Moving Beyond the Right to the City: Urban Commoning in Greece (original) (raw)
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The politics of public space and the emergence of the commons in contemporary Athens
2016
This thesis investigates the public spaces of the contemporary city of Athens within a democratic political framework, analysing the urban space as ‘produced’ (Lefebvre,1991) by material practices of representation and everyday practices of appropriation, rather than as a fixed physical entity. The timeframe of this research coincides with radical changes in the sites that are the subject of the key studies, as the urban riots of December 2008 shattered the solidified and unequal relationship between state and society, introducing new public actors and spaces, such as the commons, while the indignants movement in 2011 questioned the statutory definition of public sphere and the incumbent democratic model. In order to respond to the challenges of this highly shifting research field, focused in the main statutory square of Syntagma, the notorious main square of Exarcheia and Navarinou Park, and in order to explore the emerging commons and the elusive, informal and heterogeneous civic ...
Practices of solidarity in Athens: reconfigurations of public space and urban citizenship
Citizenship Studies, 2017
The multi-faceted crisis that has hit Greece and other (southern) European countries has had severe consequences on people's everyday lives. In an attempt to cope with, but also resist, dramatic changes in lifestyles, incomes and welfare, several initiatives have sprung up all over the country at many different scales, with diverse targets, varying actors and outcomes. Many people have abandoned their privacy to participate in public actions of solidarity, in initiatives that often involve new or alternative uses of urban space. It seems that practices of solidarity and claims around material spaces are becoming an important "laboratory" for shaping a different public sphere. Drawing from relevant examples in Athens, the paper aims to reflect on the ways in which such practices and claims arise and develop; how different types of rights and forms of doing politics are enacted in situations of crisis and deprivation; and finally how such practices reconfigure public space and shape notions of belonging, which ultimately (re)define urban citizenship.
The Contentious Common Space in Greece: From the Neoliberal Austerity to the SYRIZA Left Government
RC21, 2015
While the last years the discussion on urban commons is becoming increasingly popular among activists and radical scholars there have been few attempts to think it together with the notion of crisis. Following autonomous Marxists analysis (de Angelis 2010; Caffentzis 2010; Hardt and Negri 2009), conceptualizing the commons involves three things at the same time: common pool resource, community and commoning. Commons don’t exist per se but they are making in times of social struggles and they are constituted through the social process of commoning. In this theoretical framework, I connect the spatial analysis of Lefebvre (1974): Perceived-Conceived-Lived Space, with the autonomous Marxists analysis, and I propose the concept of the Common Space. From this point of view, motions and reactions of capitalism can be understood as a response to the power of social commoning of commoners’ communities that produce the common space. Capitalism seeks to distort (de Angelis 2009) commons and enclose the common space in order to maintain the permanence of the so-called primitive accumulation and the (re)production of commodity and surplusvalue. Following this approach crisis can be understood as the critical time of circulation of capital vis-à-vis the circulation of social struggles for the control over the commons. To approve this thesis I examine and problematize the paradigm of urban commons and enclosures in Greece in the era of crisis. During the last years we are witnessing in Greece an unprecedented wave of new urban enclosures and at the same time there are emerging fruitful urban social struggles and a new common space. On the one hand in the era of crisis there are emerged several local neighborhoods assemblies, social centers, squats, communal gardens, social health centers, social kindergartens, cooperatives, social groceries, collective kitchens, and barter structures that constitute a common space in the perceived-conceived-lived urban space. On the other hand, austerity measures have as a result crucial implementations of material, immaterial and ideological urban enclosures. Nowadays a new left government promises to take steps against neoliberal austerity urban enclosures and promote democratic urban planning. The challenge is great; hence this paper monitors the contentious commons space from the neoliberal austerity to the SYRIZA left government. Closing, I argue that in the era of crisis commons are in the focal point of political, social and urban conflicts.
