The city and the cities: protocols and architectures of uninteraction and counter-strategies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/jau.2026.24356Abstract
This article examines the spatial and social mechanisms that regulate interactions between marginalized and privileged bodies – both human and more-than-human – in urban environments. It explores how uninteraction protocols and architectures enforce segregation, maintaining the divide between the city and the cities. The study proposes interaction protocols and architectures as an alternative framework to foster more inclusive urban ecologies. Drawing on science fiction as a conceptual tool to envision alternative urban configurations, this study employs The City & The City by China Miéville as an analytical framework. The findings reveal that urban space operates as a complex ecosystem where marginalized and privileged bodies coexist under social and political tensions regulated by uninteraction protocols. These protocols, materialized through uninteraction architectures, enforce segregation and perpetuate dominant narratives of exclusion. We identify emerging counter-practices – interaction protocols and architectures – that short-circuit uninteraction and enable the consequent collapse of the city and the cities into a single urban space, unique but multiple, understood as a place for the free association of beings. The research not only expands urban exclusion studies to include more-than-human perspectives but also employs science fiction as an intellectual framework to analyse urban space. By integrating the imaginative contributions of writers and artists, the research mobilizes an interdisciplinary speculative thought as a methodological tool, allowing for a reconfiguration of urban analysis beyond conventional paradigms.
Keywords:
science fiction, architectures of uninteraction, protocols of uninteraction, marginalized bodies, privileged bodies, interspecies co-designHow to Cite
Share
License
Copyright (c) 2026 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
Anker, P. (2004). A vindication of the rights of brutes. Philosophy & Geography, 7(2), 259–264. https://doi.org/10.1080/1090377042000285462
Appel, M., Hutmacher, F., Pollit, T., & Stein, J.-P. (2023). Swipe right? Using beauty filters in male Tinder profiles reduces women’s evaluations of trustworthiness but increases physical attractiveness and dating intention. Computers in Human Behavior, 148, Article 107871. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2023.107871
Arcari, P., Probyn-Rapsey, F., & Singer, H. (2021). Where species don’t meet: Invisibilized animals, urban nature and city limits. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 4(3), 940–965. https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848620939870
Barua, M., & Sinha, A. (2022). Cultivated, feral, wild: The urban as an ecological formation. Urban Geography, 44(10), 2206–2227. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2022.2055924
Basu, S. (2019). What happens when you avert your eyes from the homeless. Retrieved February 13, 2025, from https://gothamist.com/news/what-happens-when-you-avert-your-gaze-homeless
Baynes-Rock, M. (2012). Hyenas like us: Social relations with an urban Carnivore in Harar, Ethiopia [Doctoral dissertation, Macquarie University].
Besplemennova, Y. (2016). Internet, Tinder and the city. Medium. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://medium.com/yulyas-blog/internet-tinder-and-the-city-bdd564961afb
Beyer, S. (2016). How Tinder is changing the urban bar scene. Forbes. Retrieved February 14 2025, from . https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/03/26/how-tinder-is-changing-the-urban-bar-scene/
Boonman-Berson, S., Turnhout, E., & Carolan, M. (2016). Common sensing: Human-black bear cohabitation practices in Colorado. Geoforum, 74, 192–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2016.06.010
Büttner, C. M., Rudert, S. C., & Kachel, S. (2024). Ostracism experiences of sexual minorities: Investigating targets’ experiences and perceptions by others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 51(10), 2015–2030. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672241240675
Byrne, J., & Wolch, J. (2009). Urban habitats/nature. In R. Kitchin & N. Thrift (Eds.), International encyclopedia of human geography (pp. 46–50). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-008044910-4.01091-9
Campanella, T. J. (2017). Robert Moses and his racist parkway, explained. Bloomberg. Retrieved February 13, 2025, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained
Caro, R. A. (2024). The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (1st ed.). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Charles, N. (2014). ‘Animals just love you as you are’: Experiencing kinship across the species barrier. Sociology, 48(4), 715–730. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038513515353
Cook, A., Rushton, S., Allan, J., & Baxter, A. (2008). An evaluation of techniques to control problem bird species on landfill sites. Environmental Management, 41, 834–43. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-008-9077-7
Cummins, E. (2023). Rats have taken over our cities – and we can’t stop them. Popular Mechanics. Retrieved February 13, 2025, from https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a45861989/rats-in-new-york-city/
Dantcheva, A., Chen, C., & Ross, A. (2012, September 23–27). Can facial cosmetics affect the matching accuracy of face recognition systems?. In Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE fifth International Conference on Biometrics: Theory, applications and Systems (pp. 391–398). Arlington, VA, USA. IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/BTAS.2012.6374605
De Fine Licht, K. (2017). Hostile urban architecture: A critical discussion of the seemingly offensive art of keeping people away. Etikk i praksis – Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics, 11(2), 27–44. https://doi.org/10.5324/eip.v11i2.2052
Donaldson, S., & Kymlicka, W. (2013). Zoopolis: A political theory of animal rights. Oxford University Press.
