Handbook on Urban Social Movements (Research Handbooks in Urban Studies series) 1839109645, 9781839109645

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Copyright
Contents
Contributors
1. Introduction to the Handbook on Urban Social Movements
PART I THE RIGHT TO THE CITY IN FRONT OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION AND STATE PLANNING
2. Beyond the localism of urban social movements
3. A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles
4. Urban battlegrounds: strategies of action and drivers of participation in radical movements in Italy
5. Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin
PART III FIGHTING SOCIAL INEQUALITIES, RACISM, EXCLUSION, AND POVERTY IN CITIES AROUND THE WORLD
6. Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City and its struggle for housing in Cape Town, South Africa
7. Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization
8. Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City
9. Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century
10. Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: urban social movements in the informal settlements of Namibia and Ghana
PART III URBAN MOVEMENTS AND CITY LIFE IN RETROSPECT
11. Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective
12. Squatting, a SWOT analysis
13. Building real utopias: urban grassroots activism, emotions and prefigurative politics
14. Gentrification, resistance, and the reconceptualization of community through place-based social media: the future will not be Instagrammed
PART IV IN SEARCH OF URBAN CITIZENSHIP THROUGH EXPERIENCING VARIOUS MODELS OF SOLIDARITY
15. Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices
16. Beyond co-optation and autonomy: the experience of two Argentinean social organizations in the face of the left turn
17. The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression: the Gezi legacy
PART V COLLECTIVE ACTION, URBAN POLITICS AND/OR URBAN POLICIES
18. The everyday politics of the urban commons: ambivalent political possibilities in the dialectical, evolving and selective urban context
19. The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: the emergence of a movement of urban memories
20. Rage against the machine: how twenty-first century political machines constitute their own opposition
21. Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul
22. Political engagement of urban social movements: a road to decolonization or recolonization of urban management?
23. Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements: the mutual fragmentation of policies and community-based organizations in the city of Buenos Aires
Index

Citation preview

HANDBOOK ON URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

RESEARCH HANDBOOKS IN URBAN STUDIES In this urban century the need for innovative and rigorous research on the challenges and opportunities facing our cities has never been so pressing. This timely series brings together critical and thought-provoking contributions on key topics and issues in urban research from a range of social science perspectives. Comprising specially commissioned chapters from leading academics these comprehensive Research Handbooks feature cutting-edge research and are written with a global readership in mind. Equally useful as reference tools or high-level introductions to specific topics, issues, methods and debates, these Research Handbooks will be an essential resource for academic researchers and postgraduate students. For a full list of Edward Elgar published titles, including the titles in this series, visit our website at www​.e​-elgar​.com​.

Handbook on Urban Social Movements Edited by

Anna Domaradzka Associate Professor of Sociology, Robert Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland

Pierre Hamel Professor of Sociology, Université de Montréal, Canada

RESEARCH HANDBOOKS IN URBAN STUDIES

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Anna Domaradzka and Pierre Hamel 2024

With the exception of any material published open access under a Creative Commons licence (see www.elgaronline.com), all rights are reserved and no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

Chapter 3 is available for free as Open Access from the individual product page at www. elgaronline.com under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) license. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2023948405 This book is available electronically in the Geography, Planning and Tourism subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781839109652 ISBN 978 1 83910 964 5 (cased) ISBN 978 1 83910 965 2 (eBook)

EEP BoX

Contents

List of contributorsviii 1

Introduction to the Handbook on Urban Social Movements1 Anna Domaradzka and Pierre Hamel

PART I

THE RIGHT TO THE CITY IN FRONT OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION AND STATE PLANNING

2

Beyond the localism of urban social movements Pierre Hamel

14

3

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles Ioana Florea, Agnes Gagyi and Kerstin Jacobsson

28

4

Urban battlegrounds: strategies of action and drivers of participation in radical movements in Italy Carlo Genova

43

5

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin Lisa Vollmer

58

PART II

FIGHTING SOCIAL INEQUALITIES, RACISM, EXCLUSION, AND POVERTY IN CITIES AROUND THE WORLD

6

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City and its struggle for housing in Cape Town, South Africa Antje Daniel

81

7

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization Dominika V. Polanska

97

8

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City Marcos Ancelovici and Montserrat Emperador Badimon

114

9

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century Mary Bernstein and Jordan McMillan v

131

vi  Handbook on urban social movements

10

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: urban social movements in the informal settlements of Namibia and Ghana Eric Yankson and Ada Adoley Allotey

148

PART III URBAN MOVEMENTS AND CITY LIFE IN RETROSPECT 11

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective168 Abigail Friendly

12

Squatting, a SWOT analysis Hans Pruijt

13

Building real utopias: urban grassroots activism, emotions and prefigurative politics Tommaso Gravante

14

Gentrification, resistance, and the reconceptualization of community through place-based social media: the future will not be Instagrammed S. Ashleigh Weeden, Kyle A. Rich and @ParkdaleLife

185

199

214

PART IV IN SEARCH OF URBAN CITIZENSHIP THROUGH EXPERIENCING VARIOUS MODELS OF SOLIDARITY 15

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices Maciej Kowalewski

16

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: the experience of two Argentinean social organizations in the face of the left turn Francisco Longa

248

17

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression: the Gezi legacy Aysegul Can

265

PART V 18

19

232

COLLECTIVE ACTION, URBAN POLITICS AND/ OR URBAN POLICIES

The everyday politics of the urban commons: ambivalent political possibilities in the dialectical, evolving and selective urban context Iolanda Bianchi The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: the emergence of a movement of urban memories Alicia Olivari and Manuela Badilla

284

300

Contents  vii

20

Rage against the machine: how twenty-first century political machines constitute their own opposition Stephanie Ternullo and Jeffrey N. Parker

315

21

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul Chungse Jung

330

22

Political engagement of urban social movements: a road to decolonization or recolonization of urban management? Tomasz Sowada

344

23

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements: the mutual fragmentation of policies and community-based organizations in the city of Buenos Aires Joaquín Andrés Benitez, María Cristina Cravino, Maximiliano Duarte and Carla Fainstein

364

Index381

Contributors

Ada Adoley Allotey, Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Marcos Ancelovici, Université de Montréal, Canada Manuela Badilla, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and COES/VioDemos, Chile Joaquín Andrés Benitez, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina Mary Bernstein, University of Connecticut, USA Iolanda Bianchi, University of Antwerp, Belgium Aysegul Can, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Turkey María Cristina Cravino, Universidad Nacional de Rio Negro, Argentina Antje Daniel, University of Vienna, Austria Anna Domaradzka, University of Warsaw, Poland Maximiliano Duarte, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, Argentina Montserrat Emperador Badimon, Université Lumière Lyon 2, France Carla Fainstein, Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento - CONICET, Argentina Ioana Florea, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Abigail Friendly, Utrecht University, the Netherlands Agnes Gagyi, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Carlo Genova, Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy Tommaso Gravante, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico Pierre Hamel, Université de Montréal, Canada Kerstin Jacobsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden Chungse Jung, SUNY Cortland, USA Maciej Kowalewski, University of Szczecin, Poland Francisco Longa, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas/ Universidad Nacional de Lanús, Argentina Jordan McMillan, University of Connecticut, USA viii

Contributors  ix

Alicia Olivari, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile - Instituto Milenio para la Investigación en Violencia y Democracia, Chile Jeffrey N. Parker, University of New Orleans, USA Dominika V. Polanska, Södertörn University, Sweden Hans Pruijt, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands Kyle A. Rich, Brock University, Canada Tomasz Sowada, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland Stephanie Ternullo, University of Chicago, USA Lisa Vollmer, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, Germany S. Ashleigh Weeden, University of Guelph, Canada Eric Yankson, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Namibia

1. Introduction to the Handbook on Urban Social Movements Anna Domaradzka1 and Pierre Hamel

It has been more than half a century since the notion of urban social movement was first introduced by Manuel Castells (1972) to describe collective action in the context of increased severity of “urban problems” and their importance to the population as well as public policies. This Handbook focuses on better understanding how and to what extent collective action around urban issues remains relevant today. The discussions of urban social movements from both empirical and theoretical perspectives in the following chapters provide not only a critical look at the transformations that have occurred in the urban landscape recently, but also an opportunity to shed light on the strategies implemented by social actors in various socio-political and cultural contexts. While urban social movements are often discussed in reference to urban geography and/or urban studies, our approach is mainly sociological, with an emphasis on organizational and socio-political dimensions. This allows us to tackle the growing interaction between the structural components underlying urban conflicts and the normative orientations of action expressed through human agency (Maheu 2005). While the change driven by social actors is challenging the established institutional choices, the issue of scope and effects of urban social movements remains on the agenda. Our goals are varied. First, we want to document the concrete forms of contemporary urban movements; second, it is important to highlight the new developments in the field as collective action around urban issues is increasingly defined through new forms of communication; third, we want to stimulate the discussion about the specificity of contemporary urban movements in the context of emerging unexpected local and global challenges. Can movements’ actions make a difference in improving access to urban amenities and proximity services? Can they democratize city life and/ or strengthen the perspective of social justice in the formulation of urban policies? Following Lefebvre’s idea of the ‘Right to the City’ (RTTC), at the outset we relate urban activism to the realm of the urban – “an abbreviation for the urban society” (Lefebvre 1970: 27) – including urban policies and urban politics. In the era of financialized economy, processes of capitalist accumulation have generated new forms of inequalities and social exclusion in addition to older ones, resulting from class divisions that have stratified in previous periods. In that respect, the RTTC does not have quite the same meaning nowadays in comparison to the Fordist era, when neoliberalism gained importance, resulting in the restructuring of cities at a global scale (Mayer 2009). 1

2  Handbook on urban social movements

There is a need for a more open debate concerning grievances and inequalities embedded in the production of space. As underlined by Doreen Massey (2005: 55), beyond its materiality, space is articulated with its temporality. Apprehending space through its “dynamic temporality” – the presence of past conflicts leading to the reintroduction of the question of subjectivity – allows us to “understand space as an open ongoing production”. Inspired, to a certain extent, by postcolonial analyses and considering the ongoing debates in critical urban theories we assert that the future of research on urban social movements remains relevant. For that matter, the social movement outcomes largely discussed in the 1980s and 1990s are again worth considering nowadays, even though their content is less directly defined in political terms. These outcomes are situated on several terrains – social, economic, cultural – which often interact with one another. Thus, the narratives of urban social movements are much diversified, most of the time intersecting with other categories of collective action around environmental, gender and/or racial issues. If the context remains central to assess the consequences or the effects of mobilizations, we cannot forget the intention of the actors, the resources they have access to, as well as the role of opposing forces, including political opponents. For that, the notions of collective action and that of the RTTC deserve to be reconsidered. Before presenting the structure of the book and the content of individual chapters – generally based on individual or multi-case studies in diverse regions of the world – this introduction is the occasion to start with definitions, considering both the notion of urban social movement and that of the RTTC. What is at stake is not only a matter of being specific about notions central for this Handbook, but also to consider the changes in content according to contexts and time frames. We first introduce the main features of urban movements to highlight their diversity as well as the multiple scales through which they are implemented. We also discuss the material dimension of the urban realm, to which movements’ activities relate. Second, we introduce some elements in respect to the challenges for future research. Third, we present the structure of the book, paying attention to the diversity of theoretical perspectives reflected in the collected contributions. We conclude by bringing to the fore what we are learning from current research on urban movements.

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHT TO THE CITY Before the term ‘urban social movements’ was coined by Castells (1972), the work of Lefebvre (1967, 1970, 1974) concerned the relations between space and politics. The notions of RTTC and ‘space production’ defined by Lefebvre highlight the fact that it is more fruitful to pay attention to processes at work than to a given object in time. This allows us to revisit the history of urbanizing processes, describing urban society as a consequence of transformations induced by industrialization. In fact, for Lefebvre, the ‘urban’ was more than a simple notion. It was rather a paradigm shift. It is why he defined urban society “as a horizon, an illuminating virtuality” (2003:

Introduction  3

16–17), representing “the prodigious extension of the urban to the entire planet” (2003: 169). In Castells’ perspective, urban society was subjected to domination established by economic and political elites. Consequently, as was the case during the industrial era, power struggles remain foundational to understanding the urban sphere as a site of contention and protest. As David Harvey pointed out, the right to the city potential lies in the fact that it allows movements to adopt it as “both working slogan and political idea, because it focuses on the question of who has control over urbanization processes and resources” (Harvey 2008: 40). Based on a cross-historical and cross-national analysis of protests through the perspective of urban social movements, the theorization elaborated by Castells (1983) was dedicated to understanding the processes by which social actors produce urban meanings and urban change. Even though his analysis was subjected to harsh critique – see for example Chris Pickvance (1984a, 1984b, 1985) and Stuart Lowe (1986) – it has been largely recognized that his contribution regarding the study of urban movements is foundational. As Pickvance underlined, “without his work the field might not exist” (1985: 221). Here, it is important to recall that with The City and the Grassroots (1983), Castells to a large extent abandoned the Marxist-structuralist perspective which he had applied to the study of urban problems and collective action a decade earlier. At that time, an urban social movement had not only to reflect the collective consumption contradictions in the economic, political and/or urban spheres, but also aim to change the power relations in the city through linkages with trade unions and/ or political organizations. It was only when such linkages effectively existed that urban social movements could materialize. In Castells’ new theoretical perspective, however, even though the urban remains defined in connection to issues of collective consumption, other important dimensions are added in relation to culture and the social actors’ self-assertion capacity to contribute to the definition of ‘local culture’. For instance, the specificity of an urban social movement is based on the following observation of its nature: “a conscious collective practice originating in urban issues, able to produce qualitative changes in the urban system, local culture, and political institutions in contradiction to the dominant social interests institutionalized as such at the societal level” (Castells 1983: 278). As Margit Mayer (2006) pointed out, Castells’ view of urban social movements as a collective commitment combining community culture and political self-determination with struggles around issues of collective consumption, is part of the specific dynamic of the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, urban social movements have undergone a series of transformations in line with the global economic restructuring promoted by neoliberalism. In that context, collective actors have had to adapt their strategies, emphasizing the specific local character and fragmentation of some claims accompanied with the globalization of others. Lefebvre’s and Castells’ ideas remain valid nowadays when considering the diversity of interests, and the multiplicity of actors involved according to their class belonging – sometimes broadening the social base of struggles to include actors

4  Handbook on urban social movements

previously considered as outsiders. By drawing attention to conflicts around social justice in the city, their research has highlighted the importance of struggles and grassroots activism around urban issues. As the economy has been increasingly defined around tertiary economic activities, and the urban environment has turned into a factor of production, urban challenges are more relevant than ever. As processes of welfare are being constantly undermined and social exclusion is on the rise, new forms of cooperation and solidarity are nonetheless experienced within civil society. This is occurring while collective action and social solidarity are promoted by the alter globalization movements challenging the neoliberalization of the public sphere. We also observe the continued presence of diversified socio-economic grievances resulting in protests regarding spatial and economic exclusion, privatization of public space, commercialization of urban services, increased surveillance, and lack of privacy. The debates about the nature and role of social movements in cities as well as other collective actions concerning the urban experience have not ceased since the emergence of the industrial era. While defining urban social movements remains a concern, one must keep in mind that it is not simply a question of terms. It also converges with important theoretical issues. For example, to assess the effectiveness of an urban social movement, it is not sufficient to pay attention to the characteristics of the movement, to the amount of available resources mobilized or to the demands and values promoted by actors. Contextual features must be considered as well. As Pickvance (1984a, 1985) underlined, by promoting appropriate access to housing and urban services, asking for democratic control over city management or opposing the demolition of housing and neighborhoods, collective action relates to three aspects of the urban, namely collective consumption, local politics, and spatial proximity. However, Pickvance uses the term ‘urban social movement’ exclusively to account for the rare cases of a major change in urban power relations resulting from the action of urban movements (Van Haperen 2022). More recently, Harvey (2008) and Saskia Sassen (2011) further described cities as a locus of class conflicts as well as a reference point for better understanding contentious politics around urban issues in the current globalizing era. While Sassen has been exploring how power and powerlessness are shaped in cities, Harvey’s work concerns the rise of the RTTC claims as both a political ideal as well as a working slogan for urban social movements. Other defining works on urban social movements include the work of Susan Fainstein and Norman Fainstein (1985) who used the notion in the context of an economic policy analysis, as well as that of Mario Diani (2015) who describes the movements in cities as networks developing in certain localities. For many years, urban social movements have been seen through the lens of local issues. However, migration flows and competition among companies and countries on a global scale have changed that. City-driven economic and cultural processes mean that the issues urban movements engage with are becoming more and more connected through international networks and less parochial.

Introduction  5

In this book we observe the transformation of urban movements in the context of ongoing social, economic, political, and ecological processes in reference to persistent globalizing trends. In this, we follow the work of Robert Sampson (2012) who examines how opportunities, social networks, and other important aspects of social life in contemporary cities are shaped by places and the so-called neighborhood effect. Following the tradition of the Chicago School, Sampson argues that urban life – including health, economic opportunities, social relations, and migration patterns – is persistently shaped by the place where one lives. It is thus unavoidable to analyze urban social movements in their specific context to better understand both the opportunity structures as well as challenges that actors are facing and the priorities that they define. For the time being, we apprehend urban movements through the concept of social movement when citizens attempt to achieve some level of control over their urban environment, broadly defined as local political conditions, including the material and social fabric of the city. Thus, we employ the term ‘urban social movements’ to underline the social dimensions of urban mobilization as well as to encourage the application of social movements theory and perspective to an analysis of conflicts around urban issues. In this perspective, urban social movements often overlap with different RTTC initiatives, placing them in the conflictual democratic space of contemporary modernity. In recent years there has been a resurgence of interdisciplinary interest in urban conflicts. Researchers often point out that while their main characteristics are defined by a local focus, in some regions urban movements become actors of wider social change (Jacobsson 2016; Kowalewski 2016; Dolenec et al. 2017; Domaradzka 2018; Jezierska and Polanska 2018; Pixová 2018; Kubicki 2020; Nowak 2020). In empirical studies, given the specific milieu within which the action takes place, but also the underlying theoretical perspective adopted by the researchers, different definitions of urban social movements are put forward with an emphasis on distinctive characteristics and effects. As Van Haperen (2022) noted, cities are both a focus and locus for urban social movements’ action. Obviously, the socio-spatial characteristics of cities, making them distinct from rural areas, play an important role in the development of urban social movements. Cities offer both the diversity and the concentration of people, resources, and power, allowing identity and meaning to be defined and redefined. As a result, they have been key sites of contention and become prominent loci of protests and/or new forms of collective action. Susana Finquelievich (1981) underlines that various urban social movements emerged as a result of conflicts caused by advanced capitalism – generating for instance deficits in public infrastructures and services – and/or deficiencies in state intervention as can be seen in the neoliberal urban policies. The resulting ‘urban crisis’ means that the urban system no longer achieves its main functions and creates deficits at a collective consumption level, at the same time undermining the ongoing democratization processes.

6  Handbook on urban social movements

In many ways current urban struggles are different from the workers’ protests of the industrial era. In Finquelievich words, “even if they coincide in some respects with the workers’ movements of trade-union type, or with some actions of the political organizations, they have their own and unique field of action, because they deal with urban matters, urban affairs” (1981: 239). Over the years, urban conflicts have increased in importance in both developed and developing regions of the world. In Europe, the inhabitants of Barcelona, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Padua, Stockholm, or Warsaw mobilize to prevent the negative transformations of their habitat as well as their wider environment, to defend their right to an open and safe public space or pressure political authorities to recognize civil society organizations as legitimate social and political instances. In countries of the Global South, the specific contradictions embedded in the urban crisis are even more acute. Most of the time, urban conflicts take a more dramatic turn or face strong repression. Nevertheless, those movements continue to mobilize from Argentina to Mexico, and often succeed in forcing local authorities to act in favor of excluded citizens. In this book we go beyond the better-known struggles of Europe or Latin America and offer cases from Africa and Asia as well as North America.

FUTURE RESEARCH In terms of future research, several issues deserve more attention. First is the challenge concerning the fuzziness of the ‘movement’ lenses, which calls for a wider discussion about the defining features of movement-like urban mobilizations. This is related to another issue adding to the fuzziness of the notion, which is the intertwining of urban mobilization with other social movements, especially countercultural, feminist, or ecological groups. Third, the resource mobilization theory is not completely satisfactory here, as it is not concerned with the subjective and normative dimension of the collective action. This is why opening up to other theoretical approaches is required, allowing us to grasp the emotional, institutional, and intersectional aspects of urban social movements. Moreover, while some perspectives focus on movements’ leaders (e.g. theory of fields: see Fligstein and McAdam 2011), this may obscure important structural factors, thus restricting our understanding of collective action around urban issues. Based on recent publications, including this Handbook, we also identified a series of questions worth asking in the future to continue the advancement of research in this area. Does the notion of social movement remain useful to understand urban mobilizations or does a new approach need to be elaborated? When analyzing the results of collective action on the local and supra-local levels we ask if and to what extent actors manage to be successful in preventing place-destroying policies or disruptive investments and create alternative narratives about the future of the city. Another important issue is about the representativeness of values and interests behind urban activism: Whose interests and needs do urban movements represent? Do

Introduction  7

they – because of those interests – challenge or rather strengthen the neoliberal and globalized development trends? Another valuable line of research concerns the role of identity and place attachment in urban mobilization. As place-based activism, urban movements are often defined by the emotions and ties that places evoke in people. We therefore see merit in further developing the topics concerning the role of place-based affects for grassroots’ city engagements. Last, but not least, the growing role of technology should be considered. First, because social platforms are more and more important in enabling different forms of mobilization, common meaning creation or framing processes. Second, the attention of researchers is required because the cities rapidly change under the popular trend of urban ‘smartification’ (Domaradzka and Roszczyńska-Kurasińska 2021). Those changes, rarely open for public debates, strongly influence the privacy of residents as well as transparency of urban policies (Rychwalska et al. 2022; Oleksy et al. 2023). We therefore claim that the ‘right to the smart city’ should become a new topic to be included in the critical studies of urban digital transformations. In terms of possible theoretical developments, we think it is necessary to address the social inequalities that are embedded in urban development to better understand the impact of movements’ actions. Similarly, the citizenship approach is promising as it responds to the modern migration flows (including refugee crises) and the growing multiculturalism of cities, struggling with new expectations and conflicts arising from hyper-diversity. Moreover, the rights-based approach offers an interesting perspective, allowing us to tackle not only the right to the city, including housing rights, and the issue of dignity, but also the increasingly important digital rights in the city. Despite the previous comments, it is also necessary to further explore the theory of fields approach (Bourdieu 1985; Martin 2003; Fligstein and McAdam 2011) for analyzing the impact of urban mobilization in the field of urban policies (Domaradzka and Wijkström 2016, 2019; Domaradzka 2017, 2018, 2021).

STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK AND DIVERSITY OF THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES This book is a collection of chapters grouped around five topics. These are defined in relation to urban mobilization in the context of urban planning, social inequalities, city life, urban citizenship, and collective action around urban politics. The multiple forms of collective action considered in the book’s chapters put emphasis on different features of urban mobilization. Taking into consideration both the structural determinants of the action and the normative dimensions involved in actors’ subjectivity, they refer us to the following three aspects of urban mobilization: 1. Intersectionality in the study of urban movements: as our chapters show, urban social movements can be approached from a variety of theoretical perspectives including social movement studies, research on contentious politics, organiza-

8  Handbook on urban social movements

tional studies, governance studies, spatial planning, social geography, social psychology, prefigurative action and protest analyses, as well as environmental and gender studies. Surely the list can be extended. It is worth mentioning, however, that the findings of the work on intersectionality are included in most cases. 2. Scales of intervention: we observe how urban mobilization operates on different scales including global, continental, national, regional, urban/city, district, or neighborhood levels. While many of the initiatives grow from local community issues, some of them are transformed into city-wide or even country-wide networks and organizations. In other instances, we see the process of norm transfer or norm cascade (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998), where the local initiatives connect to the global claims for the RTTC. 3. Diversity of initiatives: diversity of values and identities together with the multidimensional character of urban environment makes mobilization tricky. It is often hard to find common ground as well as to overcome individualistic liberal values and ideology in the globalized urban environments. Studying urban movements can illustrate how the mechanisms of emerging ‘urban solidarities’ are deployed, but also offer a critical view of who the movements are serving and whose interests they represent. The diversity of submissions we received for this Handbook certainly illustrates a certain fuzziness of the concept, highlighting definitional issues. One must keep in mind that even if individual actors assert their identity by sharing a joint project with others, they still choose to express their difference. This diversity is reflected in the description of different forms of collective action. Those include RTTC alliances, anti-eviction movements, housing activism, anti-gentrification initiatives, urban gardening collectives, and social media campaigns. Looking at the collected examples, we can observe that what makes the movement urban is the specific focus on urban grievances, inequalities, materiality of the urban fabric of the city, and concerns related to urban planning and political processes. Urban movements are engaged around material aspects of the city. But they also converge with other features of the urban landscape by connecting to various forms of collective action (women’s movements, environmental movements, anti-racist collective action, etc.). As a result, there is an overlap between mobilizations around urban issues and other concerns, bringing together actors who in the past tended to be exclusively motivated by one-dimensional issues. Importantly, the materiality of the city becomes a platform that joins different activists and groups together. Space and place are related concerns that lead to mobilizations and are connected to the everyday experience of residents. Sticking to the ‘concrete narrative’ of local problems allows for mobilization around one common problem, despite diverse needs and values (Mergler 2008). This Handbook bears witness to the diversity of theoretical perspectives present in the field. The authors apply different theoretical lenses, focusing on issues like citizenship, machine politics, opportunity structure, urban commons, and insurgent collective actions. As far as similarities go, the authors’ reflections are often

Introduction  9

practice-oriented. Many chapters look at ongoing social struggles and political issues. At the same time, they touch upon universal problems concerning access to housing, inequality and/or injustice in access to urban services or control over urban public space. Housing issues are particularly significant and described from different angles: tenants’ rights, poor neighborhoods, informal settlements, gentrification, racial repression, gender perspective or place attachment. Importantly, the authors show how political engagement of urban activists results from everyday grassroots grievances. It also transpires that urban policies (including specific areas like spatial planning, gentrification, housing, public transport, and social services issues) are still very much on the agenda of social actors. Part I of this Handbook reviews the right to the city concept in front of capitalist accumulation and state planning. Chapter 2 by Pierre Hamel discusses the issue of localism as this has been one of the central concerns and main entry points in the past for critique regarding the political effect of urban social movements. In Chapter 3, Ioana Florea, Agnes Gagyi and Kerstin Jacobsson analyze urban struggles as a structural field of contention. In Chapter 4, Carlo Genova describes the strategies of action and drivers of participation in radical movements in Italy. Finally, in Chapter 5, Lisa Vollmer focuses on analyzing the tenants’ protests in Berlin from the regulation theory point of view. Part II looks at struggles around social inequalities, racism, exclusion, and poverty in cities around the world. It starts with Antje Daniel’s Chapter 6 on spatial segregation during the ‘financial apartheid’ in Cape Town and analyzes the ‘reclaim the city’ struggles for housing rights. In Chapter 7, Dominika V. Polanska discusses the tenants’ movements in Europe, pointing out their different phases of development over time. Chapter 8, by Marcos Ancelovici and Montserrat Emperador Badimon, describes the anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York. Chapter 9, by Mary Bernstein and Jordan McMillan, looks at struggles around urban safety, especially regarding gun violence. Finally, in Chapter 10, Eric Yankson and Ada Adoley Allotey focus on the informal settlements of Namibia and Ghana, studying rural–urban migration in the context of right to the city claims. Part III analyzes urban movements and city life in retrospect. First, in Chapter 11, Abigail Friendly describes Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformation showing the importance of debates on the right to the city and the growing challenges in Brazil’s urban reform project. In Chapter 12, Hans Pruijt presents his analysis of squatting, based on the SWOT approach. After that, Tommaso Gravante’s Chapter 13 describes the role of emotions and prefigurative politics for urban grassroots activism. Finally, in Chapter 14, S. Ashleigh Weeden and Kyle Rich touch on the role of new technologies in urban mobilization, analyzing the role of place-based social media in the process of gentrification as well as resistance to it. Part IV looks at the issue of urban citizenship and various models of solidarity. It starts with Chapter 15 by Maciej Kowalewski who reviews the role of rights and practices in the process of claiming urban citizenship. In Chapter 16, Francisco Longa describes the experience of two Argentinean social organizations in the left turn context, to reflect on the issues of co-optation and autonomy of urban move-

10  Handbook on urban social movements

ments. Finally, in Chapter 17 by Aysegul Can, we find a reflection on spatialized oppression and the rise of urban resistance movement in Gezi and its legacy. We conclude with Part V which contains chapters focusing on collective action, urban politics, and urban policies. In Chapter 18, Iolanda Bianchi tackles the issue of everyday politics of the urban commons, pointing out the ambivalent political possibilities in the dialectical, evolving, and selective urban contexts. In Chapter 19, Alicia Olivari and Manuela Badilla write about the emergence of a movement of urban memories using the example of the 2019–2020 Chilean urban protests. In Chapter 20, Stephanie Ternullo and Jeffrey Nathaniel Parker use the political machine concept to analyze the context of US urban politics of the twenty-first century and its inherent contradictions. In Chapter 21 by Chungse Jung, we find an analysis of the changing landscape of urban politics and urban activism in South Korea through the lens of discontent with neoliberal urbanization. Next, in Chapter 22, Tomasz Sowada analyses the case of Polish urban social movements from the perspective of decolonization or recolonization of urban management through political engagement. Finally, in Chapter 23 Joaquín Andrés Benitez, Maria Cristina Cravino, Maximiliano Duarte and Carla Fainstein present the dynamics between neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements in Buenos Aires, pointing out the mutual fragmentation of policies and community-based organizations. Concluding, we should therefore warn readers that they will not find in this volume a single shared definition or understanding of urban movements. At the outset, it was not our ambition to overcome all the gaps or resolve all the aporias inherent in the empirical and theoretical challenges raised by the study of urban movements. To the contrary, it was thought that it would be better to enrich and stir the discussion around emerging urban issues and new forms of collective action. We posit that both go together with redefining processes regarding empirical exploration and theoretical innovation. The question remains as to whether we should look for more contextual theoretical efforts or focus on describing movements’ universal traits. Should we strive to build a universal framework or aim at better understanding the diversity of local experimentations? As the editors of this volume, we think that a synthetic theoretical approach is better suited to the task of analyzing urban mobilization. Due to the intersectionality involved in shaping social relations and the highly diverse nature of urban contexts, studying citizens’ initiatives requires more than ever a sophisticated toolbox, in both theoretical and methodological terms. Finally, we think that the most important role of urban movements is that they are involved in the process of building solidarities in the current context of modernity, where harsh inequalities often leave the most vulnerable social actors with increasingly limited access to public resources. Therefore, they inspire us to engage with ethical concerns that political elites have long been avoiding or only superficially addressing.

Introduction  11

NOTE 1. This work was financed by National Science Centre in Poland, grant no. 2018/30/E/ HS6/00379.

REFERENCES Bourdieu, P. (1985). “The social space and the genesis of groups”. Social Science Information 24(2): 195–220. Castells, M. (1972). La question urbaine. Paris: Maspéro. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. London: Edward Arnold. Diani, M. (2015). The Cement of Civil Society: Studying Networks in Localities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dolenec, D., Doolan, K., and Tomašević, T. (2017). “Contesting neoliberal urbanism on the European semi-periphery: The right to the city movement in Croatia”. Europe-Asia Studies 69(9): 1401–1429. Domaradzka, A. (2017). “Leveling the playfield: Urban movement in the strategic action field of urban policy in Poland”. In J. Hou and S. Knierbein (eds.), City Unsilenced: Urban Resistance and Public Space in the Age of Shrinking Democracy. New York: Routledge, pp. 106–118. Domaradzka, A. (2018). “Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4): 607–620. Domaradzka, A. (2021). Klucze do miasta: ruch miejski jako nowy aktor w polu polityki miejskiej [Keys to the city: Urban movement as an actor in the urban policy field]. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar. Domaradzka, A. and Roszczyńska-Kurasińska, M. (2021). Introduction to the minitrack on the impact of ICT on citizens’ well-being and the right to the city. Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. http://​dx​.doi​.org/​10​.24251/​hicss​ .2021​.303. Domaradzka, A. and Wijkström, F. (2016). “Game of the city re-negotiated: The Polish urban re-generation movement as an emerging actor in a strategic action field”. Polish Sociological Review 195(3): 291–308. Domaradzka, A. and Wijkström, F. (2019). “Urban challengers weaving their networks: Between the ‘right to housing’ and the ‘right to the city’”. Housing Studies 34(10): 1612–1634. Fainstein, S. S. and Fainstein, N. I. (1985). “Economic restructuring and the rise of urban social movements”. Urban Affairs Quarterly 21(2): 187–206. Finnemore, M. and Sikkink, K. (1998). “International norm dynamics and political change”. International Organization 52(4): 887–917. Finquelievich, S. (1981). “Urban social movements and the production of urban space”. Acta Sociologica 24(4): 239–249. Fligstein, N. and McAdam, D. (2011). “Toward a general theory of strategic action fields”. Sociological Theory 29(1): 1–26. Harvey, D. (2008). “The right to the city”. In R. T. LeGates and F. Stout (eds.), The City Reader. London: Routledge, pp. 23–40. Jacobsson, K. (ed.) (2016). Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. London and New York: Routledge.

12  Handbook on urban social movements

Jezierska, K. and Polanska, D. V. (2018). “Social movements seen as radical political actors: The case of the Polish tenants’ movement”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4): 683–696. Kowalewski, M. (2016). Protest miejski. Przestrzenie, tożsamości i praktyki niezadowolonych mieszkańców miast [Urban protest: Spaces, identities and practices of dissatisfied city residents]. Kraków: Zakład Wydawniczy NOMOS. Kubicki, P. (2020). “Inventing urbanity: Urban movements in Poland”. Society Register 4(4): 87–104. Lefebvre, H. (1967). Le Droit à la ville. Paris: Editions Anthropos. Lefebvre, H. (1970). La révolution urbaine. Paris: Gallimard. Lefebvre, H. (1974). La Production de l’espace. Paris: Editions Anthropos. Lefebvre, H. (2003). The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lowe, S. (1986). Urban Social Movements: The City after Castells. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Maheu, L. (2005). “Mouvements sociaux et modernité avancée: le retour obligé à l’ambivalence de l’action”. In L. Guay, P. Hamel, D. Masson, and J.-G. Vaillancourt (eds.), Mouvements sociaux et changements institutionnels. L’action collective à l’ère de la mondialisation. Sainte-Foy: Les Presses de l’Université du Québec, pp. 9–34. Martin, J. L. (2003). “What is field theory?” American Journal of Sociology 109(1): 1–49. Massey, D. (2005). For Space. London: Sage. Mayer, M. (2006). “Manuel Castells’ The City and the Grassroots”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(1): 202–206. Mayer, M. (2009). “The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements”. City 13: 362–374. Mergler, L. (2008). Poznań Konfliktów. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Lepszy Świat. Nowak, M. (2020). “The ‘right to the city’ on various scales”. Society Register 4(4) 7–48. Oleksy, T., Wnuk, A., Domaradzka, A., and Maison, D. (2023). “What shapes our attitudes towards algorithms in urban governance? The role of perceived friendliness and controllability of the city, and human-algorithm cooperation”. Computers in Human Behavior 142(4): 107653. Pickvance, C. (1984a). “Review of The City and the Grassroots”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 8(4): 588–591. Pickvance, C. (1984b). “The rise and fall of urban movements and the role of comparative analysis”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 3: 31–53. Pickvance, C. (1985). “Concepts, contexts and comparison in the study of urban movements: A reply to M. Castells”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 4: 221–231. Pixová, M. (2018). “The empowering potential of reformist urban activism in Czech cities”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4): 670–682. Rychwalska, A., Roszczyńska-Kurasińska, M., and Domaradzka, A. (2022). “Right to privacy in the context of the privacy paradox and data collection patterns: Exploratory study of Polish Facebook users”. Proceedings of the 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. http://​hdl​.handle​.net/​10125/​79671. Sampson, R. J. (2012). Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Sassen, S. (2011). “The global street: Making the political”. Globalizations 8(5): 573–579. Van Haperen, S. (2022). “Social movements in cities”. Oxford Bibliographies. https://​www​ .​oxfordbibl​iographies​.com/​display/​document/​obo​-9780190922481/​obo​-9780190922481​ -0051​.xml.

PART I THE RIGHT TO THE CITY IN FRONT OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION AND STATE PLANNING

2. Beyond the localism of urban social movements Pierre Hamel

INTRODUCTION Going back to Manuel Castells’ La question urbaine (1972) where it was explicitly addressed, the question of urban social movements1 has been part of urban studies for more than 50 years. Since then, several critiques have been formulated in response to Castells’ approach (Reynaud 1974; Feldman 1978; Katznelson 1981). At the same time, these critiques and later ones (Pickvance 1985; Lowe 1986; Mayer 2006; Miller 2006), have addressed the extent to which these actors have been able to influence urban planning and, consequently, the political decisions that might correspond to the needs and expectations of inhabitants, at various spatial scales. For several reasons, it is difficult to assess the scope and role of urban social movements in terms of their transformative capacity in the face of urban materiality, considered to be a major component of urban development. First, responses to the demands raised by collective actors are not always an exclusive result of the mobilizing activities or pressures made by movements’ organizations. Other factors, especially contextual ones, are always involved (Pickvance 1985). In that sense, the changes observed can emanate at times from internal initiatives of the local political-administrative system, although these may converge with demands made by social actors. Second, the diversity of political models of action needs to be carefully considered. While some organizations choose to engage in protests while remaining outside of institutions, others place themselves on the institutional terrain, relying on elitist influence in the tradition of pressure groups. Third, the time between the moment when the means of action are implemented and the time when the results are observed – or the movements’ success – remains a concern. How long should we wait before judging the effectiveness of the strategies implemented by the movements’ organizations? Finally, as Pickvance (1985: 31) also mentions, “[t]he diversity of experience between countries, and within countries over time, poses a problem of comparative analysis”. All these reasons are worth considering when one wants to better understand these movements’ contributions to the transformation of urban landscapes. Nonetheless, they do not account for the meaning that social actors ascribe to their commitment. When looking at mobilizations over the past decades, it appears that what remains central to actors’ concerns is precisely the meaning they give to their actions. Although this viewpoint is multidimensional and can be assessed from several perspectives, I will focus here on the political dimensions. In that respect, urban 14

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  15

social movements are no different from any other kind of social movement. The challenges they have faced – and are still facing – or their contribution to social change, come from their capacity to redefine the public-political space within which they are embedded. The chapter is divided into three sections. First, I shall consider some of the main critiques that have addressed the shortcomings of urban movements, especially regarding their so-called localism. I will ask if this evaluation remains valid when applied to new forms of collective action, given the recent transformations both on the socio-economic ground and in the field of social and cultural values. In the second section, I will turn to the theoretical perspective, including the analytical categories needed to account for the effects of urban movements. Finally, the recent transformations inherent to the political sphere must be considered. In the era of collaborative governance, redefining the relations between state and civil society is paramount. In that regard, I will return to the specific contribution of urban movements to and beyond their localism.

1.

LOCALISM OF URBAN MOVEMENTS

The capacity of urban movements to achieve their goals has always been influenced by the projects their actors promote and by the social and political context within which they are defined. If the capacity of social actors to achieve the “structural transformation of the urban system” (Castells 1977: 263) was often overestimated, it has been further recognized that the effects of urban movements are difficult to accurately capture, with their organizational models and their access to resources being quite diverse (Pickvance 2003). Without relying on an exhaustive retrospective of the last five decades of research on urban movements, one can recall some of the main disputes that have contributed to the development of this field of study. Among those, the status of collective action comes to the fore (Maheu 1995: 8). To what extent does collective action successfully account for structural contradictions, namely those arising from class relations? The theoretical perspective defined by researchers applying a Marxist understanding of social class analysis to highlight the outcomes of collective action has been challenged by scholars who saw, in this analytical model, shortcomings in accounting for growing inequalities around gender, racial discrimination, and cultural orientations in what was defined by François Dubet (2022) as a new “regime of inequalities”. This was a result of the growing individualization of those inequalities in the face of a gradual decline of the previous prevailing regime based on “class inequality, if we exclude the very rich and the very poor groups from this social account” (Dubet 2022: 14). From a sociocultural standpoint, critiques were raised with a new look at modernity, starting with a reconsideration of past collective certainties, on behalf of a postmodern reading (Susen 2015). More pragmatically, it is the construction of collective action that needs to be considered. By focusing on the actors – their motivations, their

16  Handbook on urban social movements

demands, their identities – the sociology of social movements has made it possible to investigate in depth their motives for action, and their reasons for commitment, in addition to focusing on actors’ disengagement (Klandermans and Van Stekelenburg 2014). The “paradox of the actor” remains nonetheless complete (Tilly 2005). How can we explain the formation of a collective actor, or even its reorganization around an illusion of unity, when its formation is based on a gathering of individuals from various social networks, with their emergence and their commitment towards continuity being highly contingent (Krisky and Miche 2013)? It is true that the study of the transformation of systems of “strategic fields of action” (Fligstein and McAdam 2012), considering the dialectical relations between power elites and challengers, has tried to unveil this paradox. However, this approach relies on a functionalist understanding of the actor. Taking an excessively restrictive view of the cognitive dimensions of the social, this approach leaves out the values and the ethical dimensions underlying the action, including the subjective dimensions of action involved in its recomposition (Domaradzka and Wijkström 2019). Here, it is relevant to recall one of the strongest criticisms directed at urban movements: their localism. This critique was formulated explicitly by Susan S. Fainstein and Clifford Hirst (1995) but had already been indirectly considered by Ira Katznelson (1981) a decade earlier, and later reiterated by Mark Purcell (2006). Looking at urban movements in Europe and the United States, and relying in part on Castells’ analysis, Fainstein and Hirst found that in the 1960s–1970s those movements were “unable to put forward any historically feasible project of economic production, communication or government” (1995: 199). For them, “[t]he constraints on urban social movements imply that locally based movements only affect the structural forces impinging on cities when they are fused into national forces” (1995: 200). This was also underlined by Katznelson (1981) who analysed the urban crises in the United States in the 1960s. For Purcell, it is less the articulation of urban collective action to national forces giving social actors a better capacity to build a real power relationship that is at stake, than “the assumption that local is desirable [which] is not always true” (2006: 1927). According to him, activists are miscalculating when they interpret the local as an “end in itself”. The exclusive focus on the local – or the “local trap” – “obscures other scalar options that might be more effective in achieving a desired outcome” (Purcell 2006: 1927). There is no doubt that the emphasis placed on the localism of urban movements corresponds to the limits inherent to some of their demands. In addition, the diversity and fragmentation of the urban movement landscape have been profoundly transformed over the last two decades, even though this was already being experienced, given the rise of neoliberal ideology and the changes in the management of the welfare state, through the inclusion of social actors from the third and community sector in labour market policies (Mayer 2009). As with other categories of movements, external factors forced urban movements through a series of changes, if we think not only of globalization and the financialization of the capitalist economy, but also of their direct consequences on urban

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  17

development, processes of gentrification, and the disruption of living conditions in the neighbourhoods for a growing part of the population. However, internal factors inherent to cultural and political convictions are also involved. Through experiencing the failures and successes of mobilizing activities, as well as the difficulties of coping with the constraints and opportunities of institutions, a learning process has occurred and has been transmitted locally and beyond. This was already mentioned by Castells four decades ago when he insisted on the limits of movements’ action, before defining what characterizes their specificity: “The more locally-based urban movements aim at local governments, but local communities are, in reality, powerless in the context of world empires and computerized bureaucracies” (1983: 329). At the same time, he recognizes that urban movements have no choice but to fight against domination and the new forms of exploitation that are expanding. From this angle, the leeway of movements is quite narrow: “When they try to impose their programme, they become a counter-society, and collapse under the combined pressure of multinational capital, a mass media system, and the bureaucratic state” (1983: 331). Despite this, he recognizes that urban movements produce “new historical meaning” and in relation to this, to a certain extent, their action can be transformative, able to daily give some purpose to lives. In doing so, in a sense, Castells is returning to the New Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s as they organized around new issues and new forms of insurgency, in contrast to the prior workers’ movement. Through their understanding of class interests from a multi-class basis, they explored new types of solidarity. If conflicts were crucial for both the classical class tradition of the workers’ movement and the New Social Movements defined as “nonconventional forms of collective behavior”, introducing disruption in the sociopolitical sphere does not have the same meaning for these two models of collective action. For the New Social Movements and their actors, identity formation – ‘individual identity’ being combined with ‘communal identity’ – is at stake: “Contemporary actors are concerned not only with affirming the content of a specific identity but also with the formal elements involved in identity formation. They have articulated the formal principle of an equal chance for all to participate in group processes through which identities are formed, and they have become self-reflective regarding the social processes of identity formation” (Cohen and Arato 1992: 511). It is the definition of the political, as promoted by these movements, that it is worth recalling here. As Claus Offe underlined, “the politics of new social movements … seeks to politicize the institutions of civil society in ways that are not constrained by the channels of representative-bureaucratic political institutions, and thereby to reconstitute a civil society that is no longer dependent upon ever more regulation, control and intervention” (Offe 1985: 820). From then on, after an appropriation by the political class, this has resulted in some noticeable transformations in state public service delivery and welfare management under a “shadow state” (Wolch 1990). And this has continued to expand following the implementation of neoliberal policies. In this context, the localist critique of urban movements continues to be relevant, to a certain extent. In the shadow of state restructuring, as previously discussed,

18  Handbook on urban social movements

collective actors focussing on urban issues can easily be channelled, if not co-opted, by state intervention. In addition, the democratization of insurgent action on urban issues is becoming less and less the prerogative of progressive actors. Nimby actions, and right-wing populist rallies against migrants or other controversial issues, are no longer the exception. Civil society is not only gaining importance with respect to social cohesion, but it has also become the site where new cultural values are produced and disseminated, contributing to building prevalent social representations with their cognitive resonance. It is therefore in the political sphere, defined as the primary space where negotiations, cooperation, and struggles between groups take place around the redistribution of resources, that the production and reproduction of social relations, or society, are occurring (Maheu 1995: 215). Thus, Cohen and Arato must be quoted again. Their understanding of civil society was nothing less than prefigurative when they noted: “we are convinced that the recent re-emergence of the ‘discourse of civil society’ is at the heart of a sea change in contemporary political culture” (1992: 3). Since then, social actors have continued to explore how various models of cooperation and solidarity can be tested in the field of non-institutional politics. If the materiality of space forms part of social relations, those are also influenced by normative concerns defined in reference to a broad spectre of issues, from citizenship to environmental justice. The urban issues that social actors engage with are necessarily connected to the uncertainty that urban theory is trying to overcome. It is why urban theory has tried to better understand the relationships between the local and the global (Sassen 2004), to overcome colonial and gender biases (Peake 2016), to challenge the notion of planetary urbanization, defined as a “new epistemology of the urban” (Oswin and Pratt 2021), or to capture the main processes at play in the production of cities (Storper and Scott 2016). This again raises the question of how to define urban movements, given their diversity and fragmentation, if we keep in mind their localist bias. Nonetheless, they have been closely involved in redefining the relationship between the state and civil society. By addressing this, we can again question the effects that these actors have on the democratization of the urban.

2.

DEFINING URBAN MOVEMENTS

For at least the past two decades, a series of ‘new urban practices’ have emerged, at the junction of past urban movements and the institutional innovations in citizen participation established by public authorities. Although the urban movements of the second half of the twentieth century were not always successful in achieving their objectives (Hamel 2008), they did contribute to modernizing the delivery and/ or management of municipal services, as well as to transforming local culture by promoting values of justice and solidarity in the civic sphere (Hamel and Keil 2020; Martinez 2017; Fainstein 2010).

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  19

By restating the concerns of yesterday’s urban movements, the ‘new urban practices’ coincide with a heterogeneous set of commitments, perspectives, and interventions which aim to transform the living environment and/or prevailing urbanism. This leads to a revision of the social relationships to the city and to the urban space more generally. In the case of Montreal – which I know well – I can mention examples of transitional urbanism that have been experimented with over the last five years in several neighbourhoods to accommodate social businesses and new community initiatives, in addition to diverse experiments in urban agriculture. I would also include food security initiatives as well as interventions related to health and community life if we think, among others, about the work done with some neighbourhood tables around those issues. In addition to these initiatives, there are actions designed to promote active mobility (see the ‘Urban Walks‘ instigated by the Conseil Régional de l’Environnement (CRE) – Montréal), as well as the right of initiative, which allows Montrealers to initiate public consultations under the Montreal Charter of Rights and Responsibilities. These ‘new urban practices’ are part of a new repertoire for urban movements. But this does not imply that previous conflicting demands in the social and political space of civil society are history. The actors employing these practices continue to mobilize around the conflicts fought by progressive coalitions, particularly in relation to environmental issues, austerity policies, women’s struggles against violence, the defence of social rights, or the working conditions of refugees and immigrants. As observed elsewhere, the diversity of challenges facing cities is strongly influenced by the geographical, sociocultural, and political context within which they take place. Although struggles against rising housing costs and/or gentrification may confront similar challenges in different agglomerations around the world, the experience of conflict with the state and/or developers is not the same everywhere. Sometimes, cross-class alliances are possible and can contribute to support compromises favourable to inhabitants. On other occasions, even if self-help tools promote solidarity among residents, their economic and social conditions remain unchanged. Often citizens are forced to leave or are evicted from their homes when they cannot afford the rising costs of housing. Models of collective action and their strategies are increasingly diversified when compared to those of the past. They are becoming more specialized, and better able to develop links of cooperation and solidarity with other groups, making use of new information technologies. For example, resistance to gentrification is now combining the use of new technologies and resources connected to place. A growing interdependency is thus prevailing between online and offline reality on the one hand, and between the public sphere and public places in some urban neighbourhoods, on the other. Therefore, the importance of geography, space, and place in shaping social networks must be noted. As stated by Walter Nicholls: “place and local networks provide people with identities that give meaning and purpose to lives. The defence of territorial identities becomes a powerful motive for joining political mobilizations” (2008a: 843).

20  Handbook on urban social movements

Here, we are once again confronted with the “paradox of the actor”, which constantly reappears. It is then the qualities of place that support building networks, that come to the forefront. A “social movement space” is created “when activists in places connect to one another” (Nicholls 2008b: 91). The interactions between actors are necessarily unstable, and constantly being redefined. From this perspective, tensions and conflicts are not exclusive to the relations between challengers and incumbents. They are also part of social movement networks, especially when mobilization is stronger: “when the network begins to mobilize intensively on behalf of a cause, conflicts erupt between the centre and the multiple peripheries, with the latter finding that participation results in new forms of subordination and marginalisation within the coalition” (Nicholls 2008b: 91). In addressing the inequities that arise from existing planning models, urban movements are confronted with issues that have multiple dimensions. Struggles against gentrification, for example, can intersect with other fields of insurgency like gender, racial, and/or religious discrimination. Environmental concerns are necessarily also on the agenda. In connection with environmental activism, urban collective action is being redefined based on a reconfiguration of material flows. Collective action is then reconceptualized by seeking greater sustainability through the relationships between humans, other living beings, and the physical world (Schlosberg and Coles 2015). This does not mean that the post-material ideals promoted by the New Social Movements have been completely forgotten by current urban movements. They remain alive when it comes to addressing socio-spatial inequalities at multiple scales within urban agglomerations. There is no doubt that “urban theory is a contested terrain” (Judd 2011: 16). While this observation leads some scholars, such as Dennis R. Judd (2011), to relativize the multiple attempts to theorize the urban, and to plead for modesty in terms of attempting to account for the city as a whole, or in its essence, from a single point of view, it cannot be inferred from this that all approaches are equal. How can we take advantage of recent avenues explored in the field of urban studies for the study of collective action? Without adopting all the critical comments made by Michael Storper and Allen J. Scott (2016) directed at three recent influential currents of analysis – namely, postcolonial urban theory, ‘urban assemblage’ approaches, and planetary urbanization – it is worth noting that these tend to overlook the scalar dimensions attached to space, abandoning the city in favour of an overly abstract socio-geographic structural entity. From here, it is worth returning to the conception of space suggested by Doreen Massey (2005, 2013), which stands out from an overly abstract and/or one-dimensional reading of the urban. For her, space cannot be separated from the practices involved in its construction. It is above all a matter of the relationships that individuals and communities build together. Thus, space as a relation to others and as a “sphere of multiplicity” is constantly reconfigured through political engagement (Massey 2005: 183). Consequently, such an analysis of space implies considering the resistance expressed by actors in local struggles, which helps to understand how they contribute to making collective choices. At the same time, one should be aware that

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  21

“neither a concept of the local as ‘only local’ nor a romanticization of the local as bounded authenticity, in other words, offer much hope for a wider politics” (Massey 2005: 182). From then on, the static and hierarchical relation between the local and the global must be put aside. Against an overly simplistic vision of the local, the critical political understanding of the local as advanced by Massey requires replacing the “territorially based democracy in a relational world” (Massey 2005: 181). Throughout history, cities have been privileged places for “democratic invention” (Lefort 1981). By living in proximity and sharing common needs, a city’s inhabitants are required to jointly contribute together to its governance (Beauregard 2018). But living together brings about several contradictions. This is what Robert A. Beauregard accurately underlines: “the dualism between the concentration of wealth and the increase of poverty; the deterioration of ecosystems versus initiatives geared towards the sustainable city; the concentration of political power versus the promotion of institutional arrangements for democratization; and the clash between the values of tolerance and intolerance” (2018: 152). There is no single answer or foolproof way to overcome these contradictions. Moreover, the expansion of urban areas has often gone hand in hand with increased economic segregation, to which social and political inequalities have been added (Zuberi 2014). While liberal democracies can live with a certain level of economic inequality, it becomes more difficult to tolerate when combined with social and political inequalities. This owes to the fact that rising inequality results in a decline in shared trust, which necessarily undermines citizen participation or civic engagement, and hence the future of democracy itself (Swanstrom et al. 2002). As mentioned previously, the spatial turn suggested by Massey (2013) opens the door to a critical theory of urban democracy and invites a consideration of the contingency of the contexts within which urban processes are redefined (Barnett 2014). This leads to a reconsideration of the relations between urbanization and democratization processes carried out by social actors (Domaradzka 2018). At least three avenues have been explored recently in this regard. The first focuses on lifestyles and captures the emergence of new repertoires of political participation that connect personal choices and the prevailing culture (de Moor 2017; Haenfler et al. 2012). The second shifts the focus to everyday life. Political public space is transformed by a multiplicity of social practices (‘urban everyday politics’), which, beyond their differences, tend to reinforce each other in recognition and the sharing of common values (Beveridge and Koch 2019). The third is an extension of the work on hybrid forums (Callon et al. 2001). Taking note of the development of science and technology, and their increased impact on ordinary citizens, the establishment of institutional arrangements to implement these forums aims to help representative democracies deal with uncertainty. In practice, however, the democratization of expertise has proven limited. Concerning urban planning issues, the views of experts and managers generally remain predominant. Stakeholder groups or citizen initiatives play a secondary role or are excluded from decision-making processes altogether (Farias 2016, 2017). It is therefore necessary to consider the context, resources, interests, and conflicts at work in redefining urban processes.

22  Handbook on urban social movements

Regarding democracy and democratization processes, social movements and their actors have often played a crucial role in challenging established democratic models as well as established decision-making processes (Della Porta and Diani 2015; Hamel et al. 2012). In doing so, they have promoted not only participatory but also deliberative democracy. Experimenting with new modalities of interaction and solidarity, they have contributed to the construction of public forums (Della Porta 2013).

3.

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE POLITICAL SPHERE AND THE ROLE OF URBAN MOVEMENTS

For several decades now, urban movements have taken shape within an institutional political landscape undergoing a profound restructuring program. They were part of sociopolitical transformations over which they had no control, but to which they nevertheless were a contributing influence. The activity of urban movements can be associated with a series of actions driving the transformation of cities in the context of globalization. It is in such a context that countries around the world have abandoned the old models of state regulation based on sovereignty and the use of violence, in place of an increasing reliance on a paradigm of governance (Pinson 2015). In this sense, we have gone from the governing of cities to urban governance (Le Galès 1995). This change was observed everywhere and gave birth to the rise of local politics, a trend foregrounding “one dimension of the reemergence of territories in an intellectual agenda driven by globalization processes, together with intellectual projects to conceptualize politics beyond the state” (Le Galès 2021: 347). This governance perspective has taken various forms – more or less collaborative, participative, and/or deliberative – but has been characterized everywhere by the involvement of civil society and private corporate actors in defining the priorities and orientations of the state. As such, governance does not imply an erosion of the state; however, it does raise questions about the status and role played by public institutions regarding social cohesion (Bevir and Rhodes 2010). If we look back at the recent history of urban movements, and the way these actors have been involved in connection with ‘new urban practices’ in challenging the political, one must recall that the meaning of urban struggles can no longer be reduced exclusively to their capacity to establish a power relationship on the political terrain. In this respect, we return to Castells’ (1983) observation that the actions of urban movements generate new meanings to the affirmation of cultural identities and the production of values related to daily life, at both the neighbourhood and city levels. Without reviewing the relations between social movements and institutions or their transformations (Hamel et al. 2012), we must recall that these relations have been marked by contextual changes over the past several decades. These involve the transformations connected to globalization, but also the increased individuation of social relations. As a result, we have witnessed a redeployment of the fields of action that have become more open to the recognition of actors’ subjectivity and preroga-

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  23

tives (Araujo and Martuccelli 2014). By entering the institutional arena – despite the risk of losing their legitimacy – social movements and their actors have experimented with new ways of institutional confrontation. To (properly) define social movements, we must therefore move away from the thesis of the exteriority of relations to institutions, or of partial institutionalization, which strongly marked the main research trends of the 1980s and 1990s. In addressing authorities, the discursive resources available to ordinary citizens are often limited. This does not preclude governance, particularly in its deliberative form, from being a valuable perspective to enhance democratic life (Collins 2018). However, some have argued that deliberative democracy is primarily, if not exclusively, about mini publics, leaving mass democracy to its own (Chambers 2009). Against this reading, I contend that it leaves out a major contribution of social actors to democracy: their role in defining local culture and, through it, mass democracy. Like the urban movements of the past, the current ‘new urban practices’ – including their relation to more contradictory modes of advocacy – contribute to the transformation of local culture, as the latter defines the values and norms inherent in the orientations with which the population identifies. Space then becomes a marker of cultural life (Lenel 2018). Based on a multitude of issues, by introducing social, environmental, economic, and cultural concerns into the local space, citizens induce local community impacts that circumscribe the possibilities of social interaction (Damay 2018). Nonetheless, one must consider the various forms of commitment with which social actors are involved (Dechézelles 2019). Individuals do not all choose to express themselves in the same way in the public sphere (McFarlane 2018). While some prefer the emotional register or that of existential experience, others immediately opt for the terrain of argumentation (Callon and Rabeharisoa 1999). In this light, and as understood by social actors themselves, the challenges of deliberative governance are difficult to overcome (Dobson 2014; Poletta 2008; Papadopoulos and Warin 2007). Even though the institutionalization of public debate can be considered a way to democratize public action (Rui 2004), the fact remains that the mechanisms of deliberative governance have done little to democratize public decision-making processes. Ostensibly, it is above all elites – political, managerial, professional – who have benefited from these mechanisms, either to increase their expertise or reinforce their legitimacy. Thus, how is it possible to argue that these measures help in democratizing public action? To answer this question, two comments should be taken into consideration. The first is that social actors face adversity in myriad ways. The principles of deliberation, and the mechanisms that materialize those principles, are two different things. As noted by John Medearis (2004), deliberative democracy relies on a strong promotion of social inclusion. On the contrary, social movements must resort to coercion for being recognized as legitimate actors. Thus, from the outset, it is unsurprising to find that social movements do not trust the general call for deliberation (Young 2001). The second, concerning urban issues, is the fact that in these forums, two logics clash: a logic of argumentation or deliberation – allowing protagonists to revise and/

24  Handbook on urban social movements

or confirm their position – and a logic of decision, which remains based on a balance of power, according to which social movements are generally disadvantaged.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, I addressed some of the shortcomings of urban movements, starting with their localism. If recalling this critique made it possible to highlight that urban movements are fragile actors, often unable to build decisive power relations, it also allows us to better understand their specific contribution to local culture and beyond to the democratization of urban politics. Incorporating diverse material and discursive contributions on the terrain of civil society, they were, and still are, confronted with models of cohesion and solidarity. These are defined in relation to, and through conflicts with, opponents. But they are also defined through cooperation with others, as shown by the relations between the ‘new urban practices’ and urban movements. Here, it is the very idea of a social movement, defined on a conceptual basis, that must be re-examined. This conceptual definition cannot account for collective action today, particularly when considering the institutional terrain on which it is deployed. Starting from a maximalist perspective, with the demands it places on analysis, many events or processes end up neglected or simply ignored, because the theory marks them as insignificant from the outset. From this perspective, even if we include the tension between the concept and its ever-prevalent materiality, this is not enough to account for the diversity of forms taken by the commitment of social actors. In short, the difficulties faced by the actors engaged in collective action do not correspond very well with the image of homogeneity that the notion of social movement invariably conveys. The notion of ‘urban social movements’ has always contained ambiguities. Castells himself referred to ‘urban social movements’ with two different meanings: a restrictive one, and a generic one. Though, as alluded to by Pickvance, the restrictive sense has been generally disregarded “in favour of the generic usage which referred to any and all citizen action irrespective of its actual (or potential) effects” (Pickvance 2003: 103). Beyond its ambiguity, is this notion still useful when considering the changing repertoire of urban movements observed? In conclusion, despite some of my previous comments, it should be underlined that the idea of movement remains useful to identify the elements of continuity in a more globalized urban reality where the issues of democracy and social justice are coming to the fore more than ever.

NOTE 1. Following the literature on social movements, which makes a distinction between the movement as a whole and the numerous organizations involved, it seems appropriate to use the term ‘urban social movement’ to refer to those actions able to achieve major changes. However, one may recall the remark made by Pickvance (1985: 32): “Castells

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  25

and many other writers, unfortunately, used the term ‘urban social movement’ to refer both to the handful of movements achieving a transformation of urban power relations and to the generality of urban movements whatever their effects. Here, ‘urban movements’ will be used in the latter, generic sense, and the term ‘urban social movement’ to those that achieve high-level changes.” In this chapter, I adopt this view.

REFERENCES Araujo, K. and D. Martuccelli, D. (2014). “Beyond institutional individualism: Agentic individualism and the individuation process in Chilean society”. Current Sociology 62(1): 24–40. Barnett, C. (2014). “What do cities have to do with democracy?” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38(5): 1625–1643. Beauregard, R. A. (2018). Cities in the Urban Age: A Dissent. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Beveridge, R. and P. Koch (2019). “Urban everyday politics: Politicising practices and the transformation of the here and now”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 37(1): 142–157. Bevir, M. and R. A. W. Rhodes (2010). The State as Cultural Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Callon, M., P. Lascoumes, and Y. Barthe (2001). Agir dans un monde incertain. Essai sur la démocratie technique. Paris: Seuil. Callon, M. and V. Rabeharisoa (1999). “La leçon d’humanité de Gino”. Réseaux 17(95): 197–233. Castells, M. (1972). La question urbaine. Paris: François Maspéro. Castells, M. (1977). The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach. London: Edward Arnold. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chambers, S. (2009). “Rhetoric and the public sphere: Has deliberative democracy abandoned mass democracy?” Political Theory 37(3): 323–350. Cohen, J. L. and A. Arato (1992). Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press. Collins, J. (2018). “Urban representation through deliberation: A theory and test of deliberative democracy at the local level”. Journal of Urban Affairs 40(7): 952–973. Damay, L. (2018). “Effets de milieu et ressource spatiale dans les scènes participatives”. In E. Lenel (ed.), L’espace des sociologues. Toulouse: Éditions Érès, pp. 247–274. de Moor, J. (2017). “Lifestyle politics and the concept of participation”. Acta Politica 52: 179–197. Dechézelles, S. (2019). “Être du coin, défendre ses lieux. L’autochtonie protestataire dans l’engagement contre l’éolien de grande taille en France”. In S. Dechézelles and M. Olive (eds.), Politisation du proche. Les lieux familiers comme espace de mobilisation. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, pp. 239–261. Della Porta, D. (2013). Can Democracy Be Saved? Cambridge: Polity Press. Della Porta, D. and M. Diani (2015). “Introduction: The field of social movement studies”. In D. Della Porta and M. Diani (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford of University Press, pp. 1–30. Dobson, A. (2014). Listening for Democracy: Recognition, Representation, Reconciliation. New York: Oxford University Press. Domaradzka, A. (2018). “Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization”. Voluntas 29(4): 607–620. Domaradzka, A. and F. Wijkström (2019). “Urban challengers weaving their networks: Between the ‘right to housing’ and the ‘right to the city’”. Housing Studies 5(7): 1–23.

26  Handbook on urban social movements

Dubet, F. (2022). Tous inégaux, tous singuliers. Paris: Éditions du Seuil. Fainstein, S. S. (2010). The Just City. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Fainstein, S. S. and C. Hirst (1995). “Urban social movements”. In D. Judge, G. Stoker, and H. Wolman (eds.), Theories of Urban Politics. London: Sage, pp. 181–204. Farias, I. (2016). “Devising hybrid forums”. City 20(4): 549–562. Farias, I. (2017). “An idiotic catalyst: Accelerating the slowing down of thinking and action”. Cultural Anthropology 32(1): 35–41. Feldman, M. M. A. (1978). “Manuel Castells’ The Urban Question: A review essay”. Review of Radical Political Economics 10(3): 136–144. Fligstein, N. and D. McAdam (2012). A Theory of Fields. New York: Oxford University Press. Haenfler, R., B. Johnson, and E. Jones (2012). “Lifestyle movements: Exploring the intersection of lifestyle and social movements”. Social Movement Studies 11(1): 1–20. Hamel, P. (2008). Ville et débat public. Agir en démocratie. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université Laval. Hamel, P. and R. Keil (2020). “La coopération, c’est clé: Montreal’s urban governance in times of austerity”. Journal of Urban Affairs 42(1): 109–124. Hamel, P., H. Lustiger-Thaler, and L. Maheu (2012). “Global social movements: Politics, subjectivity and human rights”. In A. Sales (ed.), Sociology Today: Social Transformations in a Globalizing World. London: Sage, pp. 171–194. Judd, D. R. (2011). “Theorizing the city“. In D. R. Judd and D. Simpson (eds.), The City Revisited: Urban Theory from Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3–20. Katznelson, I. (1981). City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Klandermans, B. and J. Van Stekelenburg (2014). “Why people don’t participate in collective action”. Journal of Civil Society 10(4): 341–352. Krisky, J. and A. Mische (2013). “Formations and formalisms: Charles Tilly and the paradox of the actor”. Annual Review of Sociology 39: 1–26. Le Galès, P. (1995). “Du gouvernement des villes à la gouvernance urbaine”. Revue française de science politique 45(1): 57–95. Le Galès, P. (2021). “The rise of local politics: A global review”. Annual Review of Political Science 24: 345–363. Lefort, C. (1981). L’invention démocratique. Les limites de la domination totalitaire. Paris: Fayard. Lenel, E. (2018). “Introduction”. In E. Lenel (ed.), L’espace des sociologues. Toulouse: Édition Érès, pp. 7–16. Lowe, S. (1986). Urban Social Movements: The City after Castells. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Maheu, L. (1995). “Introduction”. In L. Maheu (ed.), Social Movements and Social Classes: The Future of Collective Action. London: Sage, pp. 1–17. Martinez, M. A. (2017). “Social movements as city makers: Contesting global capitalism and liberal democracy“. Lecture given at Uppsala University, 15 November. Massey, D. (2005). For Space. London: Sage. Massey, D. (2013). “Doreen Massey on space”. Social Science Bites. https://​www​ .socialsciencespace​.com/​2013/​02/​podcastdoreen​-massey​-on​-space/​. Mayer, M. (2006). “Manuel Castells’ The City and the Grassroots”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(1): 202–206. Mayer, M. (2009). “The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements”. City 13(2–3): 362–374. McFarlane, C. (2018). “Fragment urbanism: Politics at the margins of the city”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 36(6): 1007–1025.

Beyond the localism of urban social movements  27

Medearis, J. (2004). “Social movements and deliberative democratic theory”. British Journal of Political Science 35: 53–75. Miller, B. (2006). “Castells’ The City and the Grassroots: 1983 and today”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30(1): 207–211. Nicholls, W. J. (2008a). “The urban question revisited: The importance of cities for social movements”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(4): 841–859. Nicholls, W. J. (2008b). “Place, networks, space: Theorizing the geographies of social movements”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34(1): 78–93. Offe, C. (1985). “New social movements: Challenging the boundaries of institutional politics”. Social Research 52(4): 817–868. Oswin, N. and G. Pratt (2021). “Critical urban theory in the ‘urban age’: Ruptures, tensions and messy solidarities”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 45(4): 585–596. Papadopoulos, Y. and P. Warin (2007). “Are innovative, participatory and deliberative procedures in policy making democratic and effective?” European Journal of Political Research 46: 445–472. Peake, L. (2016). “The twenty-first century quest for feminism and the global urban”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 40(1): 219–227. Pickvance, C. (1985). “The rise and fall of urban movements and the role of comparative analysis”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 3: 31–53. Pickvance, C. (2003). “From urban social movements to urban movements: A review introduction to a symposium on urban movements”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27(1): 102–109. Pinson, G. (2015). “Gouvernance et sociologie de l’action organisée. Action publique, coordination et théorie de l’État”. L’année sociologique 65(2): 483–519. Poletta, F. (2008). “Just talk: Public deliberation after 9/11”. Journal of Public Deliberation 4(1): 1–21. Purcell, M. (2006). “Urban democracy and the local trap”. Urban Studies 43(11): 1921–1941. Raynaud, E. (1974). “La question urbaine”. Revue française de sociologie 15(4): 617–626. Rui, S. (2004). La démocratie en débat. Les citoyens face à l’action publique. Paris: Armand Colin. Sassen, S. (2004). “Local actors in global politics”. Current Sociology 52(4): 649–670. Schlosberg, D. and R. Coles (2015). “The new environmentalism of everyday life: Sustainability, material flows and movements”. Contemporary Political Theory 15(2): 160–181. Storper, M. and A. J. Scott (2016). “Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment”. Urban Studies 53(6): 1114–1136. Susen, S. (2015). The ‘Postmodern Turn’ in the Social Sciences. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Swanstrom, T., P. Dreier, and J. Mollenkopf (2002). “Economic inequality and public policy: The power of place”. City & Community 1(4): 349–372. Tilly, C. (2005). Identities, Boundaries & Social Ties. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Wolch, J. R. (1990). The Shadow State: Government and the Voluntary Sector in Transition. New York: The Foundation Center. Young, I. M. (2001). “Activist challenges to deliberative democracy”. Social Movement Studies 2(1): 85–96. Zuberi, D. (2014). Urban inequality and urban social movements. In H. H. Hiller (ed.), Urban Canada, 3rd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 134–155.