'The Right to the City' Reversed: The Athenian Right to the City in a Crisis Era
RC21, 2013
In 1968 Lefebvre's book "The right to the city" was published. Ever since the notion "right to the city" served both as an inspiration for several scholars, academics, activists and researches like Castells, Harvey, Soja, Marcuse, Smith and as a point of departure for several struggles, urban social movements and revolts across the world. While it has become extremely popular or even fashionable as de Souza suggests, it often appears detached from its original meaning.
transcript Verlag, Bielefeld, 2015
Ever since the book of Henri Lefebvre “The right to the city” was published in 1968 it served as a great inspiration for several scholars, researchers, academics and activists. Being the point of departure for various urban movements, it contributed to a wave of resistance and destabilization of sovereignty in many parts of the western world during the turbulent decades of the 60s and 70s. While it has become extremely popular or even fashionable, it often appears detached from its original meaning. Various forms of sovereignty used its revolutionary and innovative rhetoric in an attempt to grand radical contexts in their political agendas. Forty five years after the first publication of Lefebvre’s book, the Athenian metropolis, a city in the (epi)center of the crisis turmoil, is governed by a municipal authority party that goes under the name of “Right to the City”. The party adopted much of Lefebvre’s revolutionary rhetoric, such as “the city as oeuvre”, in order to form its political agenda and win the municipal elections of 2010 and 2014. Ever since, a political program is applied based on a rather distorted interpretation of “the right to the city”. In this chapter two approaches of “The right to the city” (‘TRTTC’ from now on) will be confronted. On the one hand the Lefebvrian notion of the 1960s and on the other hand Kaminis’ (the Athens mayoral candidate) appropriation of 2010 and 2014. The first approach is considered as an effort to introduce the Marxian thought in spatial thinking in order to contribute to the emerging emancipatory movements, and the second as a fine example of distortion of contexts in favor of gaining power and promoting neoliberal policies. In this direction, we unfold the political program of Kaminis and examine its applications versus its title and theoretical context. By examining urban policies and tactics that are applied under the cloak of “TRTTC” and form the everyday life in Athens we intend to demonstrate that divisions between form and content can often lead to the complete inversion of primal meanings. By lifting the veil of propaganda it becomes visible that the assimilation of radical contexts on behalf of municipal authority does not lead to emancipatory urban policies but aims to cover up sovereignty. Bringing to surface neo-interpretations of Lefebvre’s analysis, though, does not only enlighten the subversion of the original notions or highlight them as stolen contexts from sovereignty. In fact, not only is it a great opportunity to explore once again and rethink what Lefebvre was teaching and writing during the 60s but also a motive to question, think beyond and challenge it in the contemporary contexts of urban uprisings and revolts. Inspired by the work of several radical scholars like Harvey, de Souza or Pasquinelli we make an argument on the perspectives beyond the Lefebvrian notion and an attempt to approach Athens as an emerging rebel city. During the crisis years various struggles and acts of solidarity have been taking place in the city area, thus several spaces of resistance and commoning have emerged. In this regard, we deal with the transition from demanding the city to occupying the city as a contemporary space of resistance.
Ambiances, tomorrow. Proceedings of 3rd International Congress on Ambiances., 2016
While the last years the discussion on urban commons is becoming increasingly popular among urban scholars there have been few attempts to think it together with the notion of ambiance. During the current rising tide of urban revolts, the rebels do not just claim the urban space from the sovereign power but they occupy and tend to transform it to common space. In parallel, neoliberal urban policies tend to appropriate both the city ambiance and the common space, through gentrification policies. Consequently the discourse on common space has to be reconsidered and to be connected with the right to ambiance, as the latter is becoming the hybrid arena of cultural, gender, political and social urban conflicts.