Fadulu, L. (2019). Facial recognition technology in public housing Prompts Backlash. The New York Times. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/us/politics/facial-recognition-technology-housing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk4.m6rs.H00sqatBt2Ah&smid=url-share%20/
Frías-Sánchez, A., Perailes-Santiago, J., Orap, E., & Jiménez López, D. (2023). Aprendiendo de Chernobyl: colonialismo inverso y las arquitecturas salvajes [Learning from Chernobyl: Reverse colonialism and wild architectures]. HipoTesis Serie Numerada, 11, 39–51. https://doi.org/10.37536/htsn.11.2023.156
Frías-Sánchez, A., Perailes-Santiago, J., & Jiménez López, D. (2024a). The war of the urban worlds: Other-than-human resistances in the framework of the city. Materia Arquitectura, 1(26), 83–105. https://doi.org/10.56255/ma.v1i26.584
Frías-Sánchez, A., Perailes-Santiago, J., & Jiménez-López, D. (2024b). Living walls: Octavia E. Butler and Xenoarchitecture as an interspecies mediator. FOOTPRINT, 18(1), 55–68. https://doi.org/10.59490/footprint.18.1.6927
Fuentes, A. (2010). Naturalcultural encounters in Bali: Monkeys, temples, tourists, and ethnoprimatology. Cultural Anthropology, 25(4), 600–624. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2010.01071.x
García de Jalón Oyarzun, L. (2017) Excepción y cuerpo rebelde: lo político como generador de una arquitectónica menor [Exception and the rebel body: The political as generator of a minor architecture] [Doctoral dissertation, Polytechnic University of Madrid]. Retrieved June 28, 2021, from https://doi.org/10.20868/UPM.thesis.48250
Haraway, D. J. (2008). When species meet (Vol. 3). University of Minnesota Press.
Heaslip, V., Green, S., Simkhada, B., Dogan, H., & Richer, S. (2021). How do people who are homeless find out about local health and social care services: A mixed method study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(1), Article 46. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010046
Heilweil, R. (2019). Tenants sounded the alarm on facial recognition in their buildings. Lawmakers are listening. Vox. Retrieved February 14, 2025, from https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/12/26/21028494/facial-recognition-biometrics-public-housing-privacy-concerns
Hörl, E., & Schott, N. F. (2018). The environmentalitarian situation: Reflections on the becoming-environmental of thinking, power, and capital. Cultural Politics, 14(2), 153–173. https://doi.org/10.1215/17432197-6609046
Hunold, C., & Mazuchowski, M. (2020). Human-wildlife coexistence in urban wildlife management: Insights from nonlethal predator management and rodenticide bans. Animals, 10(11), Article 1983. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10111983
Invisible People. (2023). Think they don’t notice? Why eye contact with homeless people matters [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqLigPHEdvA&ab_channel=InvisiblePeople
Jalón Oyarzun, L. (2024). Ante una arquitectónica de la ambientalidad: Diagramando la producción espacial de semióticas texturales e infraestructurales [Facing an architecture of environmentally: Diagramming the spatial production of textural and infrastructural semiotics]. Materia Arquitectura, (26), 126–143. https://doi.org/10.56255/ma.v1i26.586
Jaque, A. (2019). Rearticulating the social. e-flux Architecture. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/positions/280206/rearticulating-the-social/
Khanam, T., Rahman, A., Mola-Yudego, B., Pelkonen, P., Perez, Y., & Pykäläinen, J. (2017. Achievable or unbelievable? Expert perceptions of the European Union targets for emissions, renewables, and efficiency. Energy Research & Social Science, 34, 144–153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2017.06.040
Klug, P. E., Shiels, A. B., Kluever, B. M., C. Anderson, J., Hess, S. C., Ruell, E. W., Bukoski, W. P., & Siers, S. R. (2022). A review of nonlethal and lethal control tools for managing the damage of invasive birds to human assets and economic activities. Management of Biological Invasions, 14(1), 1–44. https://doi.org/10.3391/mbi.2023.14.1.01
Koch, D. (2016). On avoidance: Reflections on processes of socio-spatial structuring. Civil Engineering and Architecture, 4(2), 67–78. https://doi.org/10.13189/cea.2016.040204
Liu, C., & Rona-Tas, A. (2024). Trusting by numbers: An analysis of a Chinese social credit system governance infrastructure. Critical Sociology, 51(6), 1247–1265. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205241246528
Martín Muñoz, M. (2022) Impacto de la brecha digital en personas sin hogar [Impact of the digital divide of homeless people]. [Master thesis, Unicersity of Valladolid]. https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/57290
Mbembe, A. (2017). Critique of Black reason (L. Dubois, Trans.). Duke University Press.