3. A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles Ioana Florea, Agnes Gagyi and Kerstin Jacobsson1

INTRODUCTION Recent years have seen a rise in research on urban movements and activism, reflecting the prevalence and importance of this kind of activism in cities across the globe. While addressing locally specific problems, urban activists simultaneously politicize transnational processes, such as the globalization of the economy and the financialization of housing. Relations between global structural processes and their local institutionalization and politics have constituted a growing interest of study (e.g. Harvey 2012; Celik 2020). But next to relations between multiple scales of movements’ engagement, the question of relations between different, intensifying local movements has also been addressed. To capture the often dense relationships between urban activist groups operating on the ground in a specific local context, there has been a rising research interest in using field models in the study of urban activism (e.g. Domaradzka and Wijkström 2016, 2019; Diani et al. 2018; Lang and Mullins 2020). The present chapter adds to these efforts by contributing an original analytical approach to urban struggles, conceptualized as a ‘structural field of contention’ approach (developed more fully in Florea et al., 2022). Earlier field approaches to social/urban movements have noted the need to address the multiplicity of actors involved in a certain type of contention, and the fact that not all field relations can be described as intentional forms of alliances and conflict. The structural field of contention adds a further dimension, by including multi-level structural and political factors as part of the field of contentious relations. Structural factors are conceived as elements of the field of contention that (1) produce the social tensions around which contention arises, (2) influence conditions of contention including relationship-making among actors (for instance, different class positions and social positionality may affect the prospects for collaboration among actors), and (3) are addressed and acted upon by movements. Additionally, in contrast to most field approaches, the structural field of contention approach puts an emphasis on incorporating silences into the assessment of a field – meaning the lack of politicization or mobilization in face of structural tensions, on behalf of social groups whose structural positions do not get to be represented through a collective voice. A historically informed structural understanding of the field of contention can help make sense of both the mobilization and the lack thereof in a given context. 28

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  29

In this chapter, we turn our attention to struggles around housing, in the period following the 2008 financial crisis. We illustrate the gains of the structural field of contention approach by bringing examples from a comparative study of housing contention in two cities in Central Eastern Europe (CEE): Bucharest and Budapest. Our insights follow from a comparative study conducted between 2017 and 2020, where we investigated structural, political, social and movement levels of housing-related conflicts. The chapter is structured as follows: it first presents the structural field of contention approach, arguing for its advantages in the analysis of social (and urban) movements, and illustrating its original contribution to field approaches with which it is related. The next four sections show some of the specific gains this approach brings, exemplifying the aspects it reveals in the cases of the field of housing contention in Bucharest and Budapest: how similar macro-level conditions, but different political fields, relate to different conjunctures of movement politics; the embedding in multiple scales and the unreflected contradictions in housing conflicts; the coexistence of alliances, conflicts, parallelisms, silences and unreflected contradictions in the structural field of contention; and how aspects of contention change with transformations of the field. In the concluding section, we summarize the gains of a structural field of contention approach in understanding the complexity of current urban mobilizations and enabling cross-contextual comparisons relative to broad structural processes.

THE STRUCTURAL FIELD OF CONTENTION APPROACH When speaking about relations between different local movements, and their relation to broader structural aspects of the conflicts they address, the politics of inter-movement relations has been an important question. Several approaches have linked inter-movement politics to actors’ own structural positions and their changes through time. Moreover, cross-class alliances have been analyzed as a key feature of urban movements (e.g. Castells 1983; Mayer 2013). However, social movement studies have also identified impeding factors in achieving successful collaborations across social groups, such as different social positionality of activists, different movement cultures or ideologies, or different social interests given different class positions (e.g. Lichterman 1995; Rose 2000), which applies also to urban movements (e.g. Florea 2016; Mayer 2013). When speaking of inter-movement politics, if we look at the field of housing, it is notable that studies of the post-2008 housing contention wave so far have tended to focus on politically progressive, solidaristic movements, which often addressed the outcomes of the crisis in the same analytical framework as academic analysis did: in terms of the neoliberalization of the global economy and local urban development (e.g. Mayer et al. 2016; Grazioli and Caciagli 2018). However, responses to such structural processes are more ideologically diverse than the bulk of the urban movement literature acknowledges. The analytical approach offered in this chapter aims

30  Handbook on urban social movements

to account for the structural and ideological complexity of contemporary housing struggles and movements. To achieve this, it is necessary to move beyond the focus on strategic and intentional alliance-making that is characteristic of the studies on coalition building processes in movements and recognize that relationships among actors engaged in social/housing struggles may take a variety of forms. Apart from intentional collaboration or outspoken conflict, we may also observe parallel forms of activism taking place around the same structural conflict but hardly interacting; we may observe actors of opposing political agendas supporting similar issues; conflicts arising from unintended consequences of other actors’ actions; relations between local movement groups being governed by processes stemming from national-level politics; as well as structural processes that can become voiced collectively into the political sphere only at a later stage, after a long phase of political silence. We argue for the need for an analytical approach which can conceptualize the variety of these relationships and connections – allowing for capturing a wider spectrum of scenarios, such as the formation of cross-group solidarities, the failure of such attempts, but also the parallel mobilization of ideologically different groups in the same social-structural context, as well as the ways broader economic or political processes impact on actors’ relationships. For such an integrated analysis of a varied social topology and patterns of alliance, conflict, as well as parallelism, we acknowledge the usefulness of field models, which have seen a surge in research interest lately. Barman (2016) identified three major field approaches: Bourdieu’s theory, the neo-institutional organizational field approach (DiMaggio and Powell 1991) and the Strategic Action Field (SAF) approach (Fligstein and McAdam 2011, 2012). Our understanding of a field differs from these approaches. A key aspect that the SAF approach has in common with other Bourdieu-inspired field approaches to collective action is the notion of shared rules of the game, which we see runs the risk of reifying the field. Moreover, even more than Bourdieu’s theory, the SAF approach implies a high degree of reflexivity among field actors regarding these shared rules of the game. It is stressed that actors seek “fashioning a shared template” (Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 294) or even “fashion agreement” regarding the defining goal of the field and the rules of the field (Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 295, 300). Moreover, Fligstein and McAdam’s exclusive focus is on strategic action, stressing that collective actors are constantly seeking “control” (e.g. Fligstein and McAdam 2012: 291, 306). “Incumbents” compete with “challengers” who are “jockeying for position” (Fligstein and McAdam 2011: 5). Furthermore, while Fligstein and McAdam recognize the role of the “broader field environment or ‘context,’ as well as the role of ‘exogeneous shocks’” (2011: 2) occasionally disrupting the field, structural factors are by and large absent from their analysis of field interactions. Actors’ success is explained by the ‘social skills’ of actors. The authors write: “Our goal in emphasizing social skill is to suggest that people are always acting strategically” (Fligstein and McAdam 2011: 7). We do not share the

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  31

emphasis on strategic action on which this approach is premised, nor the ontology of a distinct field logic. Nevertheless, we consider it useful to approach housing mobilizations in terms of a field understood as a social space of collective actors who share a stake in matters of housing, while acting from different structural positions and who stand in specific relations to each other. We conceptualize this as a field because actors’ frameworks and capacity to act bear defining relationships with each other and with broader political and structural processes they act within. However, we move away from a conception of the field as an autonomous structure with an inherent, coherent logic and shared views of matters at stake. Instead, we conceive the field as a heuristic tool for making visible the complex relations between actors and their broader context, in the politicization of structural tensions around a certain issue – in this case, housing. The field notion can help grasp actual connections between movement actors and their contexts, without having to harmonize empirical findings with a projected inner logic of the field or limit their scope to intra-field ‘rules of the game’. To develop such a field approach, Crossley’s notion of a ‘field of contention’ serves as our starting point. Crossley proposed an understanding of social movements in terms of fields of contention, emphasizing two key aspects: Firstly, departing from traditional models of movements, which tend to view them as unified “things”, it draws our attention to the numerous groups and agents who interact within the internal space of a “movement” and to the relations, alliances and conflicts between those various groups/agents as they unfold through time. Secondly, it draws our attention to the embedding of social movement struggles within multiple differentiated contexts of struggle, each of which affords different opportunities for struggle but each of which makes different demands upon activists if struggle is to prove effective. (Crossley 2006a: 552)

Crossley’s approach here has the advantage of recognizing emergent properties and field dynamics without making strong assumptions about common understandings of the rules of the game. It also has the advantage of being interested in the unintended or unreflected consequences of field dynamics as much as in the conscious actor strategies. More strongly than Crossley, we stress the structural factors that constitute the conditions of group formation and struggle. We differ from him in that we conceive the structural factors as part of the field of contention, which both produce the conflicts around which contention arises, and influence relationship-making among actors. In tracing these connections, we propose to pay attention to how broader dynamics of global economic transformations affect movements’ local conditions, as well as to the way local social hierarchies, institutions and politics condition actors’ relations and forms of contention. This enables an analysis of interdependencies of housing-related movement activity, without losing sight of the ways housing contention is embedded in broader socio-historical relations, or the ways tensions resulting from the same structural process remain politically silent/ unpoliticized. It helps to make visible those factors of contention that are beyond individual movement actors’ explicit aims and intentional actions. Consequently, analyzing the structural and his-

32  Handbook on urban social movements

torical context quite closely is required in the structural field of contention approach. This kind of fine-grained analysis of structural transformations is an essential part of our field concept. We suggest that this approach is particularly suited to trace how certain structural tensions generated by broader crisis processes come to be politicized by diverse interconnected actors in a given context. The structural field of contention approach can be summarized as follows: First, agreeing with previous literature on fields of contention (notably Crossley’s works), it emphasizes that instead of homogeneous actors, movements need to be seen as made up by a multiplicity of actors whose mutual relations and structural embeddedness are part of the factors that shape movement dynamics. Second, in accordance with Crossley (2006a, 2006b, 2013), it goes beyond intentional action and conscious movement frameworks to include unintended effects and unrecognized interdependencies as part of the field. Third, beyond highly visible moments of mobilization, low-visibility phases of organizing, and political silence (over issues otherwise voiced by movement actors in other contexts or in other times) are also taken into consideration. Fourth, like Crossley, we think of the field of contention as one in constant change, with relations between actors being made and remade over time. Then, in several respects, we move beyond previous applications of the field concept, in our field of contention approach. First of all, we conceive of structural processes as part of field relations, in line with a recent turn in social movement studies from internal movement dynamics to movement-context relations. Second, this implies a break with the structuralist concept of the field, and defines the field not as an objective, autonomous structure made up by internal rules, but as a dynamic field of empirical relationships between actors and their context. Our approach also places a stronger emphasis on the transformations of the field as a whole, which can shift actors’ own positions and understanding, even if groups’ internal characteristics remain the same. Finally, as an approach designed to grasp how the global crisis comes to be politicized within local contexts, the structural field of contention concept puts a high emphasis on the multiple scales of relationships through which broader processes affect local actors and in which local forms of contention are developed. In the following, we illustrate some specific gains of this approach in analyzing the case of the field of housing contention in Bucharest and Budapest.

SIMILAR MACRO-LEVEL CONDITIONS, DIFFERENT POLITICAL FIELDS, AND CONJUNCTURES OF MOVEMENT POLITICS In the period before and after the 2008 crisis, macro-level conditions of housing in Hungary and Romania were similar to most other post-socialist cases. The privatization of state housing after 1989 generated a super-homeownership system, which meant informal and unregulated rental markets, a minimal social and public housing stock, pushing middle and lower-income households towards mortgages and other forms of debt as a route to housing access. The super-homeownership system did

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  33

not come with adequate living conditions for the majority. In the context of massive privatization and state disinvestment, it meant that multi-generational households came to own one home as their only resource, and that the levels of overcrowding and severe housing deprivation – including lack of/disconnection from utilities, lack of access to infrastructure, lack for resources for basic repairs etc. – were and still are among the highest in the EU (46.3 percent of the Romanian population lived in overcrowded homes even in 2018, a year marked by high GDP growth, according to Eurostat). The boom of housing financialization in the 2000s and respectively the subordinated financialization of CEE markets (Becker and Jaeger 2010; Ban and Bohle 2021) exacerbated the situation. In Hungary, demand for housing mortgages was channeled towards foreign currency-denominated (forex) mortgages introduced by foreign banks dominating the banking sector after the ban on foreign currency lending was lifted as part of EU accession requirements. The following risk-based competition between banks to maintain and expand their market shares led to the distribution of a large amount of risky, foreign currency denominated loans to households with low amounts of savings. Between 2008 and 2009, installments of CHF loans grew by 70–80 percent. As household incomes dropped together with the prices of collateral (as housing markets froze due to the crash), the situation resulted in hundreds of thousands of families going into arrears or outright debt spirals. In Romania, due to the fact that this process was slower, the middle income categories accessed bank credits which, although incurring exchange rate changes and variable interest rates as risks, were more regulated/protected than the types of debt absorbed by lower income households. The latter were hire purchase credit, consumer credits from non-financial institutions, and debt on utility bills (which affected about 15–30 percent of the entire population across the years since the 2008 crisis, while mortgage arrears affect less than 1 percent). Thus, despite similar macro-level conditions, debtors’ struggles in Romania and Hungary after the 2008 crisis differ in both constituency and forms of mobilization, including movement politics. Another aspect of housing commodification was related to urban rehabilitation programs, as market priorities in urban rehabilitation remained an important driver of housing tensions, from the destruction of historical heritage buildings to the marginalization or outright eviction of poorer dwellers. Comparing the two cases, we found that similar macro-structural conditions generated what we called similar structural tensions in the two cases, which became the target of different forms of housing contention across time. One main type of tensions that followed from this structural environment was the production of severe forms of housing poverty at the bottom of the housing system. The most severe and publicly visible aspect of this was homelessness, which remained a lasting characteristic of post-socialist housing. Another, less visible form of housing poverty, which also existed during socialism, but was reinforced and expanded after 1990, was informal housing in peri-urban areas, and squatting or semi-legal occupations of empty apartments. After 1990, evictions became a typical conflict that made housing poverty publicly visible, and, in some cases, politicized. Next to class, ethnic division lines

34  Handbook on urban social movements

constituted an important aspect of such conflicts, with ethnic discrimination against the Roma population becoming a frequent characteristic of conflicts around evictions and gentrification. Another type of tension generated by urban rehabilitation programs revolved around the destruction of built heritage. These conflicts involved better-off strata, such as educated activists, architects, tourism entrepreneurs, and other allies interested in maintaining and restoring built heritage. Their resistance provided a specific element of housing contention, which sometimes converged with social claims, and other times worked against them (Florea 2016). Along with severe forms of housing poverty, another main area of structural tensions had to do with the situation of low- to middle-income groups who had relatively stable incomes, but could not afford to buy a home. The manifestations of this type of tension were different according to structural and political contexts. One interface through which this category’s housing access problem manifested was the issue of secure and available rental housing, which could have provided a solution to the problem, and was recurrently addressed by different forms of housing activism. We saw examples of housing activism engaging with the issue of rental housing at the time of the decline of state housing in Hungary, as well as in reaction to spikes in housing costs in the second half of the 2010s. Another interface was the issue of household debt, due to low- to middle-income households with low savings levels needing to use loans to buy or repair a home, or to cover housing costs. These were different types of debt in the two contexts – mostly bank mortgages in Hungary, and mostly consumer loans from diverse types of creditors, and also debt on utility bills in Romania. In the period leading to 2008, a major volume of social risk was built up through this channel. Although this problem burst into the open after the 2008 crash, solutions proposed by state and market actors did not solve the structural gap that promotes the accumulation of household credit risk, and it remained a constant characteristic of the two housing systems ever since. Other channels for the politicization of the housing access problem of low- to middle-income groups have included struggles against low wages, and struggles over access to (very limited) social housing. Despite the similarity of the macro-level conditions of housing conflicts, the actual politicization of housing issues in the two countries differed significantly. One important aspect of these differences is related to the different polarization of post-socialist national level politics in the two countries, which implied different entry points and alliance opportunities for housing movements. In Hungary, an alliance between international lenders, Western capitalist lobbies, ex-socialist big company managers benefiting from privatization, and a political coalition between the Socialist and Liberal parties dominated post-socialist transformation until the late 2000s. A contender political bloc, favoring protectionist policies benefiting domestic capital, maintained a dominant position throughout these years. From the opposition, it has produced a language of right-wing anti-neoliberalism which, by the 2000s, became the vocabulary of popular protests. Actively penetrating these movements with its own political organizing, the conservative party Fidesz won a super-majority victory in 2010. In government, it used the delegitimization of the neoliberal growth model represented by the Socialist-Liberal coalition to engage

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  35

in a post-crisis reconstruction. This aimed to enable growth for state-backed domestic capital, to broaden the maneuvering space of economic policy by diversifying external financial dependence, and to support Western foreign direct investment (FDI) (primarily German) manufacturers in order to maintain export levels. After 2010, waves of political protest criticized the government for its centralization of power, rolling back of democratic institutions, and for its political rhetoric that heralded a turn away from previous uncritical lines of pro-Western, pro-European policies, and instead sought new alliances with Chinese or Russian investors. In the context of these mobilizations, groups who represented social grievances (like unions or housing movements) were embraced by opposition movements, but also integrated in a binary opposition between the government’s nationalist politics and a pro-market, pro-European, liberal direction, conceived as the sole alternative. The fact that larger opposition movements (unlike in the previous neoliberal phase of power) became open to social issues as a symbolic argument against the government, allowed housing groups to amplify their voices and enter into wider political coalitions. Electoral wins in the 2019 local elections demonstrated the gains of this strategy, by both symbolic and practical steps taken by some oppositional governments, including the new local government in Budapest. The national government’s infamous anti-homeless regulations were withdrawn in these local contexts, and several collaborations with progressive housing movements started, with a new project for a social rental agency involving both state and private apartments, standing out as an example. However, the same strategy also brought the issues addressed by housing groups into the force-field of big politics’ campaign period before the 2022 national elections. Thus, politically motivated attacks against local-scale social projects – like the plan for a homeless care shelter during the Covid-19 pandemic, or an NGO program to house a small number of homeless families in an outer district of Budapest – were illustrative of this aspect. In Romania, as opposed to Hungary, Ceaușescu’s strongly centralized regime did not make space for the development of a pro-liberalizing fraction of the Socialist party in the 1980s. After 1989, the government composed of ex-socialist cadres tried to continue a politics of protectionism and delayed privatization, to keep strategic sectors in state hands and to support the formation of domestic capital. This direction was broken when contender liberal forces strengthened through external alliances during the EU and NATO accession process in the late 1990s (Ban 2016). In this process, neoliberal politics formed an alliance with liberal intellectuals, and applied liberal dissidents’ anti-communist discourses to the struggle against the Socialists’ power. The aftermath of the 2008 crisis saw the intensification of conflicts between liberal and socialist party lines, with the increasing dominance of the former. In this context, the most visible post-crisis protest waves, taking place in large cities with an increasingly uneven concentration of middle-to-high income groups, were channeled towards supporting liberal factions in their struggle against the Socialists. The latter were labeled by their opponents as a remainder of communism which blocks Western-type development, being upheld by a network of corruption and a political alliance with the uneducated poor. This framework explicitly dissociated

36  Handbook on urban social movements

the middle-class disillusionment with post-socialist transformations, from the issue of labor rights and poverty, and thus combined pro-liberal statements with anti-poor stances. In this context, unlike in Hungary, progressive housing movements split from the generic line of opposition protests, and forged alternative networks tied to anti-racist and anti-capitalist standpoints. Beyond differences caused by different political contexts and respective alliance opportunities, differences between local movements on the ground also developed due to specific conjunctures between local manifestations of structural tensions, and dynamics of mobilization potentials and movement-level alliance making. One illustrative case for this type of difference is that between forms of contention related to severe forms of housing poverty – as Hungarian left housing activism foregrounded homelessness, while similarly minded groups in Romania focused on evictions of poor families, and the racist, anti-Roma aspect of evictions and related social politics. This difference developed despite the fact that housing poverty, evictions and anti-Roma discrimination are widespread in Hungary, too, and homelessness has been a growing problem in Romanian cities. An important factor in the development of different foci of contention has been the pre-existing structural conditions that facilitated the condensation of movement activities around one issue or another. In Romania, evictions of primarily Roma and ethnically mixed families from inner-city houses that have been nationalized in the early 1950s, redistributed to workers’ families through state companies, and then since 1990 restituted to owners from the pre-communist era (and their heirs and/or buyers of property rights), have become a highly visible conflict since the 2000s. These conflicts attracted the attention of newly mobilizing (educated but still precarious) middle-class activists of the alter-globalist movement wave, who were initially involved in more generic social and cultural urban activism, but developed lasting alliances with affected groups throughout the process of resisting evictions. During the post-2008 protest wave and its politicization along the conflict between liberal and socialist party blocs, these groups in Bucharest conflicted with the liberal direction of the protests, and chose to build networks across cities with other groups with similar principles, including those working on interconnected issues such as feminism, left media, political art and labor rights. Meanwhile, political alliances with NGOs and charities working in homeless care hardly developed, with left housing groups remaining critical towards charity-based approaches, and only occasionally collaborating with several NGOs offering on the ground assistance. In Hungary, homelessness was strongly politicized in the early 1990s, through alliances between homeless people’s own advocacy, social workers and social policy experts allied with the Liberal party. In the build-up of post-socialist homeless assistance institutions, and their political framing as a social issue, party political alliances remained strong, with the idea of urban homelessness remaining tied to liberals’ own social politics (Győri and Matern 1997). In the 2000s, a new generation of activists criticized established systems of homeless assistance and started to build new grassroots models of homelessness-related activism. The outcome of this process was the founding of The City is for All, an advocacy organization which rejected the idea

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  37

of middle-class activists representing the problems of homeless people, and instead forged an alliance with homeless activists, with specific measures to maintain horizontal relations between different participants. The City is for All became a paradigmatic organization for left housing activism for the coming decade. After 2019, some of its expert members entered local governments, while the group itself became even more visible through collaborations with opposition politics. Meanwhile – although mutual support with organizations of oppressed groups, including the Roma, has been part of the group’s politics – the ethnic discrimination as an aspect of housing problems had not become an explicit issue in housing activism. A specific characteristic of housing movement conjunctures in the above contexts was the ideological polarization between different forms of activism targeting housing conflicts. In Romania, the emergent conflict between middle-class urban heritage protection groups who came to support the liberal line of large demonstrations, and left housing groups that forged alliances with subaltern groups threatened by liberal urban policies has been one example of such polarizations. In Hungary, a similar example includes the lack of collaboration and opposing political alliances between foreign currency mortgage debtors’ movements threatened by evictions after 2009, and leftist homeless advocacy activism. Although the issues targeted by different groups were tightly connected, right vs. left political alliances and vocabularies kept their activism separate from each other.

MULTIPLE SCALES AND UNREFLECTED CONTRADICTIONS IN HOUSING CONFLICTS In both Bucharest and Budapest, the structural processes movements reacted to and the politics of their engagement involved multiple scales – from community or neighborhood level to local and national governance, international organizations, global financial flows, or geopolitics. But how movements’ own frameworks reflected the different scales of their engagement was far from evident. One example common to both countries has been the case of foreign-currency denominated mortgage debtors. The problem of hiking installments of mortgage loans taken in foreign currencies has been a spectacular case of how local households’ everyday needs were tied to hierarchies of global financialization, and to national-level institutions and policies mediating their flows. While debtors in both countries organized to protect their interests in a situation which they clearly saw as unfair, debtors’ advocacy in both countries focused solely on the national level of policy, trying to pressure governments for protection. This disassociation in debtors’ politics, preconditioned by different levels of global financial governance, allowed Hungarian debtors to ally with Fidesz’ program for domestically controlled financial circuits, only to realize later the differences of interest between the two. Another example is the case of the Tenants’ Association in Hungary, which formed in the 1980s as a response to the degradation of state housing, when state maintenance companies could not provide sufficient service, due to national budgets

38  Handbook on urban social movements

being redirected for public debt service. The Association was funded in the hope of exerting collective pressure on maintenance companies, yet pressure could not change the situation of lack of funds. With the progress of housing privatization and the right-to-buy, the Association’s richer members became interested in gaining better privatization deals, while the remaining poorer members were less capable of sustaining the organization through membership fees (Győri and Matern 1997). The Tenants’ Association’s post-privatization story reflects changes of structural and institutional conditions that define the dynamics of the group’s politics, but are in a large part not reflected in its claims and positions: while struggling for a better position as tenants, the Association’s members (of different low- to middle-income categories) did not recognize the structural limits to their claims; when they met the structural polarizing effect of privatization, the Association fell prey to it without being able to devise a strategy that could promote the housing interests of low- to middle-income strata among the new conditions.

ALLIANCES, CONFLICTS, PARALLELISMS, SILENCES, AND UNREFLECTED CONTRADICTIONS Besides connections between macro-structural, political and movement aspects, another type of field relations we identified through our research and which we revealed through the structural field of contention approach, has been the multi-faceted one between field actors. Alliances between movement actors, including cross-class alliances built by left housing groups in both countries, have constituted one type of relations: The City is for All in Budapest and The Common Front for Housing Rights in Bucharest, both emerging after the 2008 crisis, illustrate processes of building alliances between groups affected by homelessness, respectively evictions, activists faced with housing precarity and educated but lower-middle-class activists. Another case was that of conflicts: between movement groups and authorities, such as the case of anti-eviction political protests in both countries; or between different types of movement groups, such as the case of middle-class anti-corruption movements and left housing groups in Romania. We also saw cases where different types of movements addressed similar issues without building out explicit relations of conflict or alliance. A significant example in both countries of this type of parallelism has been the relation between mortgage debtors’ advocacy after the 2008 crisis, and left housing activism. Mortgage debtors’ groups represented low- to middle-income groups in Hungary, and respectively middle-income groups in Romania, who took foreign-currency denominated mortgages during the 2000s lending boom, and then suffered from unfavorable changes of currency exchange rates and variable interest rates after the crisis. In Hungary, the debtors’ movement first allied with Fidesz’ 2010 election campaign, then slowly turned against the Orbán government as post-2010 debt management policies served to build domestic financial capital rather than help out lower-income debtors (Florea et al. 2018).

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  39

By the end of the 2010s, Hungarian debtors’ voices had already been politically silenced by the government. Although left and liberal experts and activists recognized the gravity of the debt crisis, no political alliance with debtors was built, as debtors’ advocacy groups were considered to belong to the political right. In Romania, only a small proportion of bank debtors had arrears – never more than 25 percent of them, including during the crisis years. They organized mostly through individual and collective court trials against banks, and media campaigns targeting state/National Bank intervention. Fearing exchange rate and asset prices instability, debtors without arrears supported the post-2008 austerity measures, which also affected the incomes of more vulnerable middle-income debtors; while CHF debtors only mobilized in 2015, with the high spike in the exchange rate. Thus, debtors’ groups and actions were rather fragmented and did not coagulate in a movement. For these reasons, and also because debtors were in a higher income category, having better access to lawyers and lobby channels, left housing groups have not addressed debt issues for a long time and have not engaged with debtors. After 2014, with the post-crisis GDP growth and the end of austerity, mortgage holders lobbied successfully for more legislative protection and access to public housing in case of default – marking a field transformation which placed them in direct competition over public housing with those organizing with the left housing groups. The lack of political engagement with the ethnic aspect of housing poverty in Hungary, or with the issue of homelessness in Romania, by local left housing groups, is one illustration of what we call political silence. A broader case is that of housing peripheralization: the silent ‘trickling down’ of housing poverty to more peripheral locations at the urban outskirts, where households’ informal coping mechanisms – such as building without authorization on empty plots (in Romania) or using allotment gardens for housing (in Hungary) – substituted institutional levels of contestation.

TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE FIELD Besides dynamics of relations between different actors, we found that broader transformations of field-level dynamics – which transformed each actor’s own position – also played a key role in how housing conflicts came to be politicized over time. One example at hand for field-level transformation is the 2008 crisis itself, which deepened social differences and sharpened housing tensions, especially in the areas of severe housing poverty, housing debt, and middle-income precarity. Even in 2018, after several years of post-2008 economic recovery, the rate of poverty and social exclusion (based on both indicators of income and severe material deprivation) was the EU’s highest in Romania according to Eurostat (around 32 percent), as well as the rate of in-work poverty (above 15 percent). Another layer of the post-2008 field-level transformation involves the political aftermath of the crisis in both countries, which solidified different (neoliberal, in Romania, and nationalist authoritarian, in Hungary) regimes in the two cases, leading

40  Handbook on urban social movements

to different types of opposition movements. These dynamics created different positions and alliance opportunities for local housing movements: they are illustrated by the case of left housing groups conflicting with liberal branches of post-2008 movements in Romania, but allying with them in Hungary; or by the case of debtors’ movements which in Hungary joined right-wing anti-neoliberal politics, but were more supportive of liberal austerity programs in Romania. Another instance of field-level transformations is the Fidesz government’s anti-homeless and anti-NGO campaigns in post-2010 Hungary: the anti-homeless legislation became a main example of the conservative government’s punitive attitude towards poverty. In this context, the NGO-type of civil activism was seen as less and less able to contest ongoing trends. Thus, leftist housing activism – with its long-term critique of NGOs speaking in the name of those affected by homelessness and housing precarity, instead of the affected speaking for themselves – gained a central, symbolic role within oppositional politics. In Romania, a similar field-level transformation involved the mainstreaming of the liberal anti-corruption branch of post-2008 mobilizations within electoral politics, strengthening the neoliberal coalitions at the national political level, especially after 2014. This resulted in liberal middle-class mobilizations and politics having a strong anti-poor and anti-social spending stance, limiting the space for action for the housing struggle. In this context, leftist housing groups turned to alliances with the labor movement, as concerns over housing access and costs were increasingly expressed by lower-income groups through wage struggles.

CONCLUSION This chapter has offered an original analytical approach to urban struggles. The ‘structural field of contention’ approach outlined here brings several benefits. First, it is flexible enough to lend itself to systematic comparative analysis of urban movements across diverse social contexts. Second, it incorporates the role of structural context into understanding movement dynamics in a systematic fashion, while also acknowledging the agency of local actors. Third, it enables the integration of the variety of relationships and connections among mobilizing actors, as well as between them and their structural and political context. Fourth, it enables accounting for contemporary urban mobilization in its complexity, including ideologically polarized mobilizations. Fifth, it allows for the analysis of intentional as well as the effects of unintentional actions and subsequent changes in field relations over time. The structural field of contention approach is especially suitable for an empirically detailed understanding of local political responses to broader structural crisis processes, which we illustrated by looking at housing contention in two cities sharing similar structural backgrounds, yet displaying different patterns of mobilizations. While existing research on post-2008 housing tensions and their politicization tends to follow a linear connection between structurally induced tensions and their (progressive) political expression (e.g. Fields 2017) our cases demonstrate the capacity of

A structural field of contention approach to urban struggles  41

the structural field of contention framework to grasp situations where no single overarching housing movement is formed, and structural tensions play out in differentiated, often parallel or contradictory ways in a multi-level, multi-actor space of crisis politicization. We intend this framework as a tool for a nuanced understanding of real-world crisis processes that can further inform emancipative engagement. In the cases we surveyed, our main conclusion in this respect is that housing movements’ efforts are fragmented along existing channels of political alliances and institutional interfaces (mainly: state redistribution and market financing), and movements hardly develop a broader organizational framework of their own that would allow them to set agendas with a relative autonomy from these circumstances. Even so, new efforts in this direction are noted in both cases, especially in coalitions that bridge between union-based, social housing and new cooperative initiatives, the outcomes of which are yet to be seen.

NOTE 1. Our research was funded by The Swedish Research Council FORMAS (contract 2016-00258_3). The authors’ names are in alphabetical order.

REFERENCES Ban, C. (2016). Ruling Ideas: How Global Neoliberalism Goes Local. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ban, C. and Bohle, D. (2021). “Definancialization, financial repression and policy continuity in East-Central Europe”. Review of International Political Economy 8(4), 874–897. Barman, E. (2016). “Varieties of field theory and the sociology of the non-profit sector”. Sociology Compass 10(6), 442–458. Becker, J. and Jaeger, J. (2010). “Development trajectories in the crisis in Europe”. Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 18(1), 5–27. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots. London: Edward Arnold. Celik, O. (2020). “Special issue: Cracking financialisation: Housing, crisis, struggles, and rights”. Housing Studies. https://​think​.taylorandfrancis​.com/​cracking​-financialisation​ -housing​-crisis​-struggles​-and​-rights/​. Crossley, N. (2006a). “The field of psychiatric contention in the UK, 1960–2000”. Social Science and Medicine 62, 552−563. Crossley, N. (2006b). Contesting Psychiatry: Social Movements in Mental Health. London and New York: Routledge. Crossley, N. (2013). “Fields of contention”. In D. A. Snow, D. Della Porta, B. Klandermans, and D. McAdam (eds.), The Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 265–267. Diani, M., Ernstson, H., and Jasny, L. (2018). “‘Right to the city’ and the structure of civic organizational fields: Evidence from Cape Town”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29, 637–652. DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1991). “The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields”. In W. Powell and P. DiMaggio (eds.), The

42  Handbook on urban social movements

New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 63–82. Domaradzka, A. and Wijkström, F. (2016). “Game of the city renegotiated: The Polish urban re-generation movement as an emerging actor in a strategic action field”. Polish Sociological Review 3(195), 291−308. Domaradzka, A. and Wijkström, F. (2019). “Urban challengers weaving their networks: Between the ‘right to housing’ and the ‘right to the city’”. Housing Studies 5(7), 1–23. Fields, D. (2017). “Urban struggles with financialization”. Geography Compass 11(11), e12334. Fligstein, N. and McAdam, D. (2011). “Toward a general theory of strategic action fields”. Sociological Theory 29(1), 1–26. Fligstein, N. and McAdam, D. (2012). “A political-cultural approach to the problem of strategic action”. In D. Courpasson, D. Golsorkhi, and J. Sallaz (eds.), Rethinking Power in Organizations, Institutions, and Markets: Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Bingley: Emerald, pp. 287–316. Florea, I. (2016). “The ups and downs of a symbolic city: The architectural protection movement in Bucharest”. In K. Jacobsson (ed.), Urban Grassroots Movements in Central and Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, pp. 55−78. Florea, I., Gagyi, A., and Jacobsson, K. (2018). “A field of contention: Evidence from housing struggles in Bucharest and Budapest”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4), 712–724. Florea, I., Gagyi, A. and Jacobsson, K. (2022). Contemporary Housing Struggles: A Structural Field of Contention Approach. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Grazioli, M. and Caciagli, C. (2018). “Resisting to the neoliberal urban fabric: Housing rights movements and the re-appropriation of the ‘right to the city’ in Rome, Italy”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4), 697–711. Győri, P. and Matern, E. (1997). “Housing movements in Budapest”. In K. Lang-Pickvance, N. Manning, and C. Pickvance (eds.), Environmental and Housing Movements: Grassroots Experience in Hungary, Estonia and Russia. Aldershot: Avebury, pp. 89–141. Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. Lang, R. and Mullins, D. (2020). “Field emergence in civil society: A theoretical framework and its application to community-led housing organisations in England”. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 31, 184–200. Lichterman, P. (1995). “Piecing together multicultural community: Cultural differences in community building among grass-roots environmentalists”. Social Problems 42(4), 513–534. Mayer, M. (2013). “First world urban activism”. City 17(1), 5–19. Mayer, M., Thörn, C., and Thörn, H. (eds.) (2016). Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rose, F. (2000). Coalitions Across the Class Divide: Lessons from the Labor, Peace, and Environmental Movements. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

4. Urban battlegrounds: strategies of action and drivers of participation in radical movements in Italy Carlo Genova

RADICAL LEFT-WING MOVEMENTS IN THE URBAN CONTEXT Radical left-wing movements in Italy have their roots in the 1943–1945 resistance against fascism; a subsequent key step in their development is represented by the debate about USSR intervention in Hungary in 1956, and their symbolic moment of birth is usually identified in the revolt against the meeting of MSI (Italian Social Movement, a right-wing party descended from the Fascist Party) in Genoa on 30 June 1960, marked by riots in the streets of the city where the issue at stake was the hypothesis that this meeting could be hosted in a public theatre. Sixty years have passed since those events, followed by the 1968–1969 and 1977 waves of protest, the 1980s–1990s squats movement, the no-global movement in the late 1990s/early 2000s, the subsequent anti-war movement, and more recent mobilizations. Obviously, many fundamental changes occurred as regards the social composition of these radical movements, their aims, and their repertoires of protest (Della Porta 1996; Tolomelli 2015). Nevertheless, one of the core elements characterizing them through time is their urban dimension, both considering the territories where they have had widest diffusion, which are almost always cities, and their permanent reference to urban space as battleground, stakes, and instrument of action. Overall, it is possible to say that radical left-wing movements in Italy have been, and still are, predominantly urban.1 The aim of this chapter is to reflect on present strategies of action and drivers of participation in this area, focusing in particular on how its constituent groups act in, and interact with, urban space, both in its physical and socio-cultural dimensions. In order to identify their distinctive traits, the main background should be research about urban movements. The problem, however, is that the concept of ‘urban movement’ behind the label seems not to be clearly defined, so first of all it is necessary to clarify where reference to urban movements could drive reflection about radical left-wing movements. As is well known, the label ‘urban social movements’ was introduced by Castells in the early 1970s (Castells 1972: chapters IV.2 and IV.4). In this work he writes that cities are contexts of concentration and reproduction of the labour force, as well of state intervention in the production and distribution of goods of consumption (with 43

44  Handbook on urban social movements

all the contradictions connected with these processes), and therefore also of the emergence of mobilization which leads to broad, unitary anti-systemic social movements: urban struggles express structural contradictions and, interacting with political parties and trade unions, potentially lead to the formation of urban social movements and of radical social changes. Subsequently, however, Castells (1983) partly changes his perspective, asserting that cities are contexts of articulation of collective consumption, of building collective identities rooted in a spatial dimension, of development of particularistic concerns, and this leads to a large number of small, different, local and often fragmented paths of action: urban social movements combine social, cultural and political forms of action and aims with stronger or weaker interaction with political groups. In Castells’ first approach, urban social movements potentially lead to radical changes in political power, in its structure, or to radical transformation of the urban system (whereas citizens’ participation develops only symbolic changes, and protests lead only to minor reforms), but in his later perspective these movements are unable to develop structural change in power relations (see Pickvance 2003; Nicholls 2008). Both in their first and second formulations, Castells’ theories have been, and still are, a key reference for subsequent studies about urban social movements. And one of the most interesting topics in this line of reflection concerns the role of the ‘urban factor’ in the explanation of these movements. As Miller and Nicholls (2013) underline, literature about urban social movements rarely analyses in depth the role of the ‘urban’ (and more in general spatial) dimension in the emergence and development of these movements. Nevertheless, some authors offer relevant hints on this aspect. Sennett (2002) in particular asserted that cities could be described as spaces of differentiation and freedom, and thus of higher diffusion of freely chosen networks of interconnection among different people; at the same time cities are also contexts of control and rationalization; as a consequence they become terrains where a dialectic between diversity and control tends to emerge. More recently, Nicholls (2008) wrote that, cities being territories of large networks of weak ties, but also of multiple small networks with strong ties, the interactions of these two different types of elements facilitate the emergence of social movements. More specifically, cities stimulate the formation of differentiated groups with strong ties, and these enable actors to pool and concentrate resources to address specific aims. This differentiation makes available a variety of specialized resources, which can be activated through the interconnection among the different groups; and their location in a common urban system facilitates this interconnection. The city is then a relational incubator of movements. On the whole, cities are therefore places where the traditional motivators of activism are most prevalent, places with a spatial organization which facilitates the emergence of collective action (having a wider population in a smaller territory, they ease the organization of collective action and give to movements a larger audience), as well as places which – having higher social and cultural differentiation – solicit mobilization deriving from the perception of relative deprivation (Schoene 2017). Other authors adopt even broader perspectives: in their eyes, cities have been, historically, the epicentres of demands for political rights (Harvey 2003; Mitchell

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  45

2003; Soja 2010), the core places for the production of capitalism and therefore also for anti-capitalism struggles (Lefebvre 1967; Castells 1972; Harvey 2008). Thus cities are still today at the centre of social struggle (Purcell 2003; Brenner et al. 2009; Harvey 2013) as well as, more in general, places of meeting and of contentious relations within and between movements (Uitermark et al. 2012). Nowadays, urban social movements often embrace the whole city and the different social sectors (not only working-class social sectors and urban areas) and merge actions for concrete improvement of everyday life conditions and actions for wider radical changes in power relations (Petropoulou 2010). But what is the specific role of the ‘urban’, spatial, dimension in these processes? As Miller and Nicholls (2013) underline, the city has been for a long time the central stage for contesting hegemonic power relations in urbanized societies; it has been the main arena for many movements, but not the only, or the main, goal of reference. For this reason Nel.lo (2016) explicitly distinguishes between social movements, described as attempts to promote a common interest developed through collective action outside institutions, and urban social movements, which take the city as the stage, motivation and subject of their action. Pruijt (2007) and Martinez (2011) are even more restrictive, asserting that urban social movements are institutionalized and permanent forms of grassroots activism focused on the process of spatial planning and urban policy-making, mainly outside the formal institutional framework; urban social movements try more specifically to achieve some control over the urban environment, which comprises the built environment, the social fabric and the local political process (see Badach et al. 2018; Domaradzka 2018). The point, however, is that most works devoted to urban social movements only weakly explore the concrete uses and representations of space by their activists: the label ‘urban social movements’ appears for the first time in the title of an article in the mid-1970s (Pickvance 1974), and around one hundred articles have been published by then (considering publications in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese); but analysing their content, only very few of them explicitly deal with the topic of space (considering only those in English, see in particular Leontidou 2010; Petropoulou 2010; Hayashi 2015; Valli 2015; Okechukwu 2020). Moreover, in most cases the analyses are essentially devoted to the political dimension, whereas the social and cultural role of space for these movements is largely neglected. Thus the aim of this chapter is to begin to fill the gap, focusing on a specific case study, that of activists of the antagonist movement in Italy, urban space being – as aforementioned – a core element for these movements at present as it has always been. More specifically, the chapter reflects upon present strategies of action and drivers of participation in this area of movement, focusing in particular on how its constituent groups act in, and interact with, urban space, both in its physical and socio-cultural dimensions. The following sections are based upon research conducted in 12 Italian cities through the collection of 52 interviews with young activists (19–34 years old) of radical left-wing groups. Moreover, documentary analysis of websites, Facebook pages and flyers produced by the groups has also been carried out. The focus has

46  Handbook on urban social movements

been on young activists in order to intercept emergent uses and representations of space. The groups were chosen on the basis both of geographical variety, trying to consider as many regions as possible, and of contacts resulting from snowball sampling. The interviews were obtained by presenting the research and its aims, depending on the case, either to the interviewees or to the assembly of the group, focusing on those individuals most regularly involved in its activities. The analysis considered four main dimensions: collective representations of present society; collective goals; individual meanings and motivations of the activists; uses and representations of urban space.

RESULTS Present Society Invited to reflect upon present society and its main problems, hardly any of the activists gave a structured discourse about this topic. Most of them explicitly expressed their difficulties even in giving an answer, asserting that this society is very complex and undergoing rapid change; and several of them added that the same lack of a structured vision of present society – of its problems, their causes, and their potential solution – characterizes not only most of the people in this society but also most of the activists in their groups. Significantly, in their discourses, two categories of adjectives are predominant in talking about present society. The first category expresses a negative judgement: it is ‘divided’, ‘destructive’, ‘oppressive’, ‘alienating’, ‘absurd’, ‘tragic’, ‘dark’, ‘bad’, ‘unfair’, ‘shit’; the second category describe it as ‘complex’, ‘fragmented’, ‘uncertain’, ‘in transition’, ‘liquid’, and for these reasons difficult to interpret. Trying to identify more precise benchmarks in their descriptions, the present social system is first of all presented as too focused on economic aims, and this leads to an extreme ‘exploitation’ of human beings and to progressive ‘destruction of the human species’. Precisely as a consequence of this excessive relevance given to economic profit, present society is in fact afflicted by deeper and deeper inequalities, first of all economic inequality, which becomes gender inequality, race inequality, as well as inequality in technology, communication, food and health. The present world […] is absurd, because it could be a wonderful world where everybody could have what they need to be happy, […] could live in decent conditions with the available resources. Unfortunately we live instead in a world where a minority appropriate them, exploit work in an unreasonable way, […] as a consequence of the insanity of this economic system which, at present, few people criticize. (Interview 8, M31)

In parallel, present society is described as characterized by discipline and homologation, despite the widespread narrative of diversity and freedom: the interconnection between homologation and economic exploitation is rarely made explicit in the

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  47

interviews, but the usefulness of the former for the latter is taken for granted. And individualism, egoism, consumerism, accumulation of wealth are presented – highlighting the only-apparent paradox – as the main results of this interconnection. This is a shitty society! I think the main concept is the ability and pervasiveness of homologation in the supposed society of differences, […] where social behaviour is disciplined and stereotyped but presented as a range of differences. I think this is the imagery which won and keeps on winning, as model, as narration, among this society and other alternative models which somehow emerged through history. (Interview 13, M34)

Several activists explicitly identify ‘capitalism’ and ‘liberalism’ as the fundamental causes of this situation. Few of them actually propose clear and structured narration about this topic, usually asserting that ‘it would be a long discourse’. But the recurrent idea is that: the organization of society depends on power relations; a dialectic of interests exists in present society, as well as an inequal distribution of power; as a consequence, the social system – both in a global sense and in specific territorial and national contexts – is rooted in exploitation. You didn’t tell me this interview would be so difficult! [Laughing] Ok, well, for me present society is … let’s say … well, it’s a capitalistic society, so this obviously influences everything … it is based upon the profit of few people, the enrichment of few people and … mmm … obviously for me it is a wrong type of society … mmm … I don’t know, on the one hand it is a question which seems almost taken for granted, but in the end it is difficult to answer. (Interview 44, F18)

Moreover – in the activists’ eyes – in present society, compared with the past, there is progressively weaker ability to collectively oppose or resist this exploitation. One of the main reasons for this weakness is precisely the aforementioned widespread individualism: social problems are often considered and tackled as individual issues, and, in addition, the solution of these individual issues is often considered as obtainable only through competition with other individuals who have the same problems. In some cases this tendency is described as the result of explicit strategies of power; in other cases it is presented instead as a matter of fact, without reflection about causes and guilty parties – but in both situations it is described as one of the main problems of contemporary society. Another reason for the weak opposition to exploitation is that, through mass-media and other forms of communication and dissemination of cultural models, this society is able to hide most of its problems and contradictions, to distract people, and persuade most of them to accept the status quo. Widespread mandates and approval are the main results of this strategy; moreover, most people have been led to fear change – fear of losing what they have – even though they are not satisfied with it, and to abandon any attempt to change. The social system, on the one hand, is thus described as riddled with recurrent crises, problems, cracks, where it would be possible to act for radical change; but,

48  Handbook on urban social movements

on the other hand, it is also presented as still in good health, more powerful than any other possible alternative, and not betraying signs of structural transformations. Despite this representation, all the activists maintain the idea that, sooner or later, a radical social change will occur, that it is possible, and therefore that it makes sense, it is necessary, to act for this goal. Some activists explicitly assert that, despite their criticism of, and feelings of estrangement toward, this society, they know they are part of it and so they must try to change it. A radical social change in particular is described as necessary and possible both as a result of political action and – mainly – of the problems produced by the present system of social organization. Collective Goals Having discussed the activists’ representations of present society, it is now possible to consider, against this background, their narration of the goals of the groups they are involved in. As was expected, most of the activists assert that their group of engagement has political goals of social change. Behind this assertion, however, there are different perspectives. In most cases the reference is to a general and radical change, first of all consisting of a transformation of the economic system and of its political organization. As has emerged in the previous section, the present, capitalist, system is rooted in exploitation and inequalities, so in the eyes of many of the activists the radical transformation of this system is the broadest goal. Obviously, however, the range of this aim is very wide, so several intermediate, strategic, goals are usually cited too. A first perspective consists in disseminating principles and values which are alternative to the (pre)dominant ones, in order to promote alternative economic, social and cultural models: if present society is strongly characterized by individualism and seeking economic profit, future society must begin with the adoption of alternative points of reference. Sensibilization and communication are thus at the core of this stream of action. This dissemination, however, requires that the individuals who propose it are well-informed about the functioning of present society and its potential alternatives, so a parallel aim consists in the formation of the same activists, and then in the development of political reflection and debate inside the groups. The primary goal is to develop consciousness, information. (Interview 32, M26) Beyond the number of participants, even in the social activities, beyond the creation of spaces of activism, the point is to do good, which could sound like a feeling of Christian charity but for me it is instead a feeling of human brotherhood and sisterhood: we are in the same situation and we help one another. (Interview 2, F25) Everything is directly political. … Clearly the final aim is Communism. (Interview 29, F29)

In addition to the wide, general goals of social transformation, a second perspective of intervention is connected with more specific and direct forms of social intervention.

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  49

In the interviews and in the documents, some social categories repeatedly emerged as subjects who are more exposed to the critical effects of the present social organization: people with low income, immigrants and refugees, precarious and low-paid workers, but also wider sectors of the population such as students and women. Among the aims of the activists’ groups there is also the promotion of the rights and demands of these actors, giving a voice to them, or even an attempt to give them an answer, and then to provide services. In some cases these mid-range activities are a goal in themselves, but for most of the activists they only represent instruments to organize dissent in order to promote conflict for wider radical social change. [The aim is] to give visibility to ideas, people, projects, to give them space for expression, resonance, support, both economic – with self-financing – and, more in general, intercepting people who are usually not interested in political or social issues, trying to improve all together and giving people instruments to better interpret the reality around them and act more responsibly. (Interview 48, M31)

Most of these approaches, in particular those with wider goals, are oriented towards future social change, towards future results. But the activities of the groups are also connected with the present, with the concretization – here and now – of a different socio-cultural reality: through cultural, artistic, social events, places and situations which follow models and rules alternative to the mainstream, dominant ones, the activists propose and experiment with different forms of sociality, different lifestyles and different cultural frames. This experimentation too represents, in their eyes, one of the goals of their groups, and it is usually connected with the idea of a potential replication of these models in the wider society. Only for some, anarchist, groups the realization of places with alternative socio-cultural traits seems sometimes to become a result in itself. In all the other groups, for all the different goals, an intermediate, instrumental, aim is represented by the involvement in the groups’ activities of a growing number of new people. The first aim is to aggregate, unite, people in a different way, promoting alternative and maybe culturally more significant contents, not oriented to consumption. (Interview 25, M24) Unconsciously the main aim is to restore interpersonal relationships, regardless of more or less radical purposes of social change. The most important thing […] is the search for a different way of being together. (Interview 18, M30) Ours is the punk way of ‘let’s do the things we need’, in a self-managed way, let’s remove the model of money, only exchange, even if there are only four of us it is a success because we can relate to one another. (Interview 37, F29)

Individual Drivers The previous section focused on the general perspectives and goals which, in the activists’ description, are at the core of their groups’ activities. For the aims of the chapter it is now necessary to consider, against this background, the personal moti-

50  Handbook on urban social movements

vations identified by the activists as drivers of their engagement, that is to say the meanings they attribute to this engagement. On the whole, this meaning is significantly variable among the individuals, and complex sets of drivers are actually at the basis of the participation of each activist; nevertheless it is possible to identify some prevalent elements. As was expected, for most of the activists the first driver is political, consisting in an aim of social change and improvement: on the basis of critical judgement about present society, the young activists are involved in their groups with the aim of participating in a collective path of social change. The point could sound quite obvious, but actually at its basis there are several specific elements: the will to change this society, belief in the possibility of this change, identification of a collective form of action which can be trusted. Moreover, a sense of responsibility for this change often emerged in their narrations. As a consequence, for some of them being involved in a political group also represents a way to feel active, to have the opportunity of thinking about themselves as individuals who are ‘doing something’ towards that change. [In the group] I recognize my idea of militancy, my idea of doing politics but also of […] ethical, moral aspects, I don’t know, of looking at things, which makes me feel similar to this group of comrades, on the basis of […] what we think, even about the method of doing politics. (Interview 19, M26 )

For several interviewees a driver of a cultural nature exists too but it has different forms for different individuals. In some cases it is presented as an aim of self-formation: the group is described as a context where meetings and debates are organized, and these events represent sources of information about topics of interest; in parallel, the members of the group are described as individuals with whom the dialogue is enriching. In other cases it is described more as an opportunity of cultural consumption: several groups organize artistic or cultural events (concerts, movie projections, theatre pieces, presentations of books), and for some of the activists both participation in this organization and the fruition of these opportunities are fundamental drivers of involvement. I joined the group fundamentally because of punk music, […] for the subcultural aspect, more than for the political one, the fact that there was a space for ‘different’ musical tastes, for different aesthetics. Moreover the space had been recently occupied, there was a very ‘underground’ atmosphere, and I was fascinated. The political engagement, strictly intended, emerged later, [at the beginning] I was just fascinated. (Interview 25, M24)

Last but not least, drivers of social nature are often described as a core element as well. This is a complex and sensitive point. Several activists came into contact with their present group for the first time while participating in an explicitly political activity or attending a cultural event; but some of them approached the group with the aim of expanding their social networks, of finding new friends, or even following one’s boyfriend or girlfriend. Beyond the drivers of contact, social relations are often also a core element of remaining in the group, which often – over time – becomes the

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  51

main context of friendship networks and, not rarely, even of dual relationships. More specifically, in most cases the members of a group develop a collective identity and become a network of reference largely beyond official activities and political action, so that social ties and shared cultural values, tastes and practices acquire strong relevance. If I have to define a scale of priorities or of factors which led me to this choice [of activism], first of all there is the group of friends and the sphere of affection outside of the family, then there is […] the possibility of interaction with many different people, and then the possibility of bringing a message in which I believe and which I consider right, and then the sense of belonging to a wider collectivity. (Interview 5, M24)

On the whole, even if political elements often have priority, all these different drivers are core motivations of involvement for the young activists. Significantly, even when activists talk about their leaving a previous group of engagement, the reasons emerging from their narrations are more political, social or cultural depending on the specific case, which is proof of the great importance of all these different drivers. Space It is only by bearing in mind what has emerged in the previous sections about representations, collective goals and individual drivers of engagement that it is now possible to try to interpret the role played by space in radical movements. Firstly, it can be observed that all the groups are settled in urban contexts; some of these are big cities, metropolitan areas, whereas others are medium-size towns; none of the groups considered in the research is settled in a village or in rural areas. If, as recalled in the first section, radical left-wing movements in Italy have always had a dominant urban nature, during the 1990s and 2000s reflection about the interconnection between capitalist dynamics and urban processes was one of the most common in these contexts, and their ‘urban nature’ was explicitly thematized. At present, although this reflection seems to be less central, the city is still often described – in the groups’ documents – as the context where the ‘enemy’ can be directly met and then challenged (although often only from a symbolic point of view), despite the processes of globalization and digitalization which involve social, economic, political and cultural processes. Not by chance, although different groups have obviously different forms of collective action, nevertheless public protest – with marches and demonstrations in the streets and the squares of the city – is for most of the groups one of the core forms of action. One of our points of reference is the ‘square identity’, […] this is what kept us together, […] our modus operandi. We wanted to show that we are not ‘just talk’ and we are not afraid to go in ‘obstinate and opposite’ direction. (Interview 32, M26)

52  Handbook on urban social movements

But the city’s public space is not only used for protests, for collective action with direct political goals; it is also the context of a variety of social and cultural activities, such as street parties and parades, theatre performances, sports events and even collective meals. In public space the group, with these activities, becomes visible, exhibiting alternative social and cultural models, and showing potential alternative uses of this space. We organized several activities for the neighbourhood, … boxing matches in public squares, or carnival processions where all the kids of the neighbourhood are in the streets with their masks, with music, confetti. (Interview 3, F28) We want to inhabit cities, we want to inhabit squares, we want to inhabit streets. […] We live here and we want to be present. (Interview 7, M28)

In both cases collective action in public urban space is not only an instrument, but also an end in itself, a form of ‘re-appropriation’ of this space, which is often described as more and more often privatized, over-commodified and over-controlled. Secondly, it must be noted that the majority of the groups are physically rooted in the urban territory, having architectonic premises where they develop most of their activities, and often a very strong identity connection exists between the group and this place, so that in most cases it is hardly possible even to say what was been ‘created’ first, the group or the place, because the collective identity of the group actually began to emerge precisely when a place of reference was defined. It is significant that most of the interviewees, describing their groups, often began by saying: ‘It is a place where …’, and referred to other groups of the movement by calling them ‘places’. The group’s premises is the place of most of their activities and the instrument for most of their aims: bringing people together, facilitating social interactions, building social networks; producing and disseminating cultural, political and artistic products and contents through debates, cinema, theatre, musical events; discussing and organizing political activities. For all these aims and activities a physical portion of architectonic space, a building, is required; and this premises become a portion of social space where different, alternative, rules are adopted, where different possible lifestyles are developed and experimented. In this sense these places are also connected with the individual needs and aims of the same activists: as mentioned already, engagement in the groups is driven by political, social and cultural aims, by both self-oriented and hetero-oriented factors; and the group’s physical place of reference hosts the formal and informal collective activities through which all these different sensitivities are cultivated. Precisely for these reasons it becomes most relevant as an element of collective identification. [Name of the group] is a self-managed space, […] a place free from restrictions where people can do what they want, collectively organizing it and respecting other people. […] Self-management as autonomous firsthand management which directly concerns us, being responsible for ourselves, for other people and for what surrounds us. (Interview 48, M31)

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  53

The point is that in Italy, as in most Western cities (Body-Gendrot 2000; Mitchell 2003; Tonkiss 2014), urban territory is at present highly regulated and controlled. As a consequence, finding a premises, a place, for their activities is a core problem for the activists and their groups. In the 1980s–1990s, occupation of unused buildings was a widespread practice to solve this problem, and sometimes still is: occupying an abandoned building is a cheap way to have a place for activities. Moreover, it is sometimes a necessary way for groups whose activities are often illegal (unauthorized and violent forms of protest, use of smart drugs, unregistered social and cultural activities) and often imply penal consequences for the participants, making institutional forms of financing or support inaccessible. Finally, it is also a way of denouncing the presence of these ‘empty’ portions of space and the responsibilities of public administrations as regards their existence, as well as for restoring the ‘places’ (occupied buildings are in most cases publicly owned, which means less likelihood of being evicted than from private premises). It is the value of reclaiming public spaces, which are spaces belonging to everybody, and therefore also my spaces, and people hardly ever use them in a different way from the original intentions of the builders, but it is possible. (Interview 37, F29)

Over time, however, illegally occupied buildings have often been given on loan to the occupiers, on the basis of agreements with the public administration, so at present several venues are legally used by the groups of activists. In parallel, during the last decade, several local administrations have exerted stricter control over their territories, and quickly evicted the new occupiers; as a consequence, several groups chose to legally rent a place for their activities or found private owners who agreed to lend them a place. Occupied (or previously occupied) buildings are in many cases former schools, hospitals, blocks of offices, factories, or even prisons and barracks (with the resulting symbolic power of defiant use of previous places of ‘domination’). Legally rented buildings are usually smaller venues at street level, often former shops or workshops; student collectives, on the other hand, are mainly situated in occupied or dedicated rooms and classes inside university buildings. What is interesting to observe is that, transversally to these different situations, the groups often adopt the previous name of the occupied premises as their collective name, and, even in the case of non-occupied buildings, the connection between the name of the group and the name of the place (neighbourhood, street, previous identity of the building) is still widespread. In the eyes of the majority of the interviewees, the premises of their group has very porous boundaries, and in their narrations is often described as ‘open’. Actually they recognize that it is not open to everybody; in almost all cases the place is available both for the activities of the group and for other people who ask for it, but the latter must respect the rules and values of the place, with tighter or looser bonds depending on the case. Other activists described their premises as a ‘freed space’ whose fundamental function was allowing people to live with models and rules which are different, alternative, from the predominant ones; and in these cases interaction with

54  Handbook on urban social movements

the surrounding urban context, intended either as neighbourhood or on a larger scale, tends to be weak. In most cases there is, however, a strong and permanent interaction and exchange with the surrounding ‘territory’ (another keyword in the research interviews); a territory which is an element of collective identity, a terrain of intervention, and a context of recruitment, of proselytism. Not by chance, the choice of a place for the group, its collocation in the wider urban context, is a key aspect: the social, economic and cultural composition of the population in this portion of urban territory has in fact a very strong impact on the group’s possibilities of action and development since the social and cultural profile, the needs and attitudes, of the local population have a large impact on this action. This connection with the surrounding territory, however, never implies a radical localization of action: even in those cases where putting down roots in, and identification with, the local context are stronger, local, mid-range and global perspectives are always explicitly described as co-present. For us working on the territorial aspect means working on communities who recognize themselves as such, and as communities begin to exert power relations towards institutions, police, politics and dominant economic fluxes. (Interview 31, M33) With [name of the first project of the group] we had to open a place in another neighbourhood, because […] this is a fundamentally middle-class area, where there are students, […] it is not a working-class quarter. [Name of the second project of the group] takes place instead in one of the most densely populated areas of the city … meant specifically as outskirts, neglect, multi-ethnic, drugs, police, […] it is perceived as a problematic neighbourhood and it actually is. (Interview 41, M29) They just occupied that building because in [name of the city] there has always been tension between university students, who wanted spaces, and citizens; what’s more, there were a lot of abandoned buildings whereas meeting places were lacking. […] Everybody can use [this space]. But it was born as a group of students who wanted a place to discuss […] on the basis of sharing some fundamental values such as anti-sexism, anti-racism, anti-fascism, […] so it is an open space, but only to some extent. People or groups who personally or politically promote actions or discourses clashing with our values are not welcome. (Interview 11, F23)

CONCLUSIONS In the opening section of this chapter two different approaches to urban social movements have been introduced. The first, adopted among others by Miller and Nicholls (2013), describes these movements as having the city as an arena, as a stage of action; the second, exemplified by Pruijt (2007) and Martinez (2011), asserts that they have cities and urban dynamics as topics of intervention. The results of the research presented in the chapter showed that, in radical left-wing movements in Italy, groups with both the first and the second approach are active, but the second emerged as prevalent.

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  55

In parallel it has been previously highlighted that several authors assert that social movements have often an ‘urban dimension’ because an urban context is both a core element in the dominant social, political, economical and cultural dynamics of present society and a fertile ground for the emergence of dialectic processes opposed to these dynamics. Although the young activists’ reflections on this topic turn out to be quite weak,2 the research confirmed not only that, in their eyes, cities are core junctions for today’s society and its structure, but that they are also terrains with a higher potential for mobilization, so that even the physical collocation of the group is often evaluated on the basis of the level of this potential in the different urban areas. As declared in a document of self-presentation by one the groups which has been considered in the research, nowadays the more and more widespread ‘Amazon model is based upon the satisfaction deriving from “consuming and throwing away”, creating a perennial deprivation to be compiled compulsively’, and it is first of all ‘the capitalistic city’ at the core of this process, because it ‘commodifies formation and reproduction, creating new needs and building cultural, social, educational and logistical services’ for their satisfaction (https://​www​.infoaut​.org/​target/​23​-anni​-di​-newroz). As a consequence, as one of the interviewees effectively stated, for the activists the ‘central thread is the city, […] what the city offers, what it doesn’t offer, and what we would like it to offer, as well as what it rather takes away’ (Interview 35, F29). The point, however, is that the meaning and the role of urban space for radical movements is not only connected with their political perspectives of action, but also with their social and cultural activities, as well as depending on both the groups’ collective frames and the individual drivers of their activists. Literature about urban movements interprets them, and participation inside them, essentially as forms of intervention rooted in aims of social change. As a consequence, space, urban space, is considered only as a goal, an issue at stake, or an instrument for this intervention. This chapter shows that most of the young activists are involved in their groups for self-oriented reasons too, and even that for some groups self-oriented goals of a social and cultural nature are as important as, or even more important than, those hetero-oriented of a political nature, of social transformation through influence on political decisions. And on both levels, space – intended as the wider urban space and as the specific premises of the group – is a core element. As one of the groups writes in a digital flyer: ‘Self-managed places, occupations, squats [are] spaces of experimentation, of growth, where critical awareness and freedom of expression are practised. In a city more and more subservient to the logic of the highest bidder, they remain the only places where it is possible to live free from the crazy laws of the market, where different – strong and durable – social ties can be established’ (https://​ www​.facebook​.com/​events/​477126492822415/​). Uses and representations of urban space in the case of urban movements, as well as of their ‘places of reference’, must then be considered from both perspectives. ‘Re-claiming the city’, being present and visible in public space, and (re)appropriating specific places, are means both for making visible ‘capitalist’ ways of consuming territory, for organizing and developing activities with political aims of social change, and also for realizing practices and lifestyles which are already, ‘here and

56  Handbook on urban social movements

now’, alternative to the (pre)dominant ones. And space is the instrument and issue at stake in both these perspectives. It is then only by bearing in mind these complex dynamics – which largely cross the boundaries of political action, and for this reason are often neglected in research about youth political participation as well as about social movements – that it is possible to better grasp the urban nature of the antagonist movement. The hypothesis is that this analytical perspective could be useful for the investigation of urban social movements in general, but further research on a wider range of phenomena is required to corroborate this hypothesis.

NOTES 1.

Obviously this doesn’t mean that non-urban movements in this area have never appeared: the anti-nuclear movements, and more general environmental movements in the 1990s, as well as the NO TAV movement against high-speed trains in the last twenty years, are relevant examples. Nevertheless, most of the radical movements were active in urban contexts, and even those movements focused on non-urban topics and contexts were enlivened by social and political groups of urban origin. 2. Significantly, through a comparison between flyers or fanzines of the 1990s/early 2000s and present documents written by the groups in the city of Turin, it has clearly emerged that topics such as ‘the city’, ‘the urban space’, and ‘the metropolitan conflicts’ were very prevalent twenty or thirty years ago but less visible now.

REFERENCES Badach, J. M., Stasiak, A., and Baranowski, A. (2018). ‘The role of urban movements in the process of local spatial planning and the development of participation mechanism’. Miscellanea Geographica 22(4), 187–196. Body-Gendrot, S. (2000). The Social Control of Cities? A Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell. Brenner, N., Marcuse, P., and Mayer, M. (2009). ‘Cities for people, not for profit’. City 13(2–3), 176–184. Castells, M. (1972). La question urbaine. Paris: Maspero. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. London: Arnold. Della Porta, D. (1996). Movimenti collettivi e sistema politico in Italia 1960–1995. Bari: Laterza. Domaradzka, A. (2018). ‘Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization’. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4), 607–620. Harvey, D. (2003). ‘The right to the city’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27, 939–941. Harvey, D. (2008). ‘The right to the city’. New Left Review 53, 23–40. Harvey, D. (2013). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. Hayashi, M. (2015). ‘Rescaled “rebel cities”, nationalization, and the bourgeois utopia: Dialectics between urban social movements and regulation for Japan’s homeless’. Antipode 47(2), 418–441.

Urban battlegrounds: radical movements in Italy  57

Lefebvre, H. (1967). ‘Le droit à la ville’. L’Homme et la société 6(1), 29–35. Leontidou, L. (2010). ‘Urban social movements in “weak” civil societies: The right to the city and cosmopolitan activism in Southern Europe’. Urban Studies 47(6), 1179–1203. Martinez, M. (2011). ‘The citizen participation of urban movements in spatial planning: A comparison between Vigo and Porto’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35(1), 147–171. Miller, B. and Nicholls, W. (2013). ‘Social movements in urban society: The city as a space of politicization’. Urban Geography 34(4), 452–473. Mitchell, D. (2003). The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: Guilford Press. Nel.lo, O. (2016). ‘Seven challenges for the study of urban movements’. City, Territory and Architecture 3(1), 1–6. Nicholls, W. J. (2008). ‘The urban question revisited: The importance of cities for social movements’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(4), 841–859. Okechukwu, A. (2020). ‘Confronting scale: A strategy of solidarity in urban social movements. New York City and beyond’. City & Community 19(4), 1060–1083. Petropoulou, C. (2010). ‘From the December youth uprising to the rebirth of urban social movements: A space–time approach’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 34(1), 217–224. Pickvance, C. (1974). ‘Life cycle, housing tenure and residential mobility: A path analytic approach’. Urban Studies 11(2), 171–188. Pickvance, C. (2003). ‘From urban social movements to urban movements: A review and introduction to a symposium on urban movements’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27(1), 102–109. Pruijt, H. (2007). ‘Urban movements’. In G. Ritzer (ed.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 5115–5119. Purcell, M. (2003). ‘Citizenship and the right to the global city: Reimagining the capitalist world order’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27(3), 564–590. Schoene, M. (2017). ‘Urban continent, urban activism? European cities and social movement activism’. Global Society 31(3), 370–391. Sennett, R. (2002). ‘Cosmopolitanism and the social experience of cities’. In S. Vertovec and R. Cohen (eds.), Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context, and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 42–47. Soja, E. W. (2010). Seeking Spatial Justice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tolomelli, M. (2015). L’Italia dei movimenti: Politica e società nella prima Repubblica. Rome: Carocci. Tonkiss, F. (2014). Cities by Design: The Social Life of Urban Form. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Uitermark, J., Nicholls, W., and Loopmans, M. (2012). ‘Cities and social movements: Theorizing beyond the right to the city’. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 44(11), 2546–2554. Valli, C. (2015). ‘When cultural workers become an urban social movement: Political subjectification and alternative cultural production in the Macao movement, Milan’. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 47(3), 643–659.

5. Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin Lisa Vollmer

INTRODUCTION Social movements emerge during periods of crisis (Della Porta 2015; Della Porta et al. 2017), often during an interregnum (Gramsci 1971 [1929]) in which an old regime is crumbling and a new one has not yet prevailed. This chapter employs the regulation approach to look at the emergence of urban social movements amid such crises and how those movements evolved over a long period – from nineteenth-century laissez-faire urbanism through the Fordist city up to today’s neoliberal city and its current plight. In the following, the regulation approach will be introduced and its application in urban studies and in social movement studies explained. It will then be applied to Berlin’s tenant movement as a case study of an urban social movement. This chapter will answer the question of how the tenant movement changed over time in relation to shifting accumulation and housing regimes. I argue that applying the regulation approach to urban social movement studies allows for more nuanced understandings when comparing demands, forms of organization and political collectivity of one movement over time.