Rethink the Informality , 2014
In recent years, urban informality has been the subject of renewed attention in urban studies, sociology and political economy. Following postcolonial theory (McFarlane, 2008, Robinson, 2002), we seek to surpass modernist dichotomies such as formal/informal and centre/periphery, as they re-produce a “colonial paternalism”. Thus, we move beyond binaries between culturally and economically powerful global cities (of the North) and problematic mega-cities (of the South) and we challenge understandings of informality as uncontrolled and dangerous, as the “Other” of the urban development. Our approach adds to the discussion around the socio-spatial relations and the power configurations in the production of the urban space, but does so by linking urban informality to the production of the common space in crisis-stricken cities. Following autonomous Marxists analysis (Caffentzis, 2010, Hardt and Negri, 2009), conceptualizing the commons involves three things at the same time: common pool resource, community and commoning. Urban commons don’t exist per se but they are making in times of social struggles and they are constituted through the social process of commoning. So, we understand informality as a way of urban development and urban politics that embodies varying degrees of power and exclusion, incorporating the possibility of challenging the existing power configurations. Hence, our approach calls for a broad, intersectional analysis of the common space and conceive the latter in a Lefebvrian (1974) trialectic conceptualization as perceived-conceived-lived space. Based on this theoretical background, we seek to advance an aggregate understanding of the dialect relation between formality/informality in the production of the emancipatory common space in Greece in the midst of the ongoing crisis. The neoliberal urban restructuring is justified through a discourse of formalization of the spontaneous and unorganized development of Southern Europe’s cities. Nevertheless, the new enclosures does not lie only on formal practices but also on informal ones, related to the fields of race, class and gender. Within this context, state plays a crucial role as it has the power to determine what is formal and what is informal and overall which kinds of informality could thrive, for how and where, and which will disappear. In other words, it has the power to (re-)construct categories of legitimate and illegitimate citizens, of deserving and undeserving ones. In particular, formal and informal enclosures emerge as an everyday experience of the urban inhabitants in Greek cities and include housing commodification, land grabbing, precarization of labour, various privatizations, gentrification processes and criminalization of certain population groups (such as sex workers, immigrants, squatters and homeless). Yet, the neoliberal city is a highly contested urbanity and the neoliberal urban restructuring does not remain uncontested. Through this reading, we explore the diverse forms of formality/informality and their degree and type of legitimacy, elaborating on these urban practices and processes that challenge the existing power relations and produce the emancipatory common space.
The right to the city. The city as common good. Between social politics and urban planning
This Cahier de la Faculté d’Architecture LaCambre-Horta aims to contribute to the scientific debate on the right to the city, exploring the variety of objects, processes, structures, and relations – both at the conceptual, abstract and theoretical level as well as at the practical, experiential, and material one – that this idea has inspired. The publication offers multiple analysis of the relations between this concept and its application in the urban planning domain, providing a number of examples on how the concept of the right to the city can give practical guidance on urban development. The focus is thus on policies, programmes and projects that aim to intervene in the diverse processes of urbanization and different forms of urban structures and urbanity present in the northern and southern countries, addressing issues of equity, rights, democracy, differences (socio-economic, cultural, etc.) and ecology. The publication aims to explore the socio-spatial relations embedded in alternative approaches – at policy, planning and design level – and emergent practices of urban regeneration, upgrading, development, and management activated by grassroots movements, government agencies or different actors/institutions. This is the reason why we decided to explore the idea of the right to the city within the dialectical confrontation of “social politics” and “urban planning”. The rationale of this Cahier rests on two main principles. First of all, cities are built on the basis of both semiotic and the material contributions, which means that both imaginaries and practices are fundamental in shaping the urban space, its physical form and technology, its socio-economic structure, the social and spatial relations, the subjectivities, the relations with nature, and the daily life reproduction. Second, as the neo-liberal hegemonic culture has emphasized the urban horizon and the city-level in all its physical, social and cultural aspects, the city is the place where oppositional discourses and practices take place. Alternative imaginaries can challenge prevailing worldviews, show the contradictions of the neo-liberal hegemonic project and propose various forms of alternative sets of norms, beliefs, ideals; while alternative practices emerge at various scales of contestation, springing from deprived and often marginalised local groups and places, but also as national projects: there is a need to analyse the variety of imaginaries and practices that in spite of, and because of, the hegemony of the neoliberal culture, are resilient or are emerging (see Boniburini infra).