The Performance and Perception of Space: Examining the Role of Hip-Hop, as a Cultural Identity, in Constructing and Reclaiming both Representational Spaces and Representations of Space Part 2 Dissertation 2026 Charlotte Bebb Birmingham City University | UK This dissertation considers the intersection of hip-hop culture and its spatial practices, focusing on its ability to construct and reclaim representations of space and lived experiences, with a primary site of the Bronx, New York. Utilising spatial theories and narratives on subcultures to investigate how hip-hop’s foundational practices – music, dance, and visual art challenge dominant hegemony and reclaim urban landscapes and their perceptions.Drawing on Henri Lefebvre’s spatial triad - spatial practice, representations of space, and representational space – this study posits hip-hop, through its cultural practices, infuses the (re) produced social space with identity and resistance. Furthermore, the socio-economic and socio-spatial context, that gave rise to hip-hop, is being examined to reveal the culture’s historical roots in marginalised communities, responding to systemic racism, poverty and disenfranchisement. Thus highlighting the role of fostering group collective expression and constructing spaces of freedom and identity.Through the four sections: movement through space, sound in space, physical space and perception of space, an analysis of hip-hop’s cultural artefacts demonstrates how innovators resisted oppressive power hierarchies, (re)producing a social space both symbolically and physically. This work expands on scholarly discourse on both spatial production and the architecture of hip-hop as a mode of cultural production; linking theoretical concepts with lived experiences. Tutor(s) Michael Dring