THE REGULATION APPROACH AND URBAN STUDIES The regulation approach1 can be very instructive when analyzing urban social movements. It was developed by a group of French Marxist economists in the 1970s and 1980s (Lipietz 1987; Boyer 1990; Aglietta 2000 [1976]) and was later employed in studies of West Germany (Hirsch 1986; Hirsch and Roth 1986) and Great Britain (Jessop 1990, 1991). This approach was formulated in response to critiques of orthodox Marxism and its teleological and functionalist thinking. Instead of pursuing historical determinism, the regulation approach emphasizes contingency in capitalist development. It argues that crises are inherent to capitalist development and, moreover, that the specific form of these crises and how they are mediated is contingent and thus subject to manifold power relations (Steinmetz 1994: 185). The neo-Marxist regulation approach seeks to explain why capitalist societies experience phases of relative stability, even if these phases are nevertheless fraught with contradictions. It therefore “aims to study the changing combinations of economic and extra-economic institutions and practices which help to secure, if only temporarily and always in specific economic spaces, a certain stability and 58

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  59

predictability in accumulation” (Jessop 1997: 288). The different phases are always dominated by a specific regime of accumulation, “a set of rules determining the distribution and allocation of the social product between investment, accumulation, and consumption” (Steinmetz 1994: 188). The relative stability of the regime of accumulation in one phase is attributed to specific modes of regulation that dominate for a certain time in a given geographical context: “In addition to clearly economic institutions and norms, such as money, the mode of regulation typically encompasses aspects of the state, culture, and mechanisms of initial socialization, sex and gender relations, family forms, and so forth” (Steinmetz 1994: 188). A mode of regulation institutionalizes class conflict and co-opts it in a way that allows for capital accumulation. In this context it is important to note that regulation not only refers to political institutions (e.g., neo-institutionalism) but to all social relations, actors, norms and ideologies, and their relation to macro-economic developments (Sablowski 2013: 88). A well-functioning mode of regulation leads to stability and employs a “set of mediations which ensure that the distortions created by the accumulation of capital are kept within limits which are compatible with social cohesion within each nation” (Aglietta 1998: 44). Given the inherent contradictions of every accumulation regime, they produce their own crises, either because profit can no longer be secured by the accumulation regime or because the mode of regulation can no longer mediate the conflicts produced by the accumulation regime – or a combination of both. These crises can instigate the transition into a new phase. Both accumulation regimes and modes of regulation are not conceived as given entities but as outcomes of the coordination of various interests, power relations, and societal conflicts. The regulation approach emphasizes that the manifestations of accumulation regimes and modes of regulation vary across different spatial contexts. It stresses the unevenness of capitalist development and “the socially embedded and socially regularized nature of capitalist economies and […] the variability of capitalism across time and space” (Goodwin 2001: 72). The regulation approach thus lends itself to spatial and temporal comparisons and is therefore particularly well suited for studying urban phenomena and urban social movements. Accordingly, the regulation approach has been employed in urban studies, either explicitly or inspired by its ideas (Prigge 1987; Florida and Feldman 1988; Esser and Hirsch 1989; Borst 1990; Florida and Jonas 1991; Krätke 1991; Painter 1995; Mayer 1996, 2003; Peck and Tickell 2003). The approach resonates with critical urban studies’ focus on the relationship of capitalist development and urban processes. While most of the literature in the tradition of the regulation approach focuses on the relation between capital and labor, the monetary system, or the extent of state regulation to distinguish different modes of regulation, some authors have also pointed out that every phase comes with its own form of spatial regulation, that is to say, its own urbanism (Prigge 1987; Amin 2003). Some even argue that it is particularly urban conflicts around which the crisis of a mode of regulation crystallizes (Esser and Hirsch 1987: 40).

60  Handbook on urban social movements

Given the contingent character of accumulation regimes and modes of regulation as well as shifting power relations, they all invariably change over time. The regulation approach thus distinguishes between different phases.2 These phases have been formulated by taking as their central point the Fordist accumulation regime and its mode of regulation, the welfare state, roughly from the 1920s to the 1970s. The phase prior to Fordism has been called Manchester or laissez-faire capitalism with liberalism as its mode of regulation. The phase after Fordism has been deemed post-Fordism or financial capitalism with neoliberalism as its mode of regulation. Every phase also brings with it a specific form of urbanism. The three phases are described very briefly in the following. Laissez-faire capitalism is characterized by open capitalist development with little to no state intervention – except for that which protects the “free” market. Liberalism as the mode of regulation places the individual and their freedom as the central social unit. This phase produced a specific form of urbanism. In the nineteenth century, massive urban growth followed industrialization; the new working class moved to the cities. This urbanization evolved in a rather unplanned fashion. Some came to view the urban infrastructure as a means of capital accumulation. Conflicts as a result of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and fears of riots led to the development of urban planning as an institutional practice (Hall 1988). The tensions and class struggles that arose out of the contradictions of laissez-faire capitalism were subsumed under a new Fordist accumulation regime and mode of regulation, fully established after the Second World War. Industrial standardized mass production, high wages and mass consumption stabilized profits while the welfare state fostered this growth model and secured working-class participation in prosperity. This class compromise also included a Fordist urbanism whereby the state provided mass housing, urban infrastructure and services – either directly or by incentivizing the private sector. Fordist urbanism incorporated modernist urban design principles with functionally separated urban zones (housing/working/recreation) tied to traditional gender roles and a normalized lifestyle of the nuclear family (Häussermann et al. 2008: 135ff). Fordism entered a period of crisis in the 1960s and 1970s, and so its Keynesian demand-side economic politics were substituted with supply-side politics. While the state retreated from its role in delivering social welfare, the furthering of economic competitiveness legitimized ongoing state activities. This phase has also been labeled financial capitalism owing to the heightened importance of financial markets for capital accumulation. The post-Fordist mode of regulation was characterized by neoliberalism as an ideology, which responsibilized individuals and stigmatized poverty as an individual or cultural deficiency rather than as a structural manifestation. Neoliberal urbanism involves stronger competitiveness between different regions and therefore a more pronounced spatial differentiation (Esser and Hirsch 1989; Hirsch et al. 2001) as well as the re-scaling of the state, including a shift of responsibilities to the local level, without providing it with the resources to fulfill them (Jessop 2002; Brenner 2003). Cities that adopted a neoliberal mindset thus turned away from supplying infrastructures for collective consumption and towards

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  61

entrepreneurial politics (Harvey 1989; Mayer 1990b) that initiate and stimulate capital accumulation in and through the city and its built environment. Privatization, deregulation and austerity measures followed this redirection of city politics.

SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES AND THE REGULATION APPROACH The regulation approach is especially well suited for studying social movements because it emphasizes societal change and awards a strong role to societal actors in influencing this change: “Regulation theory seems best suited for understanding the patterning of grievances and the emergence and disappearance of potential collective actors” (Steinmetz 1994: 195–196). Some case studies and conceptual texts that do combine social movement studies with regulation theory are introduced in the following. They were written by European scholars, which may be a result of the stronger focus on structural change in the tradition of European social movement studies than the US-American tradition of focusing more on questions of mobilization and inner-movement organization (Mayer and Roth 1995). In the 1970s, the idea of “new” social movements challenged traditional Marxist theories of social mobilization because their membership could not be explained by traditional class affiliation along the lines of capital and labor. As a consequence, some new social movement theories distanced themselves from Marxist explanations altogether. Other approaches, which can be categorized as neo-Marxist, accounted for that development without eliminating capitalist development as an explanation for social movements. One such neo-Marxist approach was developed by Manuel Castells, who did not consider his own theory regulationist, even though there are many similarities between the two.3 Castells (1978, 1979) conceptualized conflicts that arise from capital accumulation (rather than simple class affiliation) as a starting point for a theory of social movements. He focused on the urban as the space of the reproduction of the working class. Castells saw a Fordist accumulation regime of collective consumption as producing contradictions and conflict that in turn give rise to reactive social movements. Other social movement researchers have employed the regulation approach more explicitly. Joachim Hirsch (1988) sees new social movements as a reaction to the crisis of Fordism and its commodification and bureaucratization of every aspect of life: “These movements thereby seek to overcome alienation and regulation by promoting individual emancipation and the recovery of civil society through a radically democratic form of politics” (Buecheler 1995: 450). As these examples show, the regulation approach does allow one to conceptualize social movements as both embedded in structural conditions and as powerful agents, as formations in response to time- and place-specific manifestations of capitalism and the conflicts it produces and as forces shaping those manifestations and conflicts. Consequently, the changing specificities of social movements over time and across different spaces become the center of interest. In the regulation approach, social

62  Handbook on urban social movements

movements fulfill a specific role in the transition from one phase to the next. Social movements are reactions to the inherent contradictions of the current accumulation regime and mode of regulation. They are both the expression and the engine of the crisis of a certain phase. That is to say, social movements, consciously or unconsciously, react to the specificities of a mode of regulation, and more particularly to the contradictions and exclusions encapsulated in it. They may or may not articulate a refined ideological critique of the regulatory regime, yet their practices are shaped by these contradictions and their expressions in daily life. At the same time, social movements exacerbate this crisis by articulating the contradictions, making them explicit and thereby calling into question the hegemony of the existing mode of regulation. By refusing to be subdued by the conflict-mediating efforts of the regulation approach, social movements can deepen the crisis of an accumulation regime. By doing so, they also play a role in shaping the new accumulation regime and mode of regulation, which are the product of a struggle of different social forces, among them social movements. A new mode of regulation is then formulated through the regime’s dealings with social movements, by adapting their discourse and practices, by co-opting their demands and personnel (Hirsch and Roth 1986; Mayer 1991): “social movements should be examined in terms of their contribution and challenge to the new forms of regulation and their role in shaping the new regime of accumulation” (Mayer and Roth 1995: 314). A new phase of capital accumulation and mode of regulation is influenced by how the social movements process the contradictions of the earlier phase. But this influence does not have to be intentional, since social movements are just one social force among many in the wider struggle: “If viewed from a regulationist perspective […] contradictory effects [of social movements] can be described more precisely than by other theoretical models” (Mayer and Roth 1995: 307). Social movement cycles occur most clearly in the periods of crisis between two phases of stabilized capital accumulation. The phases of social movements therefore lag behind the phases of capital accumulation (Figure 5.1). Within the small field of social movement studies inspired by the regulation approach, it is urban social movement studies in particular that have employed this approach. In the following I summarize some of the main findings of urban social movement studies on the different cycles, because, as stated by Thörn et al., “as the production of cities and the forms of urban social movements are changing, they also need to be rethought” (Thörn et al. 2016: 26).

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN AND AGAINST LAISSEZ-FAIRE URBANISM/URBANIZATION The literature on social movements before the Second World War focuses mainly on the labor movement. However, it has been pointed out that other types of movements existed during that time, later dubbed “new” social movements (e.g., the women’s or environmental movements) (Calhoun 1993). The term urban social movements was not used until the 1970s (Hamel 2014), but there are some studies on urban struggles

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  63

Source:

Own illustration.

Figure 5.1

Social movement cycles as viewed by the regulation approach

prior to the Second World War (for an overview, see Reick 2020). Although they do not explicitly employ the regulation approach, many of these studies describe the manifold social dislocations produced by rapid urbanization and capital accumulation through urbanization processes, such as inadequate housing, the lack of public infrastructure and threats to public health. Urban social movements forced the integration of topics like these into the gradual establishment of welfare state policies. The self-help ideas and institutions they created were ultimately incorporated into welfare state structures.

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN AND AGAINST FORDIST URBANISM Urban social movement studies first emerged during the period of anti-Fordist urban struggles. As part of the cycle of new social movements (Castells 1978, 1979; Grottian and Nelles 1983; Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen 1990), urban social movements were reacting to the contradictions inherent in Fordist urbanism. Fordism incorporated parts of the “old” social movements into a class compromise that itself was responsible for producing new contradictions and exclusions. Those excluded from this class compromise – such as women, migrants, the economically disadvantaged and people unwilling to abide by the prevailing lifestyle norms – formed the basis of these new social movements: “the most obvious feature shared by the new social movements is their rejection of the Fordist model of societalization” (Steinmetz 1994: 192). The demands that were articulated and the

64  Handbook on urban social movements

collectivity that developed can be described in terms of autonomy (from capital and state) and identity (Rucht 1982; Buecheler 1995). Sometimes these new social movements are additionally described as post-materialist (Inglehart 1977). In urban social movements of the time, material demands were still a prominent feature alongside demands for autonomy and identity, thus raising the question of whether the characterization of new social movements as post-materialist is flawed or if urban social movements represent some type of hybrid (see also Mayer 1990a): in neighborhood initiatives, preservationist and squatter movements and campaigns around public transport or urban environmental issues, matters of local autonomy and identity were of equal concern to material exclusions. Critiques by these urban social movements were co-opted by the emerging neoliberal urbanism (Kuhn 2014).

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN AND AGAINST THE NEOLIBERAL CITY Neoliberal urbanism is characterized by its many local varieties. However, these varieties share one common feature: an increase in spatialized inequality (Mayer 2016). Segregation, unequal access to infrastructure and territorial stigmatization are just a few examples of this inequality. These inequalities are experienced by low-income groups and an increasingly precarious middle class that together form the basis of this new cycle of anti-neoliberal urban social movements (Künkel and Mayer 2012; Mayer 2013; Mayer et al. 2016). Organized activism like the Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring, the Square Movements in Spain and Greece as well as housing movements share distinctive urban features and a critique of neoliberal urbanism. They call for the remunicipalization of urban infrastructures, the protection of neighborhoods from global capital accumulation through housing or touristification and the radical democratization of planning processes and local state institutions.

BERLIN’S TENANT MOVEMENT THROUGH DIFFERENT MODES OF REGULATION In the following, I want to employ the regulation approach to follow Berlin’s tenant movement through the decades and distinguish three cycles of the movement according to the crisis experienced by the accumulation regime, the corresponding urbanism, and the housing regime. The tenant movement is a typical example of an urban social movement, not only when we consider that city’s density in terms of people, infrastructure and political institutions but also in terms of its evolution around particular urban questions posed by the capitalist production of urban space (Castells 1983). Housing is one such field of capitalist production of space. The regulation approach is well suited for analyzing regimes of housing provision (Goodwin 2001: 84), because housing as built infrastructure plays a central role in the reproduction of capitalism (Harvey 1982). The regulation approach allows one to

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  65

focus not only on economic processes of housing but also on the political, social and cultural implications of housing provision. As the housing question is constituted by the contradiction of housing as a commodity on the one hand and as a basic human need on the other (Engels 1976 [1872]; Harloe 1995), all of these aspects are important factors in shaping a housing regime. The general contradictions posed by the housing question have remained relatively stable throughout the history of capitalist urban development: the general nature of the contradiction of housing as real estate, as a commodity, versus housing as home, as a basic need, has not changed significantly in the last 150 years. The drive on the part of capital to capture the value of the built environment has always stood in the way of providing affordable and good-quality housing to low-income households. But the ways in which accumulation regimes have organized this capture of value and addressed the resulting conflicts have been mediated differently in different times under different modes of regulation. Specific manifestations of housing regimes correspond with the phases of accumulation regimes and modes of regulation (Ball et al. 1988). Since housing politics are influenced at all political levels – and rescaling of housing politics is an essential part of housing regime transformation – housing regimes have both a national and a local dimension. Some of the features of Berlin’s housing regime described below are thus part of a national (West) German regime, yet some are particular to the city. Accordingly, the general grievances of the tenant movement4 – unaffordable rents, displacement and miserable living conditions – have stayed the same throughout the various regimes, but the changing mode of regulations has led to different demands and political collectivities. Berlin, with its long history of housing activism (Mattern 2018), offers a good example for illustrating the different manifestations of the tenant movements in the periods of crisis between two phases of accumulation regimes. In the following, I will analyze Berlin’s tenant movement in laissez-faire urbanism, in the Fordist city, and in the neoliberal city (Figure 5.2). I will do so by employing the core concepts of the regulation approach when depicting (a) the specificities of the housing regime as part of the accumulation regime and the according mode of regulation, (b) the inherent contradictions of this housing regime and the attempts to mediate them, (c) the characteristics of the tenant movement sparked by these contradictions and mediations, and (d) how the responses to the tenant movement shaped the evolving housing regime of the next phase.

BERLIN’S TENANT MOVEMENT IN LAISSEZ-FAIRE URBANISM Berlin’s housing regime became part and parcel of the capitalist accumulation regime in the second half of the nineteenth century, a period when the city’s industrialization had started to pick up pace. Its population increased rapidly after it became the capital of the German Reich in 1871, and the city’s expansion was mostly carried out by private actors. Thus, it was not only people who flocked to the city; so did capital in

66  Handbook on urban social movements

Source:

Own illustration.

Figure 5.2

Cycles of housing regimes and tenant movements in Berlin

its relentless search for lucrative investment opportunities in the real estate market. So-called land valorization companies transformed agrarian land into buildable plots, newly founded construction companies operated with little regulatory oversight (Kress 2012), and stock companies specializing in real estate were founded (Nitsche 1982: 19ff.). The result of this laissez-faire urbanism was a housing regime that promised immense profits to private companies and led to the construction of an extremely dense housing environment, the Mietskasernen (literally, “rental barracks” or tenement blocks). Unhygienic living conditions, overcrowding, frequent compulsory relocations, evictions and high rents were the results of this loosely regulated, market-led housing provision (Niethammer and Brüggemeier 1976; Reick 2018). The internal contradiction of this housing regime was that it was necessary to provide housing for the reproduction of the new working class while at the same time other factions of capital were profiting from this housing, thereby diminishing its reproductive qualities. The laissez-faire mode of regulation sparked the emergence of a new political actor representing their own interests: the tenant. The particularities of the housing regime and its inherent contradictions found their expression in the characteristics of the emerging tenant movement. Tenants became aware of their shared plight when on so-called moving days (Ziehtage) the rental contracts of many apartments ended and working-class families wandered the streets with all their belongings in search of a new home (Lange 1980: 54f.). It made

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  67

for an impressive caravan, as depicted by many contemporary caricatures. This newfound self-awareness among tenants reached its breaking point in the form of riots after evictions, when neighbors practiced solidarity by throwing stones at movers, carrying the furniture of evicted families back into the apartment or by boycotting the businesses of the landlords, who more often than not operated a shop nearby (Schartl 1984; Lengemann 2015). The housing situation worsened after the First World War, and the revolution of 1918–1919 further politicized society at large and the tenant movement in particular. Tenant councils modeled after workers’ and soldiers’ councils were formed to voice collective demands that ranged from the renovation of buildings and rent reductions to the complete socialization and self-management of housing. Although not recognized as a legal entity, in some cases tenants performed rent strikes to fight against poor living conditions or high rents (Lehnert 1991: 279). Tenants’ efforts were not limited to direct action against landlords. They also engaged in self-help. Barracks were erected in informal settlements, and tenants formed construction companies and housing cooperatives (Novy 1983). In addition to – and sometimes in close exchange with – direct action and self-help initiatives, tenants formed many local tenant unions in the second half of the nineteenth century. This was further established by the integration of rental law into the first German Civil Code in 1900 (Führer 2000). These unions mostly focused on delivering legal services to their members, but from time to time they also engaged in more social movement-type actions, such as rent strikes. The tenant unions aligned themselves into a national federation, a move that was both mirrored and influenced by the political struggles present in the debates that informed other social movements of the time (Riese 1990): Should the tenant unions work together with or in strict opposition to the landlord federations? Should the unions support radical actions such as rent strikes or not? Should they nominate candidates in elections, or would that lead to a segmentation of working-class interests into separate issues? The different activities of the broader tenant movement drew attention to contradictions inherent in the laissez-faire housing regime in such a way that the mode of regulation had to respond. Rental laws were established, and the (local) state began to develop institutions of housing provision along with codifying a fundamental right to housing. The possibility of monetizing increases of land value through taxation was also included in the constitution of the Weimar Republic. The exceptional situation after the First World War legitimized state intervention in the housing market for the first time, which meant limiting rent fees and allocating living spaces to tenants through local housing departments. When these regulations were gradually whittled back in the mid-1920s, tenants reacted with mass demonstrations (Ott 1984: 177). This development is symptomatic of German housing politics to the present day: governmental intervention comes only during periods of acute crisis when the stability of society seems endangered (Schönig and Vollmer 2018: 18). Another such crisis occurred with the Great Depression in 1929 and the ensuing austerity measures. Housing became an existential question for more and more people. Slogans such as “Food, not rent” decorated Berlin’s walls and attested to this state of affairs. But the emergence of the national socialist regime left little space for

68  Handbook on urban social movements

the tenant movement to maneuver. Although the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party; NSDAP) supported rent strikes to garner support in the early 1930s, when the party came into power it soon ended all direct action around housing and enforced the political conformity of housing cooperatives and tenant unions, which were forced to cooperate with landlord federations (Führer 1993). Before this tragic break in tenant activism, the tenant movement had succeeded in establishing itself as a political actor in Germany during the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1920s. This tenant movement had a heterogeneous composition that depended on who was affected by housing issues – from the poorest to the more middle class. The political collectivity that formed in response to the specific contradictions inherent in laissez-faire urbanism was shaped by neighborhood solidarity (Lindenberger 1995) in response to evictions, by a direct antagonistic relationship with landlords and by the formation of institutions of self-help as well as organizations representing the interests of tenants. The tenant movement thus bore a similar political collectivity to the labor movement, which was reacting to the same contradictions of laissez-faire capitalism. With its demands, practices and collectivity, the movement forced the developing welfare state to assume some responsibility for matters related to housing. State institutions such as rental laws, municipal housing companies or the subsidization of the construction of affordable housing thus developed through these dealings with the tenant movement. Institutions like these formed the basis for a new housing regime after the Second World War.

BERLIN’S TENANT MOVEMENT IN THE FORDIST CITY The Fordist housing regime of West Germany5 established a profitable system for capital accumulation by the real estate industry while serving the housing needs of particular groups of society. The housing regime combined several housing policies: the construction of mass social housing, the strong regulation of the rental market in the existing housing stock, and heavy subsidization of home ownership. The interplay of these elements and the contradictions they produced are described in the following. The construction of social housing in the wake of the mass destruction of infrastructure and mass immigration after the Second World War was realized by public, private and collective actors, such as the union-based Neue Heimat (New Home). For housing companies, mass housing was a lucrative investment opportunity. In exchange for subsidies, they only had to temporarily offer the units as social housing until those subsidies were paid back. The layouts of social housing units themselves were designed to accommodate the nuclear family and the normalized lifestyle of that era. Home ownership was subsidized alongside the construction of mass social housing, which fostered a process of suburbanization whereby the middle class left cities for single-family homes on their periphery.

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  69

The construction of social housing was supplemented by the heavy regulation of the existing housing stock. This regulation set fixed limits that restored pre-war rent levels and made it very difficult to terminate leases. Since the quality of social housing was much higher in the newly constructed units, it was more appealing to live there, even if rents were higher. Mass social housing became home to the middle classes while lower-income groups stayed in the old housing stock (Schildt 1998: 172f.). Housing in the post-war period in West Germany was set up along the lines of a classical Fordist model: promoting the real estate economy through measures (e.g., direct or indirect financing, legal frameworks) that boosted the standardized mass production of housing as a consumer good while at the same time granting access to that good to a certain segment of society. The general logic of housing as a commodity was not challenged. State interventions were only seen as legitimate insofar as they solved immediate crises. This Fordist provision of social housing worked well for a while and for certain social groups. The real estate and construction industries were guaranteed revenue and profit, the middle classes found new and good homes in social housing and the poorer classes did not face affordability problems on a large scale, even if they did often suffer from substandard living conditions in the dilapidated old housing stock. But by the early 1960s, the regime was already facing a crisis from the viewpoint of both the real estate sector and the local government. For the real estate industry, social housing’s role as a profit generator came under threat because demand was decreasing. There simply were not enough people willing or financially able to move into social housing, even though the housing crisis was not over on a purely quantitative basis. At the same time, cities were experiencing their own negative consequences of the Fordist housing regime: increasing segregation. While the middle classes clustered in the social housing estates and in suburban single-family homes, the low-income classes concentrated in the old, rent-regulated housing stock that suffered from underinvestment. This stock was also home to an increasing migrant population that was not eligible for social housing until the late 1970s and could only rent where no one else desired to on account of racist landlord practices (Münch 2010). The increasing social and ethnic segregation was a serious problem for large West German cities because of the eroding tax base as well as real or anticipated social conflicts. In an attempt to reverse the diminishing demand for social housing, housing companies organized bus tours to persuade prospective tenants, albeit with little success. For its part, the central state tried to mediate this problem by increasing the size of the demographic that was able to move into social housing by introducing demand-side rent subsidies that supported individual tenants and by reducing the numbers of new social housing units (Egner 2014: 15). Cities responded to the problem of segregation with the development of an urban renewal regime that brought together real estate and local government interests by making the inner-city housing stock more attractive to the middle and upper classes. Starting in 1960, regulation of the old housing stock was systematically dismantled,

70  Handbook on urban social movements

thus making it lucrative for private owners to invest. In Berlin, entire neighborhoods were targeted for wholesale redevelopment – that is, demolition and redevelopment (which critics labeled Kahlschlagsanierung). This led to high vacancy rates at a time when the quantitative housing question was still unsolved. The explicit goal of the redevelopment policy was to “improve” the social structure of the neighborhoods (Schindele 1980: 21), in other words, to drive out low-income groups and attract middle-income groups and to establish a less dense, modernist urban structure. Displacement and rising rents were the (deliberate) consequences of this urban renewal policy. This was the context in which a new cycle of tenant protest emerged in the late 1960s and 1970s in Berlin. It was the contradictions in the Fordist housing regime and the attempts to mediate its crisis that sparked tenant protest, which was carried out by those excluded from this class compromise in housing: low-income groups, groups marginalized by racism and those in the middle class who did not want to adhere to the rigid lifestyle norms imposed by the post-war society and Fordist urbanism, described by Mayer (1990a, 13; my translation) as “the social and cultural uniformization processes of housing and lifestyles”. While rising rents and the lack of social infrastructure engendered protest among those who lived in the newly constructed mass housing (Hüttner 2019), the majority of tenant protest in Berlin in the 1970s took place in areas of urban renewal. In areas targeted for rehabilitation (read: razing), poor living conditions and the fear of rising rents in the wake of urban renewal led to protest and the formation of tenant initiatives. These initiatives coalesced in neighborhoods in the city center of West Berlin, such as Charlottenburg (Schindele 1980), and also in what were then peripheral neighborhoods on the outskirts of West Berlin, such as Wedding or Kreuzberg (Bodenschatz et al. 1983). Working-class tenants were joined by students of architecture and urban planning, by members of the Jungsozialisten (the youth organization of the Social Democratic Party) or other more radical political groups. They sought to challenge the renewal practices by publicizing the plight of individual tenants who feared losing their home, by targeting the local government with demonstrations and car parades, by refusing to leave their apartments when demolition was scheduled and by creative forms of protest, such as when tenants bricked up the entrance to the local office of Neue Heimat, the organization responsible for many of the renewal schemes. The tenants also joined forces with a team of architects around Hardt-Waltherr Hämer, who had developed a model whereby the old building stock could be preserved and renovated, thus allowing tenants to remain in place. This model was later implemented as a form of cautious urban renewal. In 1971, a federal urban development law made citizen participation mandatory in these processes for the first time. But the actual way in which this participation was implemented ended up fostering more resentment instead of assuaging it. People were merely informed of plans and did not get a say in them. Consequently, the fight for the right to co-determination in the urban renewal process became important. By the end of the 1970s, tenant initiatives were accompanied by Instandbesetzen (homesteading) and squatting (Kolodny 1986; Holm and Kuhn 2011; Kreis 2017). These practices of

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  71

self-help and self-efficacy were carried out by both more middle-class activists and marginalized groups, such as Turkish women in Berlin (Gürsel and Schubenz 2016). The neighborhood-based tenant groups in Berlin were concerned with displacement, the resulting loss of social networks, rising rents and – in the more middle-class groups – the preservation of the heritage of old buildings. Together they formed a particular political collectivity that can be understood as a counter-reaction to Fordist urbanism. Whereas in the beginning more class-based rhetoric and practices dominated the tenant movement, local identity became an increasingly prominent topic among tenant groups who were fighting for their neighborhoods. A shared local identity was the only thing binding together the diverse population in the affected neighborhoods, namely, the poorer working classes, otherwise marginalized groups and members of the middle class who sought alternative lifestyles. This identity, or so the thinking ran, had to be defended from outside attacks. Given the involvement of public- and third-sector institutions in the urban restructuring (e.g., Neue Heimat as a central institution in the previous cycle of tenant protest), self-determination and autonomy became important themes against the normalizing state. In this way Berlin’s tenant protest of the 1970s and 1980s mirrors the political collectivity of new social movements.

BERLIN’S TENANT MOVEMENT IN THE NEOLIBERAL CITY Neoliberal urbanism, which developed out of the crisis of the Fordist city from the 1970s onwards, co-opted the longing for autonomy and local identity among the new social movements into a new mode of regulation (Kuhn 2014). Claims for (local) democratization were integrated into a communicative planning paradigm that hindered the expression of subaltern interests by purporting to resolve every conflict in an ostensible consensus (Purcell 2009) and through techniques of “governing through community” (Rose 1996). Practices of self-management and self-determination were co-opted into the responsibilization of citizens, which served to legitimize the retreat of the welfare state from social service provision (Mayer 1986). The production of local identities was subsumed under city marketing campaigns and the valorization of neighborhoods in touristification and for real estate interests (Uitermark 2004). This neoliberal urbanism also involved a neoliberal housing regime that replaced the Fordist housing regime of the post-war period. By the 1990s, it had become fully dominant in a reunited Germany. Instead of using housing as a field for redistributive politics that would grant access to collective infrastructure by securing its long-term provision – while simultaneously ensuring profits for the real estate industry – as the Fordist housing regime did, the neoliberal housing regime created unfettered possibilities for the real estate industry to extract profit from the city. In Germany, the central state retreated from the construction of social housing, deregulated rental law and liberalized financial markets. Together with the privatization of public housing

72  Handbook on urban social movements

en bloc in the 2000s, the latter allowed for the specific form that the financialization of housing took in Germany (Wijburg and Aalbers 2017). From the perspective of the real estate industry, the neoliberal housing regime made sense, allowing access to expedient sources of profit. But why did state institutions, particularly city governments, buy into the new paradigm? Why did the same institutions that built mass social housing and regulated the private rental market to provide housing for low- and middle-income groups now support the unbridled valorization of housing by private actors? As far as state institutions were concerned, this neoliberal housing regime was established to rectify the problematic outcomes of the Fordist housing regime, residential segregation and the flight of the tax-paying middle class to the suburbs. Despite the neoliberal view of market mechanisms as the most effective way to allocate people in the housing market, in fact population politics had to be implemented in the form of social mixing to lure the middle class back to the cities. The upgrading of inner-city neighborhoods, state-supported construction of townhouses and other forms of urban design intended to appeal to the middle class were all part of an intentional state-led gentrification. Under pressure from austerity measures, cities in West Germany and (after reunification) also parts of the East privatized land and municipal housing companies on a grand scale and outsourced planning capabilities and staff, thus robbing themselves of the very resources that were needed to influence housing provision. Berlin’s municipal housing companies are an illustrative example of the particularities of the neoliberal housing regime (see also Kadi et al. 2021). Far from a complete retreat of the state from housing politics, they show how state activities were restructured to satisfy the real estate industry’s needs (Brenner and Theodore 2002). Part of the municipal housing stock was privatized in the early 2000s and, after passing through the hands of different owners, became part of the portfolio of Deutsche Wohnen, today Berlin’s largest (and Germany’s second-largest) landlord and a prototypical financialized housing company that valorizes its housing stock to create shareholder value. The remaining municipal housing stock, which today still accounts for 19 percent of the rental market (IBB 2021: 51), was concentrated under the ownership of just six municipal housing companies. Even though they were not privatized outright, those companies underwent a process of internal commodification: they were used as cash cows to subsidize the city’s budget. As a result, the rents in the municipal housing units had to increase. The administration of the housing companies was restructured according to business logic. Although owned by the public, Berlin’s municipal housing companies no longer served the needs of low-income households and became part of the neoliberal housing regime. This regime reached a critical point in the 2000s. Global capital, particularly after the financial crisis, was looking to the German real estate market as a safe haven, thus making housing a central part of a global system of capital accumulation through financial capitalism. After the processes of deregulation and privatization of the preceding decades, German cities faced severe rent hikes in the 2010s, which led to a new cycle of tenant protest in German cities (Rink and Vollmer 2019).

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  73

It was the spirit of gentrification summoned by city governments themselves that produced the contradictions of the neoliberal housing regime and spurred the most recent cycle of tenant protest: those same middle-class residents who were intentionally lured to the inner cities – and displacing lower-income groups in the process – could now no longer afford to live there themselves. Housing had become an object of speculation, increasingly detached from its use value. This development creates a problem for cities when, for example, public servants and care workers can no longer afford to live in the cities where they work or social infrastructure gets displaced and neighborhoods become dysfunctional. In this way, cities rob themselves of the capacity to address the very problems these dynamics create. The current tenant movement in Berlin, mirroring the contradictions of the neoliberal housing regime, is made up of a coalition of the working class, marginalized and excluded from the housing market (particularly for racist reasons), and the increasingly affected middle class. Similarly diverse are the forms of activism employed by the movement: from squatting and direct action to demonstrations and the collection of signatures for referenda, the tenant movement uses different strategies in a rather unideological fashion. A multitude of hyper-local initiatives, organized in one house or one housing development, have collectively succeeded in repoliticizing the housing question and making it the number-one topic in election campaigns since the 2010s. These diverse local initiatives have joined forces on different campaigns, such as when organizing an annual demonstration with participants numbering more than 30,000 in 2019. The demands and the political collectivity of the tenant movement are rooted in the contradictions of the neoliberal housing regime (Vollmer 2019). They call for the decommodification of the housing system and the restructuring and reorientation of housing as an institution to serve the needs of low- and middle-income groups. By appealing to the state, the current cycle of tenant protest departs from the emphasis on autonomy that was common among new social movements. The tenant movement does not establish a discrete identity from which it draws specific rights but rather emphasizes a collective and heterogeneous “we”. Where a local neighborhood identity is employed, it is not assumed to be something exclusive in need of defending against (middle-class) newcomers but is rather framed in opposition to the interests of the real estate industry. In its appeal to state institutions, the movement is also aware of how those institutions have been used to further neoliberal urbanism. Therefore, its demands for decommodification are accompanied by demands for the democratization of institutions of housing provision as well as planning procedures. The struggle around the municipal housing companies (Diesselhorst 2018) and the expropriation of large, financialized landlords are an illustrative example of these dyadic demands. In one referendum an alliance of tenant initiatives demanded the internal decommodification of the city’s six municipal housing companies – all limited liability or joint-stock companies – by restructuring them into a single public entity, which would lend itself to governmental oversight. They also called for a larger share of social housing units, lower rents in the municipal housing stock, and the democratization of the companies through the inclusion of tenant representatives

74  Handbook on urban social movements

on their boards. Building on the partial success of this referendum and the organization of tenants of large, financialized landlords, particularly Deutsche Wohnen, another referendum was launched in 2018, this one aiming for the expropriation and socialization of all real estate actors with more than 3,000 housing units (with the exception of housing co-operatives). As part of this process, the recommodified housing stock would be democratically governed by a system of tenant councils. The referendum won the support of almost 60 percent of voters in Berlin, which reflects the dire situation of Berlin’s tenants, their lack of faith in market mechanisms to solve the housing crisis and their objection to the neoliberal housing regime.

CONCLUSION As this description of the three cycles of the tenant movement in Berlin has shown, their emergence coincides with the periods of instability and crisis between two hegemonic accumulation regimes. While the root causes of revolt – rising rents and substandard living conditions – have largely stayed the same throughout the different phases, the specific form of the demands, the forms of organization and the political collectivity of the tenant movement have differed significantly over time, as they were formed in response to the specificities of the changing housing regimes. These housing regimes have produced specific contradictions and exclusions from housing provision. Under the capitalist production of housing, lower-income groups have suffered more acutely and more consistently from this exclusion, but the middle class has also been affected during periods of upheaval. The tenant movement has been successful in influencing institutional housing politics when there was overlap between lower- and middle-income interests and the movement was able to articulate both simultaneously. Accordingly, one way of pacifying the tenant movement is to selectively fulfill the needs of the middle class – a strategy that was successfully employed in West Germany in the 1980s (Vollmer 2018). Berlin’s tenant movement is an illustrative example of how the regulation approach and its fundamental concepts – the accumulation regime, mode of regulation and crisis – allow one to analyze urban social movements as being rooted in and as expressions of particular forms of capitalist urban development. Thus, the regulation approach involves looking at capitalist valorization of urban space as the root cause of urban social movements. However, that does not exclude taking political and cultural factors into account when theorizing about urban social movements, since the concept of mode of regulation explicitly includes those factors when explaining the (in)stability of the different phases of capital accumulation. Employing the regulation approach runs the risk of overgeneralization, of glossing over differences within a single cycle of protest. Bearing this risk in mind, the regulation approach can nonetheless make a significant contribution to urban social movement studies. It allows one to study the developments of social movements in a diachronic manner, to learn about continuities and changes and to compare phenomena across different contexts. It also allows one to bring back capitalism and its development into social

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  75

movement studies without reverting to simple functionalist explanations of urban social movements. Using the regulation approach could also be a useful tool for movements themselves when developing strategies for action.

NOTES 1. I use the term regulation approach rather than regulation theory because no coherent theory has been developed and the ideas of the regulation approach are used in different academic communities in a variety of ways (Aglietta 1998: 41). 2. The phases are named and described differently in the literature. I synthesized the following periodization according to what seemed to be most established in critical urban studies and most useful for the study of urban social movements. 3. One of the main theorists of the regulation approach, Michel Aglietta, emphasizes that he was influenced by Manuel Castells’ work (Aglietta 2000 [1976]: 28). 4. I use the term tenant movement as a sub-category of the housing movement, which can also refer to the mobilization of homeowners or the homeless. Owing to the tenure structure in Berlin, where large numbers of inhabitants have always been renters, the housing movement mostly manifested itself as a tenant movement. 5. Given the widely decommodified nature of housing provision, this chapter focuses on West Germany.

REFERENCES Aglietta, Michel (1998). ‘Capitalism at the Turn of the Century: Regulation Theory and the Challenge of Social Change’, New Left Review 232: 41–90. Aglietta, Michel (2000 [1976]). A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The US Experience. London: Verso. Amin, Ash (ed.) (2003). Post-Fordism: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell. Ball, Michael, Michael Harloe, and Maartje Martens (1988). Housing and Social Change in Europe and the USA. London and New York: Routledge. Bodenschatz, Harald, Volker Heise, and Jochen Korfmacher (1983). Schluß mit der Zerstörung? Stadterneuerung und städtische Opposition in West-Berlin, Amsterdam und London. Gießen: Anabas-Verlag. Borst, Renate (ed.) (1990). Das neue Gesicht der Städte: Theoretische Ansätze und empirische Befunde aus der internationalen Debatte. Basel: Birkhäuser. Boyer, Robert (1990). The Regulation School: A Critical Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press. Brenner, Neil (2003). ‘“Glocalization” as a State Spatial Strategy: Urban Entrepreneurialism and the New Politics of Uneven Development in Western Europe’, in Jamie Peck and Hennry Wai-chung Yeung (eds.), Remaking the Global Economy: Economic-Geographical Perspectives. London: Sage, pp. 197–215. Brenner, Neil, and Nik Theodore (2002). ‘Cities and the Geographies of “Actually Existing Neoliberalism”’, Antipode 34(3): 349–379. Buecheler, Steven M. (1995). ‘New Social Movement Theories’, The Sociological Quarterly 36(3): 441–464. Calhoun, Craig (1993). ‘“New Social Movements” of the Early Nineteenth Century’, Social Science History 17(3): 385–427. Castells, Manuel (1978). City, Class, and Power. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

76  Handbook on urban social movements

Castells, Manuel (1979). The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Castells, Manuel (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press. Della Porta, Donatella (2015). Social Movements in Times of Austerity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Della Porta, Donatella, Massimiliano Andretta, Tiago Fernandes, Francis O’Connor, Eduardo Romanos, and Markos Vogiatzoglou (eds.) (2017). Late Neoliberalism and Its Discontents in the Economic Crisis: Comparing Social Movements in the European Periphery. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Diesselhorst, Jonathan (2018). ‘Wenn stadtpolitische Bewegungen das Terrain des Staats betreten. Zwischen Berliner Mietenvolksentscheid und “Wohnraumversorgungsgesetz”’, Prokla. Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialwissenschaften 191: 265–282. Egner, Björn (2014). ‘Wohnungspolitik seit 1945’, Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 64: 13–19. Engels, Friedrich (1976 [1872]). ‘Zur Wohnungsfrage’, in Marx-Engels-Werke. Band 18. Berlin: Dietz, pp. 209–287. Esser, Josef, and Joachim Hirsch (1987). ‘Stadtsoziologie und Gesellschaftstheorie. Von der Fordismuskrise zur “postfordistischen” Stadt- und Regionalstruktur’, in Walter Prigge (ed.), Die Materialität des Städtischen. Stadtentwicklung und Urbanität im gesellschaftlichen Umbruch. Basel: Birkhäuser, pp. 31–56. Esser, Josef, and Joachim Hirsch (1989). ‘The Crisis of Fordism and the Dimensions of “Postfordist” Regional and Urban Structure’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 13(3): 417–437. Florida, Richard, and Marshall M. Feldman (1988). ‘Housing in US Fordism’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 12(2): 187–210. Florida, Richard, and Andrew Jonas (1991). ‘U.S. Urban Policy: The Post-War State and Capitalist Regulation’, Antipode 23(4): 349–384. Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen (1990). ‘Großstadt und Neue Soziale Bewegungen’ 3(4). Führer, Karl C. (1993). ‘Die deutsche Mieterbewegung 1918–1945’, in Günther Schulz (ed.), Wohnungspolitik im Sozialstaat: Deutsche und europäische Lösungen, 1918–1960. Düsseldorf: Droste, pp. 223–245. Führer, Karl C. (2000). Deutsche Mieterbewegung: Von der Kaiserzeit bis zum Ende des 20. Jahrhunderts. 100 Jahre Deutscher Mieterbund. Cologne: Deutscher Mieterbund. Goodwin, Mark (2001). ‘Regulation as process: Regulation theory and comparative urban and regional research’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 16(1): 71–87. Gramsci, Antonio (1971 [1929]). Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers. Grottian, Peter, and Wilfried Nelles (eds.) (1983). Großstadt und neue soziale Bewegungen. Basel: Birkhäuser. Gürsel, Duygu, and Marie Schubenz (2016). ‘Das Recht selbst geltend machen. Wohnsituation und Kämpfe migrantischer Mieter/innen’, Mieterecho 284: 12–13. Hall, Peter (1988). Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Blackwell. Hamel, Pierre (2014). ‘Urban social movements’, in Hein-Anton van der Heijden (ed.), Handbook of Political Citizenship and Social Movements. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 464–492. Harloe, Michael (1995). The People’s Home? Social Rented Housing in Europe & America. Oxford: Blackwell. Harvey, David (1982). The Limits to Capital. Oxford: Blackwell.

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  77

Harvey, David (1989). ‘From Managerialism to Entrepreneurialism: The Transformation in Urban Governance in Late Capitalism’, Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 71(1): 3–17. Häussermann, Hartmut, Dieter Läpple, and Walter Siebel (2008). Stadtpolitik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Hirsch, Joachim (1986). Der Sicherheitsstaat: Das “Modell Deutschland”, seine Krise und die neuen sozialen Bewegungen. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum Verlag. Hirsch, Joachim (1988). ‘The Crisis of Fordism, Transformations of the “Keynesian” Security State, and New Social Movements’, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 10: 43–55. Hirsch, Joachim, Bob Jessop, and Nikos A. Poulantzas (2001). Die Zukunft des Staates: Denationalisierung, Internationalisierung, Renationalisierung. Hamburg: VSA-Verlag. Hirsch, Joachim, and Roland Roth (1986). Das neue Gesicht des Kapitalismus: Vom Fordismus zum Post-Fordismus. Hamburg: VSA-Verlag. Holm, Andrej, and Armin Kuhn (2011). ‘Squatting and Urban Renewal: The Interaction of Squatter Movements and Strategies of Urban Restructuring in Berlin’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35(3): 644–658. Hüttner, Andreas (2019). ‘Fehlende soziale Infrastruktur und Mieterhöhungen. Proteste von Mie-ter/innen im Märkischen Viertel 1968 bis 1974’, Mieterecho 284: 8–10. IBB – Investitionsbank Berlin (2021). ‘IBB Wohnungsmarktbereicht 2020’. https://​www​.ibb​ .de/​media/​dokumente/​publikationen/​berliner​-wohnungsmarkt/​w​ohnungsmar​ktbericht/​ibb​_​ wohnungsma​rktbericht​_2020​.pdf. Inglehart, Ronald (1977). The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jessop, Bob (1990). ‘Regulation Theories in Retrospect and Prospect’, Economy and Society 19(2): 153–216. Jessop, Bob (1991). ‘Accumulation Strategies, State Forms and Hegemonic Projects’, in Simon Clarke (ed.), The State Debate. Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp. 157–182. Jessop, Bob (1997). ‘Survey Article: The Regulation Approach’, Journal of Political Philosophy 5(3): 287–326. Jessop, Bob (2002). The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kadi, Justin, Lisa Vollmer, and Samuel Stein (2021). ‘Post-Neoliberal Housing Policy? Disentangling Recent Reforms in New York, Berlin and Vienna’, European Urban and Regional Studies 28(4): 353–374. Kolodny, Robert (1986). ‘The Emergence of Self-Help as a Strategy for the Urban Poor’, in Rachel G. Bratt (ed.), Critical Perspectives on Housing. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 447–462. Krätke, Stefan (1991). Strukturwandel der Städte: Städtesystem und Grundstücksmarkt in der ‘post-fordistischen’ Ära. Frankfurt am Main: Campus-Verlag. Kreis, Reinhild (2017). ‘Heimwerken als Protest. Instandbesetzer und Wohnungsbaupolitik in West-Berlin während der 1980er-Jahre’, Zeithistorische Forschungen 14(1): 41–67. Kress, Celina (2012). ‘Haberland und Sommerfeld – Akteure und Strukturwandel in der Berliner Stadtentwicklung vor und nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg’, in Uwe Altrock (ed.), Wer entwickelt die Stadt? Geschichte und Gegenwart lokaler Governance; Akteure, Strategien, Strukturen. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 209–232. Kuhn, Armin (2014). Vom Häuserkampf zur neoliberalen Stadt: Besetzungsbewegungen in Berlin und Barcelona. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot. Künkel, Jenny, and Margit Mayer (eds.) (2012). Neoliberal Urbanism and Its Contestations: Crossing Theoretical Boundaries. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lange, Annemarie (1980). Berlin zu Zeit Bebels und Bismarks. Berlin: Dietz.

78  Handbook on urban social movements

Lehnert, Detlef (1991). Kommunale Politik, Parteiensystem und Interessenkonflikte in Berlin und Wien 1919–1932: Wohnungs-, Verkehrs- und Finanzpolitik im Spannungsfeld von städtischer Selbstverwaltung und Verbandseinflüssen. Berlin: Haude & Spener. Lengemann, Simon (2015). ‘“Erst das Essen, dann die Miete!”. Protest und Selbsthilfe in Berliner Arbeitervierteln während der großen Depression 1931 bis 1933’, Jahrbuch für Forschung zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 3: 46–62. Lindenberger, Thomas (1995). Straßenpolitik: Zur Sozialgeschichte der öffentlichen Ordnung in Berlin 1900 bis 1914. Bonn: Dietz. Lipietz, Alain (1987). Mirages and Miracles: The Crises of Global Fordism. London: Verso. Mattern, Philipp (ed.) (2018). Mieterkämpfe: Vom Kaiserreich bis heute – das Beispiel Berlin. Berlin: Bertz + Fischer. Mayer, Margit (1986). Soziale Bewegungen in der Stadt. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung von Veränderungsprozessen im Verhältnis zwischen städtischen Bewegungen und Staat in den Vereinigten Statten von Amerika und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Habilitationsschrift, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. Mayer, Margit (1990a). ‘Großstadt und neue soziale Bewegungen. Eine Einführung’, Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen 3(4): 11–19. Mayer, Margit (1990b). ‘Lokale Politik in der unternehmerischen Stadt’, in Renate Borst (ed.), Das neue Gesicht der Städte: Theoretische Ansätze und empirische Befunde aus der internationalen Debatte. Basel: Birkhäuser, pp. 190–208. Mayer, Margit (1991). ‘Politics in the Post-Fordist City’, Socialist Review 21(1): 105–124. Mayer, Margit (1996). ‘Postfordistische Stadtpolitik’, Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsgeographie 40(1–2). Mayer, Margit (2003). ‘Das Potential des Regulationsansatzes für die Analyse städtischer Entwicklungen. Am Beispiel territorialer Armutspolitik’, in Ulrich Brand and Werner G. Raza (eds.), Fit für den Postfordismus? Theoretisch-politische Perspektiven des Regulationsansatzes. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot, pp. 265–280. Mayer, Margit (2013). ‘Urbane soziale Bewegungen in der neoliberalisierenden Stadt’, Sub/ urban. Zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung 1(1): 155–168. Mayer, Margit (2016). ‘Neoliberal Urbanism and Uprisings across Europe’, in Margit Mayer, Catharina Thörn, and Håkan Thörn (eds.), Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 57–92. Mayer, Margit, and Roland Roth (1995). ‘New Social Movements and the Transformation to Post-Fordist Society’, in Barbara L. Epstein, Marcy Darnovsky, and Richard Flacks (eds.), Cultural Politics and Social Movements. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 299–319. Mayer, Margit, Catharina Thörn, and Håkan Thörn (eds.) (2016). Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Münch, Sybille (2010). Integration durch Wohnungspolitik? Zum Umgang mit ethnischer Segregation im europäischen Vergleich, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Niethammer, Lutz, and Frank Brüggemeier (1976). ‘Wie wohnten Arbeiter im Kaiserreich’, Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 16: 61–134. Nitsche, Rainer (ed.) (1982). Häuserkämpfe 1872/1920/1945/1982. Berlin: Transit Buchverlag. Novy, Klaus (1983). Genossenschafts-Bewegung: Zur Geschichte und Zukunft der Wohnreform. Berlin: Transit. Ott, Peter (1984). Geschichte der deutschen Mieterbewegung. Entstehungsbedingungen und Entwicklung bis 1933. Unpublished diploma thesis, Freie Universität Berlin. Painter, Joe (1995). ‘Regulation Theory, Post-Fordism and Urban Politics’, in David Judge, Gerry Stoker, and Harold Wolman (eds.), Theories of Urban Politics. London: Sage, pp. 276–296.

Urban social movements and regulation theory: tenant protest in Berlin  79

Peck, Jamie, and Adam Tickell (2003). ‘Searching for a New Institutional Fix: The After-Fordist Crisis and Global–Local Disorder’, in Ash Amin (ed.), Post-Fordism: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 280–315. Prigge, Walter (ed.) (1987). Die Materialität des Städtischen. Stadtentwicklung und Urbanität im gesellschaftlichen Umbruch. Basel: Birkhäuser. Purcell, Mark (2009). ‘Resisting Neoliberalization: Communicative Planning or CounterHegemonic Movements?’ Planning Theory 8(2): 140–165. Reick, Philipp (2018). ‘Gentrification 1.0: Urban Transformations in Late 19th-Century Berlin’, Urban Studies 55(11): 2542–2558. Reick, Philipp (2020). ‘Toward a History of Urban Social Movements’, Moving the Social 63: 147–162. Riese, Horst (1990). Mieterorganisationen und Wohnungsnot: Geschichte einer sozialen Bewegung. Basel: Birkhäuser. Rink, Dieter, and Lisa Vollmer (2019). ‘“Mietenwahnsinn stoppen!” Netzwerke und Mobilisierungen der Mieter*innenbewegung in deutschen Großstädten’, Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 32(3): 337–349. Rose, Nikolas (1996). ‘The Death of the Social? Re-figuring the Territory of Government’, Economy and Society 25(3): 327–356. Rucht, Dieter (1982). ‘Neue soziale Bewegungen oder: Die Grenzen bürokratischer Modernisierung’, in Joachim J. Hesse (ed.), Politikwissenschaft und Verwaltungswissenschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 272–292. Sablowski, Thomas (2013). ‘Regulationstheorie’, in Joscha Wullweber, Antonia Graf, and Maria Behrens (eds.), Theorien der Internationalen Politischen Ökonomie. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 85–99. Schartl, Matthias (1984). ‘Ein Kampf ums nackte Überleben. Volkstumulte und Pöbelexzesse als Ausdruck des Aufbegehrens in der Spätphase der Weimarer Republik’, in Manfred Gailus (ed.), Pöbelexzesse und Volkstumulte in Berlin: Zur Sozialgeschichte der Straße 1830–1980. Berlin: Verlag Europäische Perspektiven, pp. 125–167. Schildt, Alex (1998). ‘Wohnungspolitik’, in Dieter Vollendorf and Hans G. Hockerts (eds.), Drei Wege deutscher Sozialstaatlichkeit: NS-Diktatur, Bundesrepublik und DDR im Vergleich. Munich: De Gruyter, pp. 151–190. Schindele, Eva (1980). Mieter stören: Alltag und Widerstand in einem Berliner Sanierungsgebiet. Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag. Schönig, Barbara, and Lisa Vollmer (2018). ‘Wohnungsnot gestern und heute’, Informationen zur Raumentwicklung 4: 6–19. Steinmetz, George (1994). ‘Regulation Theory, Post-Marxism, and the New Social Movements’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 36(1): 176–212. Thörn, Håkan, Margit Mayer, and Catharina Thörn (2016). ‘Re-thinking Urban Social Movements, “Riots” and Uprising’, in Margit Mayer, Catharina Thörn, and Håkan Thörn (eds.), Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 3–55. Uitermark, Justus (2004). ‘The Co-optation of Squatters in Amsterdam and the Emergence of a Movement Meritocracy: A Critical Reply to Pruijt’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 28(3): 687–698. Vollmer, Lisa (2018). ‘Mieter_innenproteste von den 1960er bis in die 1980er Jahre in der BRD. Von der Klassenallianz zur Aufspaltung und Einhegung ins neoliberale Projekt’. Sub/ urban. Zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung 6(2–3): 137–148. Vollmer, Lisa (2019). Mieter_innenbewegungen in Berlin und New York: Die Formierung politischer Kollektivität. Stadt, Raum und Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: Springer. Wijburg, Gertjan, and Manuel B. Aalbers (2017). ‘The Alternative Financialization of the German Housing Market’, Housing Studies 32(7): 968–989.

PART II FIGHTING SOCIAL INEQUALITIES, RACISM, EXCLUSION, AND POVERTY IN CITIES AROUND THE WORLD

6. Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City and its struggle for housing in Cape Town, South Africa Antje Daniel

This negative apartheid which had an impact on generations. It is coming back into play, this apartheid. But it is now a financial apartheid. (Interview, September 10, 2018)

INTRODUCTION Once again in South Africa’s history, citizens are confronted with evictions and forced removals. While in the past (up to 1994) the racist apartheid regime moved all non-whites out of the cities and into townships, today it is the processes of gentrification that are once again affecting the disadvantaged, mostly black and coloured citizens of South Africa.1 The cities of South Africa are challenged, like many other cities in Africa and worldwide. Half of the world’s population lives in cities and we are also witnessing the fastest growing urban population in Africa. Cities across Africa – although they are not coherent actors in themselves – have been perceived as dynamic engines of economic growth, industrialization, innovation and a modern cosmopolitan life (Mayer 2013). Many scholars and developmental agencies tend to idealize urbanization by highlighting the changing living conditions in urban areas due to the emerging middle classes and economic growth in African countries (Daniel et al. 2016). While these studies underline the potential of the city, other scholars address informal settlements, poverty, unemployment, insecurity, environmental degradation, waste disposal or crime, which emerge out of urbanity (Beall 2013). We are witnessing an ambivalence between the possibilities cities offer and the challenges they face. Cities are places of hope but also arenas of conflict. In this field of tension, citizens organize themselves to make their city liveable, to solve social problems and to contribute to urban well-being. One of the most challenging problems in Cape Town is urban transformation which results from neoliberal politics and leads to gentrification in the inner circle of the city. Gentrification causes evictions, and in combination with a lack of social housing, the most vulnerable urban residents in Cape Town suffer from urban transformations. After the end of apartheid, South Africa’s post-apartheid government prioritized the provision of housing and public services as a major part of its anti-poverty agenda; however, the lack of social housing is still present (Seekings and Nattrass 2005; Gumede 2015). 81

82  Handbook on urban social movements

Academics have highlighted the urgent need for social housing in the informal settlements on the outskirts of the city, which has resulted in many protests and demands for social services (Alexander 2010; Mottiar and Bond 2012). Widely overlooked by academics, however, is the housing need in the inner circle of South African cities. But there are civil society organization that address the need for social housing in the centre. The social movement Reclaim the City (RTC) responds to the need to increase awareness of eviction and gentrification in the inner circle of Cape Town. Since 2017, they have struggled for the right to housing. In order to overcome this research gap, I will focus on RTC and will investigate the tactics (repertoires of contention) through which RTC addresses the burning need for social housing. These protests by RTC are connectable to global struggles which can be summarized under the notion of ‘right to the city’. This chapter on RTC results from a qualitative, actor-centred study which I conducted in 2017 and 2018. The research comprises biographical interviews, expert interviews and participant observation.2 Interviews with RTC activists, chapter leaders and house leaders, as well as participant observation during eviction resistance efforts, court hearings, marches or other activities paved the way for understanding the movement. Social media reports and newspaper articles complemented the data collected. First, I will argue that Reclaim the City can be interpreted as part of global struggles relating to the concept of the right to the city. Against the backdrop of social movement theory, I will discuss the relationship between neoliberal transformation of the city and the emergence of right to the city protests. Although RTC is globally connected, a look at its particular repertoires of contention will unpack the movement’s appropriation of urban space and its struggle for a liveable city. I will then introduce the particular Capetonian context which led to the emergence of RTC, namely the persistence of apartheid’s spatial segregation and the increasing processes of gentrification. Finally, I will analyse the multiple repertoires of contention, which reveal how RTC is reappropriating the urban context of Cape Town despite being challenged by gentrification. I will conclude by summarizing the global relatedness and the particularities of RTC.

FROM GLOBAL TO LOCAL REPERTOIRE OF CONTENTION In recent years, we have witnessed an increasing number of protests worldwide. A study based on 2809 protests in 101 states between 2006 and 20203 shows that since the global economic and financial crises of 2008, the number of protests per year worldwide has risen from 73 in 2006 to 251 in the year 2020 (Ortiz et al. 2022: 14). Most of these protests emerge in cities. At the same time, the discourse has shifted from a global human rights discourse to local human rights advocacy. For a long time, human rights protests were located at the transnational level. It was argued that international institutions, such as the United Nations, should guarantee

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  83

human rights. Consequently, international norms should legitimize and pave the way for national and local human rights policies (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Sikkink 2005). The main expectation was that national governments should deliver a promise to guarantee a safe, attractive space for citizens based on the values and norms of the human rights discourse. This trend to localize human rights becomes visible in social movement struggles: Janet Conway (2008) argues that more recently urban residents have started to change their environment by localizing their struggle, rather than referring to global norms. This trend corresponds to the rising number of urban human rights groups, neighbourhood groups, and resisting citizens that increasingly complement the global human rights movement with pressure from below (cf. Samara et al. 2013). Thus, urban residents are increasingly taking the matter into their own hands and contributing to establishing a lively, creative space for citizens on the local level. The engagement of these urban residents is manifold, comprising different protest groups, urban gardening, street art and do-it-yourself initiatives (Douglas 2014; Iveson 2013). This broad range of urban activities have in common that they are micro-spatial urban practices that are reshaping the urban place (cf. Mayer 2014). Interestingly enough, while the struggles are becoming localized, they increasingly describe themselves as anti-globalization struggles claiming a right to the city (Portaliou 2007; Smith and Johnston 2002) and thus addressing the changes in cities after the neoliberal turn of the 1970s. The neoliberal turn led to a reorientation of national and municipal politics towards liberalization of markets, privatization and deregulation. Accordingly, urban problems have been solved by neoliberal rationalities and by market-oriented solutions (Mayer 2013: 156f.; Portaliou 2007). Thus, a regulatory change is taking place in the cities, which has occurred throughout the global capitalist system since the 1970s. In the course of this urban transformation, the concept of the ‘neoliberal city’ emerged, which on the one hand refers to the fact that the regulation of cities is subject to a market logic, and on the other hand addresses the specific problems resulting from neoliberal policies. Even if these neoliberal transformations are not found exclusively in the city, Margit Mayer (2013: 157) argues that cities are the focal points of transformation because they are centres of production. Although urban neoliberalism (Robinson and Parnell 2011: 524) had different trajectories, many scholars have shown that the grievances of urban residents are a result of neoliberal politics in combination with increasing urbanity (Portaliou 2007: 167). Thus, in many cities there has been a socio-spatial transformation with growing spatial inequality and segregation, which polarizes the city in poor and wealthy areas (Harvey 2012: 15). These inequalities can be seen, for instance, in the emergence of enclaves of wealthy urban residents, on the one hand, and abandoned and obsolete deindustrialized areas and informal settlements, on the other hand (Robinson and Parnell 2011). These socio-spatial transformations include processes such as gentrification, touristification, or loss of a relationship with the space or with nature and even the dominance of neoliberal morals such as individualization which contradict perceiving the city as a shared responsibility or commons (Harvey 2012: 15f.; Portaliou 2007). Carin Runciman (2016) observes for South Africa that neo-

84  Handbook on urban social movements

liberal politics are causing a cut in state subsidies and a reduction of social services. Neoliberal politics means less state responsibility, which promotes spaces in which the state is not present. It has been argued that, in light of some of the weaknesses of the democratic state and in neoliberal times, social movements have the potential to provide a more meaningful practice of citizenship and democracy (Runciman 2016). This is particularly so for those living on the socio-economic margins of society – for those who feel the state cuts first. Urban residents rely on their local government rather than waiting for a trickle-down effect of transnationally circulated human rights. Against the backdrop of South Africa, it becomes clear that neoliberalization of the city, and the resulting protests, can be found worldwide, but that the manifestation of neoliberal policies and the associated protests are locally specific (Daniel and Neubert 2019). Therefore, a context-sensitive approach is necessary, especially for protests in the Global South, because the political context is historically and culturally different from the Global North (cf. Ellis and von Kessel 2009). As we can see, numerous social movements have emerged which address urban problems, share a critique of capitalism (Portaliou 2007), and are in line with anti-globalization movements such as Occupy (Daniel 2018). All these protests which address neoliberal transformations in cities can be summarized under the label ‘right to the city’. This movement emerged worldwide and uses manifold tactics in order to re(create) a liveable city.4 The notion ‘right to the city’ means gaining collective power over the processes of urbanization (Harvey 2012: 4). Margit Mayer (2014) argues that cities are a cause for protest, but also a space for collective action which manifests itself in social movement demands and in a creative redesigning of the urban space. By reshaping the place, urban residents maintain their agency. Citizens make their own plans, solve problems mostly with a low budget, and adapt creatively to the challenges of urbanity. Sometimes their practices go along with an unauthorized use of public space. Henry Lefebvre (1972) already highlighted the potential of urban citizens to ‘inhabit’ the space and to produce new meaning, thus questioning urban development from below and contesting the so-called ‘neoliberal’ city. Förster (2013) also argues that people are able to cope with crisis; that citizens have agency and creativity. Creativity builds on a particular agency and social practice, which is related to individual life experiences. Till Förster (2013: 244) points out that creativity in urban contexts is not only individual but also social because the city is a social space. David Harvey (2012) underlines the ability of citizens to use collective power and action in processes of urbanization. Thus, right to city protests exemplify the agency of actors, and contradict widespread pessimism concerning the future in Africa, such as the argument that aspirations to an alternative future are engulfed by an ongoing neoliberal crisis (Goldstone and Obrarrio 2016). The agency of collective actors becomes visible in the self-organization of social movements and in their tactics, which aim at reshaping urbanity. In general, social movements use a broad range of conventional and unconventional actions to express their demands. Forms of action can include media-effective and spectacular demonstrations, quieter peace marches, or violent occupation. Other forms of action and protest are collecting signatures, distributing leaflets, sit-ins or strikes (Neidhardt

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  85

and Rucht 2001: 538). Some forms of action show continuity, while others are more spontaneous and geared to a specific event. The variety of actions can be summarized as intermediary, demonstrative and direct repertoires of contention (cf. Smith and Fetner 2007: 28; Taylor and Van Dyke 2004). With an intermediary repertoire of contention, social movements try to influence political decisions through activities in committees, petitions or lobbying. They strive to realize their goals within the framework of the existing political system. A direct repertoire of contention is much more radical and is expressed in strikes, boycotts, sabotage or occupations. Social movements that use direct protests consciously position themselves outside, and sometimes against, the political system. A demonstrative repertoire of contention is an intermediate form and ranges from demonstrations, rallies and campaigns to vigils. These forms of action and protest do not include an element of confrontation with the system, but they do aim to initiate a process of reflection on how the political system functions. Different resources are needed for the respective repertoire of contention: few efforts are needed for donations or signature collections, while occupations require a lot of personnel and time (McCarthy and Zald 2001: 543). Often, the different repertoires of contention are combined with each other in order to exert pressure on the government in different ways and to realize the proclaimed goal of the movement. They serve to achieve the social movement’s demands, but they also have an effect on the social movement itself, because the joint actions create a sense of togetherness, which ensures commitment and continuity of the social movement (Taylor and Van Dyke 2004; McAdam et al. 2001). By analysing the repertoires of contention of RTC, I will show how the protesters use their agency to react to processes of urban gentrification. In this way, the urban residents (re)appropriate their city, particularly those who are increasingly being forced out of the city. This approach will unpack the particular urban problems of Cape Town and the context-specific characteristics of the RTC struggles.

RECLAIM THE CITY The Burden of the Past Challenges the Future The Capetonian movement RTC emerged in 2017 amidst struggles for citizens’ rights – particularly the right to housing. RTC is exceptional because it focuses on gentrification as a recent phenomenon, and not on informal settlements like most other civil society action groups in South Africa. RTC aims at establishing “just and equal access to well-located land” (RTC 2018a: 7), and summarizes its aim with the slogan Land for people, not profit. RTC gets financial, material and non-material support from the non-governmental organization (NGO) Ndifuna Ukwazi. RTC reacts to the particular history of spatial segregation in South African cities (cf. Calland 2016).5 Looking back at its urban history, we see that Cape Town has been shaped by the segregation imposed by the apartheid regime. With the Group Areas Act of 1952,

86  Handbook on urban social movements

the white apartheid regime evicted all non-white citizens from the inner circle of Cape Town. Groups were transferred to ethnically homogeneous townships on the periphery of the city.6 During apartheid, the geographical territory of the town was divided up along ethnic lines between the so-called white, black and coloured citizens. Twenty years after the end of apartheid in 1994, many urban citizens are being confronted with a new wave of evictions in the inner circle of Cape Town. Particularly the area of Woodstock, which is close to the city centre (where the economic and political centre is located), is challenged by gentrification and increasing investment in residential houses. Dissatisfaction is growing because urban residents increasingly cannot afford the rents.7 For working-class and poor urban residents, the rising cost of living in Woodstock means they cannot afford to stay and they have to move (Garside 1993: 29). Responsible for this development is the government, which allows private investment. The gentrification process started in the 1980s (Garside 1993; Visser 2002; 2003; Visser and Kotze 2008) and has intensified in recent years.8 A turning point came in 2007, when the Cape Town council designated the area as a priority urban development zone for urban upgrading (Joseph 2014). In 2005, the Woodstock Investment District had been established in order to restore the area and make Woodstock a desirable place (Carls 2016: 33).9 Urban upgrading is also a response to safety in Woodstock. While Woodstock was once a calm and predominantly working-class area, today it is shaped by gangsterism and crime.10 The gentrification process has attracted an increasing number of middle-class residents to the area, as well as new investors.11 While many politicians argue that gentrification goes along with economic and social upgrading, RTC highlights its negative impact. An urban resident comments on the cause and effect of gentrification, which values economic goals rather than social needs, as follows: Profit is being put before humanity. It is very sad. […] Politically we have been separated by apartheid in the past. Now we are separated racially again. (Interview, September 10, 2018)

This highlights that the activists perceive the consequences of gentrification to be similar to apartheid segregation, when poor and working-class residents, who are predominantly black or coloured, have to move away from the inner circle of Cape Town. In Woodstock, evicted families face homelessness or are forced to live in relocation camps, such as Wolverivier. Because, once again in history, the most vulnerable groups face eviction, some people call gentrification a new form of apartheid. RTC activists deplore a path dependency in which racist apartheid is replaced by economic investment. Additionally, increasing unemployment rates due to the economic crisis and the growing number of urban residents contribute to the housing crisis and show that the housing crisis is intertwined with many social and economic problems. At the same time, the government is unable to meet the growing housing needs. The waiting lists for social housing are long. On the national level, the number of people registered for social housing is 343,537 (Ground Up, 8 March 2018). One RTC member said: “Nineteen years we were on the housing waiting list” (Interview,

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  87

September 4, 2018). The City of Cape Town is aware of the lack of social housing and the increasing need for it due to gentrification. Its response is to offer transitional housing, such as in the Wolverivier relocation camp. This camp is nearly 30 km away from Cape Town and has poor infrastructure (NU 2015; 2017). One RTC activist described the situation in Wolverivier as follows: Oh, you can’t go there. […] There is no school. […] There is just one mobile hospital. […] To come to Cape Town it will cost us about hundred Rand a day. […] Even the nearest police station is forty-five minutes away. (Interview, September 4, 2018)

Consequently, the relocation camps are not attractive for evictees. Due to the distance from town, many fear losing their jobs. They refuse to leave Woodstock because this would mean leaving their social environment and their children’s schools. Many prefer to live in small, crowded apartments with other members of their family, or in cars, or even on the street. The emergence of RTC can be explained in terms of these manifold forms of discontent, the lack of civil society actors regarding housing issues in Cape Town, and the lack of political solutions for the housing crisis. RTC was born out of a housing campaign by the non-governmental organization Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), which today supports RTC. NU is an activist organization and law centre that brings together movement building, research, and litigation in campaigns to advance urban land justice in Cape Town. NU realized that for a change in housing policies they need mass mobilization in order to put pressure on the government. This was the reason to create RTC, an activist network with a huge recruitment network. Today RTC and NU are working hand in hand: the supporting organization NU offers technical expertise, financial support and knowledge for the social movement RTC. A staff member of NU explains: The problem, and why you need NU, is because there is a lack of organization [in the movement], a lack of formal skills. (Interview 1, September 9, 2018)

Today RTC is predominantly independent from NU and has its own structure, which is defined in its Constitution (RTC 2018a). It has a Coordinating Committee, the members of which are the custodians of the Constitution, act on behalf of RTC and develop its strategies (RTC 2018a: 24). RTC bases its activism on illegal occupations. Currently, three houses have been occupied, in Woodstock, Sea Point and the City Centre. These occupations are the recruitment basis for RTC. RTC is structured in chapters, which are neighbourhood-based structures surrounding the occupations. The chapters are responsible for the distribution of information, mobilization, campaigns and the organization of the movement in the respective districts (RTC 2018a: 2, 19). NU concentrates on campaigns and strategies centring on housing policies and legal aid for evictees, while RTC mobilizes adherents and is responsible for the occupations. The relation between NU und RTC is described as collaborative and enabling, as a RTC occupant explains:

88  Handbook on urban social movements

These young guys [NU] who organize this is really nice. They don’t let you feel out. They move you with everything, everything. […] If the people wasn’t nice I won’t come again here. But they encourage us a lot. (Interview 2, September 9. 2018)

RTC brings two groups of actors together: NU is an NGO composed of well-educated and experienced staff and lawyers, who predominantly belong to the middle class. The members of RTC are activists who have experienced eviction or homelessness, or who act in solidarity with the homeless. Most evicted and homeless citizens belong to the working class or can be defined as poor, and many RTC activists have had a poor education. For NU it is important to impart knowledge and competence so that RTC becomes more independent of NU. Multiple Repertoires of Contention as a Way to Regain Urban Space RTC uses multiple repertoires of contention in order to address the housing crisis. It uses its agency to (re)appropriate the urban space. Its tactics are complementary and are used alternately. In addition, the tactics do not vary over time and are equally important. The repertoires of contention consist of (1) performing urban problems through biographical narratives; (2) negotiating urban planning; (3) resisting eviction; (4) taking over public places by marches; and (5) ensuring a living environment through occupation. One of the RTC’s tactics is to create awareness of the housing crisis though performing urban problems. RTC uses the biographical trajectories of evictees and homeless people in order to raise awareness of the housing crisis. RTC circulates the stories of evictees regularly on social media such as Facebook or on its website (RTC 2021). These biographical narratives have a personal dimension and affect people emotionally. In addition, RTC uses biographical trajectories in order to create counter-narratives, to demystify, and to disarm the powerful discourses that the state and private sector use for encouraging private investment. The inadequate and unequal services provided by the city become visible through the performances of urban residents, their experiences of eviction, and other urban problems. The evictees perform a biographical narrative of suffering. The aim is to create compassion and to portray the structurally inherent injustices. Private investors and the city appear as opponents in the biographical narratives. The most used tactic is negotiation in the context of urban planning. The lawyers and the staff of NU, in support of RTC, use the court for lobbying and for negotiations. For instance, NU lawyers intervene in ongoing court cases dealing with the sale of government land. They seek out current sales, try to stop them and lobby for social housing together with RTC. One example is the Tafelberg Campaign or #StopTheSale. The Tafelberg Site is one of the few remaining publicly-owned sites in the district of Sea Point, which is a middle-income and upper-class area. Particularly caregivers and domestic workers working in Sea Point face the challenge of finding affordable housing in that area. NU brought a review application to the Western Cape High Court, arguing that both the Province and the City have failed in their

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  89

constitutional obligations to address spatial apartheid in Cape Town (RTC 2021). RTC revealed that social housing was possible; however, the cabinet decided to sell the land. RTC started the Tafelberg Campaign and finally ensured that social housing units were part of the sale contract. RTC and NU frequently lobby in front of the Municipal Planning Tribunal for the inclusion of more social and affordable housing in all construction projects (RTC 2018b). For instance, on 4 September 2018, 50 RTC activists joined the tribunal on the sale of public land in the district of Sea Point. NU was heard on social housing and the need to overcome apartheid segregation, while the RTC activists revealed their power and mass by filling up the court with activists (participant observation, Municipal Planning Tribunal, 4 September 2018). RTC activists came in great numbers with the slogan “Nothing about us, without us!” (RTC 2018d). During the negotiations in court it became evident that the movement, the judges and the representatives of the municipality did not interact as opponents. Rather, the expertise of RTC and NU was taken into consideration as a step towards solving the housing crisis. Thus, although the municipality is not willing to stop selling public land to private investors, they take the demands of the movement seriously and are willing to negotiate. The atmosphere of interaction in court is mostly cooperative and respectful. A further tactic is eviction resistance, which is a more confrontational tactic. RTC and NU care about unlawful evictions and provide advice for residents who face eviction. Tenants who have dealt with eviction meet with tenants who are having problems and share advice and tactics. The advice assembly aims at offering information about housing rights and legal procedures in case of eviction. Likewise, the tenants experience solidarity and become empowered to cope with the situation. Part of the meeting is devoted to reports of eviction experiences and getting the message across that they “don’t suffer in silence” (moderator, advisory meeting, September 19, 2017). For instance, a 70-year-old women reported that she had been living in the cottage of a family for whom she had worked for almost the whole of her life. One day the family just threw her furniture onto the street without any notice. During the meeting, she got advice from the participants and the lawyers on how to cope with the situation (participant observation, advisory meeting, September 19, 2017). In addition, RTC collects and reports on unlawful evictions. For instance, RTC documents the living situation in areas shaped by gentrification and tries to prevent evictions. On September 9, 2018, for instance, the RTC eviction team aimed at supporting a house community in Maitland which faced eviction. About 50 people were living crammed together in an abandoned house without water, for which they paid a rent of R1500 (88 Euros). Many of them were foreigners without work permits (participant observation, September 9, 2018). In such a situation, RTC documents the living and working situation and gives legal advices. As there are no statistics on the number of evictions, the data collected by RTC give an important overview of the housing needs and affected citizens (NU 2017: 6). With this activity, RTC (re)creates agency for urban residents who face eviction, and empowers them to engage in activities themselves or within RTC with the aim of demanding urban justice.