Metzger, J. (2016). Cultivating torment: The cosmopolitics of more-than-human urban planning. City, 20(4) 581–601. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2016.1193997
Miéville, C. (2009) The city & the city (1st ed.). Ballantine Books.
Miéville, C. (2010) The city & the city (Del Rey trade paperback ed.). Ballantine Books.
Mukherjee, A. (2022) Unseen city: The psychic lives of the urban poor (Cambridge studies in twenty-first-century literature and culture). Cambridge University Press.
Narayanan, Y. (2017). Street dogs at the intersection of colonialism and informality: Subaltern animism” as a posthuman critique of Indian cities. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(3), 475–494. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263775816672860
New International Version. (2011). Holy Bible: New International Version. Biblica.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. New York University Press.
Palahniuk, C. (1996). Fight club (1st ed.). Norton & Company.
Paynter, B. (2019). Visualizing where rich and poor people really cross paths – or don’t. Fast Company. https://www.fastcompany.com/90315961/visualizing-where-rich-and-poor-people-really-cross-paths-or-dont
Perailes Santiago, J., & Frías Sánchez, A. (2022). La colonización de las TIC: Postregionalismo arquitectónico para una ocupación híbrida del territorio [The colonization of ICTs: Architectural postregionalism for a hybrid occupation of the territory]. BAc Boletín Académico. Revista de investigación y arquitectura contemporánea, 12, 34–55. https://doi.org/10.17979/bac.2022.12.0.8877
Pestellini Laparelli, I. (2020). Data architectures. e-flux Architecture. Retrieved February 13, 2025, from https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/intelligence/310404/data-architectures/
Philol, C. (1995). Animals, geography, and the city: Notes on inclusions and exclusions. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 13(6), 655–681. https://doi.org/10.1068/d130655
Rosenberger, R. (2020). On hostile design: Theoretical and empirical prospects. Urban Studies, 57(4), 883–893. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042098019853778
Shingne, M. C. (2020). The more-than-human right to the city: A multispecies reevaluation. Journal of Urban Affairs, 44, 137–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2020.1734014
Shrum, L. J. (2015). Selective perception and selective retention. In W. Donsbach (Ed.), The International encyclopedia of communication. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecs025.pub2
Smart Richman, L., & Leary, M. R. (2009). Reactions to discrimination, stigmatization, ostracism, and other forms of interpersonal rejection: A multimotive model. Psychological Review, 116(2), 365–383. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015250
Steele, W., Wiesel, I., & Maller, C. (2019). More-than-human cities: Where the wild things are. Geoforum, 106, 411–415. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2019.04.007
Stoetzer, B. (2018). Ruderal ecologies: Rethinking nature, migration, and the urban landscape in Berlin. Cultural Anthropology, 33, 295–323. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca33.2.09
Stout, J. G., & Dasgupta, N. (2011). When he doesn’t mean you: Gender-exclusive language as ostracism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37(6), 757–769. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167211406434
Taylor, S. (2017). Beasts of burden: Animal and disability liberation. The New Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781620971291
Taylor, T. (1966). A vindication of the rights of brutes. Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints. (Original work published, 1792)
Toma, C. L., & Hancock, J. T. (2010). Looks and lies: The role of physical attractiveness in online dating self-presentation and deception. Communication Research, 37(3), 335–351. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650209356437
Trembley, K. (2022). Jatikaran: Caste, rats, and the control of space at the Karni Mata Mandir. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, 6(2), 717–735. https://doi.org/10.1177/25148486221094132
Trotta, A. (2020). Hacking hostile architecture: Gentle disobedience in neoliberal public space [Master thesis, Université Libre de Bruxelles].
Van Zalk, N., & Smith, R. (2019). Internalizing profiles of homeless adults: Investigating links between perceived ostracism and need-threat. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 350. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00350
Vargas Melgarejo, L. M. (2014). Sobre el concepto de percepción [On the concept of perception]. Alteridades, (8), 47–53.
Von Uexküll, J. (2010). A foray into the worlds of animals and humans: With a theory of meaning. University of Minnesota Press.
Weisman, L. K. (1992). Discrimination by design: A feminist critique of the man-made environment. University of Illinois Press.
Wollstonecraft, M. (2004). A vindication of the rights of woman (M. Brody, Ed.). Penguin Classics.
Wundram, I. J., & Ruback, R. B. (1986). Urban rats: Symbol, symptom and symbiosis. Human Organization, 45(3), 212–219.
Wurster, C.B., & Penner, B. (2020). Modern housing. University of Minnesota Press.
View article in other formats
CrossMark check
Published
Issue
Section
Copyright
Copyright (c) 2026 The Author(s). Published by Vilnius Gediminas Technical University.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.