M4H in Rotterdam Makers District: On the Edge of a Future

In this thesis, I aim to destabilize the imagined futures of place-making in M4H, as part of Rotterdam Makers District, and imagined by Rotterdam Port Authority and Rotterdam Municipality. By employing the concepts Sociotechnical Imaginaries, Place Bundling, Processes of Place-framing, and The Right to The City, I generated a four-fold analysis on the edge of a future. A future, that is not only an imagined or idealized future, but also a future very much materialized and normalized into existence. Next to applying a Critical Discourse Analysis of interviews, social-media posts, the website of M4H, and the Spatial Framework, I conducted a Narrative Walk, with which another outlook on M4H, from the street level up, came into light. It is an area substantiated in its promises for a future-proof future. A future that is at the same time contrasting with, as well as embedded in this desolated, raw edge of the historical Merwevierhavens in Rotterdam.