90  Handbook on urban social movements

One of the major and regular strategies is to organize marches that raise public awareness of gentrification, eviction and the failure of the government to solve the housing crisis. This activity is the most visible, as the marches symbolically take over well-known public places. Throughout history, public places have represented the centres of society and have been the site of political gatherings, economic action or revolutions. The occupation of public places is a way of questioning political and economic legitimacy and physically demonstrating that the government is held accountable by urban residents. RTC uses marches in order to address the lack of social housing and to pressure the municipality into rethinking its investment-friendly housing policies that encourage gentrification. For instance, on September 11, 2018, RTC organized a demonstration for equal distribution of land in front of the parliament (participant observation, September 11, 2018). A few days later, on September 24, RTC organized a demonstration during Heritage Day with a memory walk in order to raise awareness of evictions in Woodstock (Dougan 2018). With its marches, RTC occupies and (re)gains urban space. By using this tactic, RTC reveals its agency to challenge the status quo and criticize urban planning by loudly raising its voice. The atmosphere during the marches is not aggressive, but peaceful (participant observation, September 11, 2018). The most confrontational strategy is occupation of houses. Occupying houses as a form of civil disobedience symbolically expresses resistance to government policies. At the same time, occupation offers a solution for evictees and homeless people in the form of emergency housing. Thus, RTC offers a service which the municipality is not able to offer. This exposes the inability of the municipality to cope with the crisis, and delegitimizes its urban politics. Although the occupations are illegal, the main aim is not to confront the municipality but to put pressure on it to change its policies (Wingfield 2019). In addition, the occupations are an important recruitment basis for mobilizing adherents. RTC has occupied three buildings in the Capetonian areas of Sea Point, Woodstock and the City Centre. In addition, it has also occupied public places symbolically and built a shack in Cape Town’s City Centre on 3 December 2018, in order to show the vulnerability of many citizens (Jones 2018; Knoetze 2018; RTC 2018c). However, this is not one of the main tactics of RTC. The most prominent occupation was that of the vandalized government hospital in Woodstock. In mid-2017, about 25 people occupied the Woodstock hospital for the first time illegally. Subsequently, the number of occupants grew continuously up to 800. Accommodating a high number of children, pregnant women and elderly people was a strategy used by RTC to demonstrate the vulnerability of these groups. In addition, the high number of vulnerable citizens involved in the illegal occupation lessened the chance that they would be evicted. In the occupied houses, RTC activists are free to organize their daily life. They have a roof over their heads and find peace to tackle their daily problems. Such occupations thus create a space that is otherwise not granted to these urban residents. Moreover, as argued by Anna Feigenbaum, Fabian Fenzel and Patrick McCurdy (2013), occupation offers opportunities to explore alternative social orders and daily lives. This is the case with RTC: in the Woodstock occupation, RTC activists

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  91

are trying to establish a new social order based on equality and respect, and thus to establish values and norms which they do not normally encounter in South African society, which is characterized by overlapping forms of discrimination and racism. Even if the occupied house is far from being an ideal place, it reflects the aspiration of RTC to regain urban space and to shape this space through equality and respect (see Daniel 2022). This strategy shows the confrontational attitude of RTC, but also its intention to solve the urgent problem of lack of social housing, and to regain urban space for those who have been excluded. In this process of providing homes, RTC activists show that they perceive their goal as being achievable. RTC creates a home and an urban life that the municipal government fails to offer to these citizens. In sum, RTC’s repertoires of contention are diverse: they include classical marches and lobbying, but also occupation, performance through storytelling, and resistance to eviction. Tactics differ between resistance in which the municipal government appears as an opponent (occupation, marches, and storytelling), and those where it is a collaborator or where RTC’s actions are complementary to the government’s actions (negotiations in court, eviction resistance, occupation). Thus, RTC exploits different problem-solving opportunities. It is concerned with making urban problems visible to the public, reconquering urban space and making it liveable, especially for those population groups that are increasingly excluded from the urban space.

CONCLUSION: ‘SOLVING PROBLEMS WHILE RESISTING’ The case of RTC shows that the city is not just a venue for social movements, but can be a reason to organize protests. RTC emerged out of the neoliberalization of urban policy, which triggered processes of gentrification and eviction. Particularly affected are the most vulnerable citizens, the poor and the working class, who are also mostly black or coloured. Gentrification not only changes the face of the city, but also promotes spatial marginalization through eviction, loss of jobs, homelessness, breaking up of social infrastructures, and diminution of the creative space of citizens by depriving them of housing and living space. The struggles against gentrification are in line with similar protests worldwide, but the discontentment has its local face and RTC protests have particular features. RTC responds to the globalizing phenomenon of gentrification. However, this does not mean that it is identical to other initiatives that are summarized under the slogan of the right to the city. While processes of gentrification exist worldwide, they have their specific manifestation in South Africa. The special characteristics of RTC have been shown in social movement studies. Scholars argue that global protest dynamics do not lead to homogenization, but that global and local processes are interrelated. Thus, a movement can be both globally connected and have locally specific characteristics (Keck and Sikkink 1998; Sikkink 2005). In South Africa, the particular context must be considered, as gentrification can be interpreted as a repetition of forced evictions that occurred during apartheid. Evictees describe this new wave of eviction as a new form of apartheid. Because many RTC activists still remember

92  Handbook on urban social movements

experiences of eviction under apartheid, the sense of repeated structural injustice is all the stronger. RTC empowers the affected citizens to become active themselves, to confront the powerlessness of repeated structural injustice through manifold tactics such as marches, eviction resistance, lobbying, negotiations in court, performance of suffering, and occupation of houses. With these varying repertoires of contention, RTC reappropriates urban space and regains agency in the housing crisis. While the strategies do not differ from those of other social movements struggling against gentrification, we can observe a peculiarity of RTC. The distinctiveness of RTC lies in the high proportion of poor and working-class people affected by eviction who are active in the movement. RTC faces the challenge not only of organizing resistance, but also of taking over welfare functions and organizing social services, such as housing, due to the lack of municipal services. ‘Solving problems while resisting’ is specific to the South African context because mobilization can involve the provision of social services. The situation in which protest movements and other civil society actors provide social services that should be provided by the state has been described for other contexts in Africa (see Daniel and Neubert 2019), and it shows the weakness of the state in solving social problems (Runciman 2016). The urban spaces which can be shaped by residents are very large and the agency and self-help capacity of residents is important against the backdrop of weak statehood.

NOTES 1. White, black and coloured must be perceived as socio-politically constructed categories (cf. Vally and Motala 2018). 2. RTC is one case included in the research project “Aspiring to alternative futures: Lived utopias in South Africa”. The project investigates different imaginations and future aspirations of collective actors such as social movements and intentional communities. Beyond RTC, the project also focuses on the environmental activism of the Green Camp Gallery Project and Oude Molen Eco Village, and the students’ movement Rhodes Must Fall. The research comprised more than 80 biographical and semi-structured interviews and used ethnographic methods such as participant observation. For publications resulting from the research, see for example Daniel (2021, 2022). 3. These include demonstrations, campaigns and unorganized actions such as riots. Protests resulting in armed conflicts have been excluded (see Ortiz et al. 2022). 4. The right to the city protests involve a variety of different actors and problems. These include autonomous alternative groups, leftists, members of the middle class who wish to defend their quality of life, the poor who have no access to social services, creative and environmental activists who wish to redesign the social space of the city, or migrants and the homeless who are excluded from the city (see Mayer 2013: 162). 5. For further information on social movements in South Africa, see Ballard et al. (2006). 6. For further information on the history of this South African metropolis, see Bickford-Smith (2016) or Hart (2013). 7. In 2013 the sale price for property ranged from 100,000 to 300,000 Rand (5,600 to 16,700 Euros) in Woodstock. By 2015, the average sale price was 1.6 million Rand (approx. 89,000 Euros; NU 2017: 11).

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  93

8. In Woodstock two waves of gentrification can be observed: the first wave took place in the 1980s and a second wave started in the mid-1990s and is still ongoing (Garside 1993; Carls 2016; Visser 2002). 9. Beyond professional investment, wealthy South Africans, tourists and immigrants are purchasing second homes for retirement, for holidays, or for rental income, and thus contributing to gentrification (NU 2017: 11). 10. On gangsterism in South Africa, see Du Toit (2014) or Daniels and Adams (2010). 11. One example of how Woodstock was gentrified is the Old Biscuit Mill. The City of Cape Town regards culture as a way to support the local economy und urban regeneration, and therefore supports creative industries (Booyens 2012). In 2006, the Biscuit Mill was turned into a business complex with luxury goods markets and creative industries. The opening of the Old Biscuit Mill ushered in an era of gentrification and rising property prices in Woodstock. The area round the Biscuit Mill turned from a multicultural working-class area into a “hipster heaven”, a lifestyle hub that is dominated by whites. This went along with the purchase of rental housing in nearby Bromwell Street from 2013 onwards, and resulted in many evictions in 2016 around Glymie, Bromwell, Albert, Cornwell and St. James Streets (Joseph 2014).

REFERENCES Alexander, Peter (2010). ‘Rebellion of the poor: South Africa’s service delivery protests – a preliminary analysis’, Review of African Political Economy 37(123), 25–40. Ballard, Richard, Adam Habib, and Imraan Valodia (eds.) (2006). Voices of Protest: Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Beall, Jo (2013). ‘Invention and intervention in African cities’, in Brigit Obrist (ed.), Living the City in Africa. Basel: Schweizerische Afrikastudien, pp. 23–43. Bickford-Smith, Vivian (2016). The Emergence of the South African Metropolis: Cities and Identities in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Booyens, Irma (2012). Creative industries, inequality and social development: Developments, impacts and challenges in Cape Town. Urban Forum 23, 43–60. Calland, Richard (ed.) (2016). Make or Break: How the Next Three Years Will Shape South Africa’s Next Three Decades. Cape Town: Zebra Press. Carls, Kim (2016). ‘The changing face of Woodstock: A study of inner-city gentrification’, MA thesis, Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University. Conway, Janet (2008). ‘Geographies of transnational feminisms: The politics of place and scale in the World March of Women’, Social Politics 15(2), 207–231. Daniel, Antje (2018). ‘Occupy: Städtische Besetzung als utopisches Experimentierfeld’, in A. Schoch and R. Bürgin (eds.), Städtische Widerstände. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 97–117. Daniel, Antje (2021). ‘Must decolonisation occur on an island? The role of occupation in developing future visions within the #RhodesMustFall’, in I. Turner, E. Woldegiorgis, and A. Brahima (eds.), Indigenous Knowledges and Decolonisation in Higher Education: Current Discourses, Pertinence and Prospects. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 193–212. Daniel, Antje (2022). ‘Enacting the housing crises through self-organization? The Cissie Gool occupation of Reclaim the City and its ambivalent relationship to the Capetonian municipality (South Africa)’, in Dieter Neubert, Hans-Joachim Lauth, and Christoph Mohamad-Klotzbach (eds.), Local Self-Governance and Varieties of Statehood: Tensions and Cooperation. Cham: Springer, pp. 75–94.

94  Handbook on urban social movements

Daniel, Antje, Sebastian Müller, Florian Stoll, and Rainer Öhlschläger (eds.) (2016). Mittelklasse, Mittelschichten oder Milieus in Afrika. Gesellschaften im Wandel? Baden-Baden: Nomos. Daniel, Antje and Dieter Neubert (2019). ‘Civil society and social movements: Two of a kind? Conceptual challenges beyond African peculiarities’, Critical African Studies 11, 176–192. Daniels, Doria and Quinton Adams (2010). ‘Breaking with township gangsterism: The struggle for place and voice’, African Studies Quarterly 11(4), 45–57. Dougan, Leila (2018). ‘Heritage Day: Woodstock. Gentrification is a modern word for the Group Areas Act’, Daily Maverick, 24 September, accessed 14 June 2021 at https://​www​ .dailymaverick​.co​.za/​article/​2018​-09​-24​-gentrification​-is​-a​-modern​-word​-for​-the​-group​ -areas​-act/​. Douglas, Gordon (2014). ‘Do-it-yourself urban design: The social practice of informal “improvement” through unauthorized alteration’, City & Community 13(1), 5–25. Du Toit, Nadine F. Bowers (2014). ‘Gangsterism on the Cape Flats: A challenge to “engage the powers”’, HTS Theological Studies 70(3), 1–7. Ellis, Stephen and Ineke von Kessel (eds.) (2009). Movers and Shakers: Social Movements in Africa. Leiden: Brill. Feigenbaum, Anna, Fabian Frenzel, and Patrick McCurdy (2013). Protest Camps. London: Zed Books. Förster, Till (2013). ‘On urbanity: Creativity and emancipation in African urban life’, in Brigit Obrist (ed.), Living the City in Africa. Basel: Schweizerische Afrikastudien, pp. 235–253. Garside, Jayne (1993). ‘Inner city gentrification in South Africa: The case of Woodstock, Cape Town’, GeoJournal 30(1), 29–35. Goldstone, Brian and Juan Obrarrio (eds.) (2016). African Futures. Essays on Crisis, Emergence, and Possibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ground Up (2018). Dire need for housing is South Africa’s biggest challenge. https://​www​ .groundup​.org​.za/​article/​dire​-need​-housing​-south​-africas​-biggest​-challenge/​. Gumede, Vusi (2015). Political Economy of Post-Apartheid South Africa. Dakar: Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa. Hart, Gillian (2013). Rethinking South African Crisis. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press. Harvey, David (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London and New York: Verso. Iveson, Kurt (2013). ‘Cities within the city: Do-it-yourself urbanism and the right to the city’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37(3), 941–956. Jones, Aidan (2018). ‘Housing activists build shacks on prime inner-city land’, Ground Up, 4 December, accessed 14 June 2021 at https://​www​.groundup​.org​.za/​article/​activists​-build​ -shacks​-on​-private​-land/​. Joseph, Raymond (2014). ‘The gentrification of Woodstock: From rundown suburb to hipster heaven’, The Guardian, 12 August, accessed 14 June 2021 at https://​www​.theguardian​ .com/​cities/​2014/​aug/​12/​gentrification​-woodstock​-cape​-town​-suburb​-hipster​-heaven. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink (1998). Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Knoetze, Daneel (2018). ‘Housing activists remove their shacks from inner city prime land’, GroundUp, 5 December, accessed 14 June 2021 at https://​www​.groundup​.org​.za/​article/​site​ -b​-occupation​-ends/​. Lefebvre, Henri (1972). Revolution der Städte. München: List Verlag. Mayer, Margit (2013). ‘Urbane soziale Bewegungen in der neoliberalisierenden Stadt’, Zeitschrift suburban 1, 155–168. Mayer, Margit (2014). ‘Soziale Bewegungen in Städten – städtische soziale Bewegungen’, in N. Gestring, R. Ruhne, and J. Wehrheim (eds.), Stadt und soziale Bewegungen. Wiesbaden: Springer, pp. 25–42.

Spatial segregation during ‘financial apartheid’: Reclaim the City in Cape Town  95

McAdam, Doug, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly (2001). Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, John D. and Mayer N. Zald (2001). ‘The enduring vitality of the resource mobilization theory of social movements’, in Jonathan H. Turner (ed.), Handbook of Sociological Theory. New York: Springer, pp. 533–567. Mottiar, Shauna and Patrick Bond (2012). ‘The politics of discontent and social protest in Durban’, Politikon 39(39), 309–330. Ndifuna Ukwazi (2015). Wolwerivier. Social Audit Report. Cape Town: Ndifuna Ukwazi. Ndifuna Ukwazi (2017). I Used to Live There: A Call for Transitional Housing for Evictees in Cape Town. Cape Town: Ndifuna Ukwazi. Neidthardt, Friedhelm and Dieter Rucht (2001). ‘Soziale Bewegungen und kollektive Aktionen’, in Hans Joas (ed.), Lehrbuch der Soziologie. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, pp. 533–557. Ortiz, Isabel, Sara Burke, Mohamed Berrada, and Hernán Saenz Cortés (2022). World Protests: A Study of Key Protest Issues in the 21st Century. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Portaliou, Eleni (2007). ‘Anti-global movements reclaim the city’, City 11(175), 165–175. Reclaim the City (RTC) (2018a). Constitution. Cape Town: Reclaim the City. Reclaim the City (RTC) (2018b). ‘Municipal Planning Tribunal decides to maximise social housing on Somerset Precinct’. Facebook Reclaim the City, accessed 10 June 2021 at https://​www​.facebook​.com/​ReclaimCT/​videos/​589116858152981. Reclaim the City (RTC) (2018c). ‘Reclaim Site B’. Facebook Reclaim the City, 4 December, accessed 10 June 2021 at https://​www​.facebook​.com/​ReclaimCT/​posts/​1379882592143041. Reclaim the City (RTC) (2018d). ‘Video: Municipal Planning Tribunal’, Facebook Reclaim the City, 4 September, accessed 10 June 2021 at https://​www​.facebook​.com/​ReclaimCT/​ videos/​vb​.751429941654979/​1149718618524. Reclaim the City (RTC) (2021). Land for People, not for Profit, accessed 10 June 2021 at http://​reclaimthecity​.org​.za/​. Robinson, Jenny and Sue Parnell (2011). ‘Travelling theory: Embracing post-neoliberalism through Southern cities’, in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson (eds.), The New Blackwell Companion to the City. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 521–531. Runciman, Carin (2016). ‘Mobilising and organising in precarious times’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 36(9/10), 613–628. Samara, Tony R., Shenjing He, and Guo Chen (2013). ‘Introduction: Locating rights to the city in the Global South’, in Tony R. Samara, Shenjing He, and Guo Chen (eds.), Locating Rights to the City in the Global South. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–20. Seekings, Jeremy and Nicoli Nattrass (2005). Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Sikkink, Kathryn (2005). ‘Patterns of dynamic multilevel governance and the insider–outsider coalition’, in Donatella Della Porta and Sidney Tarrow (eds.), Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 151–175. Smith, Jackie G. and Tina Fetner (2007). ‘Structural approaches in the sociology of social movements’, in Bert Klandermans and Conny Roggeband (eds.), Handbook of Social Movements across Disciplines. New York, Springer, pp. 13–59. Smith, Jackie G. and Hank Johnston (eds.) (2002). Globalization and Resistance: Transnational Dimensions of Social Movements. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Taylor, Verta and Nella van Dyke (2004). ‘“Get up, stand up”: Tactical repertoires of social movements’, in David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 262–293. Vally, Salim and Enver Motala (2018). ‘Troubling “race” as a category of explanation in social science research and analysis’, Southern African Review of Education 24(1), 25–42. Visser, Gustav (2002). ‘Gentrification and South African cities: Towards a research agenda’, Cities 19(6), 419–423.

96  Handbook on urban social movements

Visser, Gustav (2003). ‘Gentrification: Prospects for urban South African society?’, Acta Academia Supplementum 1, 79–104. Visser, Gustav and Nico Kotze (2008). ‘The state and new-build gentrification in Central Cape Town, South Africa’, Urban Studies 45(12), 2565–2593. Wingfield, Matthew M. (2019). ‘Tracking the many meanings of activism and occupations: An ethnographic study of “Reclaim the City” in Woodstock and Green Point, Cape Town’, MA Thesis, Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, Stellenbosch University.

7. Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization Dominika V. Polanska1

INTRODUCTION In the first part of the twentieth century tenants’ struggles all over the globe, and especially in the Global North, contributed to the improvement of housing conditions and housing policies in many national contexts. Many of them emerged by the end of the nineteenth century and tenants’ struggles were heavily influenced and interlinked with the struggles of the working-class movements at that time (Cox 2018; Gold 2014; Gray 2018a, 2018b). These struggles emerged from urgent situations in an unregulated housing market, as a form of self-defence among tenants against the powerful position of landlords. Tenants demanded protection, affordable housing, and improved housing standards, putting pressure on national governments to provide non-commodified forms of housing and to control rents and avoid steep rent increases, among other things. Tenants’ struggles have not been covered in research to the same extent as the struggles of workers, and we tend to forget today how important their collective actions were in addressing the housing shortage and poor living conditions in cities worldwide. If we follow Manuel Castells (1983) in viewing urban social movements as collective actors that shape our cities and demand social change in how resources are distributed, how collective identities are formed, and how cities are governed, tenants’ movements and mobilizations are classified as central elements in urban social movements. In social movement literature the division between old and new social movements has been debated for some time. A distinction is drawn between old social movements, which reflect the social structure of industrial society and class-based organization, and new social movements, which push for issues of identity, culture, and lifestyle, reflecting a changing society and more complex class relations. Changes in the methods used by the movement(s), their collective identity and to some extent the impact of tenants’ movements over the last 100 years reflect this shift. The old social movements, intimately linked to the successes of the labour movements, have transitioned into more complex and identity-based collective action, as the status of tenants has been eroded through the promotion of free-market logic, stigmatizing images of tenants and rented housing (Bradley 2014; Glynn 2018; Polanska 2017), the precarization of the working class and diversification of the already heterogeneous group of tenants (Florea et al. 2021), economic recession, 97

98  Handbook on urban social movements

growing inequality (Therborn 2013), the influx of migrants to Europe and the growth of right-wing populism. The objective of this chapter is twofold: first, it aims to draw a post-war history of tenants’ movements in Europe, and second, it aims to focus on contemporary forms of tenants’ activism. The questions to be answered in this work are: How have tenants organized / how are they organizing today? What continuities can be identified across different contexts and over time? How can we conceptualize tenants’ struggles today? I begin by positioning the historical development of tenants’ movements within the history of urban movements, arguing that the development of tenants’ movements largely reflects the shift between old and new social movements, even though contemporary forms of tenants’ mobilizations still make demands of a material nature, but from a more heterogeneous and marginalized position. Previous research on tenants’ movements is discussed, highlighting the lack of comparative studies, studies conducted in cooperation with tenants, and geographical differences in the coverage of tenants’ movements. The development of the Swedish tenants’ movement from the early twentieth century until the present is used as an illustration of the variety of forms of organization among tenants to transcend the artificial division between explicitly political collective action and more implicit low-key forms of tenants’ mobilizations or institutionalized and non-institutionalized collective action. The subsequent discussion examines the importance of a process-oriented perspective on movements and the inclusion of the complexity of organizational forms they encompass, in order to understand their heterogeneity and the shift to grassroots organizing that is especially manifest among contemporary movements. Primary and secondary material, along with previous studies on the emergence and development of the tenants’ movement, tenants’ mobilizations, and activism, are utilized in the analysis. Tenants are defined as those who occupy property or land by renting it from a landlord or using it without authorization, lacking full control over their housing situation (cf. Cociña et al. 2019), and it is tenants’ collective struggles in the European context that are of interest here.

TENANTS’ MOVEMENTS AS URBAN MOVEMENTS Tenants’ organizations emerged in parallel with the processes of industrialization by the end of the nineteenth century. When workers moved to the cities, their housing conditions became pressing issues that led to organization, primarily among the residents of large and middle-sized industrial cities. Four waves of tenants’ activism, mainly across Northern and Western Europe, can be distinguished since the beginning of the twentieth century. The first pre-war wave occurred when tenants’ organizations made up of poor and working-class populations emerged in the industrial cities of Europe. This wave continued during the inter-war period and was intimately connected with the growth of the labour movement. Tenants intensified their struggles during this period, mainly using rent strikes to put pressure on their

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  99

governments and landlords to improve their housing conditions and make housing affordable for the working classes in European cities (Bradley 2014; Bullock and Read 1985; Englander 1983; Gray 2018a, 2018b). Some of these efforts were successful in introducing rent controls in the early twentieth century and during wartime (Kettunen and Ruonavaara 2020) and precipitated public housing construction in the post-war period. The post-war period witnessed an ebbing wave in tenants’ activism that consolidated many of the organizations previously formed by tenants and resulted in state responses to the housing shortages, which improved living conditions in cities across the continent and introduced housing policies of a more ‘social’ character. The next wave came with the “rebellious atmosphere” (Leontidou 2010: 1183) of the 1960s and the worldwide growth of other social movements in this period (civil rights, women, environmental, anti-nuclear, peace, etc.) and most importantly the take-off of the squatting movement in Europe. The latter was the main expression of housing activism in Southern Europe, where “even under dictatorships, the grassroots were stirring and there was underground upheaval, especially evident in the notorious bidonvilles (France), borgate, baracche, borghetti (Italy), afthereta (Greece), viviendas marginales, barracas (Spain), bairros clandestinos, bairros de lata (Portugal)” (Leontidou 2010: 1183). Urban renewal and slum clearance programmes in European cities during this period were often followed by displacement of the working classes and spurred protests among tenants, even if these were of a more immediate and short-term character. Many countries on the European continent underwent a transformation from authoritarian regimes to elected democracies in the 1970s–1990s (e.g. Spain, Portugal, Greece, Central and Eastern European countries), which opened the way for new forms of organizing among tenants. The most recent wave of tenants’ activism took place following the 2008 financial crisis in response to neoliberal policies, and was organized from a more heterogeneous and marginalized position, in parallel with the growth of protests and social movements globally against austerity politics and the dismantling of welfare states across Europe. The four stages of urban movements that Margit Mayer (2016) has described in her work on the Global North – the crisis of Fordism in the 1970s, the roll-back neoliberalism of the 1980s, the roll-out of neoliberalism of the 1990s and the crisis of neoliberalization – were reflected in the development of the tenants’ movements. This more chronological understanding of movements responding to the tensions and contradictions of the capitalist regimes and their housing policies, provides a more nuanced picture of the development of social movements beyond the division of social movements into old and new. As Mayer emphasizes, ‘old’ issues of material character have been raised by contemporary movements in response to austerity politics and the dismantling of welfare. This is especially the case for tenants’ movements that demand affordable housing of good quality, tenancy security, the development of state, municipal or not-for-profit housing, and which lately also demand recognition in a context where social and public housing is shrinking and market forces are advancing.

100  Handbook on urban social movements

The landscape of urban movements today has changed as movements have become more heterogeneous. For the tenants’ movements, the shrinking availability and diminishing status of public and social housing, speculation by private capital in housing, authoritarianism and right-wing populism, as well as individualizing discourses (Bradley 2014) have all played an important role in the fragmentation of tenants. Today only 30 per cent of the European population live in rented housing and although this figure varies between countries it is steadily shrinking (Eurostat 2021). Mayer (2016: 73–74) writes: “existing movements confront additional targets and adversaries beyond city politicians, such as unelected technocrats, especially financial technocrats, as well as global investors and developers, who are behind the financialization of markets and push for big development projects”. The adversaries of today are even more powerful, have bigger financial muscle, work on a global level and are part of urban warfare on housing, where housing has become a financial asset (Rolnik 2019). Today’s housing activists combine long-term claims for changes in policy and urgent pragmatic responses to the housing crisis, and do so by connecting their struggles on different levels and between different movements and by promoting grassroots organization (Bonfert 2021; Florea et al. 2021; Lima 2021a, 2021b; Martínez López 2020b). Despite the assertion by Mayer (2016) that this change in the landscape of urban movements involves new actors, new issues, new adversaries, new forms of repression and shrinking resources and opportunities, I would like to argue that the basic human need for housing has not changed and tenants have continued to mobilize with the advancement of capitalism and neoliberal policy, and through the various crises that have unfolded recently: migration, Brexit, Covid-19, climate, etc. Nevertheless, the contradictions of capitalism, welfare of societies and democracy have remained the main conflict lines of urban social movements, including tenants’ movements. For tenants, the contradictions of capitalism in how to deal with housing as a basic human need, as market orientation dominates housing policies and the hegemonic discourse on homeownership attracts supporters across Europe, have been quite painful to deal with. The methods and their militancy have varied over time and contexts, and tenants’ initial struggles generally used direct action as a tactic in the form of rent strikes, squatting, blockades and other methods ‘borrowed’ from the labour movement at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century (see for instance Huron and Gray 2019). Militancy increased in the 1960s–1970s as a result of the radicalization of social movements all over Europe, and the development of urban squatting played an important role here (Bucholz 2016; Martínez López 2020a; Squatting Europe Kollective 2013). More recently there has been a surge in tenants’ struggles of a more radical character post-2008, with the growth of the Occupy movement worldwide, the wave of squatting across Europe in 2007–2008, and tenants’ protests against the many foreclosures that followed the financial crisis. This has been accompanied by heavy repression of such activism: legal repression through squatting bans in the ‘last resorts’ of squatting in Europe, i.e. the Netherlands in 2010 and UK in 2012, as well as the discursive repression of tenants’ collective struggles

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  101

in the widespread neoliberal rhetoric of individualization, along with softer tactics of co-option and legalization of radical actors, actions and claims. The development of tenants’ movements over time has followed cycles that have combined long-term and urgent goals and whose visibility has varied over time (Madden and Marcuse 2016: 147), where visibility has been dependent on media and research practices that tend to focus on the most spectacular and visible forms of activism. Two initiatives have succeeded in scaling up the collective struggles of tenants and have carried out long-term structural work on tenants’ issues by forming a European coalition. The first is the International Union of Tenants (IUT) founded in Switzerland in 1926 and, at the time of writing, representing 72 tenants’ organizations in 47 countries. The second is the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City (EAC) founded in 2013 and comprising 30 activist groups from 20 European countries. Although both organizations stress that housing is a human right and fight for the right of everyone to good, affordable housing, they differ in the institutionalization level of their members, organizational structure, and action repertoires used by these members. IUT is an institutional actor that represents established civil society organizations, while EAC unites grassroots groups, squatters, indebted residents, homelessness organizations, professionals and researchers as its member base (Bonfert 2021). Tenants’ activism across Europe is not limited to the institutionalized organization of IUT and its member organizations but is also expressed in the activity of activist groups organized within EAC and beyond. In terms of representation, the EAC also represents to a greater degree the interests of migrants and groups excluded from the housing market, while the IUT represents the interests of tenants organized in formal associations. EAC focuses on the right to the city along with the right to housing, and raises issues that are important for the quality of life of excluded groups: access to public transport, access to public spaces and meeting spaces, fighting discrimination, and so on. EAC is a transnational coalition based on a horizontal structure that is more “pluralistic and decentralized” compared to other forms of coalitions (Bonfort 2021: 524). While both organizations target housing inequalities and the rights of tenants, their methods, organizational structures, adversaries, definitions of tenants and resources differ. The long-term goal of good quality, affordable housing for all, on the other hand, is the same. Housing policy in Europe has shifted since at least the 1980s, and definitely since the 1990s (in for instance the post-socialist part of Europe) towards promoting markets and homeownership and the dismantling of the welfare state, and lately also austerity politics. Housing has become financialized in the wake of globalization and has become a financial asset, while the notion of housing as a social good has been abandoned (Aalbers 2016; Rolnik 2019). Moreover, as multiple economic and political crises have unfolded in the last two decades – migration, pandemic, climate, etc. – housing activists have increasingly raised the issues of social and climate justice and dignity (Madden and Marcuse 2016; Lima 2021a; Listerborn et al. 2020). These global changes, although not identical, but similar in many countries, have impacted the way that tenants mobilize, what demands they raise, what methods are used and

102  Handbook on urban social movements

what collective identities they call upon. Contemporary tenants’ movements face a powerful hegemony, that of the market, often combined with housing insecurity, individualization and responsibilization of tenants’ conditions and ‘choices’ that affect the ways in which an alternative vision of society can be imagined in which housing is affordable, of good quality, stable and secure. Moreover, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has manifested in new forms of organizing among tenants: “anti-eviction campaigns, new ways of organizing protests, and the creation/expansion of solidarity networks and new alternative futures” (Lima 2021a: 2; see also Accornero et al. 2020) along with new connections and coalitions between different movements (Florea et al. 2021; Martínez López 2020b) in which grassroots organizing has stood at the fore. Previous studies of tenants’ movements, of the past and the present, are presented in the next section, which traces the central questions of this chapter: how tenants organize, what continuities there are, and what blind spots researchers in the field have identified.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TENANTS’ STRUGGLES: THE STATE OF THE ART The body of literature on tenants’ struggles is still limited. Previous research tends to have its focus on the North American context (Dreier 1984; Fogelson 2013; Gold 2014; Heskins 1983; Huron 2018; Katz and Mayer 1985; Lind and Stepan-Norris 2011; Madden and Marcuse 2016; Mironova 2019) and Anglo-Saxon context of Europe, in which England, Scotland and Ireland (Bradley 2014; Englander 1983; Gray 2018a; Lima 2021b; Melling 1983; Wilde 2019) dominate, but there are also several studies covering Germany, Austria and France (Bullock and Read 1985; Führer 2000; von Saldern 1990), Italy (Grazioli and Caciagli 2018; Gray 2018c) and Spain (Castells 1983; di Feliciantonio 2017; Flesher Fominaya 2015; Martínez López 2019). It is worth noting the proliferation of historical studies of tenants’ struggles, regardless of geographical location, and the large number of publications by movement historians. I have argued in previous works (Polanska 2020; Polanska et al. 2021) that, due to their often low-key character, tenants’ mobilizations stand in the shadow of more spectacular forms of urban activism, such as squatting or right-to-the-city mobilizations. This is also evident in a comparison of the number of studies written with a specific focus on tenants’ mobilizations and the body of literature on squatting or right-to-the-city activism. Within Europe, less has been written on tenants’ mobilizations in the North European (Gustafsson et al. 2019; Polanska and Richard 2019, 2021; Thörn 2020) and Central and Eastern European contexts (Domaradzka and Wijkström 2019; Florea et al. 2018, 2021; Jezierska and Polanska 2018; Polanska 2017). Although housing models in the Scandinavian countries often serve as role models in housing studies, and tenants’ mobilizations in these countries are described as strong (Bengtsson 1992; Bradley 2014; Sørvoll and Bengtsson 2018) these movements have been unevenly

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  103

researched. The list of references presented here is not complete either, since many more studies than mentioned have been published in local languages, not always accessible to international readers. Several important contributions to knowledge of tenants’ collective action worldwide have been published in the newly founded open-access Radical Housing Journal. An important contribution on the issue of tenants’ organizing was published in 2021 (Polanska et al. 2021) consisting of pieces written by researchers and activists depicting historical and present-day developments in tenants’ mobilizations in various geographical contexts, that is Italy, Spain, Sweden, Canada, US, and Argentina. The editors of the issue argued that research produced in close cooperation with tenants is still quite sporadic, encouraging more collaborative approaches to the field. An interesting reflection on the contemporary forms of tenants’ struggles is made in the issue, noting their implicit or explicit anti-capitalist agenda, and the involvement of migrants and women in these struggles, a feature unsatisfactorily covered by previous studies (Feldmann and Stall 2004; Gold 2014; Madden and Marcuse 2016). In addition, tenants’ struggles in the Global South have received even less academic attention (with some exceptions comparing the Global North and Global South in Brickell et al. 2017; Pasotti 2020; and Reyes et al. 2021), although studies of urban dwellers resisting displacement and the resistance among squatting communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America have been growing in number for some time now (Corr 1999; Chatterjee 2014; Ngwane et al. 2017; Yip et al. 2019). Above all, studies of tenants’ movements and mobilizations have focused on national contexts, due to the context-based character of housing systems and tenants’ mobilizations, and few have attempted to present international comparisons. Moreover, there are many more historical studies of militant tenants’ struggles than there are studies of more recent forms of tenants’ mobilizations, and in comparison with the interest in studies on labour movements, research on tenants’ movements still seems under-developed (cf. Gray 2018b: xvii). Existing research has departed from either the Marxist perspective, being primarily interested in class struggles, or the social movement perspective, neglecting the field of housing as an important part of past and present collective struggles (cf. Damer 2018). The significance of tenants’ movements and mobilizations for the establishment and development of public housing provision and the strengthening of tenants’ rights within different housing systems were recognized quite late by social movement researchers (Castells 1983; Pickvance 2001; Reick 2020). As neoliberalization advances worldwide, housing becomes increasingly financialized (Aalbers 2016), public housing dwindles, homelessness and housing inequalities grow, and tenants’ rights come under attack, there is an urgent need for studies that document, analyse and make visible the collective action of tenants for the right to good quality housing for all, regardless of purchasing power. A volume on rent struggles and tenants’ organizing edited by Neil Gray (2018a) stresses the fundamental role of protests and tenants’ struggles for the establishment of public housing provision and rent controls in Britain and Ireland, and emphasizes

104  Handbook on urban social movements

the continuity of these struggles over time and the central role of housing in today’s capital accumulation. The somewhat narrow focus of past research on labour movements and the emphasis of these movements on workplace struggles, overshadowing the role of housing and its potential for change, are discussed in Gray’s volume. By tracing the continuities in tenants’ collective struggles, we can make visible hidden forms of tenants’ activism that have contributed to progressive changes in the past and hold the potential of initiating change in the present. Similar critique of the inclination of researchers to connect housing struggles with class struggles, or to define the tenants’ movement as an expression of or secondary to working-class struggles, was raised in the study of the English tenants’ movement by Quintin Bradley (2014). Intraclass divisions and the growth of working-class ownership in modern-day England did not fit that picture and researchers remained uninterested in or blind to low-key everyday activism with less focus on explicit political demands, or to the collective action of tenants that centred on cooperation and participation. By emphasizing tenants’ militancy as an expression of class conflict and political potency, an artificial division has been created between this form and a more ‘institutionalized’ and ‘domesticated’ form of tenants’ collective action. Bradley instead proposes a social movement approach considering a variety of tenants’ collective action forms, with a special focus on collective identity that might not always be rooted in class identification, material, or consumer interests. A rather new strand of research has been developed in the past decade on the self-managed co-housing alternatives or ‘collaborative housing’ that tenants have undertaken in the last 50 years in Europe (Hagbert et al. 2020; Lang et al. 2020; Tummers 2016). Tenants’ collective struggles to establish non-profit cooperative housing have likewise received significant attention in the European history (Bengtsson 1992; Kohl 2015; Sørvoll and Bengtsson 2018) even if its trajectory from cooperative to commodified co-ownership in the past three decades has been evident in several European countries, including Britain, Sweden and Poland (Gray 2018a; de Lille 2016; Ruonavaara 2005). In the following section the Swedish tenants’ movement that developed from the early twentieth century until today is presented as an illustration of the variety of forms of organization used by tenants. As scholars have contributed to the artificial division between explicitly political collective action and more implicit low-key forms of tenants’ mobilizations, or institutionalized and non-institutionalized collective action, we will look at the development of the tenants’ movement in Sweden from a more inclusive perspective.

THE SWEDISH TENANTS’ MOVEMENT AS AN ILLUSTRATIVE CASE By the second half of the nineteenth century Sweden’s democratization process had begun and popular movements emerged in the country, raising questions of freedom, equality, civil rights, and improved living conditions, in which working and housing

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  105

conditions played an important role. Trade unions were formed in this period, and somewhat later tenants’ associations also emerged across the country to fight for better and more secure housing conditions. The Swedish tenants’ movement developed by the end of the nineteenth century and was formalized in local associations in the early twentieth century, building a national federation in 1923. The initial development of the movement was characterized by militant repertoires, including rent strikes, blockades and mass termination of contracts (Rolf 2020), a trajectory similar to the development of tenants’ movements and mobilizations in other Western European countries in this period. The mobilization of tenants was severely affected by the world wars in the first part of the twentieth century. Their collective efforts led to many successes in the post-war period: rent regulation, introduction of rent tribunals, the strengthening of tenants’ rights, security of tenure, the growth of the rental sector, the role of the Tenants’ Union as negotiator in the rent-setting system (from 1968), and extensive state support for housing construction until the 1970s. Although the existence of a social democratic welfare state and a strong labour movement in the country has been used to explain the strength and achievements of the tenants’ movement in the twentieth century, this explanation is no longer valid in understanding the movement of today. The social democratic tradition has been broken and the labour movement has been weakened, institutionalized and professionalized, along with the largest organization for tenants in Sweden – the Tenants’ Union. With the introduction of rent control in 1942 the activity of the movement shifted into more institutionalized forms of action, increasingly formalized in the Tenants’ Union. In the following decades the Union encountered growing demands for representation in rent tribunals and rent councils, expertise in governmental investigations and economic and legal issues, and general professionalization (Hultén 1973; Rolf 2020; Wredberg 1987). As in other European cases, the Union was organized according to a model common in the organization of trade unions. The process of institutionalization within the Tenants’ Union was later accompanied by the introduction of a new and unique rent-setting system that provided the Union with an important role in the negotiation of rents in Sweden and led to a peak in the number of members and increased influence in the 1970s–1990s (Rolf 2020: 17). The Union underwent reorganization, centralization and streamlining processes in the decades following the 1950s and was accused of losing contact with the grassroots (Schönbeck 1994: 328). These changes within the Union were internally contested and new associations not related to the Union emerged, but could never compete for the formal power that the Tenants’ Union held. With the radicalization of social movements in the 1960s and 1970s the Tenants’ Union was ‘revitalized’ by an influx of members with contentious demands and non-traditional repertoires (Stahre 1999: 328). This led to renewed internal negotiations of priorities that emphasized the role of a capable negotiator and resulted in the exclusion of contentious repertoires, radical members and confrontational methods within the Union (Stahre 1999; Wredberg 1987: 139). Although historical material on the development of the Tenants’ Union mentions other associations and groups organizing tenants outside of

106  Handbook on urban social movements

the Union, tenants’ activism and the process of consolidation and professionalization of the Tenants’ Union is still a blind spot in research. It is worth mentioning women’s involvement in the early history of the Tenants’ Union, even if most formal positions at national, regional, and local levels were occupied by men (Rolf 2020). In the 1990s and early 2000s the Union went through a process of streamlining and reorganization, putting emphasis on the role of the Union in negotiations and opinion formation in housing policy (Ek 2006) and consolidating the role of the Union as a service organization. Since 2000, the Union has been led by female presidents. However, the representativity regarding age, ethnic background, and gender among elected members of the Union has been criticized (Adenji 2019) and recent scandals in the national media on sexist and racist behaviours have shaken the Union internally (GP 2021). The first two decades of the 2000s have witnessed intensified tenants’ activism as a result of the escalation of market-oriented housing policies and the dismantling of the welfare state in the country. Women have stood at the forefront of this kind of activism, and in recent years groups with migrant backgrounds have been active in fighting evictions, renovictions and displacement. In similarity with the Irish context this kind of activism consisted of horizontal network structures, direct actions, capacity building among local communities and the formulation of a counter-narrative (Hearne et al. 2018: 161; Lima 2021b). Associations with local and national outreach have been emerging, especially in Gothenburg, but also in Stockholm, Uppsala, and Malmö. Issues of territorial stigmatization and urban justice, in response to growing segregation and regeneration programmes in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, have been combined in the activism of youth living in Swedish suburbs with large proportions of residents with migrant backgrounds (Ålund et al. 2017). Issues that have been brought forward by this kind of tenants’ activism in the last two decades are: protests against conversions of public housing, privatization of public property, displacement through renovation/renovictions, poor maintenance/ disinvestment in rental housing, and lately against proposals to introduce market rents (Gustafsson et al. 2019; Listerborn et al. 2020; Polanska and Richard 2021) all embedded in a context of increasing urban and housing inequalities. Since 2014, a conference for housing activists, Bostadsvrålet, has been held annually (with financial help from the Tenants’ Union but organized autonomously by activists and associations). Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, stands out as an example of tenants’ activism organized in parallel with the Tenants’ Union. For instance, the association Alla Ska Kunna Bo Kvar (Everybody Should Stay Put, founded in 2015) works to stop renovictions, while the 18 aprilkommittén (18 April Committee, founded in 2019) aims to oppose the imposition of market rents in new housing. In 2021, local groups scaled up the campaign Nej till marknadshyra (No to market rent), connecting different locations across Sweden through their work. The organizations of Allt åt Alla (represented in various Swedish cities since 2009), Rättvisepartiet socialisterna (formed as a political party and active since 1973) and Ort till Ort (autonomous, represented mainly in Stockholm since 2015) have contributed considerably to raising issues of renovictions, housing conditions in private

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  107

rental housing, and tenure security for migrant groups. These groups have mainly been involved in direct actions such as squatting, occupations, tent actions, visits to municipal council meetings, visits to local politicians, along with more traditional methods such as organizing panel discussions, demonstrations, mapping and writing of reports, awareness raising, providing legal advice and collecting signatures. The Tenants’ Union has also carried out campaigns and debated renovictions and market rents in the media during this period, but the target of these campaigns has more often been public debate on housing policy rather than grassroots organizing. In conceptualizing the tenants’ movement in Sweden, it is disadvantageous to view the movement in terms of either or, as either institutionalized or not, or as either contentious or service-oriented, but to grasp it in its complexity as both. Tenants can be involved in both types of activities, and their combination can be quite fruitful in merging the necessary material resources with contentious claims (Polanska and Richard 2021). Tenants can be engaged in institutionalized tenants’ organizations and at the same time involved in more activist organizations practising direct action. These forms of activism are not mutually exclusive; sometimes they can stand in opposition (Cox 2018), but they can also be strategically used by activists to pursue similar issues, of affordable housing, tenure security and good housing quality, nonetheless through different methods, organizing at different levels, having long-term or short-term effects, and reaching partly different publics (Hearne et al. 2018).

CONCLUSIONS: HOW TO UNDERSTAND PRESENT FORMS OF TENANTS’ ACTIVISM Scholars studying urban mobilizations have emphasized the impact of structural and political factors at the local level, and the form of “variegated neoliberalism” (Brenner et al. 2012). If neoliberalization is viewed as a process “of market-oriented regulatory restructuring” (Mayer 2016: 59) taking forms that are context-specific, the way that movements respond to these processes will also vary. There are, also, many similarities between local contexts in how neoliberal policy has been applied in countries all over Europe since the 1980s in policies promoting growth, entrepreneurial forms of governance, privatization of public services and infrastructure (Mayer 2016), including government-led restructuring and gentrification of poor neighbourhoods (Uitermark et al. 2007). But apart from the economic crises that neoliberalism has created locally, the shrinking of democracy across Europe and the growth of right-wing populism in the past decade have revealed other forms of repression identified by tenants. It is the collective responses of tenants to these, and how they have developed over time, that have been in focus here. If we conceptualize the activity of social movements from a non-normative and non-dichotomous perspective and focus on the practices and processes that characterize such activity, and less on the form, we gain a fuller perspective on the variety and complexity of collective action and ways of organizing with a common goal. Social movement actors can be organized in non-governmental organizations,

108  Handbook on urban social movements

or more informal grassroots initiatives (Polanska and Chimiak 2016), formalized and institutionalized forms, or engaged in loose horizontal networks. They can be involved in contentious forms of collective action and, at the same time, provide services and self-help to distinct groups based on solidarity and mutual aid. Often, their practices include a variety of forms that are interrelated and bear the potential of transforming into other forms of social activism, and most importantly, they are not mutually exclusive. Tenants have used different repertoires in their protests and organizing, some recurring over time and some not. A general tendency at the beginning of the twentieth century was the use of rent strikes, blockades and direct actions, and the transformation to more ‘traditional’ tools of organizing in associations, creating self-help and community groups, arranging public meetings and demonstrations, and lobbying and spreading their message to the public through the media. Certainly, some of the repertoires that build on direct action have returned during the long history of tenant organizing and especially during the post-2008 economic crisis and the crisis created by the Covid pandemic. The Covid crisis exposed inequalities in housing across the globe and spurred local grassroots initiatives of mutual help in grocery shopping, medical help, and assistance, along with resistance to evictions and fighting for the right to stay put. Most importantly, a shift towards more informal grassroots organizing can be discerned in the later development of tenants’ movements, along with scaling up and transnational attempts at building coalitions, but at the same time safeguarding the horizontal model of organization and a tolerance and awareness of (local, national, ethnic, cultural, etc.) differences and the intersections of various forms of oppression (racism, sexism, heterosexism, ableism, etc.). These grassroots mobilizations have not necessarily been based in class identification (cf. Bradley 2014), and the precarization and weakening of the labour movements, previously intimately connected to the tenants’ movements in Europe, have played an important role in this development. Women, youth and migrants have been involved in these mobilizations, and in the creation of counter-narratives to the processes of segregation, territorial stigmatization and growing social inequalities, demanding decent living conditions, social and urban justice and dignity. Digital forms of activism have facilitated mobilization and attempts to scale up from the local level, especially during the pandemic. Tenants have historically been involved in demanding access, quality, and maintenance of housing. Since the 1990s, tenants’ mobilizations have increasingly demanded the right to the city and the right to participate in urban governance, but also fought for improvements in quality of life in specific communities, or simply against displacement and urban development plans that threaten the well-being of local residents. Recent forms of tenants’ activism across Europe are quite diverse and complex. The field is heterogeneous (Mayer 2016: 73) as institutionalized unions, local initiatives, associations and campaigns are all struggling to scale up and form long-lasting coalitions in a context where, “For the oppressed, housing is always in crisis” (Madden and Marcuse 2016: 10). The diversification and broadening of tenants’ struggles are necessary in pushing for a more equal, inclusive and just

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  109

housing system, where rental housing plays an important role and where diverse forms of activism can politicize the position of tenants and facilitate the creation of tenants as political subjects (cf. Wilde 2019). In a context where tenants experience difficulties in creating a stable home, and their actions tend to turn to short-term and individual solutions, the need for a collective subject formation engaging in long-term structural political change is critical (Byrne 2018). Lastly, in order to fully grasp the contemporary struggles of tenants, we need to focus on the continuities these struggles have with the past, to make visible women’s and migrants’ engagement in this kind of activism, stretch our gaze beyond the national context to see alliances, inspirations and connections to other movements and across contexts, and acknowledge these movements’ heterogeneous and anti-capitalist character in a landscape characterized by growing urban and housing inequalities.

NOTE 1. The author would like to thank Formas (grant no. 2018-00191) and The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (grant no. 22-GP-0001) for their financial support.

REFERENCES Aalbers, M. B. (2016). The Financialization of Housing: A Political Economy Approach. New York: Routledge. Accornero, G., Harb, M., Magalhães, A. F., Santos, F. G., Semi, G., Stein, S., and Tulumello, S. (2020). ‘Stay home without a home: Report from a webinar on the right to housing in Covid-19 lockdown times’. Radical Housing Journal, 2(1): 197–220. Adenji, A. (2019). En folkrörelse för alla? En rapport om representativitet, normer och mångfaldsstrategier i Hyresgästföreningen. Stockholm: Hyresgästföreningen. Ålund, A., Schierup, C. U., and Kings, L. (2017). ‘Home-making: Youth and urban unrest in multiethnic Sweden’. In J. Lloyd and E. Vasta (eds.), Reimagining Home in the 21st Century. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 135–149. Bengtsson, B. (1992). ‘Not the middle way but both ways – cooperative housing in Sweden’. In L. J. Lundqvist (ed.), Policy, Organization, Tenure: A Comparative History of Housing in Small Welfare States. Scandinavian Housing & Planning Research, pp. 87–104. Bonfert, B. (2021). ‘The real power must be in the base: Decentralised collective intellectual leadership in the European Action Coalition for the Right to Housing and to the City’. Capital & Class, 45(4): 523–542. Bradley, Q. (2014). The Tenants’ Movement. New York: Routledge. Brenner, N., Marcuse, P., and Mayer, M. (2012). Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City. London and New York: Routledge. Brickell, K., Arrigoitia, M. F., and Vasudevan, A. (2017), Geographies of Forced Eviction: Dispossession, Violence, Resistance. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Bucholz, T. (2016). Struggling for Recognition and Affordable Housing in Amsterdam and Hamburg: Resignation, Resistance, Relocation. Groningen: University of Groningen.

110  Handbook on urban social movements

Bullock, N. and Read, J. (1985). The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France 1840–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Byrne, M. (2018). ‘Tenant self-organization after the Irish crisis: The Dublin Tenants Association’, in N. Gray (ed.), Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 85–100. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots. London: Edward Arnold. Chatterjee, I. (2014). Displacement, Revolution, and the New Urban Condition: Theories and Case Studies. New Delhi: Sage. Cociña, C., Thörn, C., Palmer, J. S., Ferreri, M., and García-Lamarca, M. (2019). ‘Interrogating structures, struggles and subjectivities of rent’. Radical Housing Journal, 1(2): 1–7. Corr, A. (1999). No Trespassing! Squatting, Rent Strikes, and Land Struggles Worldwide. Cambridge, MA: Southend Press. Cox, T. (2018). ‘“Oary” Dundee and working-class self-organization in the 1915 rent strike’. In N. Gray (ed.), Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 33–48. Damer, S. (2018). ‘Preface: Housing and direct action’. In N. Gray (ed.), Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. xiii–xvi. de Lille, L. C. (2016). ‘Housing cooperatives in Poland. The origins of a deadlock’. In L. Tummers (ed.), The Re-emergence of Co-housing in Europe. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 17–31. di Feliciantonio, C. (2017). ‘Social movements and alternative housing models: Practicing the “politics of possibilities” in Spain’. Housing, Theory and Society, 34(1): 38–56. Domaradzka, A. and Wijkström, F. (2019). ‘Urban challengers weaving their networks: Between the “right to housing” and the “right to the city”’. Housing Studies, 34(10): 1612–1634. Dreier, P. (1984). ‘The tenants’ movement in the United States’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 8(2): 255–278. EAC website. https://​housingnotprofit​.org/​. Ek, A. (2006). Att konstruera en uppslutning kring den enda vägen. Huddinge: Södertörn University. Englander, D. (1983). Landlord and Tenant in Urban Britain 1838–1918. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Eurostat (2021). Living Conditions in Europe – Housing. https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​eurostat/​statistics​ -explained/​index​.php​?title​=​Living​_conditions​_in​_Europe​_​-​_housing​#Housing​_conditions. Feldman, R. and Stall, S. (2004). The Dignity of Resistance: Women Residents’ Activism in Chicago Public Housing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flesher Fominaya, C. (2015). ‘Redefining the crisis/redefining democracy: Mobilising for the right to housing in Spain’s PAH movement’. South European Society and Politics, 20(4): 465–485. Florea, I., Gagyi, A., and Jacobsson, K. (2018). ‘A field of contention: Evidence from housing struggles in Bucharest and Budapest’. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29: 712–724. Florea, I., Gagyi, A., and Jacobsson, K. (2021). ‘Antagonisms and solidarities in housing movements in Bucharest and Budapest’. In M. Ege and J. Moser (eds.), Urban Ethics. New York: Routledge, pp. 180–195. Fogelson, R. M. (2013). The Great Rent Wars: New York, 1917–1929. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Führer, K. C. (2000). Deutsche Mieterbewegung: Von der Kaiserzeit bis zum Ende des 20.s. Jahrhunderts. Köln: Deutscher Mieterbund.

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  111

Glynn, S. (2018). ‘“Only alternative municipal housing”: Making the case for public housing then and now’. In N. Gray (ed.), Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 169–184. Gold, R. (2014). When Tenants Claimed the City. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. GP website. https://​www​.gp​.se/​ekonomi/​hela​-styrelsen​-i​-hyresg​%C3​%A4stf​%C3​%B6reningen​ -st​%C3​%A4ngs​-av​-efter​-rasistiska​-och​-sexistiska​-kommentarer​-1​.45773273. Gray, N. (ed.) (2018a). Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Gray, N. (2018b). ‘Introduction. Rent unrest: From the 1915 rent strikes to contemporary housing struggles’. In N. Gray (ed.), Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Gray, N. (2018c). ‘Beyond the right to the city: Territorial autogestion and the take over the city movement in 1970s Italy’. Antipode, 50(2): 319–339. Grazioli, M. and Caciagli, C. (2018). ‘Resisting the neoliberal urban fabric: Housing rights movements and the re-appropriation of the “right to the city” in Rome, Italy’. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29: 697–711. Gustafsson, J., Hellström, E., Richard, Å., and Springfeldt, S. (2019). ‘The right to stay put: Resistance and organizing in the wake of changing housing policies in Sweden’. Radical Housing Journal, 1(2): 191–200. Hagbert, P., Gutzon Larsen, H., Thörn, H., and Wasshede, C. (2020). Contemporary Co-housing in Europe. London and New York: Routledge. Hearne, R., O’Callaghan, C., di Feliciantonio, C., and Kitchin, R. (2018). ‘The relational articulation of housing crisis and activism in post-crash Dublin, Ireland’. In N. Gray (ed.), Rent and Its Discontents: A Century of Housing Struggle. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 153–168. Heskins, A. D. (1983). Tenants and the American Dream: Ideology and the Tenant Movement. New York: Praeger. Hultén, G. (1973). Kris i hyresfrågan. Uddevalla: Oktober. Huron, A. (2018). Tenant Organizing and Housing Cooperatives in Washington, D.C. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Huron, A. and Gray, N. (2019). ‘Tenant and resident militancy for housing justice: An exchange between Amanda Huron and Neil Gray’. Radical Housing Journal, 1(2): 153–166. IUT website. https://​www​.iut​.nu/​about​-iut/​. Jezierska, K. and Polanska, D. V. (2018). ‘Social movements seen as radical political actors: The case of Polish tenants’ movement’. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29: 683–696. Katz, S. and Mayer, M. (1985). ‘Gimme shelter: Self-help housing struggles within and against the state in New York City and West Berlin’. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 9(1): 15–47. Kettunen, H. and Ruonavaara, H. (2020). ‘Rent regulation in 21st century Europe: Comparative perspectives’. Housing Studies. doi:10.1080/02673037.2020.1769564. Kohl, S. (2015). ‘The power of institutional legacies: How nineteenth century housing associations shaped twentieth century housing regime differences between Germany and the United States’. European Journal of Sociology, 56(2): 271–306. Lang, R., Carriou, C., and Czischke, D. (2020). ‘Collaborative housing research (1990–2017): A systematic review and thematic analysis of the field’. Housing, Theory & Society, 37(1): 10–39. Leontidou, L. (2010). ‘Urban social movements in “weak” civil societies: The right to the city and cosmopolitan activism in Southern Europe’. Urban Studies, 47(6): 1179–1203. Lima, V. (2021a). Changing Repertoires of Housing Mobilisation: Struggles to Stay at Home During the Covid-19 Pandemic. Gothenburg: The Program on Governance and Local Development.

112  Handbook on urban social movements

Lima, V. (2021b). ‘From housing crisis to housing justice: Towards a radical right to a home’. Urban Studies. doi:10.1177/0042098021995128. Lind, B. and Stepan-Norris, J. (2011). ‘The relationality of movements: Movement and countermovement resources, infrastructure, and leadership in the Los Angeles tenants’ rights mobilization, 1976–1979’. The American Journal of Sociology, 116(5): 1564–1609. Listerborn, C., Molina, I., and Richard, Å. (2020). ‘Claiming the right to dignity: New organizations for housing justice in neoliberal Sweden’. Radical Housing Journal, 2(1): 119–137. Madden, D. and Marcuse, P. (2016). In Defense of Housing: The Politics of Crisis. London and New York: Verso Books. Martínez López, M. A. (2019). ‘Bitter wins or a long-distance race? Social and political outcomes of the Spanish housing movement’. Housing Studies, 34(10): 1588–1611. Martínez López, M. A. (2020a). Squatters in the Capitalist City. London and New York: Routledge. Martínez López, M. A. (2020b). ‘Mutating mobilisations during the pandemic crisis in Spain’. Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, 12(1): 15–21. Mayer, M. (2016). ‘Neoliberal urbanism and uprisings across Europe’. In M. Mayer, C. Thörn, and H. Thörn (eds.), Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 57–92. Melling, J. (1983). Rent Strikes: People’s Struggle for Housing in West Scotland 1890–1916. Edinburgh: Polygon. Mironova, O. (2019). ‘Defensive and expansionist struggles for housing justice: 120 years of community rights in New York City’. Radical Housing Journal, 1(2): 135–152. Ngwane, T., Sinwell, L., and Ness, I. (2017). Urban Revolt: State Power and the Rise of People’s Movements in the Global South. Johannesburg: Wits University Press. Pasotti, E. (2020). Resisting Redevelopment: Protest in Aspiring Global Cities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pickvance, C. (2001). ‘Inaction, individual action and collective action as responses to housing dissatisfaction: A comparative study of Budapest and Moscow’. In P. G. Coy (ed.), Political Opportunities, Social Movements, and Democratization. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing, pp. 179–206. Polanska, D. V. (2017). ‘Marginalizing discourses and activists’ strategies in collective identity formation: The case of Polish tenants’ movement’. In K. Jacobsson and E. Korolczuk (eds.), Civil Society Revisited: Lessons from Poland. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 176–199. Polanska, D. V. (2020). ‘Going against institutionalization: New forms of urban activism in Poland’. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(2): 176–187. Polanska, D. V. and Chimiak, G. (2016). ‘Organizing without organizations: On informal social activism in Poland’. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 36(9–10): 662–679. Polanska, D. V. and Richard, Å. (2019). ‘Narratives of a fractured trust in the Swedish model: Tenants’ emotions of renovation’. Culture Unbound, 11(1): 141–164. Polanska, D. V. and Richard, Å. (2021). ‘Resisting renovictions: Tenants organizing against housing companies’ renewal practices in Sweden’. Radical Housing Journal, 3(1): 187–205. Polanska, D. V., Rolf, H., and Springfeldt, S. (2021). ‘Tenants organizing: Precarization and resistance’. Radical Housing Journal, 3(1): 121–129. Reick, P. (2020). ‘Toward a history of social movements’. Moving the Social, 63: 147–162. Reyes, A. et al. (2021). ‘Tenant organizing, scholar activism, and global south perspectives as alternative infrastructures of knowledge production’. Radical Housing Journal, 3(1): 1–10. Rolf, H. (2020). En fackförening för hemmen. Kollektiv mobilisering, hyresgästorganisering och maktkamp på hyresmarknaden i Stockholm och Göteborg 1875–1942. Stockholm: Ersta Sköndal Bräcke University College.

Tenants’ movements in Europe: from working-class struggles to marginalization  113

Rolnik, R. (2019). Urban Warfare: Housing Under the Empire of Finance. London and New York: Verso. Ruonavaara, H. (2005). ‘How divergent housing institutions evolve: A comparison of Swedish tenant co-operatives and Finnish shareholders’ housing companies’. Housing, Theory & Society, 22(4): 213–236. Schönbeck, B. (1994). Stad i förvandling. Stockholm: Byggforskningsrådet. Sørvoll, J. and Bengtsson, B. (2018). ‘The Pyrrhic victory of civil society housing? Co-operative housing in Sweden and Norway’. International Journal of Housing Policy, 18(1): 124–142. Squatting Europe Kollective (2013). Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. New York: Minor Compositions. Stahre, U. (1999). Den alternativa staden. Stockholm: Stockholmia Förlag. Therborn, G. (2013). The Killing Fields of Inequality. Cambridge: Polity Press. Thörn, C. (2020). ‘“We’re not moving”: Solidarity and collective housing struggle in a changing Sweden’. In J. Krase and J. DeSena (eds.), Gentrification around the World, Vol. I. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 175–196. Tummers, L. (ed.) (2016). The Re-emergence of Co-housing in Europe. London and New York: Routledge. Uitermark, J., Duyvendak, J. W., and Kleinhans, R. (2007). ‘Gentrification as governmental strategy: Social control and social cohesion in Hoogvliet Rotterdam’. Environment and Planning A, 39: 125–141. Von Saldern, A. (1990). ‘The workers’ movement and cultural patterns on urban housing estates and in rural settlements in Germany and Austria during the 1920s’. Social History, 15(3): 333–354. Wilde, M. (2019). ‘Resisting the rentier city: Grassroots housing activism and renter subjectivity in post-crisis London’. Radical Housing Journal, 1(2): 63–80. Wredberg, E. (1987). I kamp med nuet. Hyresgästföreningen i Stor-Stockholm 70 år. Stockholm: Hyresgästföreningen. Yip, N. M.. Martínez López, M. A., and Sun, X. (eds.) (2019). Contested Cities and Urban Activism. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan.

8. Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City Marcos Ancelovici and Montserrat Emperador Badimon

INTRODUCTION With the global financial crisis of 2008 (Martin and Niedt 2015), the intensification and spread of gentrification (Albet and Benach 2018; Lees et al. 2016), and the financialization of real estate (Rolnik 2019), housing insecurity and affordability have become central issues in the public debate in the Global North. Some authors speak of a “global capitalist phenomenon” (Soederberg 2018; Brickell et al. 2017; Baeten et al. 2021), whereas some international organizations mention a genuine “global crisis” (UN-Habitat 2011: VIII). Forced displacement and, more specifically, evictions are the most brutal manifestation of such phenomena. Despite temporary eviction moratoria adopted in several countries during the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the latter deepened this trend. As a result, ‘eviction studies’ have grown dramatically in the last ten years and today one can no longer argue that “Eviction is perhaps the most understudied process affecting the lives of the urban poor” (Desmond 2012: 89).1 However, the study of evictions often alternates between, on the one hand, macro-level structural analysis stressing market forces, urban planning, and public policy, and, on the other hand, micro-level individual analysis looking closely at interactions as well as residential choices and trajectories. Even though “evictions are also collective events that impact whole neighborhoods and communities” (Weinstein 2021: 13), the collective dimension is often neglected and “few studies in this area touch on questions of collective action at all” (Weinstein 2021: 15). There is thus a growing number of studies of eviction processes, but few studies of mobilization dynamics against this pernicious social problem (for an exception, see Pasotti 2020). While the urban studies and geography literatures do sometimes analyse opposition to evictions and displacement, they often boil down this opposition to instances of ‘resistance’ (see Annunziata and Rivas 2018; Brickell et al. 2017; González 2016; Lees et al. 2018; Newman and Wyly 2006). According to Brown-Saracino (2016: 223), “systematic examination of these acts of resistance remains limited, with more attention devoted to sentiments of resistance than to protests and organizing”. Similarly, as Lees et al. (2018: 347) point out: “Urban scholars have sought to conceptualize the right to the city … but they have spent less energy on conceptualizing the actual fight to stay put in the face of gentrification”. Hence Brown-Saracino’s call 114

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  115

“for the application of a social movements framework to this sphere of gentrification studies” (2016: 223). This chapter answers this call. It will first draw a general picture of evictions as a social problem and outline the main characteristics of anti-eviction mobilizations. It will then present the repertoire of action of anti-eviction mobilizations with examples from recent campaigns and struggles in Montreal, New York City, and Barcelona.

EVICTIONS, OPPORTUNITIES, AND REPERTOIRES In its most basic understanding, an eviction refers to “the act of expelling tenants from rental property” (Soederberg 2018: 286). This act is the outcome of a very codified legal process that begins with the landlord terminating the tenancy of the property and then filing a lawsuit to have the tenant evicted. It requires a judge to make an order and a person empowered by the court, sometimes with the help of the police, to enforce said order. Although the reality and experience of this process vary across institutional contexts (even within a single country like the United States2), without these steps, there is no eviction in the strict sense. However, some scholars challenge such restrictive use of the category ‘eviction’ and point out that tenants can be expelled from their home without going through the entire legal process of eviction (Hartman and Robinson 2003: 463). Others stress that the threat of eviction is actually way more prevalent than evictions as such3 and that, although it does not necessarily lead to displacement, it constitutes a critical factor exacerbating financial and housing precarity and can even become an ordinary instrument of property management (Leung et al. 2021: 317; see also Garboden and Rosen 2019). Brickell et al. (2017: 1) go even further and use the definition proposed by Amnesty International, namely, “when people are forced out of their homes and off their land against their will, with little notice or none at all, often with the threat or use of violence”. Here, tenants are no longer the only category considered and evictions can affect small landowners or homeowners as well, as it has happened in Spain and the United States since the 2008 financial crisis for example (foreclosures should thus be included in the study of evictions; see Martin and Niedt 2015). Such perspectives entail looking beyond the formal, terminal step of the eviction process and taking into account a broader range of events and phenomena. Although they face many problems in terms of data gathering because of the informality they attempt to grasp (Hartman and Robinson 2003: 466), they have the merit of emphasizing the fact that evictions are not static or even discrete events but processes. Some prefer thus to talk of evicting rather than eviction (Baker 2021; Garboden and Rosen 2019). Once we think of evictions in terms of legal and extra-legal processes, it becomes obvious that they involve a chain of decisions and events unfolding over time and that, therefore, tenants and activists can intervene at different moments and in different ways to try to stop the eviction process. They can intervene upstream, by providing information and accompanying people facing an eviction. This stage can involve providing legal assistance in housing court. They can also use disruptive

116  Handbook on urban social movements

tactics to put pressure on powerholders – sometimes small landlords, but above all corporate landlords, banks, hedge funds, and public authorities – to either negotiate a compromise or gain more time to find a viable housing alternative for the people affected. They can also intervene downstream, when the eviction process is ending and the person is about to be physically expelled from their home, and engage in blockades and other forms of civil disobedience. And finally, they can act alongside, or after, the eviction process to find alternative accommodations (through squatting, for example) or campaign for reforms that would alter the institutional context. These different modes of action during the eviction process are conditioned by the institutional context and a corresponding structure of opportunities – that is, a set of unequally distributed pathways for action (Merton 1996)4 – as well as a repertoire of action – that is, a historically situated set of learned routines on which actors rely when they act collectively (Tilly 1995, 2008). These two conditioning factors – the institutional context and the repertoire of action – are closely intertwined insofar as the repertoire stems from the interaction between actors and the structure of opportunities over time. The more actors engage along a given pathway, the more they are socialized into using it, and the more they turn to it spontaneously when they need to make claims or achieve certain goals. Tactical innovations are rather rare and generally take place at the margins (Tilly 1995). As a result, in each institutional context, certain modes of action are taken for granted whereas others are ignored or ruled out. In this sense, repertoires of collective action both enable and constrain collective action and they are more context-specific than movement-specific. In the following sections, we outline some tactics and strategies of anti-eviction mobilizations in three different settings: Montreal, New York City, and Barcelona. Although these cities are by no means homogeneous and cannot be boiled down to a single mode of action or strategy (we can obviously find a diversity of tactics and strategies in each one), we focus on emblematic or prevailing tactics to contrast different logics at play in the struggle against evictions.

