural life and musical styles in central Gothenburg. This paper also elaborates the point that the boat is being repelled by emergent actor-networks - that consist of both private and public actors – which are assembled and held together by the performative and utopian idea of the "good city." This animated conflict illustrates Gothenburg’s ambivalent attitude towards urban life: on the one hand the pluralism and diversity is raised as an ideal, and on the other hand the city is producing monocultures by mobilizing entrepreneurs and policy-makers for refurbishment of the city center effective repelling elements that doesn’t fit in that utopian framework.