Marginality and the Third Space of Un-adopted Plotlander Roads

This paper explores the characteristics and relationships of marginality in informal space and plotlander housing in the context of Homi K. Bhabha’s cultural hybridity and Third Space. To illustrate and examine the processes of marginalisation that defined informal space in the UK this paper will critically analyse the previously undocumented plotlander community at Studd Hill on the North Kent coastline. Examining key aspects of this sites social origins and its marginal spatial context reveals the positive implications and challenges of informal space and social hybridisation. In this analysis issues of spatial vulnerability and marginality of plotlander communities are critically reframed as analogous to the socio-spatial characteristics and innovative practices highlighted by Bhabha in postcolonial hybrid space. Focusing specifically on the challenges of the un-adopted roads at Studd Hill this paper’s comparisons reveal how the anarchistic emergence of plotlander housing in the UK has produced innovative solutions to their social marginality that reflect the spatial values of postcolonial hybrid spaces.