MONTREAL, BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL SERVICES AND THE COLLECTIVE DEFENCE OF RIGHTS Long considered an affordable renters’ city by North American standards, Montreal is the Canadian city with the greatest proportion of renters. In 2016, the latter made up 63.3 per cent of the population, compared to 47.2 per cent in Toronto, 53.1 per cent in Vancouver, 38.6 per cent in the province of Quebec, and 31.8 per cent in Canada.5 Although there are no exact data about the number of actual evictions – because many instances of forced displacement simply take place off the radar and are thus invisible – the Quebec Housing Court (Tribunal administratif du logement, TAL) collects data about eviction filings (which may end up, or not, in actual evictions). These data are thus approximative and should be considered the tip of the iceberg. According to Gallié (2016), each year the TAL receives between 30,000 and 50,000 eviction filings for unpaid rent or rent arrears in Quebec. Moreover, each year about

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  117

1 per cent of the tenant population of Quebec has to deal with either a repossession claim from the landlord (reprise de logement) or an eviction (Gallié et al. 2017). This trend seems to be deepening. According to the Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants Associations of Quebec (RCLALQ), which includes most tenant unions in the province, the number of tenants contacting housing committees because they are facing eviction threats increased by 46 per cent in 2021.6 Insofar as most renters in Quebec are concentrated in Montreal, we can assume that Montreal is more affected than other parts of the province. This pattern is closely associated with the growth cycle of the Montreal real estate market. According to Gaudreau et al. (2020), in Montreal the 2000–2020 period ended with a housing crisis illustrated by a very low vacancy rate as well as steep rent and sale price increases. To face this increase in rents, housing insecurity, and evictions, Montrealers can lean on a solid housing rights movement. In the city of Montreal, there are more than 15 active housing committees (comités logement) which were created in the 1970s and 1980s (Comité Logement Petite Patrie 2020). Initially created as part of civic struggles against urban development projects that had led to the destruction of thousands of housing units in several of the city’s working-class neighbourhoods in the 1960s and 1970s (see Bergeron-Gaudin forthcoming),7 housing committees obtained access to public funding in the 1980s and gradually institutionalized and professionalized. As a result, they partly lost their mobilization potential (Breault 2017). Although housing committees primarily organize at the neighbourhood level, they also participate in broader mobilizations at the city level and at the provincial level often led by two provincial-level coalitions: the Popular Action Front for Urban Redevelopment (Front d’action populaire en réaménagement urbain, FRAPRU), which focuses primarily on social housing, and the Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants Associations of Quebec (Regroupement des comités logement et des associations de locataires du Québec, RCLALQ), which focuses on tenants in the private rental market. Significant portions of housing committees’ resources are dedicated to providing individual assistance to tenants to help them deal with abusive landlords, rent hikes, or eviction threats. Paid staff members offer information, legal advice, and accompaniment. Insofar as Quebec civil law establishes the right of remain of tenants (maintien dans les lieux), the conditions under which a landlord can formally evict a tenant or significantly increase the rent are limited. In theory, if there are no major repairs and the tenant is in good standing, the risk of eviction is supposedly very low (unless the owner wants to repossess the unit for a family member). But this positive picture requires that housing law actually be enforced and that the city follows up on claims and contentious cases. Therefore, one of the central tasks of housing committees is to try and make sure that housing law and municipal regulations are respected. Rather than aiming at subverting institutions, housing committees rely on them and channel claims and discontent accordingly, working with the housing court and district-level authorities as much as possible. Alongside professionalized individual assistance, housing committees engage in the collective defence of rights (Breault 2017) through street demonstrations

118  Handbook on urban social movements

and protests. These protests do not aim at protecting individual tenants or stopping a specific eviction. Although they sometimes aim at preventing the eviction of an entire building which has been recently bought by a corporate landlord, most of the time these demonstrations and protests target the borough or district, that is, the local administrative division of the city (arrondissement). Borough-level authorities are targeted because the municipal governance system of Montreal is quite decentralized and several competencies are distributed between the City and borough councils. More specifically, some dispositions that regulate the conditions under which landlords can divide, extend, or reassign the use of their property are decided at the borough level and have a concrete impact on tenants’ likelihood of being evicted. Housing committees pressure boroughs to either block or slow down regulations that would facilitate such transactions and advocate for more stringent protections of the tenants’ right to remain. Therefore, the particular configuration of the structure of opportunities at the local level involves a pathway for action that housing committees keep using over time and toward which they turn almost mechanically. They adjust their privileged modes of action accordingly and rarely engage in transgressive contention. They essentially rely on a repertoire of contained contention, that is, which “takes place within a regime’s prescribed and tolerated forms of claim making, even if it pushes the limits” (Tilly and Tarrow 2015: 236). This repertoire has constraining effects. For example, in contrast to cities like Barcelona where, as we will see later on in this chapter, tenant unions mobilize to block evictions whether the tenant violated their lease or not, in Montreal housing committees assume that tenants in breach of their lease are unlikely to avoid eviction and, therefore, do not really invest resources in trying to stop it. Different pathways for action imply thus not only different repertoires but also different conceptions of what is worth fighting for. In addition to local protests targeting borough councils, housing committees organize city-level and provincial-level campaigns in favour of tenant rights, rent control, and social housing. These campaigns primarily aim at making housing issues more salient in the public debate and include street marches and occupations of vacant lots and buildings and sometimes also denounce real estate projects associated with gentrification (Guay and Megelas 2021). Although these occupations can occasionally last for a few days or weeks, as with the occupation of housing units on Overdale Avenue in 2001 or of a vacant lot in the Saint-Henri neighbourhood by the collective À qui la ville? (Whose City?) in 2013 (Saillant 2018), they are generally temporary, as in May 2017 when a march organized by the FRAPRU ended up occupying for a few hours an abandoned hospital in downtown Montreal to demand that it be transformed into social housing. These marches and occupations are rarely defensive in the sense that they do not try to block evictions. They are offensive in the sense that they aim essentially at securing new rights and demanding more investment in social housing as well as the development of new, better housing policies. The struggle against evictions and urban displacement is thus envisioned as a long-term policy goal. As a matter of fact, in 2020 the Montreal City Council voted a new municipal regulation known as right of first refusal (droit de préemption) that gives priority to the City over private interests to acquire buildings and lots for sale

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  119

in order to decommodify them and turn them into social or affordable housing. It also requires that new residential projects of 450 m2 (4,843 ft2) or more include at least 20 per cent of affordable housing units, 20 per cent of social housing units, and 20 per cent of family housing units (but real estate developers generally prefer to pay fines rather than comply, on grounds that abiding by such criteria would devalue the new properties). Although they have the potential to yield some benefits, these reforms have contributed to channelling even more the Montreal housing rights movement inside institutions.

COALITION-BUILDING AND THE EXPANSION OF RIGHTS IN NEW YORK CITY Although it is branded as the “Real Estate Capital of the World” by the city’s tourism agency (Angotti 2008: 6) and associated with images of high-end skyscrapers and real estate tycoons like Donald Trump, New York City is a city of renters. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, rentals represented between 66 per cent and 69 per cent of the city’s occupied housing units compared to approximately 36 per cent in the country.8 Whereas the proportion of renters is stable, the (average) percentage of household income spent on rent – what is commonly called the rent burden – has increased from 26.6 per cent in 2000 to 32.2 per cent in 2016.9 The rent burden is particularly heavy for low-income families. According to Angotti (2008: 47): “Most New Yorkers cannot afford even a fraction of the rents in the city’s upscale neighborhoods … About one-third of all households in the city are paying more than 50 per cent of their gross incomes for housing (which means 60 per cent or more of take-home pay)”. Such burden reflects both an increase in the cost of rent and a decline of real wages affecting working-class and middle-class families.10 The rent burden directly contributes to the nonpayment of rent and rent arrears, which constitute in turn the vast majority of eviction cases filed each year in the housing courts of New York City.11 According to the NYU Furman Center (2019: 10), in 2011 there were 200,809 cases filed in the city; by 2017, this number had slightly decreased to 176,590.12 Unsurprisingly, the majority of filings concerned the poorest neighbourhoods of the city where racial minorities are concentrated, particularly southwest Bronx and, to a lower extent, central and eastern Brooklyn. Although the majority of cases filed do not result in executed warrants for eviction, they can still have tremendous negative effects on tenants, who may, for example, end up blacklisted. The New York City housing rights movement has a long tradition of fighting against such residential oppression. The tactics used in the past were quite contentious. In addition to street protests, they consisted in community-wide rent strikes, from the Lower East Side rent strike of 1904 to the Harlem rent strikes of 1958–1964 (Jackson 2006; Lawson 1983; Schwartz 1983). In the 1930s, they also included “unevictions”, in which tenant organizers “would move evicted tenants’ furniture back into their apartment and block marshals from taking it back out” (Mironova 2019: 141). In the 1970s, they took the form of large-scale squatting, as carried out

120  Handbook on urban social movements

in the Upper West Side, Morningside Heights, Chelsea, and the Lower East Side in 1970 with Operation Move-In, when activists close to the Metropolitan Council on Housing and the Young Lords moved low-income Black and Latino families into vacant buildings that the city was planning to destroy. This tactic is perhaps best summarized by Operation Move-In’s leader Bill Price, who claimed that the tenants’ most effective organizing tool was a crowbar (Gold 2009: 397). However, these days of transgressive contention seem long gone. Today, many housing groups receive public and/or private funding and have a formal nonprofit status. Although there are still many street protests, occasional sit-ins, and sporadic small-scale rent strikes, the main tactics and strategies are now contained within institutions and are led by large coalitions such as the national Right to the City Alliance, founded in 2007, and the New York State Housing Justice for All coalition, founded in 2017. But contained contention does not necessarily imply an absence of significant progress. As a matter of fact, the New York housing rights movement scored significant victories in the late 2010s, particularly the Right to Counsel (Intro 214-B), adopted by the New York City Council in August 2017, and the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act, adopted by the New York State Congress in June 2019. We now turn to the campaign that made the drive for the right to counsel – the first of its kind in the United States – successful. When New York City’s Housing Court was created in 1973, it was supposed to contribute to the enforcement of housing law in a fair and just manner. However, it soon became clear that the court worked in the interests of landlords partly because in New York City the great majority of landlords – between 90 and 97.6 per cent – were represented by lawyers in eviction proceedings whereas only a small proportion of tenants – between 11.9 and 15 per cent – did (Hartman and Robinson 2003: 477). This made a big difference, as “only 22 percent of represented tenants had final judgements against them, compared with 51 percent of tenants without legal representation” (Seron et al. 2001: 419). Ensuring the legal representation of tenants appeared thus as a relatively straightforward measure that could have a significant impact on eviction rates. In the 2000s, several voices spoke up in favour of a right to counsel in Housing Court, but it was only in 2012 that mobilization really started to pick up. In 2012, Southwest Bronx tenant organizers from the nonprofit Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) decided to launch a campaign to reform the Bronx Housing Court in order to bring down the strong eviction rate hurting the borough.13 Their first action was to produce, in partnership with the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center, a research report titled Tipping the Scales on the experience of the Housing Court from the standpoint of tenants (see RTCNYC 2013). The report pinpointed the dire experience of the approximately 2,000 individuals, mostly low-income people of colour, who go through the Bronx Housing Court every day and recommended to hold the Office of Court Administration (OCA) accountable and pass a city-wide legislation that would grant tenants a right to legal representation. Following the report, the OCA made slight improvements, such as offering better and bilingual information, but it was far from enough and CASA

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  121

continued to campaign. In March 2014, Democratic New York City Councilmembers Mark Levine (District 7, Northern Manhattan) and Vanessa Gibson (District 16, Southwest Bronx) introduced Intro-214 to make the City responsible for providing legal representation to low-income residents facing eviction. Although CASA welcomed this initiative, it also decided to form and lead a non-partisan, independent coalition with more than 25 tenant rights, community, and legal organizations that would advocate not only for increased funding for representation but also to establish a right to counsel (RTC). And thus was born the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition.14 Although between 2013 and 2016, New York City increased funding for tenant legal representation from $6 million to $62 million (Whitlow 2019: 1115), the coalition engaged in multiple and varied actions to advance Intro-214. First, it continued to produce information under a variety of formats, from a report to videos and toolkits for organizers. It also organized a series of town halls that attracted more than 500 participants as well as a forum at the New York Law School that drew over 450 people and high-profile figures like a Chief Judge and the NYC Human Resources Administration Commissioner. It developed a logistical plan to implement the RTC and gave presentations to community boards throughout the city, which resulted in community and borough boards passing resolutions in support of RTC. In addition, it collected close to 7,000 signatures for a petition in favour of RTC and held several press conferences and public hearings with a strong presence on social media. All these actions contributed to a strong media coverage and thus made the issue of RTC salient in the public debate. But the turning point was arguably the report commissioned by the New York City Bar Association in 2016, which concluded that the RTC “would not only pay for itself but also save the city an additional $320 million/ year” (RTCNYC 2017: 3). Henceforth, major players such as the New York Times started to endorse the RTC (see Cavadini 2020) and on 11 August 2017, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill Intro-214, making New York City the first jurisdiction in the United States to formally grant a right to counsel to low-income residents facing eviction. The central demand of the campaign as well as the strategy elaborated by the RTCNYC Coalition were directly shaped by the Housing Court system and the municipal institutional configuration. While evictions are far from disappearing and many problems persist, the passage of the RTC has had a significant impact. According to a report by TakeRoot Justice and RTCNYC (2022: 3), four years after the law passed, “more than 71 percent of tenants facing eviction have an attorney … and 84 percent of tenants who fight their case with a Right to Counsel attorney stay in their homes”. The right to counsel not only expands the range of options available to tenants but also fosters their confidence and power and, thereby, alters the power dynamics of the tenant–landlord relation. In this respect, it is worth pointing out that beyond individual benefits and an overall reduction in the number of evictions, the RTC campaign has strengthened the New York City housing rights movement by creating an organizational infrastructure that has survived the initial legislative campaign. The RTC campaign has made tenants more aware of their rights, created opportunities for them to get involved in multiple organizational spaces, contributed to making relatively marginal tactics – such as

122  Handbook on urban social movements

rent strikes, eviction tribunals, eviction blockades, and worst evictors lists – better known, and ultimately laid the basis for further networks, coalitions, and campaigns (TakeRoot Justice and RTCNYC 2022). The RTC campaign fostered the creation of social capital, that in turn shaped and sustained subsequent waves of mobilization. The work of the RTC NYC Coalition has thus continued and in 2020, it launched a new state-wide campaign – Housing Courts Must Change! (HCMC) – aiming at expanding RTC to the entire state of New York and stopping the “eviction machine”. The institutionalization of RTC is also illustrated in its diffusion to other cities in the United States: “Between 2017 and 2022, sixteen jurisdictions passed the right to counsel for tenants facing eviction” (Roumiantseva 2022: 1362). The experience of the New York City RTC campaign laid out a strategy and produced data for obtaining such reforms and showed that such right can be realistically implemented (Roumiantseva 2022: 1363). There is thus a learning and diffusion process that contributes to strengthening the housing rights movement at the national level and shapes its repertoire of action. Nonetheless, important challenges remain. For example, according to a report by CASA and NWBCCC (2019: 5), “more than half of tenants eligible for RTC had no awareness of their right to an attorney prior to the first court date. … It means that they spent weeks fearing eviction, not knowing their rights or options or that they would be defended in housing court”. Following up on the implementation of RTC, developing awareness campaigns, and pressuring the city for sufficient funding and resources to make it a reality is thus critical. The fight must go on.

THE ‘CONTENTIOUS TRIAD’ OF BARCELONA In contrast to Montreal and New York City, Barcelona, much like the rest of Spain, is primarily a city of homeowners. In 2011, 70 per cent of Barcelonan households owned their home whereas only 30 per cent rented it (similarly, in Spain in 2010, 80 per cent of households owned their home while 20 per cent rented it).15 But unfortunately, homeownership has not protected Barcelonans from the threat of evictions, particularly in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis and the burst of the housing bubble that had fed economic growth. Between 2008 and 2021, in Barcelona there were 103,739 executed eviction warrants.16 In 2021, there were 6,327 executed evictions, for an average of 24 evictions per day (counting only business days), of which 73.5 per cent involved tenants, 16 per cent indebted homeowners, and 10.5 per cent “precarious occupants”.17 To face such challenge, the manifold housing rights collectives of Barcelona converged in their use of what we call the ‘contentious triad’, namely, disruption, civil disobedience, and prefigurative action. In what follows, we first outline the housing rights movement in Barcelona and then lay out these three tactics. The city of Barcelona has a long tradition of housing struggles. Several episodes stand out, such as the mass rent strike of the 1930s (Aisa Pàmpols 2019), the local mobilizations to improve living conditions in working-class neighbourhoods in the

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  123

1970s and early 1980s (Castells 1983), and the squatters’ movement in the 1990s (Adell and Martínez 2004). One of the housing groups most active today – the Platform of Mortgages’ Victims (Plataforma de afectadas por la hipoteca, PAH) – was founded in Barcelona in 2009. As its name indicates, the PAH primarily defended indebted homeowners threatened with eviction. In just a few years, it expanded throughout the country, became the spinal cord of a renewed, inclusive, transversal, and mass housing rights movement, and managed to put the housing question at the center of the public debate (Ancelovici and Emperador Badimon 2021; Emperador Badimon 2022; Emperador Badimon and Ancelovici 2022). A few years later, the PAH was joined by another network of housing right collectives, but the latter were more focused on tenants’ rights or on the right to the city at the neighbourhood level. The Tenants’ Union (Sindicat de llogateres) was thus founded in Barcelona in 2017 (a similar union was founded in Madrid almost simultaneously) while multiple housing and neighbourhood unions (sindicatos de barrio) appeared in many working-class and middle-class districts of Barcelona (Lira and March 2023). None of these organizations – whether the PAH, the Tenants’ Union, or neighbourhood unions – benefit from direct public or private funding and they do not have full-time paid staff.18 The organizations that make up the Barcelona housing rights movement have developed a series of distinct medium and long-term tactics and strategies. On the one hand, the PAH and the Tenants’ Union clearly went for a protest strategy aiming at pressuring elected officials and public authorities into political bargaining to pass new housing laws defending the rights of tenants, indebted homeowners, and squatters. On the other hand, neighbourhood unions distrust institutional channels and favour the construction of autonomous ‘popular structures’ that would concretely address the everyday problems and needs of people who approach them (Comissió de formadores del moviment per l’habitatge de Catalunya 2021). Nonetheless, in spite of these strategic differences, all housing rights groups converge on the use of a ‘contentious triad’ to fight evictions. The first component of this triad refers to disruptive actions, which we define as actions that alter “the normal functioning of society and [are] antithetical to the interests of the group’s opponents” (McAdam 1999 [1982]: 30). These actions have multiple targets. In Barcelona, insofar as the housing rights movement re-emerged in the context of the burst of the housing bubble and initially primarily involved homeowners, banks with important real estate portfolios and which were bailed out during crisis have been the target of many modalities of disruption: quiet actions wherein activists pretend to be bank customers and ask for multiple time-consuming services that prevent desk clerks from attending routine operations; street protest in front of bank branches to denounce publicly the abuses committed against indebted homeowners or, sometimes, tenants; loud and festive bank occupations that can last several hours, until activists manage to meet with the branch manager to negotiate and reschedule the payment of the mortgage; etc. Disruptive actions have also targeted some actors in the real estate sector. For example, branches of global hedge funds like Blackstone and Norvet (García-Lamarca 2021) have been targeted by

124  Handbook on urban social movements

street protests and occupations. Finally, the housing rights movement has often targeted elected officials with escraches, that is, testimony protests in front of the office or private home of elected officials who refuse to stop evictions and support the demands of the movement.19 The goal of all these disruptive actions is to generate ‘negative inducements’, that is a situation that “disrupt[s] their opponent’s interest to such an extent that the cessation of the offending tactic becomes a sufficient inducement to grant concessions” (McAdam 1999 [1982]: 30). Thanks to the use of such disruptive tactics, the Barcelona housing rights movement has succeeded in stopping many eviction processes. The second component of the contentious triad is civil disobedience, which essentially takes the form of blockades to stop eviction warrants from being carried out. The steps to stop the execution of an eviction warrant were laid out by the PAH in 2011 and they have shaped the practices and tactics of other housing collectives. First, activists and supporters gather before dawn in front of the building where the eviction is supposed to take place to prevent the police, local court bailiffs, or the locksmith, from accessing the home. When bailiffs arrive to carry out the eviction – usually after several hours of waiting – activists try to negotiate with them the suspension of the warrant. If they fail and the bailiffs decide to go ahead with the help of the police, activists sit down together or make a human chain to try and block the eviction while they chant slogans inviting neighbours to join them and celebrating the right to stay put and neighbourhood solidarity (Ancelovici and Emperador Badimon 2021, 2023). The PAH’s anti-eviction protocol stipulates that the blockade should take place peacefully, without insulting police officers and without seeking physical confrontation, but without shunning passive physical resistance either. Like the sit-ins that took place in the American South in the 1960s, such tactics require preparation and more seasoned activists often take the lead to guide less experienced or novice supporters. The PAH claims to have stopped hundreds of evictions in such a way since 2011. However, the repressive response of the police has intensified in the last few years and in 2022 Barcelona housing groups accumulated more than €300,000 in fines for disobedience, resistance, and obstruction of police work.20 The third and last component of the contentious triad refers to prefigurative actions, that is, actions which exemplify the principles and the ends of the movement. Prefiguration implies that the means and the ends are mutually constitutive and that ideals should be embodied and experienced here and now instead of waiting for a revolution or some sort of great upheaval. Instead of claiming that the ends justify the means, prefiguration proclaims that the means are the ends and vice versa.21 In the case of the Barcelona housing rights movement, prefigurative actions also have pragmatic implications because they are about securing alternative housing solutions and addressing the residential urgency in which the people who have not managed to prevent or stop the execution of the eviction warrant find themselves. The main form that such prefigurative actions take is the occupation of vacant buildings, most of the time newly constructed housing blocks owned by banks or hedge funds, to re-house evicted families. Sometimes, entire blocks are thus squatted and managed by the new dwellers on the basis of weekly assemblies in which families discuss the negotiation

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  125

regarding the status of the building as well as practical matters related to furniture and childcare. These occupants often notify the landlord of their willingness to pay a small rent in the hope of avoiding the stigma associated with squatting (Martínez 2019). The reliance on this contentious triad of disruption, civil disobedience, and prefigurative action, makes the Barcelona housing rights movement stand out compared with Montreal and even New York City. Perhaps because in Barcelona housing groups do not have as much access to public and private funding as in these two other cities, activists do not have as much to lose and are thus willing to take more risks. However, some Barcelona housing activists also believe that the transgressive tactics aforementioned are only short term, temporary solutions and that any real change requires ambitious legislative reforms. They thus invest resources in many other tactics aiming at making housing salient in the public debate and building large, popular coalitions to pressure elected officials. Although they still fall short of their goals, they have made important gains in the last ten years and show that contained and transgressive contention can be complementary (Emperador Badimon and Ancelovici 2022).

CONCLUSION Although all the mobilizations outlined above respond to evictions, they build on different experiences and histories and rely on different tactics and strategies. They suggest that there is not a single or universal best way to fight evictions and advocate for housing rights. To understand why the housing rights movement relies on certain tactics and strategies rather than others, we should not implicitly treat the experience of a particular city as a benchmark to assess others but rather look at how the local institutional context, power configurations, and inherited repertoires of action shape tactical choices and strategic calculations. Furthermore, the anti-eviction mobilizations of Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City clearly show that housing rights movements never rely on a single tactic. In this respect, it is worth pointing out that all the mobilizations discussed in this chapter always rely on knowledge-making practices to develop their strategies. They produce – either by themselves or in partnerships with activist academics or nonprofit legal organizations – detailed reports that convey bottom-up accounts of the problems and challenges that local residents experience in their dealings with their landlord, the housing court system, and municipal authorities. These knowledge-making practices are increasingly becoming digital, as, for example, the spread of online countermapping work illustrates. The growing visibility of the anti-eviction mapping project, founded in San Francisco in 2013 and now active in Los Angeles and New York City as well, is a case in point (see Graziani and Shi 2020; Maharawal and McElroy 2018).22 Its data visualization work, that seeks to make visible the landscapes and experiences of both dispossession and resistance through maps and oral history, is a potentially compelling way to generate and diffuse new stories and

126  Handbook on urban social movements

thereby contribute to framing and legitimating the movement’s analysis, claims, and demands. It suggests that data is not only a resource and an object of struggle but also a site of struggle in the sense that its production and epistemic dimensions can have political implications (Beraldo and Milan 2019: 4). We can see similar issues at play in the growing use of digital apps to collect data on housing conditions and file complaints against landlords.23 At the same time, however, the rise of this housing activism 2.0 can contribute to exclusionary dynamics insofar as the access to, and use of, digital technologies reflect class inequalities (see Schradie 2018). Finally, the institutional contexts and repertoires of action that shape the tactics and strategies of housing rights movements are not static. Not only do they evolve as a result of macro-structural forces, but they are also shaped by the very actions of movements. It follows that grasping the constraints and opportunities that structure the struggle against evictions requires that we situate them historically and treat mobilizations as both an outcome and a cause.

NOTES 1. Although here we are quoting Desmond, it is worth noting that his own research has contributed significantly to the study of evictions in the United States and his Eviction Lab, based at Princeton University, has become a central reference in just a few years (see https://​evictionlab​.org/​). 2. As Nelson et al. (2021: 696) stress regarding the situation in the United States, “divergent contexts result in institutional definitions of eviction that are legally, materially, consequentially, and theoretically heterogeneous across the nation”. 3. For example, Garboden and Rosen (2019: 639) note that in Baltimore, MD, “about 6,500 evictions are executed per year, while landlords file for eviction approximately 150,000 times”. 4. According to Robert Merton’s (1996: 153) original conceptualization: “Opportunity structure designates the scale and distribution of conditions that provide various probabilities for individuals and groups to achieve specifiable outcomes”. For a discussion, see also Ancelovici (2021: 157–158). 5. Statistics Canada, Census Profile, 2016 Census (https://​www12​.statcan​.gc​.ca/​census​ -recensement/​2016/​dp​-pd/​prof/​index​.cfm​?Lang​=​E). 6. Sarah R. Champagne and Zacharie Goudreault, ‘2021, année d’évictions au Québec’, Le Devoir, 28 December 2021. 7. For a brief presentation of struggles against urban development in Montreal in the late 196os and early 1970s, see Castells (1972: 431–444). 8. See United States Census Bureau Data: https://​data​.census​.gov/​cedsci/​. 9. Data from https://​evictionlab​.org/​. 10. On declining real wages as one of the forces behind displacement pressures in the United States, see Chapple (2017). 11. According to the NYU Furman Center (2019: 10), eviction filings for nonpayment represented 88.1 per cent of all eviction filing cases in 2010; by 2017, this number had slightly decreased to 84.3 percent. 12. It should be kept in mind that a single eviction case affects not a single individual but a household with potentially multiple people. A figure of 200,000 cases a year means that several hundred thousand more individuals are affected each year in New York City alone.

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  127

13. Our account of the campaign is based on RTCNYC (2017) and CASA and NWBCCC (2019). 14. The list of member organizations is available at https://​www​.righttocounselnyc​.org/​who​ _we​_are. 15. Observatori Metropolità de l’Habitatge de Barcelona (https://​ohb​.cat/​visor) for Barcelona and EUROSTAT (https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​eurostat/​cache/​digpub/​european​_economy/​bloc​ -2c​.html​?lang​=​en) for Spain. 16. Data for the 2008–2019 period is derived from Observatori DESC (2020) whereas data for the 2020–2021 period is from Consejo General del Poder Judicial, https://​ www​. poderjudicial​. es/​c gpj/​e s/​T emas/​E stadistica​- Judicial/​E stadistica​- por​- temas/​ Datos​-penales​-​-civiles​-y​-laborales/​Civil​-y​-laboral/​Efecto​-de​-la​-Crisis​-en​-los​-organos​ -judiciales/​(last accessed 14 June 2022). 17. Consejo General del Poder Judicial, CGPJ – Efecto de la Crisis en los órganos judiciales (https://​www​.poderjudicial​.es/​cgpj/​es/​Temas/​Estadistica​-Judicial/​Estadistica​-por​-temas/​ Datos​-penales​-​-civiles​-y​-laborales/​Civil​-y​-laboral/​Efecto​-de​-la​-Crisis​-en​-los​-organos​ -judiciales/​). ‘Precarious occupants’ are former owners or tenants who remained in their home in spite of having formally lost their property or lease. They are thus former legal occupants turned squatters. 18. However, the PAH of Barcelona does benefit from indirect funding through the Observatori DESC, which funds two part-time staff positions. 19. The term Escraches was originally used in Latin America to shame politicians and high-ranking military officers involved in torture, disappearances, and other crimes against humanity. 20. See https://​beteve​.cat/​societat/​activistes​-dret​-habitatge​-comencen​-rebre​-multes​-desallotjament​ -bloc​-llavors/​. 21. On prefiguration, see Breines (1989 [1982]), Maeckelbergh (2011), and Yates (2015). 22. See the impressive website of the project at https://​antievictionmap​.com/​. There is a similar initiative – although not as elaborated – in Montreal with the Parc-Ex Anti-Eviction Mapping Project: https://​antievictionmontreal​.org/​en/​. 23. See, for example, the work of the nonprofit JustFix.nyc (https://​www​.justfix​.nyc/​en/​), which offers “technology for housing justice”.

REFERENCES Adell, Ramon, and Miguel A. Martínez. 2004. ¿Dónde están las llaves? El movimiento okupa: prácticas y contextos sociales. Barcelona: Los libros de la catarata. Aisa Pàmpols, Manel. 2019. La huelga de alquileres y el comité de defensa económica. Barcelona: El Lokal. Albet, Abel, and Núria Benach (eds.) 2018. Gentrification as a Global Strategy: Neil Smith and Beyond. New York: Routledge. Ancelovici, Marcos. 2021. Bourdieu in movement: Toward a field theory of contentious politics. Social Movement Studies 20(2): 155–173. Ancelovici, Marcos, and Montserrat Emperador Badimon. 2021. Ce que l’attente fait aux mouvements sociaux: Temps et micro-mobilisation dans la lutte pour le droit au logement en Espagne. Unpublished manuscript. Ancelovici, Marcos, and Montserrat Emperador Badimon. 2023. Anti-eviction mobilizations (Spain). In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, 2nd ed., edited by David A. Snow, Donatella Della Porta, Doug McAdam, and Bert Klandermans. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Angotti, Tom. 2008. New York for Sale: Community Planning Confronts Global Real Estate. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

128  Handbook on urban social movements

Annunziata, Sandra, and Clara Rivas. 2018. Resisting gentrification. In Handbook of Gentrification Studies, edited by Loretta Lees and Martin Phillips. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 393–412. Baeten, Guy, Carina Listerborn, Maria Persdotter, and Emil Pull (eds.) 2021. Housing Displacement: Conceptual and Methodological Issues. London: Routledge. Baker, Alexander. 2021. From eviction to evicting: Rethinking the technologies, lives and power sustaining displacement. Progress in Human Geography 45(4): 796–813. Beraldo, Davide, and Stefania Milan. 2019. From data politics to the contentious politics of data. Big Data & Society. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​2053951719885967. Bergeron-Gaudin, Jean-Vincent. Forthcoming. S’opposer à la gentrification: un nouveau cadrage dans les mobilisations pour le logement à Montréal? In Gentrifications et résistances à Montréal, edited by Marcos Ancelovici. Breault, Geneviève. 2017. Militantisme au sein des groupes de défense des droits des personnes locataires: Pratiques démocratiques et limites organisationnelles. Reflets 23(2): 181–204. Breines, Wini. 1989 [1982]. Community and Organization in the New Left, 1962–1968: The Great Refusal. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Brickell, Katherine, Melissa Fernandez Arrigoitia, and Vasudevan Alexander (eds.) 2017. Geographies of Forced Eviction: Dispossession, Violence, Resistance. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Brown-Saracino, Japonica. 2016. An agenda for the next decade of gentrification scholarship. City & Community 15(3): 220–225. CASA and NWBCCC. 2019. Tipping the Scales: Right to Counsel Is the Moment for the Office of Court Administration to Transform Housing Courts. CASA-New Settlement and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition. Castells, Manuel. 1972. La question urbaine. Paris: François Maspero. Castells, Manuel. 1983. The City and the Grassroots. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Cavadini, Maeve F. 2020. Our Rights! Our Power! The Right to Counsel (RTC) Campaign to Fight Evictions in NYC! Documentary available online: https://​vimeo​.com/​457047852. Chapple, Karen. 2017. Income inequality and urban displacement: The new gentrification. New Labor Forum 26(1): 84–93. Comissió de formadores del moviment per l’habitatge de Catalunya. 2021. Quadern de formació popular: Les estructures populars al moviment per l’habitatge català, I Congrés d’Habitatge de Catalunya. https://​pahc​.baixmontseny​.org/​quadern​-estructures​-populars/​. Comité Logement Petite Patrie. 2020. Entre fraude et spéculation: enquêtes sur les reprises et évictions de logements. Montreal: Comité Logement Petite Patrie. Desmond, Matthew. 2012. Eviction and the reproduction of urban poverty. American Journal of Sociology, 118(1): 88–133. Emperador Badimon, Montserrat. 2022. Incluir y representar en espacios militantes: Identidad colectiva y feminización del activismo en la Plataforma de Afectadas por la Hipoteca. Revista Internacional de Sociología 80(1): 1–13. Emperador Badimon, Montserrat, and Marcos Ancelovici. 2022. When movements change policies: Popular legislative initiatives in favor of housing rights in Spain. Paper presented at the International Conference Public Policy & Social Conflict: How Policy Changes and Mobilizations Interact. UQAM, Montreal, Canada. Furman Center. 2019. Trends in New York City Housing Court Eviction Filings. Data Brief. NYU Furman Center. Gallié, Martin. 2016. Le droit et la procédure de l’expulsion pour des arriérés de loyer: le contentieux devant la Régie du logement. Montreal: UQAM and RCLALQ. Gallié, Martin, Julie Brunet, and Richard-Alexandre Laniel. 2017. Les expulsions de logement ‘sans faute’: le cas des reprises et des évictions. Montreal: UQAM, RCLALQ and GIREPS.

Anti-eviction mobilizations in Barcelona, Montreal, and New York City  129

Garboden, Philip M. E., and Eva Rosen. 2019. Serial filing: How landlords use the threat of eviction. City & Community 18(2): 638–661. García-Lamarca, Melissa. 2021. Real estate crisis resolution regimes and residential REITs: Emerging social-spatial impacts in Barcelona. Housing Studies 36(9): 1–20. Gaudreau, Louis, Guillaume Hébert, and Julia Posca. 2020. Analyse du marché de l’immobilier et de la rentabilité du logement locative. Note socioéconomique IRIS, June: 1–20. Gold, Roberta. 2009. ‘I had not seen women like that before’: Intergenerational feminism in New York City’s tenant movement. Feminist Studies 35(2): 387–415. González, Sara. 2016. Looking comparatively at displacement and resistance to gentrification in Latin American cities. Urban Geography 37(8): 1245–1252. Graziani, Terra, and Mary Shi. 2020. Data for justice: Tensions and lessons from the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s work between academia and activism. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geography 19(1): 397–412. Guay, Emanuel, and Alex Megelas. 2021. Le droit à la ville face à la gentrification des quartiers populaires montréalais. Une analyse des mobilisations à Parc-Extension et Pointe-Sainte-Charles. In Montréal en chantier. Les défis d’une métropole pour le XXIe siècle, edited by Jonathan Durand Folco. Montreal: Écosociété, 216–229. Hartman, Chester, and David Robinson. 2003. Evictions: The hidden housing problem. Housing Policy Debate 14(4): 461–501. Jackson, Mandi Isaacs. 2006. Harlem’s rent strike and rat war: Representation, housing access and tenant resistance in New York, 1958–1964. American Studies 47(1): 53–79. Lawson, Ronald. 1983. Origins and evolution of a social movement strategy: The rent strike in New York City, 1904–1980. Urban Affairs Quarterly 18(3): 371–395. Lees, Loretta, Sandra Annunziata, and Clara Rivas-Alonso. 2018. Resisting planetary gentrification: The value of survivability in the fight to stay put. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(2): 346–355. Lees, Loretta, Hyun Bang Shin, and Ernesto López-Morales. 2016. Planetary Gentrification. Cambridge: Polity Press. Leung, Lillian, Peter Hepburn, and Matthew Desmond. 2021. Serial eviction filing: Civil courts, property management, and the threat of displacement. Social Forces 100(1): 316–344. Lira, Mateus, and Hug March. 2023. Learning through housing activism in Barcelona: Knowledge production and sharing in neighbourhood-based housing groups. Housing Studies 38(5): 902–921. Maeckelbergh, Marianne. 2011. Doing is believing: Prefiguration as strategic practice in the alterglobalization movement. Social Movement Studies 10(1): 1–20. Maharawal, Manissa M., and Erin McElroy. 2018. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project: Counter mapping and oral history toward Bay Area housing justice. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(2): 380–389. Martin, Isaac William, and Christopher Niedt. 2015. Foreclosed America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Martínez, Miguel A. 2019. Better wins or a long distance race? Social and political outcomes of the Spanish housing movement. Housing Studies 34(10): 1588–1611. McAdam, Doug. 1999 [1982]. Political Process and the Development of the Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Merton, Robert K. 1996. On Social Structure and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mironova, Oksana. 2019. Defensive and expansionist struggles for housing justice: 120 years of community rights in New York City. Radical Housing Journal 1(2): 137–152. Nelson, Kyle, Philip Garboden, Brian J. McCabe, and Eva Rosen. 2021. Evictions: The comparative analysis problem. Housing Policy Debate 31(3–5): 696–716.

130  Handbook on urban social movements

Newman, Kathe, and Elvin K. Wyly. 2006. The right to stay put, revisited: Gentrification and resistance to displacement in New York City. Urban Studies 43(1): 23–57. Observatori DESC. 2020. L’evolució dels desnonaments 2008–2019: de l’emergència a la consolidació d’una crisi habitacional. Barcelona: Observatori DESC. https://​observatoridesc​ .org/​ca/​l​-evolucio​-dels​-desnonaments​-2008​-2019​-l​-emergencia​-consolidacio​-d​-crisi​ -habitacional. Pasotti, Eleonora. 2020. Resisting Redevelopment: Protest in Aspiring Global Cities. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rolnik, Raquel. 2019. Urban Warfare: Housing Under the Empire of Finance. New York: Verso. Roumiantseva, Maria. 2022. A nationwide movement: The right to counsel for tenants facing eviction proceedings. Seton Hall Law Review 52(1351): 1351–1398. RTCNYC. 2013. Tipping the Scales: A Report of Tenant Experiences in Bronx Housing Court. Right to Counsel NYC Coalition. RTCNYC. 2017. History of the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition. Right to Counsel NYC Coalition. Saillant, François. 2018. Lutter pour un toit. Douze batailles pour le logement au Québec. Montreal: Ecosociété. Schradie, Jen. 2018. The digital activism gap: How class and costs shape online collective action. Social Problems 65(1): 51–74. Schwartz, Joel. 1983. The New York City rent strikes of 1963–1964. Social Service Review 57(4): 545–564. Seron, Caroll, Gregg Van Ryzin, Martin Frankel, and Jean Kovath. 2001. The impact of legal counsel on outcomes for poor tenants in New York City’s housing court: Results of a randomized experiment. Law and Society Review 35(2): 419–434. Soederberg, Susanne. 2018. Evictions: A global capitalist phenomenon. Development and Change 49(2): 286–301. TakeRoot Justice and RTCNYC. 2022. Organizing Is Different Now: How the Right Counsel Strengthens the Tenant Movement in New York City. TakeRoot Justice and Right Counsel NYC Coalition. Tilly, Charles. 1995. Contentious repertoires in Great Britain, 1758–1834. In Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action, edited by Mark Traugott. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 15–42. Tilly, Charles. 2008. Contentious Performances. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, Charles, and Sidney Tarrow. 2015. Contentious Politics, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. UN-Habitat. 2011. Forced Evictions: Global Crisis, Global Solutions. Nairobi: UN-Habitat. Weinstein, Liza. 2021. Evictions: Reconceptualizing housing insecurity from the Global South. City & Community 20(1): 13–23. Whitlow, John. 2019. Gentrification and countermovement: The right to counsel and New York City’s affordable housing crisis. Fordham Urban Law Journal 46: 1081–1136. Yates, Luke. 2015. Rethinking prefigurative: Alternatives, micropolitics and goals in social movements. Social Movement Studies 14(1): 1–21.

9. Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century Mary Bernstein and Jordan McMillan

INTRODUCTION The field of urban social movements examines how those urban citizens who have been dispossessed by the processes of capital accumulation pursue “the right to the city” (Harvey 2008). Centered on the link between global capitalist development and its relationship to urbanization, this literature centers activists’ responses to crises related to collective consumption such as housing, healthcare, and education in the Global North, or the appropriation of city space elsewhere (Pruijt 2007). This literature centers movements to mitigate the negative effects of capitalist growth such as low wages, hunger, poverty, and homelessness. In this chapter, we add the issue of gun violence to this literature; whether committed by the police in the name of the state or by other community members. We focus specifically on Black and Brown communities who are most affected by both types of violence. Most importantly, in addition to economic processes related to capitalist development, capitalist growth in the US is inextricably intertwined with institutional racism which produces high rates of gun violence (Abt 2019; Johnson et al. 2021; Bernstein 2022). We discuss these processes and mobilization by racially oppressed people in urban areas to reduce all forms of gun violence that have not been discussed in the literature on urban social movements. Our starting premise is that economic development processes in the US are integrally related to institutional racism as well as understanding racism as a system of cultural meaning that animates institutions and practices. Many authors examine if and how racism and ethnicity are embedded in processes of capitalist development (Boggs and Boggs 1970; Cherry 1989; Williams 1987; Wilson 1996). Oliver (2017: 396) argues that the term “ethnicity” is: a general tag for a class of relationships that also encompasses race, nationality, and other distinctions such as religion, caste, tribe, or language group that may have similar properties. “Race” has a historical meaning that always encompasses domination and hierarchy, while “ethnicity” may not be hierarchical (Bonilla-Silva 1997, 1999, 2006; Omi and Winant 1986; Winant 2000). Empirically, in the US, “race” is the “ethnic dimension” that matters the most.

When discussing the US in this chapter, we employ the term racism to highlight the processes that construct the category of race and racial oppression, rather than reifying the socially constructed term “race” (Cazenave 2015). These processes of racial 131

132  Handbook on urban social movements

oppression create a specific set of circumstances that Black and Brown people in the US face. Specifically, this chapter centers community gun violence that is linked to concentrated urban poverty and institutional racism exacerbated by police practices and policies that have fueled mass incarceration (Bernstein 2021). We note that the more general term “ethnicity” may be more appropriate in other national contexts. Viewed through the lens of violence, the right to the city looks different for racially oppressed people. We examine social movements that emerge from the specific ways that institutional racism animates urban development which affects Black and Brown communities in ways that are fundamentally different from White urban America. Police violence and community violence in racially oppressed communities are interrelated and together deny racially oppressed communities their right to the city. We provide a theoretical approach to explain these mobilizations. Finally, our analysis points to the importance of examining a nation’s criminal justice system and policing practices in tandem with dislocations related to capitalist growth, economic displacement, and the erosion of social safety nets.

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS A multi-institutional politics (MIP) (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008) and multi-system approach (McMillan and Bernstein 2021) to understanding urban movements enables researchers to focus on racism as a cultural meaning system that is integrally related to institutions and can help to explain the specific racially and ethnically disparate processes of urban transformation. An MIP model highlights the need to understand how a variety of institutions and cultural meaning systems work in tandem to shape the urban environment. In contrast to a political process approach (McAdam 1982), an MIP approach understands power to be rooted in a variety of institutions including, but not limited to, the state. Furthermore, an MIP approach underscores the cultural meaning systems that shape the logics of these institutions. The MIP model, following Snow (2004: 11) defines social movements as “collectivities acting with some degree of organization and continuity outside of institutional or organizational channels for the purpose of challenging or defending extant authority, whether it is institutionally or culturally based.” This definition recognizes that the state is not the sole source of authority and that social movements target other institutions as well as more diffuse cultural meanings and practices. Although researchers disagree on how to define what constitutes “urban social movements,” most definitions share certain elements that include an emphasis on space, that is, urban space (Pickvance 2003). For Pruijt (2007), an urban social movement can be defined as proffering a new identity or instrumentally pursuing a specific goal. In summarizing these definitional differences, Andretta, Piazza, and Subirats (2015: 202) contend that determining whether or not an urban mobilization should count as an urban social movement should “be investigated on a case-by-case basis.” Following Diani (1992), Andretta et al. (2015: 202–203) argue that “The understanding of urban social movements should be limited to conflict-oriented

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  133

networks of informal relationships between individuals and groups/organizations, based on collective identities, shared beliefs, and solidarity, which mobilize around urban issues, through the frequent use of various forms of protest.” While seeking to incorporate the significance of identity and culture for understanding urban social movements, at heart, this understanding of urban social movements is rooted in a political process (McAdam 1982) model that takes a neo-Marxist view of power as oriented in the state and capitalist institutions. As we see from the types of mobilizations considered to be “urban social movements” discussed below, the targets are the state and state policy designed to ameliorate the adverse impact of economic exploitation. The cultural meaning systems that justify exploitation and the ways in which racism is marshaled to further capitalist exploitation is generally not central to such analyses. In contrast, centering on different systems of power, both cultural and material, allows us to better understand an array of urban social movements. While employing an explicit right-to-the-city frame or discourse is often central to definitions of urban social movements (Domaradzka 2018), we understand the right to the city as political praxis (Rayner and Zamorano 2021) employed by the most disenfranchised urban denizens. Larson and Lizardo focus on issues, targets, and tactics to identify an “urban activist logic” “characterized by a concern for social and economic justice and issues tightly linked to the local political economy (e.g., low income housing, homelessness, labor)” (2015: 72). These bread and butter issues are responses to the excesses of capitalism that adversely affect the poor in urban areas. Larson and Lizardo note that a housing organization would be the exemplar of this logic, notable for its emphasis on materialist values, employing the language of “survival,” “security,” and “safety” (2015: 72–73). Targeting local city and state governments, urban activists work with “other local organizations seen as both ideological allies (in their shared concern for the poor) and legitimating resources vis-à-vis the local political environment” (Larson and Lizardo 2015: 73). Andretta et al. (2015: 201) identify NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) and various squatters movements as sharing a purpose: “the social re-appropriation of the process by which cities and the conditions of urban life are produced,” which is to say that these movements seek to change the rules and decision-making processes in cities. NIMBY organizations work through many channels, including the state, to keep businesses and industries perceived as dangerous out of their neighborhoods. Squatters often take a different approach, utilizing not only laws that grant rights to squatters, but also the power in numbers of people taking up the practice of squatting. While squatters movements began in small, urban communities of color, they have been somewhat coopted by more mainstream progressives. Though many definitions of urban social movements omit a racial understanding of capitalist processes, others such as Mayer (2013) note that African American communities in the US have borne the brunt of urban development processes designed to benefit the wealthy. Urban development often takes place through displacement of communities of color, whereby wealthy developers enact a process Harvey (2008: 34) refers to as “accumulation by dispossession.” However, Harvey’s (2008) analysis

134  Handbook on urban social movements

does not take into account another form of dispossession: warrior policing and the development of the penal state and mass incarceration (Wacquant 2009). Global capitalist growth and neoliberalism increase economic precarity among the most marginalized, which are BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) communities in the US and, in the French case, communities of immigrants from Northern Africa (Wacquant 2009). The state responds to the economic and social insecurity that results from economic exploitation by ramping up the policing forces of the state which pacifies the ever-more-precarious and insecure middle classes and further dispossesses those who were already the most marginalized. Thus unfettered capitalist exploitation in cities cannot be divorced from other institutions, especially the carceral state (Wacquant 2009). Mayer (2013) highlights those she calls the “social outcasts” as having the potential to become agents of urban social movements. Mayer (2013) notes that African American communities are over-surveilled and overpoliced which sometimes results in urban riots that can be considered a form of protest. However Reyes and Ragon (2018) note that by analyzing struggles for Black liberation in the 1970s as “race riots” rather than organized struggle, sociologists perpetuate racist understandings of activism by racially oppressed people.

RACISM, MASS INCARCERATION, AND NEOLIBERAL ECONOMIC RESTRUCTURING In order to understand social movements to reduce community gun violence (CGV) and police violence, we must first examine how institutional power and racist cultural meaning systems shape the city and the distinct experiences of African Americans and Latinx people in the US. Understanding power as material and ideological, rooted in institutional policies and practices structured by cultural meaning systems (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008; McMillan and Bernstein 2021), we can make sense of movements to prevent both community gun violence and police violence as urban social movements. Wacquant (2009) examines not only the economic processes related to urbanization, but the racially specific impact that those policies have on Black and Brown communities. He examines these in terms of both their material and ideological functions. According to Wacquant, the growth of neoliberal economic policies cannot be understood apart from the simultaneous development of the carceral state that disproportionately polices and incarcerates Black and Brown people. Wacquant identifies four aspects of neoliberalism: economic deregulation, the devolution of the welfare state, the cultural trope of individual responsibility that attributes economic failure to individual actions rather than to structural failings, and the growth of the penal state. The first three of these factors are well-addressed in the literature on urban social movements. However if we are to understand anti-violence movements by racially oppressed people as urban social movements, we must understand (a) the relationship between concentrated poverty, institutional racism and

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  135

gun violence; (b) the impact of warrior policing and mass incarceration on racially oppressed communities; and (c) how police violence and CGV are interrelated. The foundational work of William Julius Wilson (1997), Robert Sampson (2012) and many others demonstrates that processes of city development and decline are not color-blind. African Americans are far more likely than both White and Latinx people to “reside in ecologically distinct environments of concentrated disadvantage” (Sampson and Bartusch, 1998: 798). The legacy of enslavement, Jim Crow segregation, and redlining has produced ongoing racial segregation (Wong et al. 2020) and concentrated poverty which has resulted in high rates of community gun violence (Abt 2019; Johnson et al. 2021). Abt notes that a review of 34 studies “found that violent crime, especially murder, is highly correlated with poverty … If inadequate education, employment, housing, and health are threads in the knot of concentrated poverty, then violence is the hand pulling them tight” (Abt 2019: loc 375). Abt’s (2019) study of community gun violence prevention efforts demonstrates the high rate of community gun violence in poor urban African American and Latinx communities, despite overall reductions in crime over the past quarter century. Johnson et al. (2021) demonstrate that gun violence is not evenly spread across counties, but is most prevalent in the counties with high levels of poverty, high median incomes, and racial segregation. Another set of studies examine changes in police practices over the past 40 years where what some call “warrior policing” together with policies such as “3 strikes” (Alexander 2012) lead to mass incarceration of racially oppressed people (Car et al. 2007; Brunson 2007) and have a detrimental impact on their communities and families. Wacquant (2009) demonstrates that neoliberal economic restructuring created massive wealth at the top, economic precarity at the bottom, and was coupled with increased spending on policing and incarceration. Alexander (2012) details the growth of mass incarceration and links it to ongoing efforts to provide poor Whites with status benefits while dividing and conquering the poor along racial lines in order to further their economic exploitation. All of these studies share a focus on how racist stereotypes of Black criminality (Muhammad 2011) are used to foster fear of the Black “other” and are used to justify a politics of austerity that hurts all poor people economically, but has even more devastating impacts on racially oppressed communities. Racially oppressed people face a system of racial control that results in the disproportionate killings of unarmed African American men shot by the police; they comprise 6 percent of the population, but 40 percent of unarmed men shot by the police (Cazenave 2018: 20). Others focus on mass incarceration, noting that while only constituting 25 percent of the population, Black and Latinx people comprise 59 percent of the prison population (Hinton 2016: 5). Practices such as “broken windows” policing, police discretion in use of force and practices such as stop-question-and-frisk and traffic stops are used disproportionately against Black and Brown communities (Cheng 2020; Gelman et al. 2007; Epp et al. 2014). And such practices have little impact on reducing crime in these areas (Wacquant 2009; Abt 2019). Cazenave’s study of police and vigilante killings of African Americans demonstrates that such

136  Handbook on urban social movements

violence is a “mechanism of racial control [that serves] important economic and social status and political functions to European Americans … justified by suppositions that certain moral codes have been violated by African American stereotyped as dangerous black criminals” (Cazenave 2018: xiv). Some recent data on the distribution of where these killings take place suggests that between 2013 and 2019, there has been a decline in the number of people shot and killed by police in the 30 most populous American cities, but that this reduction is offset by an increase in police shootings in rural and suburban areas. This reduction in shootings in urban areas is likely the result of protests that followed high profile shootings. Many of these protests resulted in changes in police use-of-force policies in cities such as Chicago, following the shooting of Laquan McDonald (Sinyangwe 2020). The adverse health effects of these police practices and of mass incarceration have been well-documented. While ineffective at finding illegal weapons, stop-question-and-frisk tactics increase the physiological strain, fatigue, and levels of fear among community members, especially in racially oppressed communities where residents view invasive police practices as “unfair” (Sewell and Jefferson 2016: 542–543; see also New York Civil Liberties Union 2019). The emotional stress of these police practices is felt across racially oppressed communities regardless of whether a particular individual has been stopped by the police (Turney 2020; Jackson et al. 2019; Sewell et al. 2016). Rather than decrease delinquency or prevent crime, police stops label young Black and Brown men as “criminal” and increase rather than decrease delinquency (Del Toro et al. 2019; Rios 2012). Incarceration similarly produces adverse economic and mental health consequences (Turney and Wildeman 2018; Bowleg et al. 2020). In short, overpolicing and incarceration do not prevent CGV and have profoundly negative physical and mental health effects on racially oppressed people. Less well understood is the relationship between police practices and community gun violence. Overpolicing and mass incarceration also contribute to higher levels of community gun violence. Kirk and Papachristos (2011: 1190) demonstrate that African Americans have greater levels of legal cynicism, “a cultural frame in which people perceive the law as illegitimate, unresponsive, and ill-equipped to ensure public safety,” than European Americans. High levels of legal cynicism in these segregated communities of concentrated poverty and lack of educational and economic opportunities can contribute to higher levels of gun violence as citizens are left to resolve disputes on their own and to protect themselves (Anderson, 1999; Kirk and Papachristos, 2011). Gun violence coupled with racist policing (past or present) harms the collective efficacy of communities and their ability to combat violence, because police are viewed as threats to the safety of community members, rather than as resources (Carter et al. 2017; Sierra-Arevalo et al. 2016; Sunshine and Tyler, 2003). Qualitative studies from urban sociology also theorize and demonstrate the relationship between police violence and CGV. Anderson’s (1999) landmark ethnography of racially oppressed communities in Philadelphia found that police are viewed as both unresponsive to CGV and likely to perpetrate violence against racially oppressed communities. As a result, community members employ the “code of the street,” using violence, often

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  137

CGV, to secure their own justice. Rios’s (2012) study of the experiences of Black and Brown youth with law enforcement found that when these youth turn to the police for help, they are mocked or even threatened with arrest, leaving them, like those in Anderson’s study, to seek their own forms of justice. Building on these earlier works, Bernstein’s (2022) study of CGV activism argues that both violence and the failure to serve and protect racially oppressed communities by law enforcement emerge from the same system of racial control. Bernstein (2022: 64) demonstrates how in their activism, CGV activists challenge overpolicing while also seeking to “decenter the police and divert those at risk away from the criminal justice system toward community-based organizations to address the root causes of violence” in order to prevent violence. Organizations address different groups of people who might be at risk of committing or being a victim of gun violence such as youth, young adults, or citizens returning from incarceration. While each group differs somewhat in terms of their needs, organizations work to address the underlying issues that increase the likelihood of violence, such as poverty, neglect, illiteracy, or a criminal record that prevents individuals from creating a life free of violence. Law enforcement’s role becomes supportive of these community based efforts, focusing their efforts on the primary drivers of gun violence in contradistinction to practices like broken window or stop-question-and-frisk that indiscriminately target and harass citizens without actually reducing crime (Sewell et al. 2016).

WHO ARE THE URBAN ACTIVISTS? Just as the broader social movement literature has been taken to task for its failure to incorporate racism into its theories (Oliver 2017; Reyes and Ragon 2018), we suggest that the literature on urban social movements should make systemic racism and other ethno-racial meaning systems that are embedded in institutions and cultural practices that might be based, for example, on caste in India (e.g., Krishnan 2020) or ethnicity and immigration status in France (Wacquant 2009), central to its theorizing in order to better understand the specific ways that multiple institutions and racist cultural meaning systems influence the experience of racially oppressed people in urban areas. For example, Mayer (2013) identifies two types of urban activists. On the one hand are those groups that fall under the moniker, “creative city politics” (Mayet 2013: 10). These comprise a mix of creative types, students, professionals, and/or “radical autonomous, anarchist and alternative groups and various leftist organizations.” Mayer argues that while fighting for their way of life and control of space, these creators of subcultures and creative city politics are easily coopted by clever city officials and real estate developers to imbue the city with cultural capital. So for Mayer, these groups are no longer radical but instead are coopted and harnessed for the same neoliberal urban development goals ostensibly challenged by those demanding a right to the city. In other words, it is a fine line between movement and cooptation. While these creators of subcultures might not create city policies,

138  Handbook on urban social movements

Meyer’s analysis suggests that the goals of these activists might actually align with those of city leaders rather than transform the city. In contrast to the creative city activists, Mayer (2013: 13) identifies “urban outcasts” as those bearing the worst brunt of “neoliberalizing urbanism” and here she includes policing and criminalization that are experienced by urban “rioters.” According to Mayer: Their struggles—though less visible than those of other urban movements (at least until they break out in riots)—against the discrimination, dispossession and disenfranchisement they experience have been turning our first world cities into arenas of anti-colonial as well as anti-racist struggles. This field of struggle is enormously heterogeneous and fragmented, involving vastly different concerns and grievances, from homeless advocacy and activism, via ‘Food not Bombs’ and similar anti-hunger and anti-poverty organizations, via the panoply of Workers’ Centers, all the way to the community organizations of peoples of color involved in various forms of transformative organizing. Most of their struggles face—if not deaf ears—far more restrictions, surveillance and more aggressive policing (such as ‘stop and frisk’ towards young black males, zero tolerance to minor violations of city ordinances against homeless people [cf. Amster 2004]) than those of their more comfortably positioned (potential) allies in the alternative/ anarchist/(counter-)cultural scenes. (Mayer 2013: 12–13)

She frames different forms of state repression as creating the differences and divisions between groups of the “comparatively privileged movement groups and the ‘outcasts.’” However, it is not only that forms of repression foster divisions among potential allies, but rather, those forms of repression are the targets of activism and they create unique experiences for racially oppressed people that are simply not shared by their White counterparts. Mayer (2013) focuses on explicating the hurdles and possibilities for alliance between the creative classes and the outcasts, seeing potential in the merging of anti-poverty and anti-foreclosure groups that have adopted a more “radical critique of financial and political power and with direct democratic and prefigurative organizing styles” (Mayer 2013: 14). Mayer rightly points out the importance of examining struggles to resist eviction and displacement yet, what is not examined are the racially specific dimensions of such policies. Specifically, racially oppressed communities must contend not only with capitalist exploitation but also with police violence and CGV and it is important that researchers focus on the most marginalized whose lives depend on achieving the right to the city.

THE FACES OF GUN VIOLENCE PREVENTION IN CONNECTICUT PROJECT The data on which this chapter is based come from the Faces of Gun Violence Prevention in Connecticut project, which involves ethnographic and interview data. In total, we receive official event updates from ten gun violence prevention (GVP) organizations in Connecticut: two that are affiliated with national organizations, one

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  139

religious congregation, one umbrella group of religious congregations, the statewide GVP organization in Connecticut, two Newtown-based organizations that emerged after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and two Hartford-based GVP organizations composed of people of color, primarily African Americans, and one organization that is a professional statewide community and law enforcement initiative to reduce the high rates of gun violence in Connecticut’s three largest cities. We attended the public events hosted by these organizations, including panels, political events, educational events, fundraisers, memorials, and vigils. Finally, we have observed other events that we have learned about through word of mouth from our connections with activists. Through these means, we have established a good sense of the groups doing gun violence prevention work and their activities. For the larger project, in addition to the ethnographic data on public events, we attend regular meetings of several of these organizations and have conducted 40 interviews to date. In total, we have conducted over 400 hours of ethnographic observation and attended six national conferences since 2017.

THE GVP MOVEMENT By understanding the interlocking structures of power that are both material and cultural, we can situate anti-violence movements within the scope of urban social movements. Movements against police violence and CGV should be understood as urban social movements. The social problem of gun violence takes a number of forms, including CGV (often in urban areas), suburban violence and mass shootings, suicides, accidental shootings, and police violence. Here we focus on CGV and police violence which are most relevant to claiming space in urban environments. From 1991 to 2016, there was a decrease in homicide by roughly half (9.8 per 100,000 to 5.4 per 100,000). Even so, there are 12,246 homicides each year (Everytown 2019). Black Americans are 10 times more likely to die by gun homicide than White Americans (Everytown 2018). Within the GVP movement, national organizations recognize multiple approaches to GVP activism, but this nuance has not translated into existing research. A focus on national organizations, and limited definitions of what counts as a social movement have homogenized analyses of the GVP movement in ways that exclude non-traditional organizing and movement activity, obscuring differences within the movement. It is most often activists of color, working in local movement organizations, who are excluded from analysis. McMillan and Bernstein (2021) identify two broad approaches to GVP activism. Reform organizations tend to be more state- and nationally focused, and primarily seek to change laws and policies specifically related to keeping dangerous guns out of dangerous or incompetent hands (Goss 2006). They engage in lay and professional lobbying, canvassing, and public communication. Missing from studies that focus on reform organizations, intervention organizations are more local (though they can be connected to other local organizations through national networks), usually focusing on a specific, usually urban, community. Their

140  Handbook on urban social movements

primary activities include incident-level interventions in the form of de-escalating conflict, intervening at hospitals after a violent incident has occurred, providing community support and structure in the form of programming for youth, informal social safety nets, and community engagement. Crucially, this schema for defining and understanding GVP activism includes smaller organizations that may not receive state or institutional legitimacy.

HANDS UP, DON’T SHOOT Structural racism embedded in social policy and urban development create the environment in which urban activists of color mobilize against gun violence. GVP activists in urban areas contend with mass incarceration, police brutality, municipal and institutional neglect, legacies of redlining and segregation, and institutional racism as the context for their activism (Alexander 2012; Cazenave 2018; Rothstein 2017). As Bernstein (2022) argues, urban GVP activists navigate the twin realities of high rates of gun violence that devastate their communities and result in lasting trauma on the one hand and the realities of mass incarceration and contentious relations with the police that also devastate racially oppressed urban communities. These realities shape what urban activists of color prioritize and also how they accomplish their goals. For the remainder of this section we turn to the GVP movement’s place in urban social movements, and link it directly to the need to explore the realities of racial oppression in the literature on urban movements. The two aspects of urban movements that are most relevant to the GVP movement identify the context of city life, expand on the right to the city, and how contentious politics are “done” in an urban context. While legislative action groups get a lot of attention in research on the GVP movement (e.g., Merry 2020; Rothschild 2019; Goss 2006), Bernstein et al. (2019) find that much of the organizing activity against CGV takes place in, and centers the experiences of urban communities, specifically Black and Brown residents who experience structural neglect, state violence, and community gun violence. Urban groups hold protest vigils, liaise with municipal and non-profit institutions, and provide violence intervention and community-based social safety nets (Bernstein et al. 2019). Furthermore, such efforts challenge cultural systems of worthiness (Steensland 2006) that deem the Black and Brown victims of CGV as less worthy of outrage than, say, the White victims of school shootings (Bernstein et al. 2019). There are competing factors at play in the urban context for social action. Specifically globalization shifts the economy, changes the landscape of livelihood, and creates “hyper diversity” (Domaradzka 2018: 609) and the growth of grassroots initiatives encouraging pushback and civic engagement (Domaradzka 2018). The confluence of changes, and especially economic shifts make urban areas a breeding ground for social movements. The profit logic that underlies most city development dictates the way cities are built, and therefore how they accommodate the people who live and work there, and often results in less investment in social infrastructure. The

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  141

focus becomes accommodating investors rather than residents. Bernstein et al. (2019) find this to be a key issue for urban GVP organizations. In the early 2000s urban mobilization began to develop trends recognizable in the GVP movement today: protests against commercialization of public space, against intensified supervision and police activity, and against the neglect and deterioration of specific districts within a city (Domaradzka 2018). Though the changing political and economic structures in cities were hostile to urban movements, they provided visible opponents which urban groups could organize around, loosely united around the idea of the right to the city (Domaradzka 2018). GVP groups directly invoke the right to the city in their protest vigils and marches, and by taking up space, airing grievances, and demanding engagement from local authorities. The urban movements literature is a robust recounting of many of the issues facing those in city centers and the suburbanized landscape. The right to the city speaks to the fight for a balance of power, allocation of resources, and use of public space. The key issue this chapter speaks to is the need to more directly, completely, and critically incorporate racism and structural oppression into the field and social movements more broadly. Urban centers and suburban sprawl cannot be understood outside of the context of redlining, under-resourced infrastructure, and White flight, all of which are aspects of racial oppression in the urban context (Rothstein 2017). Reyes and Ragon (2018) and Steinman (2012) highlight the failure of White sociologists to predict historical movements focused on race, as well as the failure to predict or understand more contemporary ethno-racial movements like the Movement for Black Lives. Reyes and Ragon (2018) demonstrate the need to directly address race in urban and social movements by highlighting a pattern of decentering race in the study of social movements. This process either discounts race as salient to the analysis or relies on racist explanations for the movement activity of activists of color. In these examples and in the literature more broadly, race is treated more as an independent variable rather than as a structural fixture that underlies the reasons for and ways of protesting. A more direct and complete treatment of racism in urban and social movements would recognize racial oppression as central to social movement motivation, activity, and outcomes. While the category race dominates the US case, other meaning systems based on categories such as caste or ethnicity may be more significant in other national contexts. A critical incorporation of racism is also necessary to fully understand urban movements. According to Oliver (2017), movements by members of racially oppressed groups differ from movements by dominant racial groups due to, among other factors, their reasons for organizing, their access to traditional “democratic” means of achieving group goals, and experience of repression. State suppression often stunts activism by racially oppressed groups before they can even begin (Oliver 2017), and when they do mobilize, sociological analyses of power are inadequate (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008; Oliver 2017; Reyes and Ragon 2018). Political process theory, for example, centers the state as a target, rather than acknowledging culture as a target and source of change.

142  Handbook on urban social movements

Centering the state diverts focus away from other forms of organizing, and away from the fact that oppressed communities often do not have access to the state as a target due to a legacy of structural racism (Bernstein et al. 2019; Oliver 2017). Even within the GVP movement, the disparity in access to democratic and state-sponsored processes is stark. Predominantly White, suburban-located groups had access to political connections and state and national infrastructure in planning their protests in Washington, DC, and at state capitols, with state and national media outlets scrambling to cover and televise the events (Bernstein et al. 2019). On the other hand, protest vigils for community gun violence take place at the site of violent incidents, receive little public attention, and only (sometimes) receive a police escort, often for broader safety reasons (Bernstein et al. 2019). Further, social movements tend to focus on material outcomes or cultural outcomes. We suggest the two are intertwined in the context of ethno-racial movements (McMillan and Bernstein 2021). Because racism is embedded in both social structures and culture, they cannot be separated when analyzing ethno-racial social movements. It is common for GVP scholars and lay readers to question if intervention organizations are even part of the same movement as larger, state-focused organizations. The follow-up is usually along the lines of “they are trying to do something different,” and often a nod to urban organizations’ attempts to change inner city culture, as opposed to the policy changes sought by reform organizations. Urban GVP organizations do in fact seek cultural changes in their communities – changes to cultural practices influenced by the material legacy of structural racism and that will lead to material changes in their communities. As Armstrong and Bernstein (2008) argue, social categories are reproduced in social practices and embedded in social institutions and systems, and are the basis for how rewards and punishments are allocated. In this context, culture is extremely powerful, but also so routinized it is almost invisible. In other words, cultural change promoting community efficacy to prevent community gun violence is a primary goal of some GVP activists, and is inextricably linked with seeking changes in their material conditions.

RESEARCH AGENDA The path stretching out in front of urban and social movements scholars is one of unearthing, making visible social processes and material conditions that are often rendered invisible. Oliver (2017) and Reyes and Ragon (2018) lay out the need for a critical racial analysis in movements of all kinds. In the remainder of this section, we suggest an MIP lens for such analyses in order to make visible the ways structure, culture, and social action are co-constitutive. In the example of the GVP movement, McMillan and Bernstein (2021) find that the organizing of racially oppressed communities is often left out of the national narrative while attention is focused on the policy reform efforts of largely White organizations. Bernstein (2021) defines community gun violence as gun violence “produced by the conditions of racialized urban disadvantage, racial segregation,

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  143

concentrated poverty, lack of access to jobs, quality education, and other services, as well as crime control strategies that produce mass incarceration,” all of which embed GVP activism in the right to the city framework. Bernstein et al. (2019) demonstrate the ways these material circumstances influence the means of protest available and preferable to urban activists. McMillan and Bernstein (2021) then demonstrate how urban GVP activists’ organizing is systematically missed by most analyses of the GVP movement. The common polity approach to analyzing movement behavior is inadequate for incorporating a critical racial analysis because the hallmarks of a polity approach such as focusing primarily on changing laws and policies may be missing or emphasized less by marginalized movements (Steinman 2012). State repression, and the position of Black and Brown city residents who are both in need of protection in the context of gun violence, but also in danger of state violence at the hands of those that would “protect and serve” lead to different strategies for change. Urban communities are often “left behind” by the state and institutions targeted by movements that fit within a polity model. Instead of focusing primarily on the state and policy reform, urban GVP organizations build solidarity within their own communities through strategic protest, fill in the vast gaps in the social safety net, and provide violence intervention that is safe for their communities. An MIP framework for analyzing urban movements allows for a dynamic examination of interlocking systems of oppression, a plurality of targets, and complex goals and actions. Legitimate questions remain as to what extent the new array of organizations developed to reduce community gun violence are about producing compliant citizens rather than transforming the structural racism that fosters CGV in the first place. However, without interrupting both state and community gun violence, the urban experience for racially oppressed people will be one that resembles that of an occupied territory that fosters ongoing trauma. In addition to the disruption of the violent incidents themselves, community members will continue to experience negative physical and mental health repercussions. Yellow tape syndrome is a term used by activists to refer to the very real and ongoing trauma of being surrounded by violence.

