A future for the library: Contested public space and social infrastructure in Aotearoa, New Zealand

Abstract

Staunch resistance to the closure of three specialist academic libraries in Auckland in 2019 acted as the catalyst for my research into the diverging landscapes of contemporary public library provision in Aotearoa, New Zealand. My dissertation narrates how these paradoxes–of library decline alongside library expansion and resurgence–are cohabiting in the present moment. This research explores the contested futures of central library buildings in the cities of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, drawing on a feminist methodology informed by assemblage thinking. Instead of seeing public libraries as neutral social infrastructures, my dissertation argues that public libraries are maintained through contestation, constantly under assembly, and hold within them multiple, paradoxical visions of urban life and future possibility.