MOVING FORWARD As the literature on urban movements around the world grows, we should follow Oliver’s (2017) suggestion for identifying ethno-racial power dynamics, by examining who comprises movement groups (are they members of the majority or a minority), if they are focused on issues or groups, and if they are focused internally (within the community), or externally. Reyes and Ragon (2018) lay out strategies for centering ethno-racial analysis across theoretical approaches, all of which are predicated on asking how racism and the construction of race underlie the processes being examined in each case. In the case of MIP, the authors ask “what aspects of institutional racism and racial inequalities in a variety of institutions confront the movement?” (Reyes and Ragon 2018: 9).

144  Handbook on urban social movements

An important aspect of institutional racism that confronts the GVP and other urban movements is the contradictory locations occupied especially by Black urban residents, where the state is not only not the solution, but can be as deadly as the community gun violence they are seeking to end. An alternative example of activism in such a dynamic location is feminist anti-violence movements that center abolition, which acknowledges that women of color often experience violence at the hands of the state through poverty, assault, and incarceration. Centering the state in an anti-violence movement excludes the circumstances, needs, and advocacy of women of color. Furthermore, a variety of efforts to address intimate partner violence without recourse to the carceral state have emerged (e.g., Rojas et al. 2012). In this vein, GVP and other urban movements should be analyzed from a critical lens that identifies and acknowledges these complex relationships and the underlying racism that structure urban life. Racial and ethnic minority groups in other nations such as France (Wacquant 2009) face a similar confluence of capitalist exploitation coupled with an increase in carceral strategies that deny those most marginalized a right to the city. In response, these groups develop new strategies aimed at challenging both material and cultural oppression.

REFERENCES Abt, Thomas. 2019. Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violence — And a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets. New York: Basic Books. Alexander, Michelle. 2012. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Amster, Randall. 2004. Street People and the Contested Realms of Public Space. New York: LFB Scholarly. Anderson, Elijah. 1999. Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W. W. Norton. Andretta, Massimilano, Gianni Piazza, and Anna Subirats. 2015. Urban dynamics and social movements. In Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 200–215. Armstrong, E. A. and M. Bernstein. 2008. Culture, power, and institutions: A multi-institutional politics approach to social movements. Sociological Theory 26(1): 74–99. Bernstein, Mary. 2021. Armed Intimidation, Police Violence, and the Gun Violence Prevention Movement: Mobilizing Ideas. Center for the Study of Social Movements at Notre Dame. Bernstein, Mary. 2022. Protecting black lives: Ending community gun violence and police violence. Sociological Inquiry 92(1): 64–89. Bernstein, Mary, Jordan McMillan, and Elizabeth Charash. 2019. Once in Parkland, a year in Hartford, a weekend in Chicago: Race and resistance in the gun violence prevention movement. Sociological Forum 34(1): 1153–1173. Boggs, James and Grace Boggs. 1970. Racism and the Class Struggle: Further Pages from a Black Worker’s Notebook. New York: Monthly Review Press. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 1997. Rethinking racism: Toward a structural interpretation. American Sociological Review 62(3): 465–480. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 1999. The essential social fact of race. American Sociological Review 64(6): 899–906.

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  145

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2006. Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bowleg, Lisa, Ana Maria del Río-González, Mary Mbaba, Cheriko A. Boone, and Sidney L. Holt. 2020. Negative police encounters and police avoidance as pathways to depressive symptoms among US black men, 2015–2016. American Journal of Public Health 110(S1): S160–S166. Brunson, Rod K. 2007. “Police don’t like black people”: African-American young men’s accumulated police experiences. Criminology & Public Policy 6(1): 71–101. Carr, Patrick J., Laura Napolitano, and Jessica Keating. 2007. We never call the cops and here is why: A qualitative examination of legal cynicism in three Philadelphia neighborhoods. Criminology 45(2): 445–480. Carter, TaLisa J., Karen F. Parker, and Heather Zaykowski. 2017. Building bridges: Linking old heads to collective efficacy in disadvantaged communities. Sociological Forum 32(S1): 1093–1111. Cazenave, Noel A. 2015. Conceptualizing Racism: Breaking the Chains of Racially Accommodative Language. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Cazenave, Noel A. 2018. Killing African Americans: Police and Vigilante Violence as a Racial Control Mechanism. New York: Routledge. Cheng, Tony. 2020. Input without influence: The silence and scripts of police and community relations. Social Problems 67(1): 171–189. Cherry, Robert. 1989. Discrimination: Its Economic Impact on Blacks, Women, and Jews. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Del Toro, Juan, Tracey Lloyd, Kim S. Buchanan, Summer Joi Robins, Luch Zhang Bencharit, Meredith Gamson Smiedt, Kavita S. Reddy, Enrique Rodriguez Pouget, Erin M. Kerrison, and Phillip Atiba Goff. 2019. The criminogenic and psychological effects of police stops on adolescent black and Latino boys. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(17): 8261–8268. Diani, M. 1992. The concept of social movement. The Sociological Review 40(1): 1–25. Domaradzka, Anna. 2018. Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4), 607–620. Epp, Charles, Steven Maynard-Moody, and Donald Haider-Markel. 2014. Pulled Over: How Police Stops Define Race and Citizenship. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Everytown. 2018. Mass Shootings in the United States: 2009–2017. https://​everytownresearch​ .org/​reports/​mass​-shootings​-analysis/​. Everytown. 2019. Gun Violence in America. https://​everytownresearch​.org/​gun​-violence​ -america/​. Gelman, Andrew, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss. 2007. An Analysis of the New York City Police Department’s ‘stop and-frisk’ policy in the context of claims of racial bias. Journal of the American Statistical Association 102: 813–823. Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. 2016. TO BE ADDED AT PROOF STAGE. Goss, Kristin A. 2006. Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harvey, David. 2008. The right to the city. New Left Review 53: 23–40. Hinton, Elizabeth. 2016. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jackson, Dylan B., Chantal Fahmy, Michael G. Vaughn, and Alexander Testa. 2019. Police stops among at-risk youth: Repercussions for mental health. Journal of Adolescent Health 65(5): 627–632. Johnson, Blair T., Anthony Sisti, Mary Bernstein, Kun Chen, Emily A. Hennessy, Rebecca L. Acabchuk, and Michaela Matos. 2021. Community-level factors and incidence of gun

146  Handbook on urban social movements

violence in the United States, 2014–2017. Social Science & Medicine 280. https://​doi​.org/​ 10​.1016/​j​.socscimed​.2021​.113969. Kirk, David S. and Andrew V. Papachristos. 2011. Cultural mechanisms and the persistence of neighborhood violence. American Journal of Sociology 116(4): 1190–1233. Krishnan, Preethi. 2020. Intersectional grievances in care work: Framing inequalities of gender, class and caste. Mobilization 25(4): 493–512. Larson, Jeff A. and Omar Lizardo. 2015. An institutional logics approach to the analysis of social movement fields. Social Currents 2(1): 58–80. Mayer, Margit. 2013. First world urban activism: Beyond austerity urbanism and creative city politics. City 17(1): 5–19. McAdam, Doug. 1982. Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency 1930–1970. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. McMillan, Jordan and Mary Bernstein. 2021. Beyond gun control: Mapping gun violence prevention logics. Sociological Perspectives 65(1). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​ 07311214211010845. Merry, Melissa K. 2020. Warped Narratives: Distortion in the Framing of Gun Policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. 2011. The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. New York Civil Liberties Union. 2019. Stop-and-frisk in the DeBlasio era. https://​www​.nyclu​ .org/​sites/​default/​files/​field​_documents/​20190314​_nyclu​_stopfrisk​_singles​.pdf. Oliver, Pamela. 2017. The ethnic dimensions in social movements. Mobilization 22(4): 395–416. Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1986. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Pickvance, C. 2003. From urban social movements to urban movements: A review and introduction to a symposium on urban movements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 27(1): 102–109. Pruijt, Hans. 2007. Urban movements. In G. Ritzer (ed.), The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Rayner, Jeremy and Claudia Zamorano. 2021. Introduction: The right to the city in Latin America. City & Society 33(1): 59–70. Reyes, Daisy Verduzco and Kathleen Ragon. 2018. Analyzing ethnoracial mobilization. Sociology Compass 12(1): e12629. Rios, Victor M. 2012. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: New York University Press. Rojas, Clarissa, Mimi Kim, and Alisa Bierria. 2012. Community accountability: Emerging movements to transform violence. Social Justice. Special Issue: Reimagining Community Accountability in Theory and Practice 37(4): 1–12. Rothschild, Teal. 2019. An Ethnography of Gun Violence Prevention Activists. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Rothstein, Richard. 2017. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. New York: Liveright Publishing. Sampson, Robert J. 2012. Great American City: Chicago and the Enduring Neighborhood Effect. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Sampson, Robert J. and Dawn Jeglum Bartusch. 1998. Legal cynicism and (subcultural?) tolerance of deviance: The neighborhood context of racial differences. Law & Society Review 32(4): 777–804. Sewell, Abigail A. and Kevin A. Jefferson. 2016. Collateral damage: The health effects of invasive police encounters in New York City. Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 93(S1): 542–567.

Hands up, don’t shoot: safety and the city in the twenty-first century  147

Sewell, Abigail A., Kevin A. Jefferson, and Hedwig Lee. 2016. Living under surveillance: Gender, psychological distress, and stop-question-and-frisk policing in New York City. Social Science & Medicine 159: 1–13. Sierra-Arevalo, Michael, Yanick Charette, and Andrew V. Papachristos. 2016. Evaluating the effect of project longevity on group-involved shootings and homicides in New Haven, Connecticut. Crime & Delinquency 63(4). Sinyangwe, Samuel. 2020. Police are killing fewer people in big cities, but more in suburban and rural America. FiveThirtyEight, June 1. https://​fivethirtyeight​.com/​features/​police​-are​ -killing​-fewer​-people​-in​-big​-cities​-but​-more​-in​-suburban​-and​-rural​-america/​. Snow, David A. 2004. Social movements as challenges to authority: Resistance to an emerging conceptual hegemony. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change 25: 3–25. Steensland, Brian. 2006. Cultural categories and the American welfare state: The case of guaranteed income policy. American Journal of Sociology 111(5): 1273–1326. Steinman, Erich. 2012. Settler colonial power and the American Indian sovereignty movement: Forms of domination, strategies of transformation. American Journal of Sociology 117(4): 1073–1130. Sunshine, Jason and Tom R. Tyler. 2003. The role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review 37(3): 513–548. Turney, Kristin. 2020. Depressive symptoms among adolescents exposed to personal and vicarious police contact. Society and Mental Health 11(2). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​ 2156869320923095. Turney, Kristin and Christopher Wildeman. 2018. Maternal incarceration and the transformation of urban family life. Social Forces 96(3): 1155–1182. Wacquant, Loïc. 2009. Punishing the Poor: The Neoliberal Government of Social Insecurity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Williams, Rhonda M. 1987. Capital, competition, and discrimination: A reconsideration of racial earnings inequality. Review of Radical Political Economics 19(2): 1–15. Wilson, Carter A. 1996. Racism: From Slavery to Advanced Capitalism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Wilson, William Julius. 1997. When Work Disappears: The World of The New Urban Poor. New York: Knopf. Winant, Howard. 2000. Race and race theory. Annual Review of Sociology 26: 169–185. Wong, B., S. Bernstein, J. Jay, and M. Siegel. 2020. Differences in racial disparities in firearm homicide across cities: The role of racial residential segregation and gaps in structural disadvantage. Journal of the National Medical Association 112(5): 518–530.

10. Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: urban social movements in the informal settlements of Namibia and Ghana Eric Yankson and Ada Adoley Allotey

INTRODUCTION This chapter applies the right to the city conceptual framework to the analysis of different forms of urban mobilizations observed in the informal settlements of sub-Saharan Africa. As defined by community activists and residents of informal settlements, the right to the city entails the ability of informal settlers to live or work in urban areas under humane conditions and benefit from the access to basic public services. Our goal is to extend the existing literature on the concept of urban mobilization which mainly focus on the Global North as opposed to the Global South. Moreover, the evaluation of different forms of urban social movements in African informal settlements is still an emergent area of scholarship and could thus benefit from our research. Based on a comparative analysis of Namibia and Ghana, the chapter argues that rural–urban migration is a major factor in the proliferation of these settlements. The myriad challenges resulting from the informal character and low quality of settlements have gained attention from different groups and organizations in the recent past. We define these responses in terms of urban social movements and describe differences between two national contexts in terms of their claims, organizational forms and communication strategies. The chapter adopts document and discourse analyses, as well as interviews as the bases for its observations. Specifically, it reviews documents such as journal articles and reports for the analysis. A total of 10 interviews (i.e. five for each case study) were conducted for the analysis. Respondents included planners, as well as leaders of local communities and organizations which deal with informal settlements. We conducted the interviews in both face-to-face and virtual formats during the period January to June 2021. All the respondents were assured of confidentiality in reporting the findings of this study. The chapter starts by providing some background information, before reviewing relevant literature and zeroing in on the sub-Saharan African context focusing especially on Namibia and Ghana. The choice of Namibia and Ghana can be justified by the appreciable presence of rural–urban migration, informal settlements, and urban social movements in both countries. This allows for a strong comparative analysis given their respective political economies. 148

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  149

In Namibia, urban population growth can be attributed to two main factors: natural increase and in-migration, especially from rural areas (Weber and Mendelsohn 2017: 19). The situation was exacerbated by the end of apartheid following independence in 1990 which resulted in the mass migration of black Namibians from rural areas to cities in search of better opportunities. The 2011 census revealed that 62 per cent of Windhoek’s 324,470 inhabitants migrated from other parts of the country outside the Khomas Region (Pendleton et al. 2014; Weber and Mendelsohn 2017: 19). The rapid pace of urbanization has resulted in the growth of informal settlements, including a sevenfold increase in the number of these settlements between 1991 and 2011, from 10,288 to 77,899 (Weber 2017: 16). Presently, an estimated 700,000 people comprising roughly a third of Namibia’s population reside in informal settlements with 46 per cent of these residents lacking access to basic sanitation facilities. It is estimated that there could be more than 500,000 shacks in Namibia by 2030 housing about 2 million people (Weber 2017: 16). In Ghana, rural–urban migration resulted in a situation where an estimated 20 per cent of the overall population reside in slums, with an expected annual growth rate of 1.8 per cent. In the capital city of Accra, at least 78 slums or informal settlements can be identified, with Old Fadama being the largest among them (Stacey and Lund 2016: 593). Socio-economically, rural–urban migration and low-income levels have accounted for the growth of these settlements at the urban periphery. Moreover, the absence of an effective housing policy has meant that the nation’s urban housing deficit has remained largely unresolved over the past several decades. Also, challenges such as the difficulty in obtaining building permits and poor land servicing have led to the proliferation of illegal settlements, especially at the urban periphery (Mensah et al. 2014: 14–17). In the next sections, we provide more background information on rural–urban migration, the right to the city and informal settlements. Subsequently, we will discuss the application of the right to the city concept in the informal settlements of Namibia and Ghana, and describe different forms of related urban mobilizations.

RURAL–URBAN MIGRATION, THE RIGHT TO THE CITY AND INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS In the Global South, rural–urban migration is generally attributed to the relative underdevelopment of rural areas which creates the need for rural dwellers to move to cities in search of better life opportunities (Mlambo 2018). The possibility of obtaining jobs, education and access to social services in cities is a strong pull factor (Jahan 2012: 186–188; Eshetu and Beshir 2017). Simultaneously however, the rapid pace of urbanization puts serious pressures on land, housing, infrastructure and jobs in cities, resulting in significant inequalities (Jahan 2012: 186–188). Rural–urban migration thus raises the issue of whether migrants can be regarded as urban citizens or merely sojourners (Anh et al. 2012: 1103–1105).

150  Handbook on urban social movements

Due to its implications for the ability of internal migrants to enjoy a certain basic quality of life, rural–urban migration is closely associated with the concept of the right to the city. The term, originally coined by Henri Lefebvre in 1968, emphasizes the formulation of urban policies that promote justice, sustainability and inclusion (Uitermark et al. 2012; Aalbers and Gibb 2014). Sorensen and Sagaris (2010) assert that it entails an increased role for residents in the governance of their cities. Also, Attoh (2011) suggested that it represents a set of rights instead of a singular right. Sorensen and Sagaris (2010) argued that this concept differs from other human rights that protect individuals because it must be enacted through communal and democratic processes. The right to the city approach is important for understanding the quality of life experienced in informal settlements. Informal settlements are residential developments which primarily emerge in peri-urban areas due in part to inefficiency of the formal land delivery system. Thus, the main actors involved in creating these areas are low-income residents seeking cheaper accommodation options (Adam 2014: 90 and 96). Generally speaking, informal settlements are characterized by poor access to public services such as water, sanitation, health care, electricity and housing (Snyder et al. 2013: 432–433). Due to the many challenges experienced by residents of these settlements, urban social movements may be regarded as a practical way of advancing their rights. Those movements can be defined as groups of people who pool efforts, usually in the form of collective action, to promote change or address pervasive challenges such as inequality (Peoples 2019). With specific reference to cities and towns, these movements are based on formal or informal mobilization of resources towards protecting the rights of urban dwellers, especially the poor or the disadvantaged. Their collective efforts, which may be coordinated or unconventional in nature, involve actors linked up in various networks to attain the desired social goals (Mitlin 2018: 558; Peoples 2019). Additionally, urban movements need to respond to socio-spatial complexity by addressing local or context-specific needs. These include economic challenges, social tensions, weak institutions and the need for greater democratic participation within urban areas (Domaradzka 2018: 616–617; Pluciński 2018: 662–665). Evidently, urban social movements constitute an important form of mobilization for addressing the needs of residents of informal settlements. Thus, we will discuss these settlements and movements in more detail and then proceed to unpack the applicable right to the city analytical framework. The next section specifically investigates the presence of informal settlements within sub-Saharan Africa by doing a comparative analysis of their different nature and socio-spatial characteristics.

INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA As already noted, this chapter argues that rural–urban migration is a major factor responsible for the emergence of informal settlements. In sub-Saharan African countries, this migration results from reasons such as poverty and the paucity of

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  151

job opportunities in rural areas as opposed to cities (Eshetu and Beshir 2017: 328; Mlambo 2018: 63). The result has been phenomenal growth in the urban population (Mlambo 2018: 63). As a result of this rapid urbanization, the expectations of migrants for improvements in their well-being are not always met (Mulcahy and Kollamparambil 2016: 1357). This creates challenges for the protection of citizen rights in informal settlements and in other areas of the city, where migrants settle. To have a better understanding of these settlements, it is important to distinguish their different nature and socio-spatial characteristics. Broadly speaking, the informal settlements in a sub-Saharan African context may be classified based on their morphological patterns or socio-economic origins. While these typologies have some level of overlap, each country nevertheless could also have one dominant pattern with distinct sub-categories. In the case of Namibia, informal settlements appear to be primarily defined by their morphological patterns and comprise three different sub-groups. The first category is characterized by urban sprawl with low population density, absence of public services and no clearly defined physical structure. It therefore requires a moderate level of social intervention to provide infrastructure, services and tenure security for residents. An example can be found in the north-eastern part of Epako in Gobabis (Weber and Mendelsohn 2017: 33–34). The second type comprises structured informal settlements with moderate population densities, basic services, fairly organized physical structures and many permanent or semi-permanent buildings. They require minimal interventions such as proclamation of settlements, incremental upgrading and guaranteeing of tenure security for residents. The Uupindi informal settlement in Oshakati is an example of this model (Weber and Mendelsohn 2017: 33–35). The third type, known as unstructured informal settlements, is marked by paucity of service delivery, poorly organized physical structures and high population densities. These require tremendous levels of public intervention to improve the quality of service delivery, physical infrastructure and tenure security. An example is the Havana informal settlement in Windhoek (Weber and Mendelsohn 2017: 33–36). In the case of Ghana, informal settlements appear to be primarily defined by their socio-economic origins. Thus, the main types are: extralegal, indigenous and purchased settlements (Awal and Paller 2016: 9). The extralegal settlements can be found in areas not originally deemed suitable for human habitation. This notwithstanding, they provide avenues for entrepreneurs to make profits by providing informal public services. Here, housing is regarded as a private good. Examples include Old Fadama and Avenor (Awal and Paller 2016: 10–11). The indigenous settlements such as Chorkor and Ga Mashie are the native tribal areas often characterized by customary ownership and sale of land for housing. Largesse lies in the hands of traditional authorities through land sales and the process is sometimes associated with multiple ownership claims. Thus, landlords administer housing as a club good (Awal and Paller 2016: 10).

152  Handbook on urban social movements

The purchased settlements such as Maamobi and Nima are epitomized by the acquisition of land through approved customary channels. Here, landlords are encouraged to match housing supply to demand. Moreover, the provision of affordable housing generates political leverage for public officials. Thus, housing is regarded as a common or public good (Awal and Paller 2016: 10).

URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Having explored the nature and socio-spatial characteristics of informal settlements, this section discusses urban social movements in sub-Saharan Africa with a particular focus on collective action. The scale and transformation of collective action associated with urban social movements in Africa may be assessed from a historical perspective. In the case of Namibia, social collective action arguably originates largely from the colonial and apartheid eras when the need arose for citizen mobilization to ensure the pooling of synergies for political liberation. These efforts occurred at a national scale in order to ensure coherent mobilization of efforts. Simultaneously, however, urban and neighbourhood scales of mobilization became important for enlisting local volunteers. Following independence in 1990, collective action shifted towards dealing with social problems such as inequality, landlessness and informality which were mainly vestiges from the colonial and apartheid eras. Moreover, there are community-led efforts to promote conservation. Currently, social collective action mostly occurs at neighbourhood, urban, national and global scales. In the case of Ghana, social collective action also originated in part during the colonial era as a result of the struggle for independence in the 1940s and 1950s. The situation created the need for the mobilization of citizen efforts in advocating for political liberation. Upon independence in 1957, social collective action became either a tool for the perpetuation of political philosophies by successive civilian and military governments or an avenue for citizen resistance to these efforts. Following the return to democratic rule in 1992/93, social collective action has metamorphosed into the emergence of many civil society, non-governmental and related organizations which seek to advance the rights of citizens and local communities. Collective action is also evident in terms of cooperatives and trade unions which seek to protect the interests of workers such as farmers and traders. These various entities operate at multiple spatial scales: neighbourhood, urban, regional, national and global. In the sub-Saharan African context, urban social movements usually emerge in response to the need to upend the existing social order to ensure greater inclusiveness and guarantee the fulfilment of the basic needs of all the residents. In countries such as Gabon, Uganda and Malawi, these movements also constitute avenues for protesting against authoritarian governments in order to demand political change (de Waal and Ibreck 2013; Lodge 2013). They strategically develop the mobilization tools employed by civil society and other interest groups to advance the rights of citizens (Daniel and Neubert 2019).

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  153

With specific reference to informal settlements, urban social movements in Africa operate along a conceptual triad comprising contention, negotiation and subversion. The mode adopted depends on the situation at hand and the response of public authorities to the struggles of residents. Contention entails public displays of opposition to government actions, especially in respect of evictions. Subversion comprises more subtle actions such as encroachment on public land to register protest. Negotiation, however, employs peaceful means such as dialogue to achieve similar goals (Mitlin 2018: 566–571).

RIGHT TO THE CITY ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK This chapter extends Lefebvre’s work by articulating a right to the city conceptual framework for analyzing urban social movements within informal settlements in sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 10.1). The rationale for this model emanates from the need to better contextualize Lefebvre’s approach for different socio-spatial settings. This serves to provide a more nuanced understanding of the concept to enhance its ontological and epistemological contributions. Based on Lefebvre’s work, we focus on several factors which allow us to compare our two countries: (1) ontological and epistemological framing; (2) typologies of rights; (3) organizational forms of urban mobilization; and (4) forms of action, including communication and advocacy. The ontological and epistemological framing provides a conceptual overview of the proposed model within the lens of Lefebvre’s right to the city framework. The typologies of rights entail the privileges or basic conditions for a decent quality of life that should be made available to residents. The organizational forms serve as the institutional and socio-spatial platforms for advancing the various typologies of rights for residents of informal settlements. Moreover, forms of communication and advocacy help to decipher the mechanisms adopted to promote or protect these rights. In our studies, we discovered that the ontological and epistemological framing largely define the organizational forms associated with urban social movements. These organizational forms in turn influence the typologies of rights advanced, which also determine the employed forms of communication and advocacy. Simultaneously however, typologies of rights can also affect the framing, which in turn create different organizational forms and communication approaches. In terms of framing, of particular interest in this chapter is the activists’ claim to optimize the use values of land, housing and other public services for low-income communities such as the residents of informal settlements. Beyond the element of contextualization, this framework for analyzing collective action of urban social movements also embodies the ontology of pluralism as a break from the elitism associated with social discrimination. Specifically, the proposed approach serves to conceptualize the amalgam of interests pursued by citizens in advancing their rights to the urban space. It is based on the Lefebvre’s ideological claim of the city as a site for grassroots mobilization, political activism and social interaction. Ultimately, we propose this framework to also describe the dialectical relationships between citizen

154  Handbook on urban social movements

rights and the appropriation of urban space for the attainment of desired public or community values.

Source:

Authors’ construct based on literature review, document analysis and interviews.

Figure 10.1

Right to the city conceptual framework for urban social movements

As already mentioned regarding the ontological and epistemological framing, the proposed model relates to the three basic frames observed in the analyzed informal settlements: use values, pluralism, civic engagement and collective action. Use values focus on residents’ use of the urban space, rather than the commodification of this space for economic purposes. This is based on Lefebvre’s conception of a new form of urban development which focuses less on exchange values. Moreover, pluralism implies opportunities for participation in the political process even by ordinary citizens. This serves as a break from the ethos of elitism which results in the ontological privileging of certain social groups at the expense of others. Also, civic engagement and collective action entail joint efforts or pooling of synergies by residents to address issues of mutual concern. The goal is normally to protect public or community values in order to generate desired social benefits. The existing frames are often related to the organizational forms that emerge to address the specific issues. Specifically, urban social mobilization may operate through community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations and political associations, but can also be initiated or supported by international bodies like the United Nations (UN). All these movements are essential for attending to residents’ needs at various spatial scales and also in terms of sectional interests. Moreover, they

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  155

serve as overlapping or mutually reinforcing platforms for the effective mobilization of resources and efforts. As suggested in the literature and observed in the studied settlements, the right to the city is assumed as a specific form of urban citizenship that confers residents with three key rights (Fenster 2005; Zhang 2010): the right to participate actively in the production of the city; the right to live in, work in and represent the city; and the right to social benefits and other entitlements (Zhang 2010). Several scholars have added that this urban citizenship confers two principal rights: the right to participation and the right to appropriation (Brown and Kristiansen 2008; Fenster 2005; Friendly 2013; Purcell 2013). This chapter observes that the right to the city which configures urban movements in informal settlements may be broadly distilled in terms of the political, social and economic realms. Political rights entail the ability of residents to mobilize and advocate for their civil or constitutional privileges such as freedom of speech and assembly. Also, social rights concern the access to basic services such as housing, water, electricity and sanitation which create better quality of life for these residents. Moreover, economic rights imply that informal settlement dwellers can realize their livelihood opportunities through activities such as trading or legal employment. Finally, in terms of specific activities, we focus on various forms of communication and advocacy adopted in articulating the rights of residents of informal settlements. On the one hand, formal approaches occur through officially defined governmental channels and other similar avenues for public participation. These may be top-down in nature and comprise initiatives by supra-local or international entities to advance the rights of residents. Simultaneously, informal mechanisms are used, based on the unofficial social channels allowing the activists to meet public officials and articulate residents’ concerns. Different forms of protests and bottom-up endeavours may entail community-based or citizen-inspired approaches for articulating their needs in the most visible way. In case of advocacy actions, urban social movements usually operate along a triad comprising contention, negotiation and subversion. Broadly speaking, a right to the city framework may thus be understood within the lenses of antagonistic and mutualist claim-making. The antagonist school of thought portends a tendentious and sometimes violent approach by residents to asserting their rights (Metsola 2018: 166–167). However, the mutualist approach to claim-making is premised on negotiation or reciprocal exchanges between residents and local officials in safeguarding citizen rights (Metsola 2018: 166–167). Overall, the right to the city framework for urban social movements embodies conceptual underpinnings defined within the lenses of organizational forms, typologies of rights, as well as forms of communication and advocacy. To ensure a better operationalization of this model, it is important to unpack the nuances of different socio-spatial contexts. This will be the focus of the next part of our chapter which discusses the types of urban social movements that can be observed in the two case studies.

156  Handbook on urban social movements

URBAN MOBILIZATION IN THE INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS OF NAMIBIA AND GHANA This section discusses different examples of urban social movements in the informal settlements of Namibia and Ghana based on the proposed right to the city framework. Urban Mobilization in the Informal Settlements of Namibia Ontological and epistemological framing In the case of Namibia, urban social movements have the form of entities or organizations which stress the need to make land, housing and other public services generally available to residents. This occurs because low-income residents of informal settlements (many of whom migrated from rural areas) usually lack the economic resources to compete in the marketplace. The goal of these movements is thus to prioritize the social needs of residents in light of the increasingly neoliberal bent of public policy championed by government and other political players. Urban movements’ emphasis on use values has culminated in some efforts such as land delivery and servicing, as well as informal settlement upgrading strategies. These initiatives help to improve the quality of life experienced by residents through better access to land, housing and public services. Moreover, urban mobilization in Namibia is often defined by the desire to break away from the previous elitism of the colonial and apartheid eras. Thus, political pluralism appears to be a defining feature of these endeavours which are largely premised on local level efforts. Specifically, their activities involve active civic engagement in order to better understand and respond to social needs. Thus, urban social movements are shaped by the involvement of citizen groups and local communities. Organizational forms In 1992, an organization known as the Namibia Housing Action Group (NHAG) was formed to champion the plight of the urban poor, especially landless and homeless residents of informal settlements who mostly migrated from rural areas. This development was the culmination of efforts that began in 1987 to promote collective action for advancing the plight of these residents. The endeavours led to the emergence of a number of savings groups and attraction of support from international partners such as Oxfam United Kingdom (Chitekwe-Biti 2018: 391). Following the formation of NHAG, however, it became obvious that the needs of nearly 40,000 to 60,000 informal settlement dwellers were not being sufficiently attended to within the existing organizational structure. It was therefore decided that the savings and related wing should be hived off to form the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN) while the non-governmental organization would remain as NHAG (Chitekwe-Biti 2018: 391–392). The SDFN is a network comprising 700 urban and rural savings groups serving the needs of approximately 20,000 households across Namibia. It emerged in part from the Saamstan (i.e. “Standing Together”) Housing Association, a cooperative

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  157

formed in 1987 to advance the rights especially of black Namibians when it comes to housing and related matters. This was the first such cooperative in the country and emerged when the law which denied black Namibians the right to own movable property was expunged from the statute books (Muller and Mbanga 2012: 67–68). The formation of the SDFN coincided with the emergence of Slum/Shack Dwellers International which sought to create a global network of slum dwellers. Thus, the international body has provided various forms of support to the Namibian federation (Chitekwe-Biti 2018: 391–392). Besides these organizations, political groupings such as the Affirmative Repositioning Movement and Landless People’s Movement have been vocal in advancing the rights of residents of informal settlements. Typologies of rights The SDFN has been instrumental in promoting the rights of informal settlement dwellers many of whom are migrants from rural areas. For instance, it assists women in acquiring housing units, encourages a culture of savings and promotes infrastructural development (Barnes and Cowser 2017: 162–170). These benefits are derived from the ethos of communal engagement, prioritization of membership by low-income residents and feminist ideologies rooted in African cultural context (Cowser and Barnes 2016: 15). Beyond these tangible outcomes, the federation also provides a system of socio-psychological support for beneficiaries (Barnes and Cowser 2017: 162–170). Additionally, the SDFN gives women and other marginalized groups the collective political voice to fight against forced evictions by local authorities. These relocations move residents away from places of economic opportunity and exacerbate their problems of poverty and social exclusion. The federation underscores this fact through social activism and collective mobilization (Cowser and Barnes 2016: 35). Moreover, it undertakes enumerations and mapping of informal settlements, resulting in the emergence of the Community Land Information Programme (Muller and Mbanga 2012: 67). Through the platform offered by this organization, the state is able to better meet residents’ needs through informal settlement upgrading strategies as well as the provision of more secure forms of land tenure (Cowser and Barnes 2016: 35). Forms of communication and advocacy In Namibia, urban social movements sometimes employ formal modes of communication concerning the situation in the informal settlements. For instance, such mechanisms are adopted by various organizations to liaise with government institutions and political actors on behalf of residents. This notwithstanding, the utilization of informal communication approaches appears to be relatively more dominant. To begin with, community-based approaches are pivotal for addressing the various challenges faced by residents of informal settlements (Larsen and Augustus 2020) towards enhancing access to basic services such as water. An example of such communal facilities are the Water Point Committees (WPCs), which belong to Water

158  Handbook on urban social movements

Point Associations that are self-organized entities managed by local communities (Karuaihe and Wandschneider 2018: 466–467). Moreover, the role of community leaders in facilitating interactions between residents and city authorities also deserves special mention. In one form, this comprises a tier system involving regional councillors, community chairpersons and block leaders to attend to residents’ needs at different spatial scales. Another format entails constituency development committees whose leaders convey the needs of residents to city authorities while simultaneously articulating municipal policies to their communities (Metsola 2018: 172–174). In terms of advocacy, mutualistic claim-making is evident in terms of co-production. For instance, the SDFN has been involved in a process of co-production with the City of Windhoek when it comes to the delivery of land and housing for residents of informal settlements. This initiative emerged following realization by the local authority of the need for collective action in dealing with the existing supply backlog (Chitekwe-Biti 2018: 387–388, 404–405). In Gobabis, co-production has been adopted as a strategy in informal settlement upgrading. This serves to reduce the cost involved in this endeavour and promotes bottom-up engagement (Delgado et al. 2020: 186–188). While mutualistic claim-making appears to be dominant in Namibia, antagonistic approaches are also evident. For instance, the City of Windhoek periodically demolishes shacks as a way of curbing uncontrolled developments and preventing further encroachment. These actions, however, are met with confrontation or strong disapproval by the residents who deem them as insensitive and an affront to their basic rights to shelter. Urban Mobilization in the Informal Settlements of Ghana Having analyzed the situation in Namibia, this section discusses urban social movements in the informal settlements of Ghana, based on the proposed right to the city framework. Ontological and epistemological framing In the case of Ghana, urban social movements focus on use values as a countervailing force against the dominance of exchange values among public policy actors such as the central government. Thus, community-based and non-governmental organizations frequently mobilize resources in the form of finances, people and networks. These serve to prevent forced evictions and promote in situ upgrading of existing settlements. Moreover, pluralism in the democratic space implies that the voices of ordinary citizens and local communities are increasingly being heard when it comes to political decisions on planned demolitions or relocations of residents. In terms of civic engagement and collective action, social networks, familial or kinship ties, as well as community roots are pivotal for asserting the rights of rural migrants in these informal settlements (Oteng-Ababio et al. 2019). At a micro level, urban social interactions in informal settlements are facilitated by the spatial organization of neighbourhoods. Specifically, the availability of public open spaces

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  159

promotes informal interactions and the realization of residential livelihood needs (Okyere et al. 2017: 13–18). These forms of interaction serve as avenues for grassroots mobilization and pooling of social synergies for addressing matters of community concern. Organizational forms In 2003, residents of Old Fadama informal settlement (who are mostly migrants from rural areas in northern Ghana) formed the Ghana Homeless People’s Federation (GHPF). This occurred after engagements with shack dwellers’ federations from other countries under the auspices of Shack/Slum Dwellers’ International (Farouk and Owusu 2012). The GHPF has since been transformed into the Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor (GFUP). When residents of Old Fadama were faced with the possibility of eviction in the 2000s by various city governments, GFUP was instrumental in conducting community-based enumerations in 2004, 2006–2007 and 2009. These surveys were carried out with the support of a non-governmental organization known as the People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements (Farouk and Owusu 2012). The enumerations helped to establish the economic viability of this area and changed the discourse from eviction to participatory relocation or community empowerment (Farouk and Owusu 2012). Besides the largely community-based approaches, some international organizations have also been instrumental in addressing the needs of residents of informal settlements. These entities include the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) and the Slum/Shack Dwellers International. For instance, UN-Habitat was instrumental in the Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility in 2004. This intervention was a microfinance scheme aimed at improving housing and providing community infrastructure (Amoako 2018: 961). Moreover, Slum/Shack Dwellers International has been pivotal in the success of GFUP efforts in preventing the forced evictions of residents (Farouk and Owusu 2012). Typologies of rights Towards protecting political rights in Ghana’s informal settlements, bottom-up activism and community-based enumeration strategies have been adopted especially by non-governmental organizations. In terms of social rights, the GFUP and Old Fadama Development Association were critical in providing support for the reconstruction of homes destroyed after the fire of May 2012 (Owusu 2013: 246). Much of the initiative for the rebuilding came from the community itself, demonstrating the potential for bottom-up efforts to ensure the assertion of the right to shelter in informal settlements. These endeavours were facilitated by financial support from families, friends and other social networks (Owusu 2013: 245–246). In many of Ghana’s informal settlements, other social rights such as access to public services are sub-par. Thus, grassroots urban organizations constitute one way of redressing the situation. In 2007, for instance, the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) established Local Water Boards (LWBs) as a way of ensuring a participatory approach to water governance, especially in low-income communities. Subsequently,

160  Handbook on urban social movements

non-governmental organizations such as the Ghana branch of the Cooperative Housing Foundation International (CHF-Ghana) have established more of such entities (Harris and Morinville 2013: 5–7). Beyond political and social matters, the economic rights of residents in informal settlements are normally promoted through financial support, microfinance schemes, participatory relocation and community empowerment. These efforts are spearheaded by various community-based and non-governmental organizations through their programmes. For instance, the GFUP and People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements have been instrumental in pooling finances and creating the participatory planning platforms which help to protect local community interests (Farouk and Owusu 2012). Forms of communication and advocacy Formal modes of communication occur when various actors utilize official governmental channels such as institutional and political networks to advance the rights of residents. This notwithstanding, urban social movements in Ghana’s informal settlements largely comprise community-based mechanisms such as development associations which straddle the governance chasm in providing for the needs of residents. The noted approaches, while lacking formal legal authority, constitute a viable means of avoiding a vacuum in attending to the service delivery needs of such communities. This occurs in part because the officially constituted governmental mechanisms which have legal mandates sometimes tend to be ineffective or out of tune with the realities on the ground (Stacey and Lund 2016: 591–593). Formal channels of political engagement such as public institutions appear largely inaccessible to many residents of informal settlements. Thus, residents primarily interact with their political leaders through informal social networks and events. These serve as platforms for receiving private or club goods from political actors who often rely on these interactions as avenues for building electoral capital (Awal and Paller 2016: 7–8). The informal interactions serve to encourage some form of public engagement, but may sometimes compromise issue-based bottom-up pressure on elected officials (Awal and Paller 2016: 7–8). As regards advocacy, mutualistic claim-making appears to be a dominant trait. Specifically, the role of opinion leaders in facilitating social engagements within informal settlements deserves special mention. These include assemblymen, market queens, traditional rulers, as well as ethnic and religious leaders (Amoako 2018: 959–960). The assemblymen, who are elected local representatives, are normally one of the first points of call when it comes to community mobilization for responding to natural or man-made disasters. Moreover, market queens (i.e. female leaders with oversight responsibility over traders within designated open markets) are agents of information dissemination and mobilization of market women to deal with such occurrences. Similarly, traditional, ethnic and religious leaders serve as important figures when it comes to pooling resources or social networks towards effectively addressing the needs of residents (Amoako 2018: 959–960). Besides the predominantly mutualistic approach to claim-making, antagonistic interactions sometimes occur around the demolitions and forced evictions of res-

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  161

idents of informal settlements. For instance, residents of Old Fadama have been victims of these actions on certain occasions. The rationale by political authorities is to move them from areas which are largely not deemed suitable for human habitation. Urban movements respond to these actions with various measures such as enumerations and community mobilization towards raising public awareness about the negative impacts of these evictions on residential quality of life.

IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION Table 10.1 summarizes the results from a comparison of Namibia and Ghana on all dimensions described in our framework. A number of similarities and differences can be observed from the comparative evaluation of the two countries. For instance, rural–urban migration has been instrumental in creating informal settlements in both contexts. In the case of Namibia, the lifting of apartheid era restrictions after independence created a mass migration of people from rural to urban areas, thus portending a need to address the problems faced by these migrants. And for Ghana, rural–urban migration is attributable to socio-economic and related factors. It is also important to note that community-based, international and non-governmental organizations constitute the primary forms of urban mobilization in both countries. This could be explained by the democratizing and globalizing ethos of both nations which make it possible for these entities to operate freely. However, political engagement of movements appears to be more prominent in land delivery within Namibian informal settlements than is the case for Ghana. This may be attributed to the legacy of inequality emanating from the apartheid era in Namibia which creates the need for a national political response to redress the challenge. In both Namibia and Ghana, actions by urban social movements focus on use values, pluralism, civic engagement and collective action. Use values serve to de-emphasize the increasingly neoliberal bent of public policy in the two countries. In the case of Namibia, pluralism appears to be largely geared towards upending the legacy of elitism emanating from the colonial and apartheid eras. This has led to the promotion of civic engagement and collective action by urban social movements. Moreover, pluralism in Ghana is defined by the goal of creating more avenues for political participation in the democratic system. Also, civic engagement and collective action are shaped by social networks, as well as familial and kinship ties. The chapter reveals that rural–urban migration creates the need for a recognition of basic social and political rights in the informal settlements, which can be protected and articulated by urban social movements. As already noted, these rights are political and socio-economic in nature. Social movements through their networking, mobilization and resource endowments serve to create platforms for protecting such rights. As evident from the Namibia and Ghana case studies, this may occur by protecting residents from forced evictions and their concomitant challenges of homelessness. Moreover, it could entail in situ upgrading strategies which seek to improve the quality of infrastructure and public service delivery in these settlements.

162  Handbook on urban social movements

Table 10.1

Informal settlements and urban social movements in Namibia and Ghana

 

Namibia

Ghana

Typologies and

● Morphological patterns: urban sprawl,

● Socio-economic origins: extralegal, indigenous

sub-categories of

structured and unstructured settlements

and purchased settlements

informal settlements Ontological and

● Use values: prioritization of residents’

epistemological

socio-spatial needs such as land, housing

framing

and other public services ● Pluralism: focus on upending previous ethos of elitism ● Civic engagement and collective action: involvement of citizen groups and local

● Use values: prevention of forced evictions and promotion of in situ upgrading ● Pluralism: making voices of ordinary citizens heard ● Civic engagement and collective action: emphasis on social networks, familial or kinship ties, as well as community roots

communities Organizational forms

● Community-based organizations, e.g. SDFN ● International bodies, e.g. Slum/Shack Dwellers International ● Non-governmental organizations, e.g.

● Community-based organizations, e.g. GFUP ● International bodies, e.g. UN-Habitat and Slum/ Shack Dwellers International ● Non-governmental organizations, e.g. People’s Dialogue on Human Settlements

NHAG ● Political associations, e.g. Affirmative Repositioning Movement and Landless People’s Movement Typologies of rights

● Political: social activism, collective mobilization, enumerations and mapping

● Political: bottom-up social activism, community-based enumerations

● Social: housing and infrastructural devel- ● Social: right to shelter, access to public services opment, informal settlement upgrading, psycho-social support ● Economic: savings, rights against forced

schemes, participatory relocation and community empowerment

evictions, security of land tenure ● Formal approaches: government institu- ● Formal approaches: government institutions,

Forms of communication and advocacy

● Economic: financial support, microfinance

tions, political actors ● Informal approaches: community leaders, community-based approaches (e.g. Water Point Committees), Constituency Development Committees

political actors ● Informal approaches: development associations, social networks and events ● Mutualistic claim-making: roles of opinion leaders in informal interactions

● Mutualistic claim-making: co-production ● Antagonistic claim-making: demolitions and ● Antagonistic claim-making: demolitions

forced evictions

and forced evictions

Source:

Authors’ construct based on literature review, document analysis and interviews.

The chapter also observes that the approaches adopted by urban social movements to assert the rights of residents in informal settlements are both formal and informal in nature. Formally, this takes place through public engagement with political and opinion leaders towards underscoring the plight of residents. Informally, this occurs through unofficial communication channels as well as engagements with

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  163

local communities and individual residents. It is therefore evident that right to the city mobilizations in African informal settlements are a confluence of top-down and bottom-up initiatives. The top-down mechanisms comprise advocacy interventions by extra-local actors such as national and international non-governmental organizations. Moreover, the bottom-up efforts occur through involvement of local communities or residents in various efforts to influence policy direction towards the protection of their basic rights to shelter and livelihoods. An appreciable level of antagonist claim-making characterizes urban social movements in both Namibian and Ghanaian informal settlements as evident for instance in the context of forced evictions or demolition of shacks in certain instances. However, many of the processes associated with these movements appear to be mutualistic in nature. This is epitomized by the emergence of various participatory and informal mechanisms introduced at the urban level to deal with the needs of residents in a coordinated manner. The development may be explained in part by the ethos of democratic governance in both countries which creates the need for public engagement and protection of citizen rights. In the case of Namibia, mutualistic claim-making is evident in terms of the co-production of land and housing delivery by municipalities in conjunction with citizens. This may be due to the urgency of the land and housing delivery situation in Namibia which calls for alternative forms of collective action to mitigate the situation. In the case of Ghana, mutualistic claim-making occurs through the opinion leaders who facilitate social engagement towards protecting the rights of residents. The socio-economic origins of informal settlements, which prioritize social capital, partly explain the situation. The urban social mobilization described here demonstrates an innovative form of collective action in African subnational models of governance. This involves pooling the resources and know-how of public officials, residents and non-governmental organizations to effectively address community development needs. Moreover, it entails direct mobilization of local interest groups to protect their rights. It thus constitutes a practical mechanism for bridging existing loopholes in the efforts of local authorities towards dealing with the challenges faced by informal settlements. In terms of potential future developments, this chapter observes that urban social movements will continue to serve as platforms for collective mobilization towards improving the living conditions of residents. This occurs because the resources and networks available to these organizational platforms provide avenues for community engagement, as well as the shaping of public policy. Moreover, urban social movements serve to bridge the participatory planning gaps which hinder the ability of marginalized communities to engage with political authorities for improved human well-being. With specific reference to the role of international bodies, their influence is evident in terms of the ability to influence local actors in social mobilization. They constitute collaborative cross-national platforms for translating universally accepted principles regarding the right to sustainable cities and communities into practice. This ensures adherence to global best practices on protecting the rights of residents in low-income communities such as informal settlements.

164  Handbook on urban social movements

REFERENCES Aalbers, M. B. and Gibb, K. (2014). Housing and the right to the city: Introduction to the special issue. International Journal of Housing Policy, 14, 207–213. Adam, A. G. (2014). Informal settlements in the peri-urban areas of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia: An institutional analysis. Habitat International, 43, 90–97. Amoako, C. (2018). Emerging grassroots resilience and flood responses in informal settlements in Accra, Ghana. GeoJournal, 83(5), 949–965. Anh, N. T., Rigg, J., Huong, L. T. T., and Dieu, D. T. (2012). Becoming and being urban in Hanoi: Rural–urban migration and relations in Vietnam. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 39(5), 1103–1131. Attoh, K. A. (2011). What kind of right is the right to the city? Progress in Human Geography, 35(5), 669–685. Awal, M. and Paller, J. W. (2016). Who really governs urban Ghana? Africa Research Institute. Barnes, S. L. and Cowser, A. (2017). Building homes and building lives: Benefits of involvement in the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia. Women, Gender, and Families of Color, 5(2), 153–174. Brown, A. and Kristiansen, A. (2008). Urban policies and the right to the city: Rights, responsibilities and citizenship. UNESCO: Management of Social Transformations. Chitekwe-Biti, B. (2018). Co-producing Windhoek: The contribution of the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia. Environment and Urbanization, 30(2), 387–406. Cowser, A. and Barnes, S. L. (2016). From shack dweller to home owner: The power of the MBOP, Africana womanism, and self-help housing among the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia. Journal of Namibian Studies, 19, 15–41. Daniel, A. and Neubert, D. (2019). Civil society and social movements: Conceptual insights and challenges in African contexts. Critical African Studies, 11(2), 176–192. de Waal, A. and Ibreck, R. (2013). Hybrid social movements in Africa. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 31(2), 303–324. Delgado, G., Muller, A., Mabakeng, R. and Namupala, M. (2020). Co-producing land for housing through informal settlement upgrading: Lessons from a Namibian municipality. Environment and Urbanization, 32(1), 175–194. Domaradzka, A. (2018). Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(4), 607–620. Eshetu, F. and Beshir, M. (2017). Dynamics and determinants of rural–urban migration in Southern Ethiopia. Journal of Development and Agricultural Economics, 9(12), 328–340. Farouk, B. R. and Owusu, M. (2012). “If in doubt, count”: The role of community-driven enumerations in blocking eviction in Old Fadama, Accra. Environment and Urbanization, 24(1), 47–57. Fenster, T. (2005). The right to the gendered city: Different formations of belonging in everyday life. Journal of Gender Studies, 14(3), 217–231. Friendly, A. (2013). The right to the city: Theory and practice in Brazil. Planning Theory & Practice, 14(2), 158–179. Harris, L. M. and Morinville, C. (2013). Improving participatory water governance in Accra, Ghana. CIGI-Africa Initiative Publications: Policy Brief No. 7. Jahan, M. (2012). Impact of rural urban migration on physical and social environment: The case of Dhaka city. International Journal of Development and Sustainability, 1(2), 186–194. Karuaihe, S. T. and Wandschneider, P. R. (2018). Limited access to services for the urban poor in Windhoek, Namibia. Development Southern Africa, 35(4), 466–479. Larsen, R. and Augustus, G. (2020). Urban land and life in Namibia’s informal settlements. In W. Odendaal and W. Werner (eds.), Neither here nor there: Indigeneity, marginalisa-

Rural–urban migration and the right to the city: Namibia and Ghana  165

tion and land rights in post-independence Namibia (pp. 70–94). Land, Environment and Development Project: Legal Assistance Centre. Lodge, T. (2013). Introduction: Social movements and political change in Africa. Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 31(2), 147–155. Mensah, C. A., Antwi, K. B., and Acheampong, P. K. (2014). Urban housing crisis: Tracing the factors behind the growth of informal settlements in Kumasi, Ghana. Journal of Human and Social Science Research, 5(1), 9–20. Metsola, L. (2018). Incremental dependencies: Politics and ethics of claim-making at the fringes of Windhoek, Namibia. In C. Amman and T. Foster (eds.), African cities and the development conundrum (pp. 162–187). Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. Mitlin, D. (2018). Beyond contention: Urban social movements and their multiple approaches to secure transformation. Environment and Urbanization, 30(2), 557–574. Mlambo, V. (2018). An overview of rural–urban migration in South Africa: Its causes and implications. Archives of Business Research, 6(4). Mulcahy, K. and Kollamparambil, U. (2016). The impact of rural–urban migration on subjective well-being in South Africa. The Journal of Development Studies, 52(9), 1357–1371. Muller, A. and Mbanga, E. (2012). Participatory enumerations at the national level in Namibia: The community land information programme (CLIP). Environment and Urbanization, 24(1), 67–75. Okyere, S. A., Diko, S. K., Hiraoka, M. and Kita, M. (2017). An urban “mixity”: Spatial dynamics of social interactions and human behaviors in the Abese informal quarter of La Dadekotopon, Ghana. Urban Science, 1(2), 1–19. Oteng-Ababio, M., Tanle, A., Amoah, S. T., Kusi, L., Kosoe, E. A., and Bagson, E. (2019). ‘Informal exceptionalism?’ Labour migrants’ creative entrepreneurship for sustainable livelihoods in Accra, Ghana. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 54(1), 88–103. Owusu, M. (2013). Community-managed reconstruction after the 2012 fire in Old Fadama, Ghana. Environment and Urbanization, 25(1), 243–248. Pendleton, W., Crush, J., and Nickanor, N. (2014). Migrant Windhoek: Rural–urban migration and food security in Namibia. Urban Forum, 25(2), 191–205. Peoples, C. D. (2019). Classical and contemporary conventional theories of social movements. In B. B. (ed.), The Palgrave handbook of social movements, revolution, and social transformation (pp. 17–34). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Pluciński, P. (2018). Forces of altermodernization: Urban social movements and the new urban question in contemporary Poland. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(4), 653–669. Purcell, M. (2013). The right to the city: The struggle for democracy in the urban public realm. Policy and Politics, 41(3), 311–327. Snyder, R. E., Jaimes, G., Riley, L. W., Faerstein, E., and Corburn, J. (2013). A comparison of social and spatial determinants of health between formal and informal settlements in a large metropolitan setting in Brazil. Journal of Urban Health, 91(3), 432–445. Sorensen, A. and Sagaris, L. (2010). From participation to the right to the city: Democratic place management at the neighbourhood scale in comparative perspective. Planning Practice and Research, 25(3), 297–316. Stacey, P. and Lund, C. (2016). In a state of slum: Governance in an informal urban settlement in Ghana. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 54(4), 591–615. Uitermark, J., Nicholls, W., and Loopmans, M. (2012). Cities and social movements: Theorizing beyond the right to the city. Environment and Planning A, 44, 2546–2554. Weber, B. (2017). Addressing informal settlement growth in Namibia. Namibian Journal of Environment, 1(B), 16–26.

166  Handbook on urban social movements

Weber, B. and Mendelsohn, J. (2017). Informal settlements in Namibia: Their nature and growth. Exploring ways to make Namibian urban development more socially just and inclusive. Development Workshop Namibia. Zhang, L. (2010). The right to the entrepreneurial city in reform-era China. China Review, 10(1), 129–155.

PART III URBAN MOVEMENTS AND CITY LIFE IN RETROSPECT

11. Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective Abigail Friendly

INTRODUCTION: CLAIMING URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS IN BRAZIL A large body of literature has focused on urban social movements in Brazil, especially those that emerged in the late 1970s as signs that the country’s 20-year dictatorship had begun to wane (Assies 1994; Jacobi 1987). Indeed, urban social movements are a key voice in demanding participation and attention to popular needs (Mainwaring 1987), even in a context of inequality and a deepened urban crisis (Maricato and Colosso 2021). Urban social movements’ struggle for important rights and material improvements call attention to new issues, and prompt changes in the discourse and actions of other political actors. Despite some retraction in recent years, Brazil’s experience reinforces the importance of urban social movements in achieving improved conditions in cities. These movements are therefore pivotal in understanding urban transformations in applying a right to the city. Given this focus, I situate this chapter within debates on urban social movements around the world, and struggles over the right to the city (Domaradzka 2018; Mayer 2012). For French philosopher Henri Lefebvre, the city was an oeuvre involving heterogeneous ideas among diverse people struggling over the shape of their city (Mitchell 2003). As Lefebvre noted, “the right to the city, complemented by the right to difference and the right to information, should modify, concretize and make more practical the rights of the citizen as an urban dweller (citadin) and user of multiple services” (Kofman and Lebas 1996: 34). In Brazil, although the most notable moments for urban social movements occurred in the 1980s, their roots were established during the authoritarian past, a context of inequality and unequal citizenship rights, and strongly embedded in a colonial legacy of slavery and the presence of landed oligarchies persisting into the twentieth century (Sales 1994). Considerable scholarship shows that political culture in Brazil has been dominated by authoritarian relationships of dependence and clientelism – or troca de favores (exchange of favours) – in national life and politics, exemplified by the concession of privileges from those with power to those without (Gay 1998). In a condition characterized by an absence of citizenship, cidadania concedida (citizenship by concession) was negotiated through power relations distinguished by a focus on rule and submission (Sales 1994). Under Getúlio Vargas’ long dictatorship between 1930 and 1945, cidadania regulada, or regulated citizenship, referred to an exclusionary form of citizenship (Santos 1979), ambiguous given its combination of 168

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  169

recognition of workers’ social rights and state control over workers, thus promoting an urban ‘underclass’ (Fischer 2008).1 Despite a long history of social movements, those of the early 1980s left a mark on the country’s urban policy and practice. As Brazil moved towards redemocratization, formally returning to democracy in 1985, an urban reform movement emerged in the early 1980s based on criticisms of the country’s unsuccessful technocratic planning model (Ribeiro and Santos Junior 2001). The National Movement for Urban Reform (Movimento Nacional pela Reforma Urbana, MNRU) developed an urban reform proposal during the 1987–1988 Constituent Assembly (Assembléia Constituinte), charged with crafting a new Constitution in a “battle … for the democratic imagination of the Constitutional Assembly … elected by direct vote” (Holston 2008: 250). Given the inclusion of popular amendments, the Constituent Assembly involved considerable participation (Bassul 2005). One of these – the amendment on urban reform – defined a sphere of urban rights linked to the role of the state, a notion of democracy through participatory urban management, and a ‘social ethic’ that politicized the discussion, thus formulating a platform for urban social movements around access to the city as rights of all inhabitants (Saule Junior and Uzzo 2010: 261). Such ideas also helped to inspire a rights and legal emphasis in the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT), a centre-left political party which emerged in 1980 during redemocratization, with deep connections to trade unions and urban social movements. Ultimately, the MNRU was key in approving a ‘citizens’ Constitution in 1988 including two articles on urban policy, reaffirming the social function of property, or the obligation for land uses contributing to the common good (Friendly 2020; Ondetti 2016). Later, the movement became known as the National Forum on Urban Reform (FNRU), and was crucial in promulgating the 2001 law known as the Statute of the City (Estatuto da Cidade) to improve conditions in Brazilian cities (Fernandes 2011; Friendly 2013), despite an 11-year battle over the urban policy contents of the law. Despite these achievements, a general sense that “Brazil’s recent political-economic malaise has challenged confidence in radical, rights-based programmes for overcoming spatial segregation and social exclusion” prevails, prompting a reconsideration of such debates, specifically for urban social movements (Friendly and Stiphany 2019: 272). This chapter is reflective and exploratory, based on the author’s extensive research on the right to the city, urban policy, planning, and social movements in urban Brazil across a range of contexts (Friendly 2013, 2017, 2020, 2022). The material is based on a longstanding engagement with these ideas, movements, actors, and policies in Brazil. Although the chapter does not follow an historical trajectory, for clarity, Figure 11.1 shows a timeline of key moments of Brazil’s urban social movements. In the following sections, I consider Brazil’s urban social movements in perspective, showing three key processes involved in such debates. These key processes are: (1) the importance of debates on the right to the city and a rights and legal emphasis among these movements; (2) growing challenges of Brazil’s urban reform project; and (3) recent struggles reflecting ideas of insurgent planning. Table 11.1 summa-

170  Handbook on urban social movements

rizes the key processes identified in this chapter within debates on Brazil’s urban social movements. Based on a discussion of these key processes, in the conclusion, I highlight paradoxes framing Brazil’s trajectory of urban transformations. Indeed, the Brazilian case is noteworthy due to a disjuncture between progressive urban policies claiming the right to the city and the social function of property, combined with the persistent reality of urban inequality and social exclusion. Nonetheless, Brazil’s extensive experience over the past decades provides lessons for the Global South about how a radical, rights-based approach to urban policy may become institutionalized, despite obstacles challenging this progress over the past 30 years.

Figure 11.1

Timeline of Brazil’s urban social movements

BRAZIL’S ‘RIGHTS TURN’ In Brazil, a rights-based approach has been influential among urban social movements. Indeed, the transformations accompanying Brazil’s democratic transition were fuelled by social movements of the 1980s around claims for full citizenship, “a radical rights-based project” following the dictatorship (Klink and Denaldi 2016: 404). Needs-based justifications of earlier years lost traction, as a change occurred among urban social movements; thus, “residents began to understand their social needs as rights of citizenship and to generate rights-based arguments to justify their demands” (Holston 2008: 240). Popular mobilization through organized social movements in the 1980s was unlike anything that Brazil had experienced before. These movements engendered a new politics of citizenship based on a “right to have rights”, allowing them to claim previously defined rights, and define what constitutes rights through political struggles (Dagnino 2005: 153). For Jacobi (1987), the identity of these movements emerged from the collective construction of rights, directly related to the expansion of citizenship spaces. The push for democracy by social movements solidified into claims for full citizenship, evolving into a broad-based discourse framed by social justice and rights-based claims against infringements of the dictatorship (Dagnino 2005). Indeed, with a growing arena for debate, “there was

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  171

Table 11.1

Key processes in debates on urban social movements in Brazil

Key process

Goal

Theoretical inspiration

Actors

Rights and legal emphasis

Claims for full citizenship

Inspired primarily by ideas

Organized urban social

based on a ‘right to have

on the right to the city by

movements.

rights’ starting in the early

Henri Lefebvre from the late

1980s.

1960s, but also by Manuel Castells’ work on the urban question and David Harvey’s work on social justice and the city.

Struggles for urban reform

Legal-political reform

Inspired specifically by

Led by the MNRU (included

asserting citizenship rights,

the seminars known as

popular movements,

focused on redefining

‘Quitandinha’ in 1963,

academics, NGOs, and

property rights, a new

defending social justice

professionals), and was later

relationship between the

principles in cities, as well

known as the FNRU.

state and society, and

as the right to the city.

extending citizenship to urban social rights. Instances of insurgent

Non-official insurgent

Inspired by James Holston’s Collectively organized

planning

struggles for political

work on insurgent

groups and urban activists,

and social rights and

citizenship in Brasília of

such as the Jornadas de

mobilizations by

the 1980s and expanded by

Junho protests in 2013.

communities contesting

others in the planning world

differentiated citizenship,

such as Faranak Miraftab,

and opposing the state.

and drawing on rights-based debates.

a growth in awareness of the concept of citizenship and its constituent rights. This led emerging movements to adopt a discourse that posited needs as social rights” (Earle 2017: 109). The advent of a discourse of citizenship rights by the urban poor is thus a key outcome of these movements (Jacobi 1987; Sader 1988). In this period, following the title of Sader’s (1988) book, ‘new characters’ came onto the scene as new subjects of their own history (Tavolari 2020). These movements became recognized as new forces on the political ‘scene’, gaining a new political dimension as the state became the addressee of these claims, contributing to a redefined state–society relationship. As Sader (1988) noted, the politicization of demands and conscientization of these movements illustrated a change, as these movements become aware of their agency and capacity to change the status quo. Such rights-based arguments “constituted their proponents as bearers of the right to rights and as worthy of that distinction as any other class of citizen” (Holston 2008: 241). Rather than making deals with politicians to improve their livelihoods, the poor had the right to adequate urban services, supported by the development of a rhetoric among these movements around organizational autonomy (Jacobi 1987).2

172  Handbook on urban social movements

In this context, the idea of the right to the city “found fertile ground in Latin America”, specifically in Brazil, long before the Statute’s approval (Klink and Denaldi 2016; Omena de Melo 2017; Tavolari 2020: 477). Lefebvre’s notion of the right to the city as a process and struggle in the realm of everyday life provided considerable resonance to Brazil’s social movements between the late 1960s and early 1980s (Friendly 2020; Huchzermeyer 2018). Lefebvre’s writings and even visits to Brazil in the early 1970s thus inspired a rights and legal focus in Brazilian social movements (Huchzermeyer 2019).3 For example, a passage from Lefebvre’s The Production of Space, published two years after his visit to Brazil, notes that: The vast shantytowns of Latin America (favelas, barrios, ranchos) manifest a social life far more intense than the bourgeois districts of the cities. This social life is transposed onto the level of urban morphology but it only survives inasmuch as it fights in self-defence and goes on the attack in the course of class struggle in its modern forms. Their poverty notwithstanding, these districts sometimes so effectively order their space – houses, walls, public spaces – as to elicit a nervous admiration. (Lefebvre 1991: 373–374)

Brazil’s movement around legal reform has been based on two pillars of the right to the city proposed by Lefebvre: the right to habitation, and the right to participation (Fernandes 2007). The spread of rights-based ideas began during the dictatorship, when ideas about law, justice, and democracy carried an enhanced social weight (Tavolari 2020). In addition to Lefebvre, Holston (2008) highlights Castells’ (1977) work on the urban question and grassroots movements, and Harvey’s (2003) work on social justice and the city in understanding Brazil’s rights discourse. These ideas “captivated the imaginations of planners, architects, lawyers and social scientists, who promoted the urban social movements and who eventually became leaders of NGOs and local government” (Holston 2008: 349). In addition, Tavolari (2020: 477) notes that rights-based ideas spread in part due to links forged between intellectuals and urban social movements, and mediation carried out by activist intellectuals through which “the movements began to learn of, and to claim, the right to the city”. Lefebvre’s work in Brazil became known in academic circles through the notion of ‘everyday life’, influenced by Marxist thought of the time, and emerging movements which made the issue of everyday life key for their political demands (Martins 1997). These ideas also spread due to academics at the University of São Paulo’s Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism who read Marx’s Capital, focusing on land rent (Arantes 2009; Tavolari 2020). Sociologist José de Souza Martins held seminars on Lefebvre’s work in these years, and is believed to have introduced Lefebvre’s work in Brazil (Machado 2008; Stanek 2011). In this context: the study of Marx provided the necessary mediation for a reading of contemporary authors in the Marxist tradition, among them Lefebvre. Accordingly, his ideas on urban matters became a central issue only to the extent that researchers in geography, architecture and urbanism began to take an interest in reading about them. (Tavolari 2020: 478)

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  173

Considerable work during the 1980s highlighted broad debates on the right to the city (Jacobi 1986; Maricato 1985). As Tavolari (2020: 479) notes – and this is key to understanding how and why these ideas were taken up by urban social movements – these texts of the mid-1980s are “intervention-oriented, using language directed to a broad readership comprising mainly the social movements themselves”. Key within this ‘rights’ turn, Holston (2008) uses the term insurgent citizenship to explain how the poor, driven by rights-based arguments, established an alternative citizenship approach by destabilizing entrenched social inequalities. For Holston (2008: 34) “insurgence describes a process that is an acting counter, a counterpolitics, that destabilizes the present and renders it fragile, defamiliarizing the coherence with which it usually presents itself … It bubbles up from the past in places where present circumstances seem propitious for an irruption”. Indeed, the circumstances establishing the context of inequality in Brazil – limited access to political rights and land, residential illegality, and the misuse of law – helped to mobilize residents of urban peripheries. In Brazil’s democratic transition, insurgent citizens in Brazil’s autoconstructed (self-built) peripheries of large cities began contesting differentiated citizenship, claiming their rights to urban services and the legal ownership of property. Thus, the city constituted both the context of citizenship struggles and the substance of these struggles. Referring to how insurgence is reflected in Brazil, Earle (2017) shows that mobilization among some of Brazil’s poorest populations is a demand for equality, achieved through constitutional rights. Earle (2017) thus uses the term ‘transgressive citizenship’, showing how movements advance, defend, and implement a right to the city by opposing the state through civil disobedience and a politics of rights. Moreover, this rights-based focus was key to Brazil’s urban reform movement, which I turn to in the next section. In the following section, I return to debates on insurgent planning, constituting a final key process to understand Brazil’s urban social movements in perspective.

A LUTA PELA REFORMA URBANA In the context of the base reforms (reformas de base) mobilizations of the early 1960s, progressive architects took up the idea of ‘urban reform’ to solve Brazil’s growing housing challenges.4 Two seminars on urban reform, known as ‘Quitandinha’, were held in 1963, resulting in a proposal demanding social justice in cities through a focus on urban planning and the participation of populations in formulating and implementing policies (Bassul 2005). While urban development and planning were identified through centralized planning and intervention to ensure access to land and housing for low-income populations, the 1964 military dictatorship interrupted such efforts. Ultimately, urban reform returned to the agenda 20 years later, connected to broader trends of democratization. Founded in the early 1980s, the MNRU began developing an urban reform proposal within the context of Brazil’s Constituent Assembly, uniting demands defending the right to the city (Santos Junior 1996).

174  Handbook on urban social movements

Three strategies were envisioned to produce urban transformations: redefining property rights through the social function of property; new relationships between the state and society; and extending citizenship to urban social rights (Grazia 2003; Ribeiro 1994). Urban reform thus referred to structural reforms with a spatial dimension, focusing on reforming the institutions regulating urban space to achieve social justice, and combined land policy, community upgrading, and participatory planning (Santos Junior 1996; Souza 2005). Therefore, actors in the MNRU understood that urban reform is only possible with legal-political reform asserting new citizenship rights (Fernandes 2007). As Silva (1991: 32) notes, the MNRU involved “the emergence of new forms of political struggle, where the issue of creating new citizenship rights and the search for greater social justice takes place through new relationships between social movements and the legal-institutional plan”. The story of the MNRU – an intellectual and political articulation of popular movements, academics, NGOs, and professionals, including architects, engineers and lawyers sharing urban reform ideals – is therefore a history of struggle uniting diverse social actors (Santos Junior 1996; Saule Junior and Uzzo 2010). The MNRU emerged in Rio de Janeiro, where technical organizations, unions, popular movements and institutions providing advisory functions came together around urban issues (Ribeiro 1994). Galvanized by the Plenary for Popular Participation in the Constituent Assembly, in 1985, this group formalized what later became an urban reform platform. As the MNRU was unlike traditional mass movements, Silva (1991: 33) calls it a “discontinuous and fragmented movement” of “national expression” that “expresses itself in extremely different forms of popular participation by the various cities in the country, sometimes in an articulated way, or simply disarticulated as a movement”. For Avritzer (2010), while the MNRU’s composition changed over time, its success resulted from its inclusion of professional associations, its concentration on one issue, and the intensity of actions bolstering this agenda. Incorporating popular movements fighting for land and housing since the 1970s, Maricato (cited in Silva 1991: 13) notes that: The popular amendment for urban reform is a platform resulting from the social forces that participated in its elaboration … Its formation would be unfeasible if it were not preceded by a certain accumulation of propositions and reflections, carried out by entities linked to urban struggles: mutuários, inquilinos, posseiros, favelados, architects, geographers, engineers, lawyers, etc.

Following the 1988 Constitution, the MNRU focused on building regional and local forums to consolidate its reach (Ribeiro 1994). The movement became involved in allied local governments such as those of the PT – which regarded itself as an exponent of social movements – to implement participatory tools defended by the MNRU (Serafim 2012). Applying popular mobilization, pressure, and negotiation, the MNRU conceived of urban planning as a ‘pact’ forged in a participatory process including those previously excluded, which became widely accepted by social movements (Bonduki 2017). A national seminar on urban reform was held in 1988,

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  175

later known as the first ‘National Forum on Urban Reform’ (Fórum Nacional de Reforma Urbana, FNRU). Thus, a new moment emerged for the movement, from then on, called the FNRU. It thus become “an articulator of urban actors in Brazil”, pressing Congress to regulate the Constitution’s urban policy articles, including – later – approving a national urban development law (Grazia 2003: 56; Saule Junior and Uzzo 2010). In the late 1980s, some FNRU members entered municipal governments, especially those of the PT, a common strategy for social movements to advance their goals. Ties between social movement actors within and outside the state allowed for the creative use of historical traditions of state–society interactions, fostering new forms of dialogue (Abers et al. 2014). By 2002, the number of PT-administered cities expanded considerably, many applying urban reform proposals, thus becoming ‘laboratories’ of urban reform. Moreover, the urban reform principles opened space for civil society participation in municipal governments through plebiscites, referendums, public hearings, councils, conferences, and participation in municipal master plans (Abers et al. 2014). Thus, even before approval of the Statute in 2001, the FNRU acted at the municipal and state levels, pressing for the inclusion of urban reform principles and stimulating collective action (Serafim 2012; Silva 2002). For key FNRU members, these practices represented achievements towards universalizing the right to the city through the collective construction of laws, policies, programmes and social practices (Grazia 2003). After Luiz Inácio ‘Lula’ da Silva (PT) assumed office in 2003, key FNRU members joined the Ministry of Cities, the federal body charged with urban issues, and a longstanding FNRU demand conceived as a space to construct a national urban policy based on urban reform principles. As Maricato (2020: 17) recounts, the Ministry of Cities “was created on the day Lula took office … [it] demonstrated his government’s reception of urban social movements that formed that base of the PT”.5 Under Lula, formal participatory venues were strengthened, resulting in increased interactions between social movement actors and government representatives (Abers et al. 2014). While these ties were reinforced when PT assumed power nationally, the relationships had been forged from collective action starting in the 1980s. As critical scholars noted, an ‘impasse’ and fragmentation of urban reform began by 2005, informed by alliances between leftist and conservative forces to prioritize ‘governance’ in Congress, and more indirectly, the dominance of capital in producing urban space (Klink and Denaldi 2016; Maricato 2014, 2020). Following the mensalão scandal in 2005 which implicated key members of Lula’s administration in corruption, a reconfiguration of power in the National Congress resulted in a transfer of control of the Ministry of Cities to the conservative Partido Progressista (PP). FNRU members in the Ministry were replaced by those unconnected to urban reform, illustrating a precarious balance between the state and civil society (Serafim 2012). In this period, Serafim (2012) notes how the FNRU often took paid trips to Brasília, facilitating connections to other organizations, yet also a growing dependence of the FNRU on the Ministry, a strategy used to mitigate conflicts between movements and the Ministry’s leadership. Thus, Maricato (2014: 10) highlights “the loss of offen-

176  Handbook on urban social movements

siveness and fragmentation of social movements gathered under the banner of urban reform” and the “loss of the centrality of the urban land issue” by the 1990s, which was accentuated during the Lula government. As the FNRU became institutionalized, it abandoned its anti-capitalist struggle as the movements “gradually became entangled and fetishized” (Klink and Denaldi 2016: 404). Ultimately, a subtle shift occurred in: the emphasis on autonomous and community-driven praxis of Brazilian social movements and practitioners – aimed at the right to land, housing and the city as a collective production and appropriation – to a more professionalized practice of urban reform, which was embedded in state-mediated master-planning and land-market instruments aimed at the social function of individual private property. (Klink and Denaldi 2016: 404)

Beyond considerable critiques of urban reform from a policy perspective, the rise of neoliberalism in Brazil – beginning even in the late 1980s – led to a “perverse convergence” between urban reform and neoliberal agendas, influencing both urban policies and movements in contradictory ways (Rolnik 2013b: 56). This was further reinforced with the 2018 election of right-wing Jair Bolsonaro in a process of regression and ‘de-democratization’, including the extinction of the Ministry of Cities in 2019 (Bianchi et al. 2021). While the fragmentation of the urban reform agenda is worrying, new avenues for critical action have emerged, led by urban activists as instances of insurgent planning.

INSTANCES OF INSURGENT PLANNING A city only exists for those who move around it. And getting around means being able to have access to quality public transport that does not create barriers to locomotion. But it also means being able to move around the city on foot to protest for rights. A decree cannot impede the right to the city. (Movimento Passe Livre 2013)

In recent years, insurgent planning has taken on new meaning as a mode of planning, especially in Brazil (Freitas 2019; Friendly 2022). Influenced considerably by the Brazilian experience, the idea gained recognition through Holston’s (1989) work on insurgent citizenship. As Miraftab (2009) has noted in characterizing the idea, insurgent planning is counter-hegemonic by unsettling the normalized order, but also transgressive and imaginative, meaning that it transgresses time and place, locating historical memory and transnational consciousness as the focus. Holston’s (2008) ongoing work in this area shows that while differentiated citizenship produces inequalities, vulnerabilities and destabilizations, it also results in the means to challenge them through insurgence. As Freitas (2019: 286) notes referring to applying the right to the city agenda in the case of Fortaleza, “in response to states’ failure to fulfil the promises of substantive inclusion, the non-official, insurgent, and conflictual practices of collectively organized groups have been capable of shifting city-building process balance toward public interest in a myriad of ways”.

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  177

In the remainder of this section, I highlight the example of the 2013 Jornadas de Junho protests, showing how people claimed their rights to the city through insurgent planning (Friendly 2017; Vicino and Fahlberg 2017). In June 2013, the world watched in surprise as Brazilian cities erupted in protest, first in São Paulo, and then across Brazil. More than 2 million Brazilians joined in, protesting socio-economic and political conditions, demanding reforms from various public policies. The protests were initially led by the Movimento Passe Livre (Free Pass Movement, MPL), an autonomous apolitical movement supporting public transportation since the mid-2000s, demanding reversal of a bus fare increase of 20 cents. Poor transportation was thus a key focus, a “symbol of segregation and injustice that the working classes suffer through in the day-to-day” (Gomes and Maheirie 2011: 361). Through continued protests, the police responded with growing brutality. Following the decision to reduce bus fares in Rio and São Paulo, social media and the mainstream media effectively called people to protest, supporting the multiplication and deradicalization of the demands (Saad-Filho 2013). Thereafter, demands for transportation coalesced into other issues, including health, education, public spending on the upcoming World Cup, corruption, limited democracy, and a lack of participation. Dissatisfaction and resistance movements had been spreading in urban areas for decades, marking a shift in collective action across Brazil (Holston 2014). As Caldeira (2013) notes: Those who had been articulating new imaginaries and a deep indignation in alternative spaces for quite a while finally arrived to the streets and made sure to fix on the others the feelings of surprise … Those who did not realize what was going on were the political parties that have not listened to them, the governments that have disrespected them continuously, and the middle classes that arrived only late to the streets and to the indignation.

Challenging the “existing emptied out top-down spaces of participation”, the protests highlighted what type of city was desired (Braathen et al. 2016: 266). Echoing ongoing demands of urban social movements, the protests highlighted demands for democracy and participation in decisions about public policies, including demands for basic social rights and reminders of forgotten promises (Rolnik 2013a). The protests expressed frustration with the gap between promises and results, and unfulfilled promises emerging from Brazilian cities’ material conditions, making the protests – overall – about the ‘urban question’ (Fernandes 2013; Friendly 2017). Compounding Brazil’s challenging urban situation, the adoption of neoliberalism deepened issues of exclusionary urban development, resulting in profound repercussions in urban areas (Maricato 2014). Indeed, the MPL (2013: 13) noted that: like a ghost that haunts cities, leaving marks on the living space and memory, popular uprisings over transportation have challenged Brazilian metropolises since their formation. [The protests] are a well-deserved expression of rage against a system completely delivered to the logic of the commodity.

As a result, the protests’ urban dimension situates the city as a locale of insurgence where claims to rights are made, struggles over citizenship transpire, and city dwell-

178  Handbook on urban social movements

ers participate in shaping social relations. Lefebvre’s (1996: 158) notion of such insurgencies as “a cry and a demand” to transform urban spaces and ways of living thus resonates with broad demands in Brazil, framed by a rights discourse through a right to better conditions (Vicino and Fahlberg 2017). As Harvey (2012: xiii) notes, the right to the city “rises up from the streets, out from the neighborhoods, as a cry for help and sustenance by oppressed peoples in desperate times”. Due to the 2013 protests in Brazil and other places, the critical potential of the right to the city became “stronger than ever”, and many argued “that the term had come to unify the left and that attentions should be turned to the movements that were occupying streets and squares” (Tavolari 2020: 487) (Figure 11.2). In Salvador, for example, a letter presenting claims by MPL noted that, “we are fighting for a life without turnstiles, in which citizens have the universal right to the city and to public services” (Nascimento 2013).6 The protests later became more amorphous involving protesters from various classes, groups, and multiple voices, illustrating both the changing repertoires and cycles of protest (Alonso and Mische 2017). The continued return to the streets, such as protesting Bolsonaro’s approach to dealing with Covid-19 in 2021, highlights the sustained relevancy of such actions.

Source:

Photo by Mídia Ninja.

Figure 11.2

Occupation of the Congresso National, Brasília, 17 June 2013

Cities thus play a key role as the locale of insurgent demands for political and social rights (Harvey 2003, 2009; Mitchell 2003). Moreover, in a moment when democrati-

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  179

zation seems to be under threat in Brazil, as Fischer (2021: 217) notes, it is essential “to critically examine a form of insurgency that entwines so readily with Brazil’s deep histories of inequality”. While ongoing protests have revealed the deeply paradoxical nature of Brazil’s democracy (Hagopian 2011, 2016), such contradictions are also key to understanding urban transformations in Brazil, which I turn to in the final section.

PARADOXES AND THE PROMISE OF URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS In this chapter, I explore Brazil’s urban social movements, highlighting three key processes: (1) a rights and legal emphasis among these movements; (2) considerable challenges to Brazil’s urban reform project; and (3) struggles involving insurgent planning. Yet a number of paradoxes, impasses and contradictions continue to plague Brazilian democracy, and thus its urban transformations. As Caldeira and Holston (2015: 2011) note, Brazil’s urban reform model “depends on a process of public participation that is required but not binding, that is formal but vague in procedural rules, and that has its clearest policy outcome in municipal laws and related mandates both of which are then susceptible to judicial challenge”. Fischer’s (2008) notion of a ‘poverty of rights’ further highlights the contradiction between the power of progressive law and citizenship, and the inequality, anger, and cynicism driven by a series of economic crises and consistently unequal rights in the country. For inhabitants and their communities in Brazilian cities, the past few years have not resulted in expected gains to life quality, resulting in the persistence of exclusion as an ongoing feature of Brazilian cities. Similarly, as Holston (2008: 271) shows, “Brazilians experience a democratic citizenship that seems simultaneously to erode as it expands, a democracy at times capable and at other times tragically incapable of protecting the citizen’s body and producing a just society”. Holston’s (2008) notion of ‘disjunctive democracy’ thus accounts for contradictory processes as a feature of Brazilian society in which the expansion of citizenship rights is inherently uneven. Despite obstacles, the endurance of Brazil’s urban social movements over the past decades provides lessons about how to institutionalize a rights-based approach to urban policy. Since the 1980s, Brazil’s experience in institutionalizing the right to the city within urban policy, through urban tools, and within different participatory spaces at a range of scales has provided rich examples for other countries and cities to apply such ideas (Bassul 2005; Fernandes 2011; Friendly 2013). Beyond the legal, institutional and administrative requirements for institutionalizing such an approach, Brazil’s experience illustrates that any kind of change will not occur without widespread and concerted social mobilization on the part of a broad range of actors. Despite considerable obstacles within this process, this model based on the right to the city and the social function of property “could be transferred to other contexts with the recognition that policies, as socio-spatial processes, may actually change as they travel” (Friendly 2013: 173). Yet as Freitas (2017: 953)

180  Handbook on urban social movements

observes, there is a need for a more structural understanding of the right to the city “that recognizes the necessity for continual political action in order to hold the state accountable and to keep focus on the factors that produce unevenness”. Such an understanding clearly underscores the role of insurgent planning as a key feature of Brazilian political systems, in addition to the activities of more traditional urban social movements such as those discussed in this chapter. For example, mobilizations by community organizations in favelas during the Covid-19 pandemic highlight how insurgent practices evidence creative responses in the face of crisis (Cruz et al. 2021; Friendly 2022). At a deeper level, this suggests the need to advance critical thinking committed to democracy and the right to the city to recognize the transformative role of urban social movements, especially insurgent actors in producing urban change. Referring to the demonstrations of 2013, Maricato and Colosso (2021: 162) highlight how, even in regressive contexts, collective experiences by new social and political actors act through “everyday policies along with the living forces that make society dynamic, experimenting with new forms of collective action and the declaration of living together”. Ultimately, Brazil’s persistent contradictions cannot be reverted without rethinking the critical role of social movements in cities as transformative change agents.

NOTES 1. However, as Holston (2008) notes, the idea of ‘regulated citizenship’ misconstrues this idea. Thus, Vargas’ use of social rights sustained a nineteenth-century notion of differentiated citizenship in an adapted format to urban industrial society. 2. In the 1950s, popular associations based on neighbourhoods as territorial spaces came to characterize the history of social movements in Brazilian cities. These sociedades de amigos de barrio (SABs) functioned through a system of bargaining in which residents claimed urban improvements from local elected officials, while comunidades eclesais de base (CEBs) emerged in the 1960s as neighbourhood movements associated with the progressive branch of the Brazilian Catholic Church. 3. Although Lefebvre did not mention visiting Brazil, he visited Brazil during the 1970s, lecturing and observing changes from rural to urban (Hess 1988; Huchzermeyer 2019; Machado 2008). Lefebvre’s work on a theory of difference was influenced by his “first-hand experience of life in Latin American shantytowns … This experience evidently leads Lefebvre to treat shantytowns explicitly as struggles against the state” (Huchzermeyer 2019: 472). 4. The base reforms were a set of proposals for structural reform formulated by intellectuals, practitioners, academics, and social and trade union leaders which mobilized Brazilian society on education, health, public administration and culture, and agrarian and urban reform (Bonduki and Koury 2007). 5. An academic and architect, Ermínia Maricato was the technical coordinator of urban development in the Ministry of Cities between 2003 and 2005, during the Lula years. 6. During protests, passengers were encouraged to jump turnstiles to cause people to reflect on their commute and recognize the political in the mundane of everyday life (Friendly 2017). As Gomes and Maheirie (2011: 361) note, the turnstile became a “symbol of segregation and injustice that the working classes suffer through in the day-to-day”.

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  181

REFERENCES Abers, R. N. Serafim L., and Tatagiba, L. (2014). Repertórios de interação estado-sociedade em um estado heterogêneo: A experiência na era lula. DADOS – Revista de Ciências Sociais, 57(2), 325–357. Alonso, A., and Mische, A. (2017). Changing repertoires and partisan ambivalence in the new Brazilian protests. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 36(2), 144–159. Arantes, P. F. (2009). Em busca do urbano: Marxistas e a cidade de São Paulo de 1970. Novos Estudos CEBRAP, 83, 103–127. Assies, W. (1994). Urban social movements in Brazil: A debate and its dynamics. Latin American Perspectives, 81(21), 81–105. Avritzer, L. (2010). Democratizing urban policy in Brazil: Participation and the right to the city. In J. Gaventa and R. McGee (eds.), Citizen Action and National Policy Reform: Making Change Happen (pp. 153–173). London: Zed Books. Bassul, J. R. (2005). Estatuto da Cidade: Quem Ganhou? Quem Perdeu? Brasília: Senado Federal. Bianchi, B., Chaloub, J., Rangel, P., and Wolf, F. O. (eds.) (2021). Democracy and Brazil: Collapse and Regression. New York: Routledge. Bonduki, N. (2017). Dos movimentos sociais e da luta pela reforma urbana na constituinte ao estatuto da cidade (1981–2001). In N. Bonduki (ed.), A Luta pela Reforma Urbana no Brasil: Do Seminário de Habitação e Reforma Urbana ao Plano Diretor de São Paulo (pp. 81–138). São Paulo: Instituto Casa da Cidade. Bonduki, N., and Koury, A. P. (2007). Das reformas de base ao BNH: As propostas do seminário de habitação e reforma urbana. Paper presented at XII Encontro da Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação e Pesquisa em Planejamento Urbano e Regional, Belém, Brazil, 21–25 May. Braathen, E., Mascarenhas, G., and Sørbøe, C. M. (2016). A ‘city of exception’? Rio de Janeiro and the disputed social legacy of the 2014 and 2016 sports mega-events. In V. Viehoff and G. Poynter (eds.), Mega-Event Cities: Urban Legacies of Global Sports Events (pp. 261–270). New York: Routledge. Caldeira, T. P. R. 2013. São Paulo: The city and its protests. KAFILA (blog). https://​kafila​ .online/​2013/​07/​05/​sao​-paulo​-the​-city​-and​-its​-protests​-teresa​-caldeira/​. Caldeira, T. P. R., and Holston, J. (2015). Participatory urban planning in Brazil. Urban Studies, 52(11), 2001–2017. Castells, M. (1977). The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cruz, G., van Loyen, C., and Sánchez, F. (2021). Culture, territory and action: The Providência Favela’s response to Covid-19. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 13(3), 481–495. Dagnino, E. (2005). ‘We all have rights, but …’: Contesting concepts of citizenship in Brazil. In N. Kabeer (ed.), Inclusive Citizenship: Meanings and Expressions (pp. 149–163). London: Zed Books. Domaradzka, A. (2018). Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas, 29, 607–620. Earle, L. (2017). Transgressive Citizenship and the Struggle for Social Justice: The Right to the City in São Paulo. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Fernandes, E. (2007). Constructing the “right to the city” in Brazil. Social and Legal Studies, 16(2), 201–219. Fernandes, E. (2011). Implementing the urban reform agenda in Brazil: Possibilities, challenges, and lessons. Urban Forum, 22(3), 299–314. Fernandes, E. (2013). Brazil’s ‘winter of discontent’: What it says about urban planning and urban law. IRGLUS News 1(3). https://​us7​.campaign​-archive​.com/​?u​=​22133​d229d52128​ 9046a0bc5a​&​id​=​f7c5c10564.

182  Handbook on urban social movements

Fischer, B. (2008). A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Fischer, B. (2021). Historicising informal governance in 20th century Brazil. Contemporary Social Science, 17(3), 205–221. Freitas, C. F. S. (2017). Undoing the right to the city: World Cup investments and informal settlements in Fortaleza, Brazil. Journal of Urban Affairs, 39(7), 953–969. Freitas, C. F. S. (2019). Insurgent planning? Insights from two decades of the right to the city in Fortaleza, Brazil. City, 23(3), 285–305. Friendly, A. (2013). The right to the city: Theory and practice in Brazil. Planning Theory & Practice, 14(2), 158–179. Friendly, A. (2017). Urban policy, social movements, and the right to the city in Brazil. Latin American Perspectives, 44(2), 132–148. Friendly, A. (2020). The place of social citizenship and property rights in Brazil’s ‘right to the city’ debate. Social Policy & Society, 19(2), 307–318. Friendly, A. (2022). Insurgent planning in pandemic times: The case of Rio de Janeiro. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 46(1), 115–125. Friendly, A., and Stiphany, K. (2019). Paradigm or paradox? The ‘cumbersome impasse’ of the participatory turn in Brazilian urban planning. Urban Studies, 56(2), 271–287. Gay, R. (1998). Rethinking clientelism: Demands, discourses and practices in contemporary Brazil. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 65, 7–24. Gomes, M. A., and Maheirie, K. (2011). Passe Livre Já: participação política e constituição do sujeito. Revista Psicologia Política, 11(22), 359–375. Grazia, G. (2003). Reforma urbana e estatuo da cidade. In L. C. Q. Ribeiro and A. L. Cardoso (eds.), Reforma Urbana e Gesão Democrática: Promessas e Desafios do Estatuto da Cidade (pp. 53–70). Rio de Janeiro: Editora Revan. Hagopian, F. (2011). Paradoxes of democracy and citizenship in Brazil. Latin American Research Review, 46(3), 216–227. Hagopian, F. (2016). Delegative democracy revisited: Brazil’s accountability paradox. Journal of Democracy, 27(3), 119–128. Harvey, D. (2003). The right to the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(4), 939–941. Harvey, D. (2009). Social Justice and the City. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. Hess, R. (1988). Henri Lefebvre et l’Aventure du Siècle. Paris: AM Métailié. Holston, J. (1989). The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasília. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Holston, J. (2008). Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Holston, J. (2014). “Come to the street!” Urban protest, Brazil 2013. Anthropological Quarterly, 87(3), 887–900. Huchzermeyer, M. (2018). The legal meaning of Lefebvre’s the right to the city: Addressing the gap between global campaign and scholarly debate. GeoJournal, 83, 631–644. Huchzermeyer, M. (2019). Informal settlements and shantytowns as differential space. In M. E. Leary-Owhin and J. P. McCarthy (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Henri Lefebvre: The City and Urban Society (pp. 467–476). London: Routledge. Jacobi, P. R. (1986). A cidade e os cidadãos. Lua Nova, 2(4), 22–26. Jacobi, P. R. (1987). Movimentos sociais urbanos numa época de transição: Limites e possibilidades. In E. Sader (ed.), Movimentos Sociais na Transição Democrática (pp. 11–23). São Paulo: Cortez Editora. Klink, J., and Denaldi, R. (2016). On urban reform, rights and planning challenges in the Brazilian metropolis. Planning Theory, 15(4), 402–417.

Brazil’s urban social movements and urban transformations in perspective  183

Kofman, E., and Lebas, E. (1996). Writings on Cities. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Lefebvre H. (1996). The right to the city. In E Kaufman and E Lebas (eds.), Writings on Cities (pp. 63–181). Oxford: Blackwell. Machado, C. R. (2008). Momentos da obra de Henri Lefebvre: Uma apresentação. Ambiente e Educação, 13, 83–95. Mainwaring, S. (1987). Urban popular movements, identity, and democratization in Brazil. Comparative Political Studies, 20(2), 131–159. Maricato, E. (1985). Direito à terra ou direito à cidade? Revista de Cultura de Vozes, 89(6), 405–410. Maricato, E. (2014). O Impasse da Política Urbana no Brasil. Petrópolis: Editora Vozes. Maricato, E. (2020). A favourable correlation of forces: The best possible base for an academic in government in Brazil. In L. Albrechts (ed.), Planners in Politics: Do they Make a Difference? (pp. 11–36). Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Maricato, E., and Colosso, P. (2021). The urban crisis in Brazil: From neodevelopmentalist experiment to the rise of Bolsonarismo. In B. Bianchi, J. Chaloub, P. Rangel, and F. O. Wolf (eds.), Democracy and Brazil: Collapse and Regression (pp. 150–165). New York: Routledge. Martins, J. S. (1997). Sociologia e Militância: Entrevista com José de Souza Martins. Estudos Avançados, 11(31), 137–187. Mayer, M. (2012). The ‘right to the city’ in urban social movements. In N. Brenner, P. Marcuse, and M. Mayer (eds.), Cities for People, Not for Profit: Critical Urban Theory and the Right to the City (pp. 63–85). New York: Routledge. Miraftab, F. (2009). Insurgent planning: Situating radical planning in the global South. Planning Theory, 8(1), 32–51. Mitchell, D. (2003). The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space. New York: Guilford Press. MPL (Movimento Passe Livre) (2013). Não começou em Salvador, não vai terminar em São Paulo. In C. Vainer, D. Harvey, E. Maricato, et al. (eds.), Cidades rebeldes: Passe Livre e as manifestações que tomaram as ruas do Brasil (pp. 13–18). São Paulo: Boitempo Editorial. Nascimento, L. (2013). Por redução na tarifa de transporte, manifestantes ocupam Câmara de Vereadores de Salvador. Agência Brasil, 22 July. Omena de Melo, E. (2017). Lefebvre and the periphery: An interview with Professor Marie Huchzermeyer. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 9(3), 365–370. Ondetti, G. (2016). The social function of property, land rights and social welfare in Brazil. Land Use Policy, 50, 29–37. Ribeiro, L. C. Q. (1994). Questão Urbana, Desigualdades Sociais e Políticas Públicas: Avaliação do Programa Nacional de Reforma Urbana. UFRJ/IPPUR (Rio de Janeiro). Ribeiro, L. C. Q., and Santos Junior, O. A. (2001). Challenges of urban reform, urban political monitoring and urban management. disP – The Planning Review, 147(4), 61–66. Rolnik, R. (2013a). São Paulo: A voz das ruas e a oportunidade de mudanças (Blog). 5 May. https://​raquelrolnik​.wordpress​.com/​2013/​06/​18/​sao​-paulo​-a​-voz​-das​-ruas​-e​-a​ -oportunidade​-de​-mudancas/​. Rolnik, R. (2013b). Ten years of the city statute in Brazil: From the struggle for urban reform to the World Cup cities. International Journal of Urban Sustainable Development, 5(1), 54–64. Saad-Filho, A. (2013). Mass protests under ‘left neoliberalism’: Brazil, June–July 2013. Critical Sociology, 39(5), 657–669. Sader, E. (1988). Quando Novos Personagens Entraram em Cena: Experiências, Falas e Lutas dos Trabalhadores da Grande São Paulo (1970–1980). São Paulo: Paz e Terra.

184  Handbook on urban social movements

Sales, T. (1994). Raizes da desigualdade social na cultura política Brasileira. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais, 9(25), 26–37. Santos, W. G. (1979). Cidadania e Justiça: A Política Social na Ordem Brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Campus. Santos Junior, O. A. (1996). Reforma Urbana: Por um Novo Modelo de Planejamento. Rio de Janeiro: FASE/UFRJ-IPPUR. Saule Junior, N., and Uzzo, K. (2010). A trajetória da reforma urbana no Brazil. In A. Sugranyes and C. Mathivet (eds.), Cidades para Todos: Propostas e Experiências pelo Direito à Cidade (pp. 259–270). Santiago: Habitat International Coalition. Serafim, L. (2012). Construção de práticas de gestão participativa no Governo Lula (2003–2010): O caso do Ministério das Cidades. Tempo da Ciência, 19(37), 31–56. Silva, A. A. (1991). Reforma Urbana e o Direito à Cidade. São Paulo: Publicações Pólis. Silva, C. A. (2002). Os fóruns temáticos da sociedade civil: Um estudo sobre o fórum nacional de reforma urbana. In E. Dagnino (ed.), Sociedade Civil e Espaços Públicos no Brasil (pp. 143–185). São Paulo: Paz e Terra. Souza, M. L. (2005). Urban planning in an age of fear: The case of Rio de Janeiro. International Development Planning Review, 27(1), 1–19. Stanek, L. (2011). Henri Lefebvre on Space: Architecture, Urban Research, and the Production of Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Tavolari, B. (2020). The right to the city: Conceptual transformations and urban struggles. Revista Direito e Práxis, 11(1), 470–492. Vicino, T. J., and Fahlberg, A. (2017). The politics of contested urban space: The 2013 protest movement in Brazil. Journal of Urban Affairs, 39(7), 1001–1016.

12. Squatting, a SWOT analysis Hans Pruijt

INTRODUCTION Urban squatting is living in, or using in a different way, a building without the consent of the owner. Squatters take buildings with the intention of relatively long-term use. Organized squatting is, together with the rent strike and developing alternative spatial plans, one of the few action repertoire elements that are specific to urban social movements. The main contention in this chapter is that squatting can be a powerful element in the action repertoire, to the extent that it can be considered problematic for urban social movements when squatting is non-existent or not available as an option. A possible analogy for the latter would be a labour movement deprived of the option of organizing a strike. This chapter presents an exploration of urban squatting seen as part of an urban social movement repertoire, and rendered in the format of a SWOT (Strengths–Weaknesses–Opportunities–Threats) analysis. A SWOT analysis focuses on effectiveness, and involves identifying factors that are either positive and internal (strengths), negative and internal (weaknesses), positive and external (opportunities) or negative and external (threats). Cases illustrating each of the four combinations are predominantly drawn from the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Italy and the US.

STRENGTHS Squatting is multifunctional. It can express a protest against issues such as real estate speculation, misallocation of housing stock, planned destruction of a cityscape or landscape, gentrification, a housing shortage, neglect by the authorities of certain categories of home-seekers or a lack of temporary accommodation for recently arrived migrants or fugitives. Furthermore, squatting always serves a practical purpose, having as a practical benefit the securing of housing and/or space for activities such as cultural production or community building. Thus, engaging in squatting carries the promise of an immediate tangible result, which can motivate, and boost persistence and resilience. Moreover, squatting is empowering. Most dramatically, squatting provides the power to use buildings that are not offered for sale or rent. Ideas can come to fruition without the need for large resources or the risk of getting bogged down in bureaucracy. A further strength of squatting is that it is less ephemeral than a demonstration or even an occupation. An occupation tends to become harder to sustain when it lasts longer, while squatters are often able to increase the comfort level over time. 185

186  Handbook on urban social movements

In addition, squatting offers self-sufficiency, because its success is not dependent on the authorities taking notice and responding to demands. Instead, being left alone can already be a fine outcome of a squatting action. Furthermore, in contrast to, for example, demonstrations, squatting tends to obviate the need for a critical mass of participants. Squatting is a form of direct action that has disruptive qualities in the form of getting in the way of a building’s planned demolition, conversion, redevelopment or sale. This, in turn, can cause institutional disruption, which can be seen as a condition that helps movements to achieve transformative results (Piven and Cloward 1977). Moreover, squatting can prevent an empty building from deteriorating. Letting a building deteriorate can be an owner’s strategy, for example to make it easier to get planning permission for demolition. A final strength is that squatting can spawn its own movement, a squatters’ movement, that can support and propel it. Squatters’ movements articulate demands – for affordable housing, a right to the city, and urban commons (Martínez 2020), while simultaneously enacting a countercultural identity. This duality implies that squatting can attract people with a range of interests.

WEAKNESSES It needs to be mentioned that squatting potentially involves personal risk. Owners can seek retaliation. In an overview of squatting around the world, Corr (1999) reports that squatters have been killed. To be safe, squatters sometimes need to organize protection against eviction attempts by thugs. A famous case occurred at the squatted ADM shipyard in Amsterdam in 1998. The owner, Bertus Lüske, personally drove up in an excavator, together with a crew of twenty, and started demolishing one of the buildings while there were squatters inside. The police intervened and Lüske received a criminal conviction (Kaulingfreks et al. 2009). In the absence of any form of agreement, when in a civil dispute with the owner, squatters have, in principle, a very weak legal position. Primarily the speed at which an owner can obtain an eviction order, and see it carried out, is the variable of interest. The Dutch legal system, for example, offers a specific procedure that is quick and efficient, the kort geding. A judge can block this option if an owner is unable to demonstrate the need for a quick eviction. In other countries, such as Spain, customary long delays in judicial proceedings can work in the squatters’ favour. Furthermore, exploiting technicalities can possibly make the squatters’ position slightly less weak. An example of such a technicality is that from 1971 to 1981 in the Netherlands, it was impossible to file lawsuits against anonymous people. Squatters adopted the habit of keeping their names secret, which tended to be effective, although some owners employed detectives or used a legal trick involving a fictional sales contract. When a lawsuit ends with an eviction order, it is up to the local authorities to determine when it will be carried out, and they can decide to hold off if there is a public order or safety issue.

Squatting, a SWOT analysis  187

A further weakness of squatting is that, because it clashes with property rights, it potentially attracts repression, which is especially problematic for squatters because they are like sitting ducks. Concerning repressive measures against squatting, two basic models can be distinguished. The first model features a measure of tolerance. In this context, tolerance can be conceptualized as responding to unwanted behaviour without the ambition to eliminate it (Kearns and Bannister 2009; Bannister and Kearns 2009). In this model, the response takes the shape of pragmatic tolerance, which entails specifying conditions in advance under which there will be no punishment (Gordijn 2001). Pragmatic tolerance characterized the response to squatting in the Netherlands from 1994 to 2010: squatting was not punishable by law if the building had been empty for more than one year. The second repression model is zero tolerance. The Netherlands moved to this model in 2010. In Germany, the model is known as the Berliner Linie, instituted in 1981, which stipulated that all new squats were to be cleared within 24 hours (Azozomox 2018). In the UK, zero tolerance for squatting in residential buildings has existed since 2012. Still, zero tolerance does not necessarily imply that squatting is completely impossible. In the Netherlands, the Justice Department, the police and the city administration set priorities, and evicting squatters on behalf of a dubious owner without a clear plan may not be at the top of the list. For squatters expecting an eviction, appealing to a court is also a possibility. A basis for this lies in the legal principle that any resident should be allowed to be heard by a court before an eviction is carried out. This principle is supported by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (Kraker Koert 2015). Such an appeal can be (at least temporarily) successful in the case of an owner who is in disarray and unwilling or unable to carry any plan through, apart from buying properties and letting them rot. An example is the “Slumlord of the Netherlands” Ronnie van de Putte, the owner of various squatted buildings among which is the listed monument Huize Ivicke in Wassenaar. The weaknesses outlined above only apply when owners and the authorities care about buildings being squatted, which historically has not always been the case. In the Netherlands, the main examples of this have been in urban renewal areas. It can be estimated that during the Dutch squatting boom of the late 1970s, at least half of the squatting took place in these areas (Van der Raad 1981). The abandoned tenements on New York’s Lower East Side, squatted in the late 1980s and early 1990s, are a further example of buildings that neither the owners nor the authorities cared about. These buildings had become City property (in rem) as an effect of tax delinquency (Pruijt 2003).

OPPORTUNITIES The opportunities that squatting offers are manifold. This section covers four main categories of opportunities, taken from a previously published work (Pruijt 2013a):

188  Handbook on urban social movements

helping poor people to housing, self-help housing, establishing a space for activities, or preservation of a building, function or neighbourhood. The pursuit of an opportunity from any of these four categories can lead to the opening up of additional opportunities which are discussed below as well. Helping Poor People to Housing Squatting can provide opportunities for activists to assert housing rights for groups suffering from exclusion or neglect. Such attempts tend to include the following. Activists decide to start a squatting campaign to house members of a clearly defined excluded group. They locate empty housing or at least a suitable empty building. Ideal is to find housing inexcusably left empty, preferably owned by an entity that has some moral obligation to be sensitive to poor people’s needs. An example is church property (Bailey 1973). Through appropriate networks, activists recruit participants, and set up an organization where home-seekers can register their interest. Activists select participants and organize the squatting actions, which take place in a tightly controlled fashion. Because of the newsworthiness of the squatting events, the campaign can generate publicity that pressures the authorities into addressing the housing needs of the group in question. Activists engage in careful framing that emphasizes deprivation. Framing benefits from the fact that the organizers are immune to accusations of queue-jumping because they are not squatting to cater for their own housing needs. A few examples that illustrate how the same logic has remained consistent regardless of the context are: squatting to house homeless families in London around 1970 (Bailey 1973); displaced and badly housed families in New York in 1970 (Pruijt and Roggeband 2014); opening up squats for recently arrived migrants in New York (Brotherton 1978), France (Bouillon 2017), Italy (Montagna and Grazioli 2019), and Greece (Lafazani 2017); supporting migrants that have been denied the right to stay in the country (Dadusc 2017). Self-Help Housing Quite distinct from the previous type of project, people can also squat to house themselves. Possible outcomes range from being evicted right away, or even arrested, to being able to live comfortably in a place, entering into an agreement to rent or eventually being able to buy the house. In rare cases in the UK, it turned out to be possible for squatters to claim ownership on the basis of adverse possession. Do-it-yourself (DIY) squatting provides opportunities for communal living that cannot easily be accommodated by the regular housing market. Moreover, it makes affordable communal living possible for self-assembled groups based on a shared identity, be it, for example gender, LGBTIQ, art, or an interest in an ecological degrowth lifestyle (Cattaneo 2013). When a housing shortage or crisis exists, this can open up an opportunity for activists to systematically promote squatting. The proviso is that it must be worthwhile for the individual squatters. The experience in the Netherlands suggests

Squatting, a SWOT analysis  189

that a squatting wave can become so powerful that eventually every suitable nook and cranny in the city will be squatted. In the beginning of organized squatting in the Netherlands, when home-seekers were not generally aware of the opportunities, leveraging the media was important. Getting organizations involved was also helpful. Notable in the Netherlands at the early stages of squatting was the Kabouterpartij (Gnome Party), which was organized by anarchists. It looks paradoxical that anarchists might found a political party, but this was consistent with the use of irony and humour that was the hallmark of the anarchist movement that started with the Provo group in 1970 (Pruijt 2017b). Activists produced a manual explaining how to expediently break into houses and change the lock quickly (during TV prime time), repair floors and windows, hook up utilities and install heaters, deal with the police, how to find information about the owner and how to negotiate if desired. The manual also laid down a norm that can be described as respectable residency: inviting the neighbours over for coffee, keeping the windows clean, painting window and door frames and door jambs (Federatie 1969). Subsidized organizations, especially in the field of social work, were also involved, and marketing expertise was applied. For example, activists set up a desk for a squatter’s advisory service on the sidewalk in front of the office in which all applicants for social housing had to register (Duivenvoorden 2000). In general, when squatting actions are undertaken by people who do it for themselves, there is the potential problem of queue-jumping. Squatters avoid this problem when they choose houses that are either too bad, or too expensive to be let as affordable housing. The former can imply spectacular construction work, such as in various squatting projects in New York (Thayer 2015) and Berlin (Kreis 2017). In the Netherlands, legal interventions proved to be essential for a large-scale adoption of squatting. In 1971, lawyers obtained a Supreme Court ruling that gave squats the same protection against unwanted entry as any other home (Pruijt 2017b). The success of self-help housing, undertaken in an organized fashion, led to a partial institutionalization of squatting in the Netherlands. However, this is not institutionalization in the sense of integration in the political system. Hence, it may be appropriate to use the term social institutionalization. Socially institutionalized squatting can crowd out the use of empty buildings by substance abusers who create a nuisance or cause danger (squatters have even evicted other squatters for causing fire hazards), or by swindlers pretending to be landlords in order to collect ‘rent’ from unaware, vulnerable home-seekers. A further opportunity is developing DIY squatting into a squatters’ movement proper. In such a movement, squatting is seen as something that is valuable in its own right; it becomes means and goal at the same time. In the Netherlands, activists set up a network of advisory services with regular office hours, with the objective to supply prospective squatters with information and guidance, and mobilize supporters for squatting actions, while emphasizing that the squatting has to be DIY. Activists involved in squatting advisory services tended to discourage prospective squatters deemed likely to become a nuisance to neighbours. The movement spawned teams

190  Handbook on urban social movements

working on tasks such as updating manuals, producing newsletters, organizing city-level actions, and a network that crucially has included lawyers. Cementing the status of squatting as a movement in its own right has been the nearly ubiquitous squatting symbol consisting of a circle pierced by an arrow, the hobo sign language symbol for ‘continue on’, which appeared in 1979 in the Amsterdam Kraakkrant #28. In 1980, the arrow in the symbol became lightning-shaped. By internationalizing, the squatters’ movement has made itself relatively independent from local contexts, and timeless, because opportunities rise and decline at different moments in different countries (Owens 2013; Pruijt 2017a). Living in a squat, or helping squatters, can offer opportunities to engage in a fight about speculation. Thus, when a real estate speculator moves against a squat, this presents an occasion for launching an investigation into his or her activities, and the financial capital behind these. This is a way to assign blame and pit the interests of home-seekers against the interests of profiteers, which is likely to attract attention from the media and trigger political debate. We can consider squatting for housing as an opportunity to help secure the existence of affordable housing in desirable locations. Such opportunities are the strongest when it involves squatting buildings for which there are no definitive plans for demolition or conversion. This condition enables the buildings’ future to be seen as open-ended, and allows the imagination to run wild and substantial investments to be justified. Examples are the already mentioned squatting of abandoned buildings on New York’s Lower East Side. It was logical for the squatters to adopt an open-ended perspective because there was no demolition plan. Later, non-profit developers turned up with plans to create affordable housing in the squatted buildings or on the sites. Squatters saw these plans as debatable and tenuous, which allowed them to mount a successful campaign to hold on to their buildings (Pruijt 2003). In the case of the squats on New York’s Lower East Side, and in Dutch cities and in Berlin, it eventually became possible to create opportunities for legalization. Successful attempts at legalization led to the long-term presence of affordable housing in expensive locations. This contradiction requires safeguards against the eventual sale of the formerly squatted properties for a profit, or a possible conversion into market rate housing. Examples of arrangements used for this purpose are the community land trust (Starecheski 2016), agreements with non-profit organizations to acquire legalized squats to manage them, long-term (around 25 years) leases of buildings or land, or transfer of ownership to the former squatters. As long as the contradiction of affordable spaces on expensive land persists, however, it gives rise to challenges, disputes and conflicts. Former squats that have been sheltered from the capitalist spatial dynamic can turn into foci of contestation after decades of quiet, and can see their occupants evicted as occurred in Berlin (Azozomox 2018; Lennert 2018). Furthermore, squatter resistance can, with careful framing, cause a housing crisis to become more prominent on the political agenda (Pruijt 2020). When people squat houses which they expect and accept will be demolished, influence on housing policy and urban planning seems still possible, albeit in a more indirect way. Such was, for example, the case in various working class neighbour-

Squatting, a SWOT analysis  191

hoods in the Netherlands, in which the – justified – expectation was that many housing blocks would eventually be replaced with social housing. Squatters moved in, made the necessary investments, and tended to relinquish their houses in time to allow for undisturbed demolition directly followed by construction of new housing (Pruijt 2003). The vibrant squatters’ communities in such neighbourhoods eventually vanished without leaving much of a trace. However, the squatters made their neighbourhoods more resilient, indirectly assisting tenants and owner-occupants in staving off wholesale transformation of the street grid, and thereby destruction of the neighbourhoods. Establishing a Space for Activities A building squatted for housing may contain spaces that are not very suitable for living, but that suggest other uses. A storefront or some other ground level space can be eminently suitable for (semi-)public functions, such as a squatters’ bar. In such a bar, there can be meetings and food can be served. The bar can connect the squat to the wider squatters’ network and make it possible for non-squatters to integrate in it. People engaged in space-hungry activities, such as artists, can find in squatting a way to fulfil their workspace dreams. Further examples of entrepreneurial squatting projects include the brewery, cinema, garage, sauna, bike workshop, printshop, bookor infoshop, give-away shop, greengrocer, kindergarten and art gallery. Furthermore, upon squatting a building featuring a huge hall, squatters face the question of how to make use of it. If the location with respect to the neighbours permits it, using the space as a concert venue is one of the logical options. Apart from entrepreneurial squatting as a bonus opportunity derived from squatting for housing, as discussed above, it can also be the main ambition, with housing not included or at least not the primary objective. An example is a neighbourhood group establishing a neighbourhood centre or meeting space. At least one form has institutionalized into a model: the occupied self-managed social centre, which originated in Italy. In 2013 in Italy, there were around a hundred social centres open as venues for social, political and cultural events. Self-managed social centres tend to offer a range of activities and services. Generally, the various collectives that organize these activities and services all gather in regular plenary meetings to decide the centre’s overall direction. Social centres have been opened by a variety of grassroots left-wing organizations and collectives, some having an autonomist and others having an anarchist political orientation. A key challenge is organizing the collective, since cooperative action is needed to refurbish the building to allow it to be open to the public (Mudu 2004, 2014). There is considerable variation in size. For example, Leoncavallo in Milan drew around 20,000 visitors per month while others are small. There are also different attitudes towards legalization (as of 2013, half of the existing centres had an agreement with the city or private owner), acceptance of commercial sponsorship for performances, and level of openness towards the neighbourhood. Social centres can be organizations that are not completely tied to a particular building and can move on to a new building.

192  Handbook on urban social movements

Diffusion of the social centre concept took place in other European countries, and also in Mexico (González et al. 2020) and Turkey. The social centre model has also spread outside the realm of squatting: social centres have been organized in rented spaces or buildings made available by the owners – an example is Bolsjefabrikken in Copenhagen (Steiger 2015). Social centres function as hubs in countercultural and anarchist or autonomist networks, and provide a movement infrastructure for future mobilizations. Although commonly social centres espouse some form of left-libertarian politics, in Italy far-right social centres exist, in particular Casa Pound. Conserving a Building, Cityscape or Function Squatting can offer opportunities to contribute to the preservation of threatened buildings, neighbourhoods, landscapes, or functions such as social housing. There are two main mechanisms that activists can exploit. The first is using the physical presence of squatters in the building(s) to stop further dilapidation and prevent demolition. The second is the ability to mount a preservation campaign that is rooted in the neighbourhood, despite the authorities’ policy to hollow out resistance by rehousing the tenants outside the area. Such a campaign requires selecting prospective new squatters on the basis of commitment, which can be done expediently if activists obtain advance knowledge of housing becoming empty. Well-documented examples that pertain to entire neighbourhoods follow below. In the early 1970s, three architecture students squatted in London’s Tolmers Square neighbourhood. They found out that there was a redevelopment plan for the area that implied razing. Subsequently, they organized a neighbourhood meeting, which was the start of the Tolmers Village Association, the development of an alternative plan, and systematic organized squatting by people willing to join in the fight for preservation. In the end, the mobilization saved the surrounding streets, but not the square itself. In his insider account, Wates (1976: 81) concluded that: “the only effective way of preventing the physical fabric from deteriorating proved to be the squatting of empty buildings”. Also in the early 1970s, the Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood in Amsterdam was on the verge of being demolished for the construction of a subway line with an urban highway on top, and office blocks and hotels. Activists took up an interest in the issue. A key protagonist came from the circle of Amsterdam’s squatting pioneers, and ended up in the neighbourhood because the municipality had made seven empty buildings available to a subsidized foundation set up to facilitate creative activities of children, artists and DIY enthusiasts. Activists and tenants mobilized against the planned razing, with systematic squatting of all buildings that became empty as a key strategy. It turned out to be impossible to prevent the demolition of the buildings on the planned construction site for the subway. This site stretched all across the neighbourhood, because the construction method involved building concrete sections at ground level, and then making them sink into the soft soil. However, an important result was that the municipality decided to plan new housing instead of the planned

Squatting, a SWOT analysis  193

hotels and office buildings (the City Council had already dropped the highway plan in 1970) (Nijenhuis 1984). A third classic case concerns Kreuzberg in Berlin. In the 1970s, transformation plans for the neighbourhood included an urban highway and the demolition of buildings comprising 2,200 apartments. In 1979, the community action group SO 36 squatted an empty fire station in an attempt to preserve the building, and subsequently organized further squatting of houses. The squatters called this instandbesetzen, a neologism combining occupying and renovating. As a result of the mobilizations, the policy changed to ‘cautious urban renewal’ and restricted demolition to side wings and backhouses (Feye 1987; Holm and Kuhn 2011). More recent examples of successful conservation by squatting tend to be of a smaller scale, such as twelve buildings in the Gängeviertel neighbourhood in Hamburg that squatters saved from demolition in 2009 (Ziehl 2020). Note on Favourable Circumstances Even in places and eras in which squatters tend to experience a quick eviction, successes or trend reversals can occur, when aided by special circumstances. An example is the Zülpicher Straße 290 project in Cologne, which involved dilapidated buildings that the owner refused to fix. Another factor that can be beneficial to squatters is the existence of a dispute between different parties claiming ownership. An example is the squatted military fortress Forte Prenestino in Rome. A large scale example concerns properties in East Berlin after the end of communism in 1989 that were caught up in the transition of the legal system (Azozomox 2018). Financing problems for the owner can also be helpful for squatters, as in the case of the already mentioned Gängeviertel in Hamburg (Ziehl 2020). A corruption scandal can do the same as in the case of the Neue Heimat housing non-profit in Berlin in 1981 (Sontheimer 2021). Finally, there are cases in which the owner does not seek an eviction. An example is the autonomous cultural centre Rote Flora in Hamburg, squatted in 1989 and, as of 2022, still squatted. Its owner is on record with a declaration that he was not interested in a possible eviction.

THREATS A key systemic threat is, as Watkinson (1980) called it, the erosion of squatters’ rights, which involves criminalization. Such an erosion can be a slow process; both in the UK and in the Netherlands, it started in the early 1970s. The most recent step in the Netherlands was a law, passed in 2021, that was designed to streamline evictions based on a criminal complaint. The mechanism underlying the criminalization of squatting in the Netherlands is the following. It has always been the case that a (although not overwhelming) majority of the members of parliament had negative opinions about squatting, often with the nuance that they deemed squatting not acceptable but that they also felt that the problem of empty housing needed to be

194  Handbook on urban social movements

addressed. Still, banning squatting tended not to be a top priority for the successive governments. On two occasions, however, negative publicity-generating incidents provided members of parliament with the opportunity to get themselves noted by submitting proposals for anti-squatting legislation. These incidents involved leaving contraptions in two evacuated squats that the police described as ‘booby traps’, and in front of a TV camera, dismissing a small business owner who came to tell the squatters that he needed the space that they had just squatted. Although squatters have generally been careful to avoid such incidents, this small number of public relations disasters proved to be sufficient to trigger a deterioration of the legal conditions affecting all future prospective squatters in the country (Pruijt 2013b). The criminalization of squatting in the Netherlands has been contested by squatters and supporters, including lawyers, from the beginning. It turned out that proposed anti-squatting legislation could unite squatters and supporters, not only for protest, but in a campaign to showcase the contributions of squatting to housing and urban development (Kaulingfreks et al. 2009). This campaign generated wide support, including all left-wing parties. However, because of the right-wing majority in parliament, the proposal for the anti-squatting law was passed. Meanwhile, it seems doubtful whether the criminalization of squatting can be reversed. In England and Wales, squatting in residential buildings was made punishable by law in 2012. Subsequently, proposals appeared to extend criminalization to squatters in commercial buildings (Needle Collective 2018). In Italy, in 2014 a law came into being that blocks squatters from access to facilities (Grazioli and Caciagli 2018). Activists can adapt to an increased risk of quick eviction and criminal prosecution by more strongly incorporating resilience and resistance into their collective identity. The corollary is that the increased risks seem likely to give pause to prospective squatters who are not hard core activists. The legitimacy of squatting has always been controversial. A 2018 survey showed that in the Netherlands, slightly less than half of the populations supported squatting (Pruijt 2013b). Such a figure seems consistent with the notion that, at least in the Netherlands, squatting had become socially institutionalized. However, it seems theoretically plausible that when an anti-squatting law portrays squatting as a serious crime worthy of a prison sentence, this may have to some extent the effect of de-legitimizing squatting. Such de-legitimization can weaken the social institutionalization of squatting. An indication that this is the case is that, referring to the passing of the 2010 anti-squatting law, the municipality of Rotterdam ended the hosting of the squatters’ advisory service in the JIP, the subsidized Youth Information Point. In order to cognitively resist the delegitimizing effect, one would have to realize that the designation of squatting as a crime is not a fact-like statement such as, for example, in the case of theft, but rather a political tool (Pruijt 2013b). Repression is not the only factor threatening to curtail squatting. The squatting scene gets competition from the anti-squat industry. Anti-squat companies offer landlords protection for their vacant buildings by means of temporary residents as guardians without tenants’ rights. Simultaneously, the anti-squat companies charge monthly fees to their ‘guardians’. The oldest anti-squat company, Zwerfkei

Squatting, a SWOT analysis  195

Beheer, started in Amsterdam in 1980, thus in an era in which widespread squatting was taking place in buildings owned by speculators and real estate developers. They recruited anti-squat guardians from the student population. In order to apply anti-squat protection to a large building, just installing a handful of people suffices. An option left for squatters is to reach for buildings that are in such a problematic condition that anti-squat guardians cannot be installed, for example because of a missing sewer connection, or missing floors. In terms of sheer numbers, anti-squat has become much more successful in the Netherlands than squatting. Dutch anti-squat companies started to spread their wings across Europe. One of these companies, Camelot, had, as of 2022, offices in seven countries. The threats covered above are concrete and clear, at least when compared to the following issues that surface in the literature. These issues have in common that they can be seen as involving co-optation, or assimilation by the capitalist economic logic and by state actors. One of these issues is legalization, which above was discussed as an opportunity. However, legalization has been problematized by a part of the squatter community and analysts alike as a form of institutionalization that can squash contentious politics (Martínez 2020). Nevertheless, it seems that never a squatters’ movement has been stopped by legalization. Where squatters’ movements have been stopped, as in Copenhagen and Berlin, this has been due to repression. In a squatters’ movement, it turns out that cooperating with authorities and squatting new buildings can proceed in parallel, a pattern that can be termed flexible institutionalization (Pruijt 2003). Carrying through a legalization process, and fulfilling all the bureaucratic conditions for making it a lasting success, clashes with a confrontational identity; even so, activists who are not comfortable with such a development can choose to move on to other projects (Fraeser 2015). A further issue, that is sometimes framed as a threat, concerns the relatively positive treatment that artists, or art squats, tend to experience when dealing with the authorities (Bouillon 2010). This can be seen as a way to divide the squatters’ movement, allowing the authorities to concentrate repression on the part of the movement that is fighting for the preservation of affordable housing while using the artists as providers of cultural services (Uitermark 2004). The art squats can also serve to bolster a creative class-oriented economic development (Bucholtz 2015). Nevertheless, it does not seem very clear how this mechanism can, in the real world, weaken a squatters’ movement. In contrast, positive stories about art squats can enhance the legitimacy of the principle of squatting, and artists can connect to the housing struggle. An example of the latter is Metropoliz in Rome, which is an art squat and simultaneously a home for Romani people (Aureli and Mudu 2017).

CONCLUDING NOTE Squatting can be seen as an immediatist response to oppressing conditions (Martínez 2020) which implies an approach that focuses on opportunities. While this is clearly

196  Handbook on urban social movements

important, including strengths, weaknesses and threats can lead to a more dynamic perspective. Such a perspective is conducive to shedding light on (possible) initiatives that bolster the movement, repair or work around weaknesses, and mitigate threats. Conversely, considering weaknesses and threats may draw attention to possible unintended consequences such as accelerating the erosion of squatters’ rights, or a shift from pragmatic tolerance towards zero tolerance.

REFERENCES Aureli, A. and Mudu, P. (2017). Squatting: Reappropriating democracy from the state. Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, 9(1), 497–521. Azozomox (2018). “Das ist unser Haus”: Squatting in Germany from 1970 to the present. In Squatting Everywhere Kollective (ed.), Fighting for Spaces, Fighting for Our Lives: Squatting Movements Today. Münster: Edition assemblage, pp. 204–219. Bailey, R. (1973). The Squatters. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Bannister, J. and Kearns, A. (2009). Tolerance, respect and civility amidst changing cities. In A. Millie (ed.), Securing Respect: Behavioural Expectation and Anti-Social Behaviour in the UK. Bristol: Policy Press, pp. 171–191. Bouillon, F. (2010). Le squatteur, le policier, le juge et le préfet: Procédures en actes et classements ad hoc. Déviance et Société, 34(2), 175–188. Bouillon, F. (2017). Why migrant squats are a political issue: A few thoughts about the situation in France. In P. Mudu and S. Chattopadhyay (eds.), Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy: Resistance and Destabilization of Racist Regulatory Policies and B/Ordering Mechanisms. London: Routledge, pp. 67–77. Brotherton, M. A. (1978). Conflict of Interest, Law Enforcement, and Social Change: A Case Study of Squatters on Morningside Heights. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. Buchholz, T. (2015). Creativity and the capitalist city. In A. Moore and A. Smart (eds.), Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces. Barcelona: Other Forms, pp. 42–51. Cattaneo, C. (2013). Urban squatting, rural squatting and the ecological-economic perspective. In Squatting Europe Kollective (ed.), Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. Wivenhoe: Minor compositions, pp. 139–160. Corr, A. (1999). No Trespassing: Squatting, Rent Strikes and Land Struggles Worldwide, Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Dadusc, D. (2017). Squatting and the undocumented migrants’ struggle in the Netherlands. In P. Mudu and S. Chattopadhyay (eds.), Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy: Resistance and Destabilization of Racist Regulatory Policies and B/Ordering Mechanisms. London: Routledge, pp. 275–284. Duivenvoorden, E. (2000). Een voet tussen de deur. Geschiedenis van de kraakbeweging 1964–1999. Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers. Federatie van onafhankelijke vakgroepen. Woningburo de Kraker (1969). Handleiding krakers. Red un pandje, bezet un pandje. Amsterdam: Woningburo de Kraker. Feye, C. (1987). Internationale Bauausstellung Berlin 1987. Projektübersicht. Berlin: Bauausstellung Berlin. Fraeser, N. (2015). Gängeviertel, Hamburg. In A. Moore and A. Smart (eds.), Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces. Barcelona: Other Forms, pp. 172–177.

Squatting, a SWOT analysis  197

González, R., de Santiago, D., and Rodríguez, M. A. (2020). Squatted and self-managed social centres in Mexico city: Four case studies from 1978–2020. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 13(3), 1269–1289. Gordijn, B. (2001). Regulating moral dissent in an open society. The Dutch experience with pragmatic tolerance. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 26(3), 225–244. Grazioli, M. and Caciagli, C. (2018). Resisting the neoliberal urban fabric: Housing rights movements and the re-appropriation of the ‘right to the city’ in Rome, Italy. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(4), 697–711. Holm, A. and Kuhn, A. (2011). Squatting and urban renewal: The interaction of squatter movements and strategies of urban restructuring in Berlin. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35, 644–689. Kaulingfreks, F., Combrink, T., Schrauwen, I., et al. (2009). Witboek Kraken. Krakend Nederland Presenteert: 132 Bladzijden met Meer Dan 80 Kraakpanden in 20 Steden. Breda: De Papieren Tijger. Kearns, A. and Bannister, J. (2009). Conceptualising tolerance: Paradoxes of tolerance and intolerance in contemporary Britain. Italian Journal of Sociology of Education, 2, 126–147. Kraker Koert (2015). Wat niet mag … kan nog steeds. Kraakhandleiding 2015/2016. Amsterdam: Het Fort van Sjakoo. Kreis, R. (2017). Heimwerken als Protest. Instandbesetzer und Wohnungsbaupolitik in West-Berlin während der 1980er-Jahre. Zeithistorische Forschungen: Studies in Contemporary History, 14(1), 41–67. https://​doks​.zeitgeschichte​-digital​.de/​doks/​frontdoor/​ deliver/​index/​docId/​761/​file/​ZF​_1​_2017​_41​_67​_Kreis​.pdf. Lafazani, O. (2017). 1.5 year city plaza: A project on the antipodes of bordering and control policies. Antipode Online. https://​antipodeonline​.org/​2017/​11/​13/​intervention​-city​-plaza/​. Lennert, L. (2018). Never rest in peace! The eviction and resistance of Liebig 14 (Berlin). In Squatting Everywhere Kollective (ed.), Fighting for Spaces, Fighting for Our Lives: Squatting Movements Today. Münster: Edition assemblage, pp. 314–319. Martínez, M. (2020). Squatters in the Capitalist City: Housing, Justice, and Urban Politics. New York: Routledge. Montagna, N. and Grazioli, M. (2019). Urban commons and freedom of movement: The housing struggles of recently arrived migrants in Rome. Citizenship Studies, 23(6), 577–592. Mudu, P. (2004). Resisting and challenging neoliberalism: The development of Italian social centers. Antipode, 36, 917–941. Mudu, P. (2014). Where is culture in Rome? Self-managed social centers and the right to urban space. In I. Clough Marinaro and B. Thomassen (eds.), Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 246–264. Needle Collective (2018). Hidden histories of resistance: The diverse heritages of squatting in England. In Squatting Everywhere Kollective (ed.), Fighting for Spaces, Fighting for Our Lives: Squatting Movements Today. Münster: Edition assemblage, pp. 42–67. Nijenhuis, T. (1984). De beste aktiegroep ter wereld. 40 dorpsverhalen uit de Nieuwmarkt. Amsterdam: Stichting Uitgeverij de Oude Stad. Owens, L. (2013). Have squat, will travel. In Squatting Europe Kollective (ed.), Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. Wivenhoe: Minor compositions, pp. 185–207. Piven, F. F. and Cloward, R. A. (1977). Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon Books. Pruijt, H. (2003). Is the institutionalization of urban movements inevitable? A comparison of the opportunities for sustained squatting in New York City and Amsterdam. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(1), 133–157. Pruijt, H. (2013a). The logic of urban squatting. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(1), 19–45.

198  Handbook on urban social movements

Pruijt, H. (2013b). Culture wars, revanchism, moral panics and the creative city. A reconstruction of a decline of tolerant public policy: The case of Dutch anti-squatting legislation. Urban Studies, 50(6), 1114–1129. Pruijt, H. (2017a). Euro trash in Loïsada, New York. In P. Mudu and S. Chattopadhyay (eds.), Migration, Squatting and Radical Autonomy: Resistance and Destabilization of Racist Regulatory Policies and B/Ordering Mechanisms. London: Routledge, pp. 272–274. Pruijt, H. (2017b). Squatting in the Netherlands: The social and political institutionalization of a movement. In F. Anders and A. Sedlmaier (eds.), Public Goods Versus Economic Interests: Global Perspectives on the History of Squatting. New York: Routledge, pp. 256–277. Pruijt, H. (2020). City-level action in a city-wide urban commons: Amsterdam, 1977–1983. Partecipazione & Conflitto, 13(3), 1324–1337. http://​siba​-ese​.unisalento​.it/​index​.php/​paco/​ article/​view/​23050/​19304. Pruijt, H. and Roggeband, C. (2014). Autonomous and/or institutionalized social movements? Conceptual clarification and illustrative cases. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 55(2), 144–165. Sontheimer, M. (2021). Hausbesetzer Klaus-Jürgen Rattay. Vom Doppeldecker zu Tode geschleift. Der Spiegel, 22 September. Starecheski, A. (2016). Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Steiger, T. (2015). Bolsjefabrikken: Autonomous Culture in Copenhagen. In A. Moore and A. Smart (eds.), Making Room: Cultural Production in Occupied Spaces. Barcelona: Other Forms, pp. 98–103. Thayer, A. (2015). Kill City: Lower East Side Squatters 1992–2000. New York: powerHouse Books. Uitermark, J. (2004). The co-optation of squatters in Amsterdam and the emergence of a movement meritocracy: A critical reply to Pruijt. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 28, 687–698. Van der Raad, J. (1981). Kraken in Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Roelof Kellerstichting. Wates, N. (1976). The Battle for Tolmers Square. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Watkinson, D. (1980). The erosion of squatters rights. In N. Wates and C. Wolmar (eds.), Squatting: The Real Story. London: Bay Leaf Books, pp. 158–163. Ziehl, M. (2020). Koproduktion urbaner Resilienz. Berlin: Jovis.

13. Building real utopias: urban grassroots activism, emotions and prefigurative politics Tommaso Gravante

INTRODUCTION The study of urban activism, from the perspective of social movements, has focused mainly on analysing urban social movements under a contentious politics approach (McAdam et al. 2001; Tilly and Tarrow 2015). In general, this has led to studying the different ways in which this type of activism manifests (for example, informal organizations, neighbourhood associations, or socio-environmental activism and other forms of protest settled in the urban space), using the approach of resource mobilization, political opportunities, or the political impacts of protest. In other words, these studies have determined how urban activism has given rise to political actors capable of bringing public issues to local institutions and introducing new topics into urban politics and the local development of cities (Andretta et al. 2015). In recent decades, and particularly since the experience of the Global Justice Movement at the start of this century (Della Porta 2007; Players 2010), grassroots urban activism has become increasingly detached from the protest repertoires characteristic of contentious politics and has instead been defined by the proposal of social, collective alternatives to the problems that concern the daily lives of those affected, and by building a culture of resistance and solidarity in their communities of reference (Johansson and Vinthagen 2019). Unlike social movements, grassroots groups may or may not combine the two forms of social involvement: the arena of contentious politics and the dimension of everyday life (Yip et al. 2019). When we talk about urban grassroots activism, we refer to a wide range of social practices of protest and claim-making about urban affairs within specific cultural, economic and political contexts. What generally characterizes these groups is that they deal with local problems and focus on single-issue demands and temporary campaigns with a limited capacity to alter their cities’ urban politics. For example, shaping the local specifics of urban activism ranges from promoting and defending community gardens and a strategy of neighbourhood identities (Martinez 2009), to opposing a specific project of locally unwanted land use (LULU) (Della Porta and Piazza 2008; Poma and Gravante 2015, 2016, 2017a); from protests against home evictions (Martínez and Gil 2022; Accornero 2023), to occupying empty buildings and rebuilding a live community in the process (Squatting Europe Kollective 2013); or, currently, creating mutual support networks for facing social injustice created 199

200  Handbook on urban social movements

by the Covid-19 pandemic (Gravante and Poma 2021; Leetoy and Gravante 2021; Gravante et al. 2022). Other groups emerge because they feel their ontological safety is threatened (Jasper 1997: 122–129), that is, they feel their well-being, health, lifestyle, culture, or local identity are under threat (Gravante et al. 2022; Gravante and Regalado 2016). So, to understand how grassroots groups build real utopias in our cities (Wright 2010) and what these alternatives mean for activists, it is necessary to introduce in our analysis a cultural and interpretative approach that includes the emotional dimension of these experiences as well as their values and the relationship between them. To build a bridge between different disciplines, in this chapter I shall use my latest research findings on urban activism in Latin America and prior research on European grassroots activism to propose an analysis that can help overcome the cost-benefit logic in the study of urban movements. It focuses on the following: (1) emotions as an explanatory variable of their practices, especially moral emotions and affective bonds such as place attachment; (2) the relationship between values and emotions that manifests in the prefigurative, non-strategic character in the creation of social alternatives. Before developing these two points, I shall briefly highlight some aspects that characterize grassroots activism, and which can set it apart from social movements.

GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM AND THE POLITICIZED FRAMING OF ITS PRACTICES Grassroots groups, in their local dimension, are a fundamental organizational component of any social movement. Nevertheless, grassroots activism can be detached from the dimension of contentious politics, the cycles and repertoires of protest, and carry out its activities and projects within its own everyday life and urban territory. The forms of grassroots activism that emerge in urban contexts depend mainly on their social environment and the culture of protest that characterizes that place. Although the experiences of the Global South are characterized by a lack of resources and a high level of repression by the state and paramilitary groups at the service of private companies (Gravante et al. 2019) and undoubtedly – because of their practices – they are framed by a common feeling of injustice, outrage and indignation (Jasper 2018), it is possible to find common patterns with the experiences of the Global North, patterns that determine their own way of doing politics. Grassroots activism is structured by social experiences characterized by having a “local identity; a participative, flexible organizational structure with low levels of coordination; and action strategies that favour protest, though in moderation” (Della Porta and Andretta 2001: 45). Grassroots activism is made up of unpaid individuals, their action repertoire focuses on conflict and transgression, and they propose a politicized interpretative framework for their actions (Della Porta 2020; Della Porta and Steinhilper 2020).

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  201

Organizationally, these groups are open and not very structured. They are heterogeneous and flexible groups, i.e., they include very different kinds of people and have a capacity to (re)organize and adapt quickly to problems that may arise during their activities or in their environment. For example, this is how thousands of grassroots groups created mutual support networks during the Covid-19 pandemic by adjusting their agenda in a short time (Gravante and Poma 2021, 2022). Grassroots activism is structured around open, horizontal networks; such groups organize based on assembly rather than hierarchically, and the decision-making process can vary from majority vote to unanimous consensus. In the same group, participants may agree to have different ways to make decisions depending on the importance of the matter at hand. For example, they use unanimous consensus to decide whether to stay and face an eviction, and majority vote to decide ordinary issues. The division of labour is voluntary and based on the group’s number of participants, which generally ranges between five and twenty activists who are fully involved, plus many sympathizers and neighbours. Groups are organized in commissions or subgroups that attend to specific tasks like drafting statements, press relations, neighbour relations, gathering the goods necessary for their activities, etc. Regarding the processes that characterize grassroots activism, local identity is one of the most relevant components. Collective identity is built through emotional ties to the urban territory, like place attachment, commitment, knowledge of the social fabric and sharing the problems that affect their environment and the need to solve them (Poma and Gravante 2017a). Some grassroots groups are built on affinity, that is, groups where a collective identity is constructed by sharing common values, ideology and practices, rather than based on place attachment. One example are the many anarchist and anarcho-punk groups in Latin American, European or North American cities that appropriate buildings or squares in the suburbs to develop their countercultural projects around their own ideology (Gravante and Poma 2017b; Gravante 2015; Squatting Europe Kollective 2013). These groups frame the marginalization of the peripheries where they act as a marginalization from the neoliberal model that characterizes the social and economic centre of the city, thus creating temporary autonomous zones characterized by their libertarian values (Bey 2003). We can currently observe the same process in many feminist collectives that work in the peripheries; they are proposing different projects such as self-defence courses and feminist social spaces (Poma and Gravante 2017b). Among the different processes that define grassroots activism – although it is rarely addressed in the research and is crucial in the development of the groups’ cultural and political impact – is the construction of a framework of injustice around the experienced problems. That is, grassroots groups, from both the Global North and South, frame the problems affecting their communities as a grievance. They seek accountability and they propose practical solutions for their demands. This collective process of polarization of everyday life (Gravante 2019) makes them interpret their problems as social injustice, thereby overcoming the stigma of victimhood and the

202  Handbook on urban social movements

feeling of powerlessness that characterizes affected communities (Gravante et al. 2022; Gravante and Poma 2021; Leetoy and Gravante 2021). Finally, if we look at its practices, grassroots activism is characterized by direct action. Although many groups also rely on legal means to assert their rights, direct action remains the mainstay of their activities when it comes to stopping an infrastructure or an urban policy. Such direct action manifests in two ways: on the one hand, in the public manifestation of discontent, that is, in the act of protest, such as blocking a road, occupying a piece of land or building, marching through the neighbourhood, etc.; and on the other hand, in practical solutions to the problems affecting the community. In the latter case, this type of action can be defined as direct social action, and it is characterized by ignoring the traditional repertoire of contentious action directed against institutional authorities or powerful social actors (Bosi and Zamponi 2015). We may say that these grassroots groups perform direct actions that focus on making a change in society or their local environments, actions by the protagonists themselves as part of the politics of the everyday in which the boundaries between public and private spheres are blurred (Bosi and Zamponi 2015). This type of action prioritizes satisfying basic needs such as food, housing, and medical care, that is, actions aimed at improving the human condition in the community. This type of action can develop methods of self-organization to weaken the bonds of dependency and the blackmailing relationships with institutions. Actions such as the reforestation and recovery of an urban park, the reclamation of degraded public places, the creation of food banks or soup kitchens, the creation of service windows for marginalized groups such as migrants, or organizing the defence of their own neighbourhoods against a wave of violence, follow “patterns of civic engagement, [are] largely non-contentious and therefore in a strict sense [are] ‘social non-movements’” (Della Porta and Steinhilper 2020: 9). The close relationship between practices and values means that while it is true that one of the goals of grassroots activism is to alter the urban policies of its city, this is filtered through the interpretative framework of social justice (Yip et al. 2019: 5). Finally, despite its local dimension, grassroots activism does not fall into localism. The process of framing their issues politically allows these experiences to go beyond their local context and connect to the cultural, social, and political dimension at regional, national, and even global levels. From their context, these experiences can promote local solutions to global problems, and at the same time participate in broader social movements, as has been true of many grassroots groups participating in the recent wave of the transnational climate movement (Gravante and Poma 2020; Poma and Gravante 2021).

EMOTIONS AS AN EXPLANATORY VARIABLE OF URBAN ACTIVISM The contentious politics approach or the critical political economy approach in the study of urban movements miss the significance and impact of the everyday and

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  203

sometimes underground work carried out by grassroots activists. In recent decades, the study of the emotional dimension of social movements has contributed to a better understanding of the processes of mobilization, organization, the link between practices, values, and norms, overcoming the NIMBY vision of these experiences, and their cultural impacts. In the literature on emotions and protest developed in these years, emotions are regarded as a cultural social construct. This approach originated in the theoretical proposal of the American sociologist Arlie Hochschild (1975, 1979), which regards emotions as a socio-cultural construction and therefore changing according to the social context and historical temporality, thus overcoming the organicist and universal vision of emotions. Moreover, this approach regards the individual as a conscious and active being in relation to their emotions; people are not only capable of superficial acting, thus manifesting the most appropriate emotions in accordance with the situation, but they are also capable of deep acting with their own feelings by evoking, managing, or channelling a certain emotion to suit or defy the rules of feeling of their own society. People become active subjects with respect to their emotions; they can think about what they feel or use certain emotions to evoke other emotions. The legacy of Arlie Hochschild (1975, 1979, 1983) showed that the evocation of certain emotions and the rules of feeling can become an object of political struggle (Hochschild 2008). Hochschild’s proposal was later taken up by Jasper (1997, 2018), who in his work puts the subject and culture – comprising emotion, cognition and morality – back at the centre of the study of protest as a way of doing politics by offering a more holistic analytical framework that makes it possible to overcome the limits of previous proposals for the study of social movements. In particular, as Jasper emphasizes, the study of the emotional dimension has been directed precisely towards grassroots activism because emotions “help to pay attention to individuals and small groups who are the first to notice and care about a problem” (Jasper 2014: 24). Indeed, in urban activism, the first to mobilize against a particular issue are the small and local groups immediately affected. Following Jasper’s (2018) proposal of categorization of emotions in politics (impulses, reflex emotions, affective bonds, moods and moral emotions), in this chapter we present only the role of two typologies of emotions – moral emotions and affective bonds – two variables of analysis that can allow us to understand how the peripheries and urban communities create their own ties with the city, their own collective identity, and how the alternative social projects that emerge in their environment point to processes of social change. However, we must always consider that all emotions are present in the development of political action, but with different impacts. In the following two sections we shall discuss the role of moral emotions – indignation and outrage in particular – and then a rather underrated affective bond when we talk about urban areas: place attachment, since it is taken for granted that the current neoliberal urbanization processes inhibit this type of bond with the urban fabric.

204  Handbook on urban social movements

MORAL EMOTIONS AND GRASSROOTS ACTIVISM Moral emotions play the most important role in political action (Jasper 2018). Moral emotions are emotions of approval or disapproval (including of ourselves and our actions), such as shame, guilt, pride, indignation, outrage, compassion, revenge, and contempt. These emotions are based on moral principles or intuitions, are long-lasting and strictly intertwined with cognitive processes. Many of these emotions develop from our reactions and beliefs around the social system in which we live. Analysing the moral emotions that underlie grassroots activism allows us to go beyond the simple grievance expressed by those affected and lets us understand how activists interpret their own experience and what types of values characterize their actions. Two of the most common moral emotions that I have considered in my research are indignation and outrage. Indignation plays an important role in the mobilization process insofar as it is directly linked to what we consider fair and what we do not, that is, it reflects a series of values with which we interpret and act in the reality around us. Indignation over the destruction of or eviction from a building, the destruction of a green space or the lack of water fuel the creation of a framework of injustice in the minds of those affected, who perceive what they are experiencing a social injustice. The framework of injustice makes it possible to break with the feeling of victimhood and the social stigma that characterize many urban suburbs, to overcome the sense of impotence and, finally, to search for those responsible for the problems experienced. The search for the responsible parties is important in that it allows some dominant rules of feeling, such as being afraid of the authorities or being ashamed to protest, to be overcome (Poma and Gravante 2017a). If indignation is linked to our sense of justice, outrage is linked to dignity: a sense of dignity for oneself, our social group, neighbourhood, or urban or ideological community of reference. The outrage that emerges in urban conflicts involving peripheral suburbs or poor areas subject to gentrification is generally due to the fact that people feel treated like animals, considered second-class citizens or sacrificial subjects (Poma and Gravante 2015). The outrage emerges as a response to the dehumanization process carried out by companies or local authorities to belittle the inhabitants of certain areas. This process of dehumanization is often linked to a deep racism towards poor areas, often inhabited by migrants and, in Latin America, people from indigenous communities. Moral emotions such as pride in defending one’s own territory and contempt for opponents also play an important role in urban activism, especially in the construction of the group’s collective identity. This collective identity serves the purpose of mutual recognition among activists, supporters, and neighbours, as a tool for recruitment, and as a way to identify the political experience to the outside. Pride, contempt, and the other moral emotions redefine the collective identity of a given territory, neighbourhood, building, or group in conflict, allowing for the creation of an ‘us’ and ‘them’ narrative. This ‘us’ includes not only the neighbours who are affected by the problems to which the group is opposed, but also those who suffer in general,

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  205

those who defend the territory in other parts of the city, and an ‘us’ that includes other non-human living beings such as animals and plants that exist in the city (Gravante and Sifuentes 2022). Meanwhile, ‘them’ includes not just opponents such as big business or the authorities, but also all those who fuel and legitimize social injustice. The construction of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ is decisive in the choice of strategies and alliances. In the following section, we shall introduce an aspect that is seldom considered in the study of urban activism: attachment to the city, an affective bond that is often denied when we talk about urban contexts.

BUILDING ATTACHMENT TO THE CITY Affective bonds are emotions like love, trust, respect, resentment, hate, admiration, attachment, and loyalty, among others. The object of the emotion is not necessarily a human being; the bond can also be with ideas, objects, institutions, or places, and it has a long temporality. These emotions are generally more stable, more elaborate, and more linked to cognition than emotions such as impulses, reflex emotions and moods (Jasper 2018). They are part of our identity and guide us in our actions. In grassroots activism affective bonds are important emotions in the mobilization process, in the strategies and in the emergence of collective identity (Devine-Wright 2009; Devine-Wright and Howes 2010; Poma and Gravante 2015, 2016, 2018). One of the affective bonds that determine people–place relationships is place attachment, and it is a central concept in different branches of social science (Lewicka 2011). Place attachment may be definitive of an individual’s cognitive and emotional connection to a particular setting or environment; through this connection people give a culturally shared affective meaning to a particular space, piece of land or landscape (Low and Altman 1992; Manzo and Devine-Wright 2014). Over the years, research has given rise to different typologies of place attachment (Lewicka 2011; Manzo and Devine-Wright 2014), although the predominant approach to place attachment has been static rather than dynamic (Devine-Wright 2014). In grassroots activism the community’s place, the neighbourhood or the city can change in numerous ways in response to a threat such as a gentrification plan, a landfill, a department store, and so on, so places themselves can change, with implications for emotional attachment. Thinking of place attachment as a dynamic phenomenon (Devine-Wright 2014) helps us understand how people in collective action activate, reactivate, strengthen or disrupt their relationship with the place (Devine-Wright 2009; Devine-Wright and Howes 2010; Poma and Gravante 2015, 2018). Research on environmental grassroots activism in metropolitan areas of Mexico – some of them highly polluted – and Spanish cities has shown that place attachment is one of the main emotions in the mobilization process (Poma and Gravante 2015, 2016, 2018; Gravante and Poma 2015; Gravante et al. 2022). Since place attachment is a stable emotion, it often fails to register and instead remains in our emotional background, to be reactivated every time we are pay attention to it, that is, when the place where we live or the place we love is perceived as being under threat. As our

206  Handbook on urban social movements

findings show, protests against neoliberal gentrification, the defence of urban spaces, a forest, a river, or some other element that is part of a city’s urban biotope are characterized by attachment to a certain physical space, strengthened by memories and feelings such as nostalgia and the reciprocal emotions shared with other inhabitants, and also by the feeling of safety that comes from living in a known space with familiar people (Gravante and Poma 2015; Poma and Gravante 2018). The risk of losing this ontological safety causes fear, stress and anxiety, which leads to action (Gravante and Regalado 2016), as Jasper clearly explains when he states that “human beings will act to prevent changes in the environment that may threaten this ontological safety, which is why they oppose involuntary, uncontrollable, and unknown risks” (1997: 123). With this approach it is possible to understand that opposition to infrastructure that may threaten a neighbourhood or a green space is not guided by egotism – an emotion commonly associated with NIMBY conflicts – but by much more complex cognitive processes involving a wide range of emotions (Devine-Wright 2009; Poma and Gravante 2015). Place attachment is also linked to the feeling of dignity understood as “a serenity and pride that derives from trust in one’s place, if that place is one’s social component and physical context” (Jasper 1997: 126). Defending one’s neighbourhood or urban space often becomes “a matter of dignity”, insofar as these urban areas are inhabited by stigmatized identities – such as migrants, indigenous and poor people – and are assessed as sacrificial territorial zones for reasons of socio-economic status, pollution problems and racial discrimination, among others. This type of bond contributes to a collective group identity and to strengthening the bonds between the area’s inhabitants. This gives rise to solidarity and mutual support among those affected. These practices can range from exchanging goods and services to deciding to shop only in small neighbourhood stores, boycotting all types of commercial chains and large supermarkets, as happened with grassroots collectives in Oaxaca in 2006 (Gravante 2016). Finally, it shall be noted that attachment is a bond not only to a certain place, but often involves attachment to a certain ideology, such as feminism (Poma and Gravante 2017b) or anarchism (Gravante and Poma 2017a, 2017b), or a way of living (Gravante and Regalado 2016). Ultimately, place attachment not only plays an important role in the mobilization process, but also helps build social alternatives to the current neoliberal system with certain values that characterize the same political experience such as solidarity, respect, fraternity, and collective care, among others. Thus, they prefigure grassroots alternatives that are structured not only around the threat or the problem affecting the community, but also around everyday needs and the attachment to their urban space. In the following section we discuss the prefigurative character of urban activism by highlighting the link between practices, values, and emotions.

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  207

ACTING AS IF: PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS AND REAL UTOPIAS From the perspective of the Global Justice Movement at the start of the twenty-first century, a series of social experiences emerged that profoundly denied TINA (‘There is no alternative’) thinking – which has characterized the spread of the neoliberal model – as well as actors who argued that social alternatives did exist and that these ‘other possible worlds’ could be realized in the present. The experiences in rural areas such as La Via Campesina or the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) have managed to put issues such as food sovereignty and biodiversity on the international agenda, as well as giving vigour and visibility to peasant and indigenous struggles in different parts of the world. At the same time, we have seen the growth of a whole series of urban experiences which, relying on the previous experiences of movements such as the housing, squatter, environmental, and self-managed social centres movements, not only demanded an extension of the right to the city for all, but also demanded another way of living and thinking about the city (Players 2010; Gravante 2015). Since then, recent decades have seen the emergence of multiple urban experiences based on ideas and practices such as participatory economics (parecon), degrowth theory, urban agriculture, permaculture and agroecology, Zapatista autonomy, anarchism, feminism, free software, animalism, anti-fascism, and anti-racism, among many others, which have focused more on developing alternative life projects than on carrying out protest actions. These are desirable, viable projects that go beyond the cost-benefit logic and where the desired, reclaimed aspects of a future society characterized by socio-economic justice, a different relationship with nature, ethics, and respect for life and human health, among others, are experienced or anticipated in the present (Gravante et al. 2022). In the words of Erik Olin Wright, these are experiences that represent real utopias in our present. Projects such as the soup kitchens in Latin America, the Zapatista cafes in Mexico City, occupy orchards and social centres in Europe, and so on, are characterized by the fact that the protagonists link social change to prefigurative actions in everyday life, to the development of social relations based on values, to lived experiences, and to the importance of the local dimension. This type of activism is characterized by a search for coherence between practices (mutual support, participatory economy, agroecology, solidarity, etc.) and their values (respect for nature, love, trust, friendship, companionship, etc.). This commitment therefore has a prefigurative character in its values and a performative character in its practices. This aspect introduces the proposal to study these experiences through the analytical framework of political prefiguration, insofar as this approach is more adapted to a social scenario where the participants of these experiences express their political goals through their practices, thus overcoming the cost-benefit logic that dominates the analysis of these grassroots experiences. The term ‘prefigurative politics’ refers to a political orientation based on the premises of a protest experience that is essentially shaped by the means employed by the protagonists (Yates 2014). These social practices entail choosing strategies

208  Handbook on urban social movements

and practices that embed or ‘prefigure’ the type of society people themselves reclaim and propose. The means-ends relationship is not only structured based on the commitment assumed by each subject, but the prefigurative orientation is also developed around values, beliefs (Gravante 2015) and moral emotions (Gravante 2020). Through the prefigurative approach we can see how grassroots activism attempts to create a new society ‘in the shell of the old’ by developing counter-hegemonic forms of interaction embedded in the desire for social transformation. In this sense the prefigurative strategy is essentially based on the principle of direct action, that is, on the direct implementation of the expected changes rather than on the demands for these changes. The prefigurative tendency is clearly not exclusive to grassroots experiences. We can also identify a prefigurative tendency in different and diverse social movements throughout history, such as feminist movements, autonomous and anarchist movements, pacifist movements and, of course, movements against neoliberal processes, among others. By analysing the relationship between practices and values, it is possible to observe that the organization and practice of this type of activism can anticipate or represent an ‘alternative world’ in the present, as if it already existed, that is, it brings about a process of creating political alternatives ‘here and now’. Prefigurative politics tend to involve a series of alternative practices in addition to activities carried out in groups, such as horizontal, anti-hierarchical organization, decision-making by consensus, direct action, do it yourself (DIY) practices, self-organized and self-sustainable projects, etc. Moreover, prefigurative politics highlight how everyday life is transformed into a political dimension (Pleyers 2010; Yates 2014; Gravante 2015, 2019). One of the most important processes highlighted by the political prefiguration approach is the process of politicization of everyday life. This process makes it possible to articulate political protest and everyday life with beliefs, values, and the desire to be consistent with them. The perception of a threat to everyday issues such as food, transportation, housing, access to water, entertainment, culture, and work, is framed – as seen above, thanks to a series of emotions – as a social injustice, where responsible parties are identified and viable alternatives are sought. An important example is how these experiences are creating a politicized interpretative framework about the problems of work and daily subsistence, such as the solidarity networks in this pandemic in Europe, USA and Latin America (Gravante and Poma 2022). The neoliberal policies implemented in the cities have favoured the investment of large capital and corporations, which have resulted in exclusive commercial zones such as large shopping malls, boutique businesses and hotels, art galleries, luxury coffee shops and bakeries, etc. This has led to the exclusion of thousands of people, often young people and women, from the private sector and the labour market. Grassroots activism has responded to this social exclusion operated by the political-economic establishment with the development of a series of alternative projects that combine social critique, exchange of products, participatory economy, and daily subsistence. In Mexico City, for example, as well as in many other cities, we have seen the flourishing of projects like self-managed community bakeries, alternative food networks,

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  209

vegan restaurants, cultural spaces, self-managed farmers’ markets, courier services, traditional handicrafts, vegan products, plant nurseries, community gardens, etc. (Gravante et al. 2022). The social component manifests not only in the affordable prices of the projects’ products or services, but also in the themes that their activities address and how they often hybridize with each other. Workshops on female sexuality, embroidery, preparation of vegan cheese and milk, craft beer and female self-defence, among others, are interspersed and sometimes juxtaposed with talks on feminism, poetry, traditional food, Zapatismo, female masturbation, political prisoners, struggles in defence of territory, dancing, etc. In other words, the prefigurative aspect allows for a process of hybridization of the collective identity. This hybridization of themes, practices and values has also been seen in the mutual support networks or soup kitchens (in Spanish ollas comunitarias or ollas populares) that have emerged throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. Although these are not new experiences in the context of Latin American collective action, in this new social crisis, moral emotions such as indignation and outrage generated by the ineffectiveness of public measures have allowed for a broadening of their social significance. The same can be said about mutual aid groups in the UK, Italy or USA (Gravante and Poma 2022). In other words, these experiences have become a social laboratory where, in addition to addressing the needs caused by the pandemic, workshops were held on collective care, feminism, psychological support groups, education groups for children, and climate change, among others (Gravante 2022). This has been possible thanks to the participation in these projects of new social actors of the urban fabric, such as the collectives of the recent wave of feminism and climate activism, the anti-speciesism groups, urban gardens, the LGBT collectives, or libertarian groups, among others. This process of hybridization allows urban grassroots activism to create true critical communities where social issues antagonistic and transgressive to the current value system are debated, and at the same time social alternatives are sought or proposed. These critical communities are also important in that they challenge the form and norms of the current dominant system in terms of social interactions and collective identity. These communities are built more through political commitment and moral obligation towards other participants than through debate. Here we highlight two transversal themes that characterize these critical communities and which are present in an important way. One is the problem of patriarchy and the feminist alternative, and the other is the socio-environmental crisis. The impacts of these critical communities manifest in larger processes such as the radicalization of the feminist movement and the rejuvenation of the climate movement. We can recognize this process in other urban movements and their relationship with grassroots activism, such as the relations between some movements and anti-speciesism groups.

210  Handbook on urban social movements

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS In this text, using research by authors from Europe and Latin America, I have proposed an analysis of urban grassroots activism that can help to overcome structural approaches and the cost-benefit logic. Introducing the analysis of the emotional dimension and the interpretation the subjects themselves give of their emotions and experiences allows for a deep understanding of the real motivations behind a conflict, and why people can remain attached to their suburbs or peripheral areas considered by urban technicians to be subject to ‘social reclamation’. The prefigurative approach makes it possible to overcome the strategic vision about the social alternatives that emerge throughout the city, often interpreted only as consequences of a conflict. The practices–values link allows to determine what kind of city prefigures grassroots activism, and above all, it sheds light on how these inclusive social alternatives can be realized here and now. The city is a dynamic social body, and so is the social phenomenon of grassroots activism. It is necessary, especially given the socio-environmental crisis we are experiencing, not only to discover desirable social alternatives to the current neoliberal model, but to find out how to make them viable. To conclude, I suggest a few directions for further research on urban grassroots activism. I have selected four research avenues that are particularly crucial to expanding our knowledge on urban grassroots activism and its consequences on individual lives and our cities. First, regarding the emotional dimension: (a) to analyse how the main emotions that characterize grassroots activism interact with each other and with what results, such as seeing how outrage interacts with emotions such as pride or place attachment. (b) To explore how activists construct or strengthen place attachment to their urban territory and the role of this bond in building and accepting social alternatives. Second, it is particularly important to analyse the prefigurative aspect of their projects, what values they manifest, and the constituent elements of the society they are performing with their practices. Third, with regard to considering these grassroots experiences as critical communities, it is important to identify the common patterns that allow for the development of new social narratives and the mechanisms that allow for the emergence of new approaches to the problems they face. Finally, I consider it necessary to focus on the cultural and biographical impacts of these experiences, that is, to determine how the urban cultural fabric is permeated by the proposals of these projects, and to see what kind of changes occur in the people who participate in them.

REFERENCES Accornero, G. (2023). Contentious buildings: The struggle against eviction in NYC’s Lower East Side. Current Sociology, 70(1), 1–19.

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  211

Andretta, M., Piazza, G., and Subirats, A. (2015). Urban dynamics and social movements. In D. Della Porta and M. Diani (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 200–216. Bey, H. (2003). TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. New York: Autonomedia. Bosi, L. and Zamponi, L. (2015). Direct social actions and economic crises: The relationship between forms of action and socio-economic context in Italy. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2), 367–391. Della Porta, D. (2007). The Global Justice Movement. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Press. Della Porta, D. (2020). Building bridges: Social movements and civil society in times of crisis. Voluntas, 31, 938–948. Della Porta, D. and Andretta, M. (2001). Movimenti sociali e rappresentanza: I comitati spontanei dei cittadini a Firenze. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 1, 41–76. Della Porta, D. and Piazza, G. (2008). Le ragioni del no. Le campagne contro la Tav in Val di Susa e il Ponte sullo Stretto. Milan: Feltrinelli. Della Porta, D. and Steinhilper, E. (2020). Introduction: Solidarities in motion. Hybridity and change in migrant support practices. Critical Sociology, 47(2). https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​ 0896920520952143. Devine-Wright, P. (2009). Rethinking Nimbyism: The role of place attachment and place identity in explaining place-protective action. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 19, 426–441. Devine-Wright, P. (2014). Dynamics of place attachment in a climate changed world. In L. C. Manzo and P. Devine-Wright (eds.), Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 165–177. Devine-Wright, P. and Howes, Y. (2010). Disruption to place attachment and the protection of restorative environments: A wind energy study. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 30, 271–280. Gravante, T. (2015). Interconnections between anarchist practices and grassroots struggles. Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, 7(1), 247–255. Gravante, T. (2016). Cuando la gente toma la palabra. Medios digitales y cambio social en la insurrección popular de Oaxaca, México. Quito: Ediciones CIESPAL. Gravante, T. (2019). Prácticas emergentes de activismo alimentario en la Ciudad de México. Iberoforum, 14(28), 105–125. Gravante, T. (2020). Emociones y reglas del sentir como impactos culturales de los movimientos sociales. Interdiscipina, 8(22), 157–179. Gravante, T. (2022). El activismo de base en tiempos de pandemia: una primera caracterización cualitativa. In T. Gravante, J. Regalado, and A. Poma (eds.), Viralizar la esperanza en la ciudad. Alternativas, resistencias y autocuidado colectivo frente a la covid-19 y a la crisis socioambiental. Mexico City: CEIICH-UNAM, pp. 187–208. Gravante, T. and Poma, A. (2015). Special Issue: Resistencias y autogestión en contra del despojo del agua y del territorio en la Zona Metropolitana de Guadalajara: logros y retos. WATERLAT-GOBACIT Network Working Papers, 2(18), Newcastle upon Tyne: WATERLAT-GOBACIT. Gravante, T. and Poma, A. (2017a). Beyond the State and Capitalism: the Current Anarchist Movement in Italy. Journal for the Study of Radicalism, 11(1), 1–23. Gravante, T. and Poma, A. (2017b). ‘Crack in the system’: A bottom-up analysis of the anarcho-punk movement in Mexico. In M. Dines, A. Gordon, and P. Guerra (eds.), The Punk Reader: Research Transmissions from the Local and the Global. Porto: University of Porto/The Punk Scholars Network. Gravante, T. and Poma, A. (2020). El papel del activismo socioambiental de base en la nueva ola del movimiento climático (2018–2020). Agua y Territorio, 16, 11–22.

212  Handbook on urban social movements

Gravante, T. and Poma, A. (2021). How are emotions about COVID-19 impacting society? The role of the political elite and grassroots activism. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 41. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1108/​IJSSP​-07​-2020​-0325. Gravante, T. and Poma, A. (2022). ‘Solidarity, not charity’: Emotions as cultural challenge of grassroots activism. In B. Bringel and G. Pleyers (eds.), Social Movements and Politics in a Global Pandemic: Crisis, Solidarity and Change. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Gravante, T., Poma, A., and Paredes, J. P. (2019). Special Issue: Resistencias y emociones en contextos represivos. Polis Revista Latinoamericana, 53. doi:10.32735/ S0718-6568/2019-N53-1380. Gravante, T. and Regalado, J. (2016). Acción colectiva y prácticas políticas emergentes en México. Revista de Ciencias Sociales, 4(154), 113–127. Gravante, T., Regalado, J., and Poma, A. (2022). Viralizar la esperanza en la ciudad. Alternativas, resistencias y autocuidado colectivo frente a la covid-19 y a la crisis socioambiental. Mexico City: CEIICH-UNAM. Gravante, T. and Sifuentes (2022). Emociones en el activismo antiespecista. In T. Gravante and A. Poma (eds.), Emociones y Medioambiente. Un enfoque interdisciplinario. Mexico City: CEIICH-UNAM. Hochschild, A. R. (1975). The sociology of feeling and emotion: Selected possibilities. In M. Millman and M. Kanter (eds.), Another Voice. New York: Anchor, pp. 280–307. Hochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85, 551–575. Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hochschild, A. R. (2008). Feeling around the world. Contexts, 7(2), 80. Jasper, J. M. (1997). The Art of Moral Protest: Culture, Biography, and Creativity in Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jasper, J. M. (2014). Constructing indignation: Anger dynamics in protest movements. Emotion Review, 6(3), 208–213. Jasper, J. M. (2018). The Emotions of Protest. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Johansson, A. and Vinthagen, S. (2019). Conceptualizing ‘Everyday Resistance’: A Transdisciplinary Approach. New York: Routledge. Leetoy, S. and Gravante, T. (2021). Feeding solidarity and care: The grassroots experiences of Latin American soup kitchens in times of global pandemic. In M. A. Montoya, A. Krstikj, J. Rehner, and D. Lemus-Delgado (eds.), COVID-19 and Cities: Experiences, Responses, and Uncertainties. Cham: Springer Nature, pp. 147–160. Lewicka, M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31, 207–230. Low, S. M. and Altman, I. (1992). Place attachment: A conceptual inquiry. Human Behavior & Environment: Advances in Theory & Research, 12, 1–12. Manzo, L. C. and Devine-Wright, P. (eds.) (2014). Place Attachment: Advances in Theory, Methods and Applications. Abingdon: Routledge. Martinez, M. (2009). Attack of the butterfly spirits: The impact of movement framing by community garden preservation activists. Social Movement Studies, 8(4), 323–339. Martínez, M. A. and Gil, J. (2022). Grassroots struggles challenging housing financialization in Spain. Housing Studies. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​02673037​.2022​.2036328. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. G., and Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pleyers, G. (2010). Alter-Globalization: Becoming Actors in the Global Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Poma, A. and Gravante, T. (2015). Analyzing resistances from below: A proposal of analysis based on three experiences of struggles against dams in Spain and Mexico. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 26(1), 59–76.

Building real utopias: activism, emotions and politics  213

Poma, A. and Gravante, T. (2016). Environmental self-organized activism: Emotion, organization and collective identity in Mexico. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 36(9/10), 647–661. Poma, A. and Gravante, T. (2017a). Emotions in inter-action in environmental resistances. The case of Comité Salvabosque. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 10(3), 896–925. Poma, A. and Gravante, T. (2017b). Emotions and empowerment in collective action: The experience of a women’s collective in Oaxaca, Mexico, 2006–2017. Emotions: History, Culture, Society, 1(2), 59–79. Poma, A. and Gravante, T. (2018). Emociones, identidad colectiva y estrategias en los conflictos socio-ambientales. Andamios, 15(36), 287–309. Poma, A. and Gravante, T. (2021). Entre frustración y esperanza: Emociones en el activismo climático en México. Ciencia Política, 16(31), 117–156. Squatting Europe Kollective (ed.) (2013). Squatting in Europe: Radical Spaces, Urban Struggles. New York: Minor Compositions. Tilly, C. and Tarrow, S. (2015). Contentious Politics, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wright, E. (2010). Envisioning Real Utopias. London and New York: Verso. Yates, L. (2014). Rethinking prefiguration: Alternatives, micropolitics and goals in social movements. Social Movement Studies, 14(1), 1–21. Yip, N. M., Martínez López, M. A., and Sun, X. (eds.) (2019). Contested Cities and Urban Activism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

14. Gentrification, resistance, and the reconceptualization of community through place-based social media: the future will not be Instagrammed S. Ashleigh Weeden, Kyle A. Rich and @ParkdaleLife

INTRODUCTION Our lives are increasingly constructed through the dynamic interactions between our physical or embodied presence in the material world and our digitally mediated experiences and relationships (Couldry 2008, 2012; Silverstone 2002; Willems 2019). Indeed, Willems (2019: 1194) argued that “digital and physical spaces should be treated as interdependent or co-constitutive” in recognition of the non-binary ways we experience the spaces “between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ and between ‘public sphere’ and ‘public space’”. Despite growing attention to the role of social media in all spheres of our daily lives, there remain few close examinations of the way contemporary urban social movements both shape and are shaped by social media (Lee 2021). In this chapter, we explore how social media can facilitate new engagements with the core activities of urban social movements: achieving greater community control over the urban environment and the decision-making processes that shape that environment (Pruijt 2007). Using narrative inquiry and auto-ethnographic vignettes drawn from the life cycle of the social media account ‘@ParkdaleLife’, we explore interdependencies between online-offline and public sphere-public space in Parkdale. We argue that the activities undertaken by @ParkdaleLife represent the three broad components of urban social movements put forward by Pruijt (2007) by engaging with issues of collective consumption, urban planning, and issue-specific mobilization. Further, we argue that leveraging social media may provide unexpected and unconventional ways for urban residents to reclaim a ‘right to the city’ by weaving together satire, storytelling, and online/offline social network mobilization as tools of protest. The resulting analysis produces critical new perspectives for exploring the role of place in increasingly digitally mediated urban social movements.

GENTRIFICATION, THE ‘RIGHT TO THE CITY’, AND WHY PLACE MATTERS This chapter contributes to critical dialogues about the way social media may reshape contemporary urban social movements and whether place ‘matters’ as those move214

Gentrification, resistance, and community  215

ments flex-and-flux between online and offline spaces and activity. We argue that a progressive sense of place remains as critical and embedded in digital manifestations of ‘right to the city’ movements as it does in more traditional conceptualizations of urban social movement organizing. Further, we argue that place-based social media opens avenues for reconceptualizing the narratives and tactics used by urban social movements. In this section, we discuss the tension between the experience of gentrification (which has been central to Parkdale’s history as a neighbourhood in Canada’s largest city) and the resistance it fosters, highlighting one of the central sparks that ignites urban social movements that seek to reclaim a ‘right to the city’ (Pruijt 2007; Domaradzka 2018). These conceptual frameworks underpin the analysis of @ParkdaleLife’s experiences and impacts as a galvanizing figure in efforts to reclaim a ‘right to the city’ in Parkdale, Toronto. Unlike more purposeful or directed efforts at urban renewal, gentrification is often gradual and paradoxical: working class and poor people are slowly displaced (and replaced) by “middle class homebuyers, land-lords, and professional developers” (Smith 1982: 139). The process leads to the potential paradox of increased homogeneity of both people (through reduced cultural and socio-economic diversity) and land use (such as a flattening of the type and aesthetic of retail/commercial spaces, community spaces, or local services available based on new social norms), as well as the kind of social, cultural, and economic capital investments that might have made the existing community less vulnerable to displacement in the first place (Butler 2003; Freeman 2010; Ley 1986; Lees 2008). Gentrification often results from neoliberal approaches to public policy that produce a vacuum of disinvestment, which increases a community’s vulnerability to commodification and capital investment by wealthy individuals and private enterprise (Smith 1979, 1982; Perez 2004, Engels 1997; Glass 2010; Lees et al. 2008). More to the point of this chapter, gentrification has been (and continues to be) a powerful motivating force for urban social movements that have developed in response to its perceived threats. One notable response comes from Henri Lefebvre (1968), and later David Harvey (2003, 2008), who advanced the ‘right to the city’ as a critical countermovement concept for ‘rescuing’ urban life from commodification and to return its value to people (not corporations). The ‘right to the city’ has become a rallying cry for urban renewal movements around the world and has been linked to conversations ranging from urban sustainability to digital rights (Sustainable Cities Collective 2017; Graham 2017). For scholars and community organizers alike, the phrase has both tangible and intangible implications. For Harvey (2008) the ‘right to the city’ is “far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city” (Harvey 2008: 23). Critically, this right is common, not individual; reclaiming and remaking the city depends on “the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization” (Harvey 2008: 23). This exercise of collective power references the right to belong to, connect with, and co-create the urban spaces in which one lives – or what Mitchell and Villanueva (2010: 668) dubbed “the right not to be alienated from the spaces of everyday life”. In more concrete applications to urban social movements, the ‘right to the city’ invokes

216  Handbook on urban social movements

tangible claims to a broad range of rights (social, political, and economic) based on developing inherent capacity (instead of exploiting it). The ‘right to the city’ is rich with meaning as well as an invocation to concrete action, making it a powerful framework for approaching urban social movements. Because they are explicitly linked to socio-economic changes that both physically and culturally alter important socio-spatial features of a community, both gentrification and any counter-movements are inherently place-based; the socio-spatial dynamics inherent in accessing the ‘right to the city’ recall the dynamics of creating and constructing place, as set forth by Doreen Massey (1991, 1995, 2005; Massey and Allen 1984). Massey argued that social, economic, and cultural processes are always influenced by the contextual modifier of place (Massey 1995, 2005; Massey and Allen 1984). Massey’s work emphasized that places are not necessarily clearly bounded and that places can have multiple meanings or identities, which are constituted through relationships among and between people, their geo-spatial environment, and various networked interconnections over time and continually in process. This conceptualization of a ‘progressive sense of place’ can be seen as a response to critiques from scholars like Harvey (1989), who – despite his advancement of the hyper-local process of reclaiming a ‘right to the city’ – argued that increasing globalization has eroded the significance of place (Kitchin 2016). Arguably, each time a ‘right to the city’ movement develops, it emphasizes the importance of embracing place-based socio-economic activity as an antidote to the globalized capitalist systems (i.e., campaigns to ‘buy local’ or to create local by-laws to prevent large chain retailers from entering communities). Applying Massey’s more complex, nuanced understanding of place-ascontextual-modifier highlights tensions within critical urban theory. Contemporary engagements with urban social movements often struggle to negotiate the tension between the role of place-based urban rights and perceptions that technological innovations have broken down spatial barriers and promote borderless global economic activity (Brenner 2009; Domaradzka 2018). However, places remain important loci of public value because relationships develop, services are delivered, governance happens, and lives are lived in places (Reimer and Markey 2008). The unique processes and meanings produced by place are valued not just by the people who personally identify or reside within a place, but by people who may be spatially detached but relationally, emotionally, or economically attached to a particular place or idea of a place (Clark 1983; Bolton 1992). Leveraging place-based social media may allow social actors to maintain their presence in and attachment to place across both online and offline planes, even if their physical access is interrupted by time, distance, or barriers to participation in more conventional urban movement activities (such as direct protest or engagement with policy makers). Critically, the impacts and opportunities provided by technological innovation (such as social media) are produced not from its existence alone, but through its use. As we discuss later in this chapter, @ParkdaleLife used social media to engage and interrupt localized impacts of gentrification. This subverts the expected use of social media, where users amplify posts that reinforce the aesthetic and/or activities of the gentrifying class in order

Gentrification, resistance, and community  217

to increase their own social status through proximity (Bronsvoort and Uitermark 2022). Leveraging a subversive approach to social media to engage in conversations about who Parkdale ‘belongs’ to indicates that, even though social media platforms are global in scale, place still matters for community organizing in blended online/ offline realities. Building on Willem’s (2019) argument that our contemporary lives and experiences are increasingly produced and mediated through the socio-spatial blending of our physical and virtual worlds, we turn our attention to the ways people are using social media to reclaim a ‘right to the city’ in this new digitally/embodied reality.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS A RECURSIVE SOURCE MATERIAL FOR STUDYING URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Couldry (2012: 2) argued that the term ‘media’ refers to “institutions and infrastructures that make and distribute particular contents in forms that are more or less fixed and carry their context with them, but ‘media’ are also those contents themselves”. Digital media and social media are the latest contributions to these institutions and infrastructures, which are linked to the social, economic, political, and institutional dimensions and dynamics of communication (Couldry 2012). Social media can be infrastructure (i.e. platforms), practice (i.e. social interaction), space/place (i.e. groups), and culture (i.e. governing norms) (Patel 2021; McLuhan 2001 [1964]; Couldry 2012; Zielinski 2006). Both the content shared by social media users and the relational processes developed among and between users create interesting recursive source material for studying contemporary urban social movements. Over the last decade, digital and social media – from more traditional long-form, essay-like blogs to the current dominance of micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter and Instagram – has attracted the interest of social science researchers. Jones and Alony (2008: 440) argued that blogs/micro-blogs provide “rich and deep personal” source material. Social media content can be valuable data for analysing the personal experiences and narratives that are shared by writers, whether to gain recognition, develop social relationships, fulfil a need for documentation or introspection, or enable information sharing and skill development (Weeden 2022; Coleman 2013; Graham 2002; Meyer and Allen 1991; Nardi et al. 2004; Turgeon 2004; Wiliams and Jacobs 2004; Clyde 2006; Pedersen and Macafee 2007; Rosenbloom 2004; Bronsvoort and Uitermark 2022). Because it is created independently of the research process, such content may not be as vulnerable to the researcher’s influence as other forms of data collection (Hartley 2001). However, because social and digital media is easily “remediated, reprogrammed, redistributed, and reconfigured” (Patel 2021: 1, citing Couldry 2008), it must be approached with care. Nevertheless, social media has become an ideal medium for the “stories and shifting narratives that are an integral part of every day [sic] activism and meaning making, [all of which is] at the heart of social movements” (Patel 2021: 1, citing Couldry 2008).

218  Handbook on urban social movements

NARRATIVE INQUIRY AND @​PARKDALELIFE In the following sections, we apply the previously discussed theorization of the ‘right to the city’ to auto-ethnographic accounts of the social media presence @ParkdaleLife, illuminated through analysis of digital and social media content. Our analysis was informed by narrative inquiry (Clandinin 2007). According to Smith and Sparkes (2006: 169), narratives are important cultural resources that shape our identities and understandings of the world around us, making them “both a method of knowing and an ontological condition of social life”. Narrative inquiry can take many forms in terms of both process and modes of representation. For this chapter, we worked as storytellers to engage the creative analytic practice of crafting an auto-ethnographic narrative (Smith and Sparkes 2009) based on the experiences of @ParkdaleLife. Importantly, this process involved critical self-reflection and locating our own positions and relationship to processes of gentrification (Schlichtman and Patch 2014). Accordingly, we recognize that the first two authors are White scholars interested in community development and change across rural and urban contexts. The person behind @ParkdaleLife is a White woman who – although a longtime resident of the neighbourhood – recognizes that the processes of gentrification brought her to Parkdale and have shaped her relationship with the space and place. Our narrative analysis produces critical insights for the future of urban social movements by exploring how communities can establish sense of place that is portable enough to transcend the online/offline binary – without losing the hyper-locality that often drives urban social movements in the first place. It also provides a material example of how people can disrupt what Adorno called ‘the culture industry’, through which mass media and celebrity culture are often used to exploit the socio-economic tensions created by capitalism and its attendant processes (like gentrification) (Catlin 2018; Ross 2016); leveraging platforms like Instagram to do so subverts the general use of social media to advance globalized pop-culture and consumption (Bronsvoort and Uitermark 2022). We use the example of @ParkdaleLife, which developed as a place-based social media presence that centred the lived experiences of Parkdale and its changing urban landscape. The account earned a substantial following (by sharing often-satirical snapshots that portrayed community life), critiqued gentrification (sometimes through direct action), networked with community-based organizations, and mobilized resources to meet community needs. Taken together, these activities recall core elements of urban social movements and place @ParkdaleLife as an important actor in local efforts to reclaim a ‘right to the city’. In the sections that follow, we share how Parkdale has been shaped by changing urban dynamics and the ways that this has created a progressive sense of place in the neighbourhood. Working with those behind @ParkdaleLife, we co-constructed the following analysis, focusing primarily on their experiences and then supplementing and triangulating these narratives with academic literature and other media coverage. Using three vignettes that chart the development and role of @ParkdaleLife as an intermediary presence in both online and offline life in Parkdale, our narrative analysis explores @ParkdaleLife’s use of

Gentrification, resistance, and community  219

storytelling and humour, anonymity, and digital media as critical tools for emerging urban social movements.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PARKDALE Parkdale was originally founded as an autonomous village in 1879 but was annexed shortly after by the City of Toronto and marketed as a garden suburb. In the late nineteenth century, Parkdale was a place where wealthy urban elites could escape the busy, dirty, and industrial downtown core. Located on the shores of Lake Ontario, Parkdale offered many recreational and leisure opportunities for these elites. Consequently, many large Victorian estate homes were constructed in the neighbourhood. Parkdale was also home to the Sunnyside Amusement Park – Toronto’s version of New York’s Coney Island. These conditions combined to create Parkdale as a bustling hub of activity, framed and experienced as one of the most affluent and desirable parts of the city (Whitzman 2009). The latter half of the twentieth century brought a variety of changes that drastically altered Parkdale’s trajectory. Sunnyside Amusement Park was closed and demolished in the 1950s and subsequently replaced by the construction of the Gardiner Expressway. ‘The Gardiner’ runs parallel to the lakeshore and effectively cuts off access between Parkdale and the waterfront, thereby cutting off a geo-spatial feature that was central to the creation of the neighbourhood and its sense of place. Policy changes in the 1970s and 1980s led to the closure of the Lakeshore Psychiatric Facility and the deinstitutionalization of the Queen Street Mental Health Centre. Group homes and many single-room-occupancy units were developed to house the changing population of people who called Parkdale home (Epstein 2018). As such, Parkdale became associated with poverty, psychiatric survivors, and inadequate housing (Horgan 2018). The 1990s were a particularly interesting and noteworthy time in Parkdale’s history. During this period, Toronto was rapidly expanding. Developers had begun investing in and modernizing the homes in Parkdale since the closures of psychiatric institutions in the 1970s, leading to an influx of artists, young professionals, and families, as the large homes in Parkdale became relatively affordable either as primary dwellings or as attractive rental options and real estate investments (Whitzman 2009). By the 1990s, these newer residents had mobilized into neighbourhood groups who became active in addressing the perceived ‘threats’ of sex work and drug use associated with the neighbourhood. Epstein (2018: 714) referred to these groups as representative of Parkdale’s “enlightened middle class” who sought to gently “civilize” their community towards a more palatable norm (to them). Tensions between these neighbourhood groups and longer-term community members culminated in a city-led conflict mediation in response to proposed changes to land use and zoning policy that were clearly designed to attract more wealthy homeowners and, by extension, displace lower income residents (Epstein 2018). Although the mediation process led to site-specific zoning related to affordable housing, it did not include protections

220  Handbook on urban social movements

for affordability (Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust 2017). The activism around these events, and the subsequent mediation, brought several groups in the community together to establish some common ground – although not unproblematically. Since the 1990s, Parkdale has acquired a reputation as a place where many types of people are welcome. Epstein (2018: 715) highlighted how social mixing was constructed as “a central element of Parkdale’s contemporary identity”. However, this outcome is not as utopian as it may seem. Epstein (2018: 708–709) elaborated that “the mainstream account of Parkdale as a gentrification-resistant space is a fantastical production, a form of governance that emerges from the desires of ‘enlightened’ middle-class subjects, who function as the architects and protagonists of contemporary inclusion”. These discourses persist today, albeit in different forms; they are underpinned by forces of gentrification that are no longer either gentle or insidious, but rather something more complex and nuanced. These shifts in community dynamics through the 2000s saw sex work and drug use fade away from their previously prominent presence in the streets of Parkdale. Waves of migrants have made Parkdale their home and the Queen Street West strip is now known as the city’s ‘Little Tibet’. The tensions and conflict associated with mixing social classes and proximity to difference are not the same as they were; they are now celebrated features. However, the celebrated images of migrants and madness (as evidenced through Parkdale’s Mad Pride Festival (Toronto Mad Pride 2021)), underpinned by broader contemporary Canadian discourses of multiculturalism, are circumscribed and reflective of the power and interests of the ‘enlightened’ (White) middle class (Epstein 2018). Further, the city of Toronto has continued to develop and the cost of housing has risen exponentially over the last several decades. These combined pressures are forcing many would-be new residents further and further from Parkdale and the downtown core. Although Parkdale’s experiences with the hallmark elements of gentrification and displacement may appear similar to those of other cities and neighbourhoods, Parkdale’s history of mobilization, activism, and negotiation of community-belonging distinguish it as a noteworthy site for exploration and learning. Parkdale has been shaped both by the policies enacted at various levels and by various institutions and by community responses to those policies, which have combined to construct what is now recognized as both the physical space and social place of the Parkdale community (Lehrer and Wieditz 2009). Victorian homes, tree-lined streets, repurposed shops, and industrial spaces all are quintessentially Parkdale. But so too are the neighbourhood’s omnipresent raccoons, Mad Pride parades, and unexpected encounters with different people doing different things in unexpected places. These important elements contribute to the creation of a progressive sense of place in Parkdale, one which persists despite the increasing pressures of gentrification that are reshaping contemporary community life in cities around the world.

Gentrification, resistance, and community  221

@PARKDALELIFE: RECONSTRUCTING THE RIGHT TO THE CITY, ONE RACCOON MEME AT A TIME Parkdale’s long and winding dance with the forces of gentrification created the ecosystem in which @ParkdaleLife was born. @ParkdaleLife is social media presence (largely hosted on Instagram) that attracted a large following by sharing raw imagery of community life in the neighbourhood. Images varied widely, but generally depicted the unexpected: from a family of raccoons lounging on a patio (Parkdale Community Food Bank 2017) to a Bride and Groom (Parkdale Community Food Bank 2018) or even a BDSM scene (Parkdale Community Food Bank 2019) taking place at the infamous McDonald’s at the corner of King and Dufferin. These snapshots instantly evoked Parkdale as a socio-spatial place in the digital realm. The images were often whimsical, playing on elements of humour to recall or create shared experiences. The images also played on ideas of anonymity, as neither @ParkdaleLife the social media presence nor the images they posted were centred on any individual or group, but rather on Parkdale the place – and all of the complexity within it. Images shared by @ParkdaleLife were often crowd sourced by people living in or visiting the neighbourhood, creating a participatory element that allowed people to see themselves as part of the Parkdale ‘commons’ both online and offline. As we will explore below, @ParkdaleLife often drew attention to issues related to power dynamics and socio-economic change in the community. Doing so ultimately served to mobilize community members, educate the public, and contribute to the progressive production of place in Parkdale. While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to elaborate on a full biography of @ParkdaleLife, in the following section we share three vignettes based on auto-ethnographic explorations by the people behind @ParkdaleLife. These vignettes depict pivotal moments when @ParkdaleLife’s efforts to facilitate local reclamation of the ‘right to the city’ by mobilizing resources in the neighbourhood brushed up against the forces of gentrification. They serve to highlight the power of corporate interests in our contemporary urban landscapes and how those interests affect people’s ability to access or actualize the ‘right to the city’. Exploring the narratives within these vignettes surfaces the complex power dynamics involved in urban social movements and community organizing. Our analysis produces theorizations about the potential of place-based social media for mobilizing community resources and engaging in new forms of community development and urban activism. No Frills, No Friends: Commodifying Community Capital Our story begins in 2017, when @ParkdaleLife received a notable media spot after engaging with community concerns about the loss of local assets – specifically, an affordable grocery store. The local No Frills grocery store had been closed for repairs, presenting a significant service interruption in a community where many residents relied on the store as a source of affordable food. There was also growing concern that the store would not reopen but would share the same fate as many large

222  Handbook on urban social movements

plots of land in the city and become a new condo development. When the store finally did reopen, @ParkdaleLife created t-shirts to commemorate the occasion. The t-shirts used the recognizable No Frills banana iconography along with the text “ParkdaleLife”. The shirts were sold out of a box on someone’s front lawn and the monies raised (over $1,300) were donated to the Parkdale Community Food Bank – a community organization specifically addressing food insecurity. In the lead-up to the fundraiser, @ParkdaleLife received an email from Loblaws (the parent company to No Frills), and the light-hearted fundraiser became quite serious. As described on their blog: In the call with their branding team, I was told that their lawyers wanted to sue me (this was scary) but that the magnanimous branding people have assured the evil lawyers that this grassroots love for the brand was actually good! I wouldn’t be sued and would I like to work with them? I was taken aback by the mention of litigation and said yes, didn’t ask for anything from them, and just asked that they commit to a donation to the food bank. They asked to purchase some shirts for the office, donated $5k to the food bank and we left it at that. (@ParkdaleLife 2019, para 4)

Evidently, the events didn’t amount to much more than an uncomfortable encounter with some corporate overlords. Superficially, it could be assumed that this vignette finishes with a happy ending – but the plot was only beginning to thicken. Despite (or maybe even because of) the encounter with the Loblaws corporation and the No Frills branding team, the shirts sold out within an hour. Perhaps due to a slow news day in Toronto, the t-shirt fundraiser was picked up on a variety of news outlets (Blog TO 2017; Buck 2017; Parkdale Community Food Bank 2017). Not long after, No Frills proceeded to launch a major marketing campaign that would later include the launch of a clothing line called Hauler. Though it was not associated with the reopening of the Parkdale No Frills, Hauler surprisingly used a near identical tone and imagery to the shirts created by @​ParkdaleLife. These links were not lost on the public or the media. When asked about the account in an interview, Mary MacIssac, vice-president of marketing for Loblaw’s discount division, said “No Frills loves @ParkdaleLife … This isn’t a corporate initiative where we’re pushing clothing out there. This is honestly, sincerely us responding to hundreds of thousands of asks” (as cited in Sagan 2018: para. 15). As noted by @ParkdaleLife (2019: para. 7), “I had inadvertently been used as the corporate tool helping to birth this monster. I didn’t even get a grocery gift card for it.” The actions by No Frills/Loblaws in the dynamics shown by this vignette raise serious questions about the role and motivations of corporate actors in urban environments. The Hauler campaign appeared to be an attempt to co-opt and commodify ‘right to the city’ movements originating in Parkdale (i.e., @ParkdaleLife’s efforts to underscore the importance of affordable food) at the same time that Loblaws Companies Limited was also involved in a price-fixing scandal, which they claimed was an industry-wide problem (Kopun 2017). The No Frills incident illustrates how even the most grassroots activities – including an anonymous, backyard, food bank fundraiser – are not immune to exploitation by the tentacles of corporate power that

Gentrification, resistance, and community  223

permeate community life, requiring urban movements to be vigilant against those in positions of power who will not hesitate to flex those tentacles and appropriate urban movements for their own interests. Parkdale, not Vegandale The next chapter of our story stems from a bizarre series of events involving a company called The 5700 Inc. While the company identifies itself as a website management company, they have a strong and imposing image as supporters of “all things vegan”. Their activities include running events (such as vegan festivals) and operating a variety of businesses. The 5700 Inc. first arrived in Parkdale in the form of a vegan restaurant called Doomies, but their presence quickly grew to occupy several storefronts on Queen Street West (the east end of the Parkdale neighbourhood). While the emergence and growth of new businesses such as those held by The 5700 Inc. is not problematic in its own right, the company’s growth came with strong messaging and an imposing presence that sought to consolidate and embed its corporate values in Parkdale. The company embodied and communicated an ‘in-your-face’ style of veganism that ostensibly positioned a set of practices coded as White, cosmopolitan, and affluent as morally superior. This was communicated in a variety of ways, including displays of slogans like “Baby steps are for babies”, “Real adults are vegan”, and “Can you love animals without being vegan? No”. While these slogans attempted to be quirky and provocative, the messaging escalated when the company opened a vegan Brewery with the slogan “Morality on Tap” where they served drinks like the “Principled Pilsner” and the “Morally Superior IPA” (Manzocco 2018). In a neighbourhood known for its intermingling of people from different backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences (including those who have experienced homelessness and substance abuse), this overt (and literal) positioning of moral superiority is problematic in many ways, including the positioning of a for-profit corporation as the community’s moral arbiter. While the company had operated in Parkdale for some time, scepticism about The 5700 Inc. began to grow after they announced that they would be occupying five additional storefronts, including the brewery and an ice cream shop. In true condo developer form, the company released renderings of their vision for the neighbourhood. They called it “Vegandale” – a play on the name Parkdale – and shared these superimposed visions for their version of Parkdale in a celebratory way. The mock-ups were unsettling for those connected to existing and long-standing members of the community, as they quite literally sought to erase elements of Parkdale – including the people who called Parkdale home. The 5700 Inc. wanted to replace Parkdale with an imagined vegan Utopia that would presumably be occupied by affluent, morally superior vegans from all over the city. @ParkdaleLife was an active figure in social media conversations that shared pointed scepticism of The 5700 Inc.’s vision of Vegandale. This activity drew the attention of another community organization: the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land

224  Handbook on urban social movements

Trust. The two bodies shared similar concerns around The 5700 Inc.’s overt efforts to erase all traces of Parkdale-the-place and replace this complex, messy, dynamic community with what was regarded as corporate-faced vegan-fascism. The Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust is an organization dedicated to protecting and supporting social, cultural, and economic diversity in the neighbourhood by acquiring land and other assets and ensuring they are used in the interest of community members (Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust, n.d.) – a concrete, tangible process of reclaiming and retaining a ‘right to the city’ for the Parkdale community. Together, @ParkdaleLife and the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust organized a community meeting to discuss the imposing presence of The 5700 Inc. in the neighbourhood – which was appropriately hosted on the same day that the company hosted a vegan block party to kick off the launch of their new ventures (Ngabo 2018). As a result of that community meeting, the Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust collected input from community members and published a list of demands for The 5700 Inc. These demands included “Remove all moral imperative messaging from exterior signage”, “Commit to 60% local and equitable hiring”, and “Remove all unnecessary security guards and stop the investment in security technologies” (Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust 2018: 1). These demands were met with some valid responses from The 5700 Inc., including questions like: “What other new businesses in Parkdale have received similar demands?” The Vegandale events illustrate the tensions in the relationship between community and economic development in urban contexts. While @ParkdaleLife was not front and centre during the community meeting, they played an important role in promoting the event and encouraging ongoing face-to-face and digital dialogue on these developments, the problematics of the brand’s messaging, and the broader implications of gentrification in the neighbourhood. This lateral networking between individuals and organizations galvanizing around a shared challenge (in this case, opposition to Vegandale’s attempts to determine the nature of collective consumption in Parkdale) serves as important evidence of @ParkdaleLife both shaping and being shaped by broader urban social movements (Pruijt 2007). In this instance, @ParkdaleLife was engaged in a dialogue that asked followers to interrogate their assumptions about economic development, critically assess whether all development is ‘good’ development (or net positive), and reflect on the complexities involved in determining who has the right to occupy space and be welcomed in a neighbourhood. Community Food Bank Handoff We all like our stories to have a happy ending and the @ParkdaleLife saga is no different. Although @ParkdaleLife had never been used as a space to promote businesses or corporate interests, it often used its social clout to promote the work of various community organizations (evidence of what Pruijt 2007 would likely categorize as a component of urban social movement mobilization around the specific

Gentrification, resistance, and community  225

impacts of gentrification in Parkdale). This produced some durable relationships among @ParkdaleLife and influential civil society actors in the community. As the Covid-19 pandemic shocked and altered our social, political, and economic dynamics at every scale, various celebrities and media personalities leveraged social media in creative ways to raise awareness or funds for certain causes. One notable way of doing so was to ‘share the mic’, or pass control of a social media account with a significant number of followers (or audience) to new leaders and under-represented voices. These trends inspired the closing chapter of the @ParkdaleLife story. Throughout its existence, @ParkdaleLife had developed a close relationship with the Parkdale Community Food Bank and was aware that they had recently made plans to increase community engagement through social media. These developments set the scene for @ParkdaleLife to close this chapter of its story by handing off the account and its considerable audience of followers to the Food Bank. Although endings are often bittersweet, the characters behind @ParkdaleLife have no regrets. The account was never about an individual or a personality and therefore, handing the account over to a community organization represents an attempt to mobilize the platform for the neighbourhood and community in a different way. The choice was considered, purposeful, and grounded in the overall efforts of @ParkdaleLife to provide ways for people to see themselves in the spaces of everyday urban life. Since the takeover, the Parkdale Community Food Bank has engaged in a variety of mobilization and fundraiser efforts including a “save him from eating expired soup challenge” in 2020 that raised over $35,000 (Parkdale Community Food Bank 2020). While @ParkdaleLife still nominally exists as a placeholder account on both Twitter and as a personal blog, handing over the community- and place-based assets developed via the Instagram account’s rise to fame served as a tangible act in facilitating the collective exercise of remaking of Parkdale both online and offline (the basis of reclaiming a ‘right to the city’), contributing to the community’s ongoing negotiation with its past, present, and future iterations as a socio-spatial space and place.

THE FUTURE WILL NOT BE INSTAGRAMMED: PLACE-BASED SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONTEMPORARY URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Our explorations of @ParkdaleLife’s use of social media to reclaim ‘a right to the city’ through integrated online/offline activity purposefully centres @ParkdaleLife as an active participant in both the dynamics we focus on in this chapter, as well as the way those dynamics have been analysed and presented. As such, the vignettes we have explored serve as both source-material as well as critical and reflexive lenses for examining the interactions between technology, a progressive sense of place, and urban social movements such as the ‘right to the city’. This lens highlights complex online/offline urban social dynamics as vital processes in community activation. The popularity of @ParkdaleLife serves as both a reflection of community history and change and an interactive critique and eventual interruption of gentrification processes.

226  Handbook on urban social movements

It goes beyond mere documentation through photos on Instagram. @ParkdaleLife’s experiences reinforce Somers’ (1994) argument that our sense of a ‘right of belonging’ is shaped and animated most strongly when we perceive that those rights are threatened by outside forces. The ‘right to Parkdale’ crystallized via @ParkdaleLife’s response to the threat of the latest wave of gentrification rolling over the neighbourhood in the last decade. The vignettes we explored in this chapter reinforce Massey’s (1991) argument that place is progressive, dynamic, and in a constant process of conflict and negotiation. Place remains critical for the ability of contemporary urban social movements to operate across online/offline planes of engagement, despite the de-placed and global scale of technology like social media platforms. Further emphasizing the messiness of urban social movements, @ParkdaleLife’s efforts to build the account were authentic and somewhat accidental. It is critical to note that @ParkdaleLife was not created to be, nor ever aspired to become, a purposeful community development tool or urban renewal process by an established organization, at least not in the way that is commonly experienced in contemporary public policy and programming. Rather, it started as a funny way to share the eccentricities of the neighbourhood with others who would appreciate those qualities and grew to become a significant platform. As such, it represents an authentic effort to reclaim a ‘right to the city’ by a Parkdale resident who attracted a substantial following of supporters through a specific focus on the nuanced realities of life in Parkdale, as it is experienced by those who call the neighbourhood home, one photo at a time. This reinforces the notions that place matters, that urban social movements are inherently place-based even when they leverage technologies that might be assumed ‘place-less’ (like social media), and that a progressive sense of place is both stable and portable enough that it provides a critical link across online and offline interactions. For urban social movements to navigate our blended online/offline realities effectively through social media, they have to originate authentically from place, from perspectives within community – while also appealing to a broader audience who may have different place-based identities or histories. As such, the magic of @ParkdaleLife may not be directly transferrable to places that do not share its unique histories, challenges, and opportunities or which may not be as easily legible to the norms of sympathetic (or simply curious) social media users located elsewhere (see ‘glocalities’ in Domaradzka 2018). Accounts like @ParkdaleLife reinforce that place is personal and the personal is political in urban social movements (Lee 2007; Hanisch 1969/2006; Domaradzka 2018). The account became a tool for community activation and resistance yet had to continually guard against co-optation. As with offline processes, online spaces and relationships remain vulnerable to commodification and performative activity (Vear 2020; Lingel 2019). As the line between offline and online life blurs and disappears, digital platform-sharing is just as fraught with extractive and exploitative relationships as physical spaces. Instagram, in particular, has become increasingly commercialized, which is why @ParkdaleLife’s choice to hand the account over to a community organization that had the staff capacity and skill to effectively use and navigate the murky waters of social media may be particularly powerful. This

Gentrification, resistance, and community  227

emphasizes the generative nature of community building in-place as well as the lifecycles of community change. In this chapter, we focused on the narratives connected to @ParkdaleLife and explored the complex ways that power operates in contemporary urban landscapes. We illustrated the way that place-based social media may be conceptualized as a connecting link within the interdependencies of ‘online’ and ‘offline’ spheres of urban social movements that are both shaping and shaped by new technologies. As the nature of our lived experiences in and with community continues to change with the development of new technologies and the (unforeseen) personal implications of public policy decisions, explorations of this sort are critical to understanding how people make sense of their experiences and mobilize resources in alignment or resistance to social processes like gentrification. While the future may not be Instagrammed, Instagram may provide us with a multi-paned window through which we can observe, engage with, and understand contemporary urban social movements.

REFERENCES Blog TO (2017). No Frills shirts could be Toronto’s hottest new fashion statement. BlogTO. https://​www​.blogto​.com/​fashion​_style/​2017/​05/​no​-frills​-shirts​-could​-be​-torontos​-hottest​ -new​-fashion​-statement/​. Bolton, R. (1992). “Place prosperity vs people prosperity” revisited: An old issue with a new angle. Urban Studies, 29(2), 185–203. Brenner, N. (2009). What is critical urban theory? City, 13(2), 198–207. Bronsvoort, I. and Uitermark, J. L. (2022). Seeing the street through Instagram: Digital. platforms and the amplification of gentrification. Urban Studies, 59(4), 2857–2874. Buck, G. (2017). Parkdale celebrates its No Frills life with sold-out t-shirts. Toronto Star, 19 May. https://​www​.thestar​.com/​life/​2017/​05/​19/​parkdale​-celebrates​-its​-no​-frills​-life​-with​-sold​ -out​-t​-shirts​.html. Butler, T. (2003). Living in the bubble: Gentrification and its “others” in North London. Urban Studies, 40, 2469–2486. Catlin, J. (2018). The authoritarian personality and its discontents. Journal of the History of Ideas [Blog]. https://​jhiblog​.org/​2018/​01/​10/​the​-authoritarian​-personality​-and​-its​-discontents/​. Clandinin, J. (ed.) (2007). Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Clark, G. (1983). Interregional Migration, National Policy, and Social Justice. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld. Clyde, L. A. (2006). Teacher librarian. Infotech, 32(3), 43–45. Coleman, V. (2013). Social media as a primary source: A coming of age. Educause Review. https://​er​.educause​.edu/​articles/​2013/​12/​social​-media​-as​-a​-primary​-source​-a​-coming​-of​ -age. Couldry, N. (2008). Mediatization or mediation? Alternative understandings of the emergent space of digital storytelling. New Media and Society, 10(3), 373–391. Couldry, N. (2012). Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge: Polity Press. Domaradzka, A. (2018). Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29, 607–620.

228  Handbook on urban social movements

Engels, B. (1997). Property ownership, tenure, and displacement: In search of the process of gentrification. Environment and Planning A, 31, 1473–1495. Epstein, G. (2018). A kinder, gentler gentrification: Racial identity, social mix and multiculturalism in Toronto’s Parkdale neighborhood. Social Identities, 24(6), 707–726. Freeman, L. (2010). Neighbourhood effects in a changing hood. In J. Brown-Saracino (ed.), The Gentrification Debates: A Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 337–344. Glass, R. (2010). Aspects of change. In J. Brown-Saracino (ed.), The Gentrification Debates: A Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 19–30. Graham, B. L. (2002). Why I weblog: A rumination on where the hell I’m going with this website. In J. Rodzvilla (ed.), We’ve Got Blog: How Weblogs Are Changing Our Culture. Cambridge, MA: Perseus, p. 242. Graham, M. (2017). Our digital rights to the city. Oxford Internet Institute. https://​www​.oii​.ox​ .ac​.uk/​blog/​our​-digital​-rights​-to​-the​-city​-downloadorder/​. Hanisch, C. (1969/2006). The personal is political. https://​ webhome​ .cs​ .uvic​ .ca/​ ~mserra/​ AttachedFiles/​PersonalPolitical​.pdf. Hartley, J. (2001). Employee surveys: Strategic air or hand-grenade for organisational and cultural change? The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 13(3), 184–204. Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Harvey, D. (2003). Debates and developments: The right to the city. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(4), 939–941 Harvey, D. (2008). The right to the city. New Left Review, 2(53), 23–40. Horgan, M. (2018). Territorial stigmatization and territorial destigmatization: A cultural sociology of symbolic strategy in the gentrification of Parkdale (Toronto). International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 42(3), 500–516. Jones, M. and Alony, I. (2008). Blogs: The new source of data analysis. Journal of Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 5, 433–446. Kitchin, R. (2016). Geographers matter! Doreen Massey (1944–2016). Social & Cultural Geography, 17(6), 813–817. Kopun, F. (2017). Loblaws alleges bread price-fixing scheme was industry wide. Toronto Star, 20 December. https://​www​.thestar​.com/​business/​2017/​12/​20/​loblaw​-cos​-offers​-25​ -gift​-cards​-in​-price​-fixing​-scheme​.html. Lee, S. (2021). The shape of discourse in urban movements through the lens of social media: A case study of the anti-redevelopment movement in South Korea. Georgia Institute of Technology, College of Design Theses and Dissertations, 1338. http://​hdl​.handle​.net/​1853/​ 64708. Lee, T. M. L. (2007). Rethinking the personal and the political: Feminist activism and civic engagement. Hypatia, 22(4), 163–179. Lees, L. (2008). Gentrification and social mixing: Towards an inclusive urban renaissance? Urban Studies, 45, 2449–2470. Lees, L., Slater, T., and Wyly, E. (2008). Gentrification. New York: Routledge. Lefebvre, H. (1968). Le Droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos. Lehrer, U. and Wieditz, T. (2009). Condominium development and gentrification: The relationship between policies, building activities and socio-economic development in Toronto. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 18(1), 140–161. Ley, D. (1986). Alternative explanations for inner-city gentrification: A Canadian assessment. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 76, 521–535. Lingel, J. (2019). The gentrification of the internet. Culture Digitally. https://​culturedigitally​ .org/​2019/​03/​the​-gentrification​-of​-the​-internet/​. Manzocco, N. (2018). The trouble with Vegandale. Now Toronto. https://​nowtoronto​.com/​ food​-and​-drink/​food/​vegandale​-parkdale​-toronto.

Gentrification, resistance, and community  229

Massey, D. (1991). A global sense of place. Marxism Today. http://​banmarchive​.org​.uk/​ collections/​mt/​pdf/​91​_06​_24​.pdf. Massey, D. (1995). Spatial Divisions of Labour. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Massey, D. (2005). For Space. London: Sage. Massey, D. and Allen, J. (eds.) (1984). Geography Matters! A Reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McLuhan, M. (2001 [1964]). Understanding Media. London: Routledge. Meyer, J. P. and Allen, N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment. Human Resource Management Review, 1, 69–98. Mitchell, D. and Villanueva, J. (2010). Right to the city. In R. Hutchison (ed.), Encyclopedia of Urban Studies. London: Sage, pp. 668–671. Nardi, B. A., Schiano, D. J., Gumbrecht, M., and Swartz, M. (2004). Why we blog. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 41–46. Ngabo, G. (2018). Is it Parkdale or Vegandale? Fight intensifies over neighbourhood’s identity. Toronto Star, 2 August. https://​www​.thestar​.com/​news/​gta/​2018/​08/​02/​is​-it​-parkdale​ -or​-vegandale​-fight​-intensifies​-over​-neighbourhoods​-identity​.html. Parkdale Community Food Bank (2017). Edit: see winner in story! Rummaging through Parkdale is exhausting. @clubmateontario wants to give one lucky parkdalien a case of … [Photograph]. Instagram, 14 September. https://​www​.instagram​.com/​p/​BZB0Qk7HqRA/​. Parkdale Community Food Bank (2018). Wedding season amiright @elle.t.hwz [Photograph]. Instagram, 4 August. https://​www​.instagram​.com/​p/​BmE7JrtH8Aq/​. Parkdale Community Food Bank (2019). The editor wishes to submit this without comment. King and Dufferin McDonald’s. Where else [Photograph]. Instagram, 9 November. https://​ www​.instagram​.com/​p/​B4qqTzGgQZu/​. Parkdale Community Food Bank (2020). Edit: TEAM SAVE HIM WON!! and you all raised over $35k for the Parkdale Community Food Bank. Thank you! [Photograph]. Instagram, 25 November. https://​www​.instagram​.com/​p/​CIBQ2jYlmKl/​. @​ParkdaleLife (2019). Our brand is frill. This @​ParkdaleLife [blog]. https://​parkdalelife​ .substack​.com/​p/​our​-brand​-is​-frill. Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (n.d.). About. http://​www​.pnlt​.ca/​about/​. Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (2017). No Room for Unkept Promises: Parkdale Rooming House Study. http://​www​.pnlt​.ca/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2017/​05/​Parkdale​-Rooming​ -House​-Study​_Full​-Report​_V1​.pdf. Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (2018). Parkdale isn’t Vegandale!: Parkdale Community Demands. http://​www​.pnlt​.ca/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2018/​08/​Parkdale​-Isnt​-Vegandale​_Community​ -Demandsfull​.pdf. Patel, S. (2021). Digitally mediated spaces defined. Digitally Mediated Spaces and Social Movements. https://​medium​.com/​digital​-public​-square/​digitally​-mediated​-spaces​-defined​ -716ea9d96205. Pedersen, S. and Macafee, C. (2007). Gender differences in British blogging. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, 1472–1492. Perez, G. (2004). The Near Northwest Side Story: Migration, Displacement, and Puerto Rican Families. Berkley: University of California Press. Pruijt, H. (2007). Urban movements. In G. Ritzer (ed.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Malden: Blackwell, pp. 5115–5119. Reimer, B. and Markey, S. (2008). Place-Based Policy: A Rural Perspective. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Rosenbloom, A. (2004). The blogopshere. Communications of the ACM, 47(12), 30–33. Ross, A. (2016). The Frankfurt School knew Trump was coming. The New Yorker, 5 December. https://​www​.newyorker​.com/​culture/​cultural​-comment/​the​-frankfurt​-school​-knew​ -trump​-was​-coming.

230  Handbook on urban social movements

Sagan, A. (2018). No Frills to launch online Hauler-branded clothing shop. CityNews, 4 May. https://​toronto​.citynews​.ca/​2018/​05/​04/​no​-frills​-hauler​-clothing/​. Schlichtman, J. J. and Patch, J. (2014). Gentrifier? Who, me? Interrogating the gentrifier in the mirror. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(4), 1491–1508. Silverstone, R. (2002). Complicity and collusion in the mediation of everyday life. New Literary History, 33(4), 761–780. Smith, B. and Sparkes, A. C. (2006). Narrative inquiry in psychology: Exploring the tensions within. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(3), 169–192. Smith, B. and Sparkes, A. C. (2009). Narrative analysis and sport and exercise psychology: Understanding lives in diverse ways. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 10(2), 279–288. Smith, N. (1979). Towards a theory of gentrification. Journal of the American Planning Association, 45, 528–548. Smith, N. (1982). Gentrification and uneven development. Economic Geography, 58, 139–155. Somers, M. R. (1994). Rights, relationality, and membership: Rethinking the making and meaning of citizenship. Law & Social Inquiry, 19(1), 63–114. Sustainable Cities Collective (2017). Implementing the right to the city in Brazil? The Polis Blog. https://​www​.smartcitiesdive​.com/​ex/​sustaina​blecitiesc​ollective/​implementing​-right​ -city​-brazil/​30417/​. Toronto Mad Pride (2021). Toronto Mad Pride: Culture, advocacy, history and fun with Mad, crazy, consumers/survivors and labelled folk. http://​www​.torontomadpride​.com/​. Turgeon, M. C. (2004). 10 reasons why blogging is good for you [Blog]. http://​mcturgeon​ .com/​blog/​2004/​11/​24/​10reasonstoblog. Vear, A. M. (2020). The influencer experience: Identity performance, commodification, and agency in YouTube influencers. University of Maine, Theses and Dissertations, 3294. https://​digitalcommons​.library​.umaine​.edu/​etd/​3294. Weeden, S. A. (2022). The right to multiple futures in the shadow of Canada’s smart city movement. In K. Foster and J. Jarman (eds.), The Right to be Rural. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. Whitzman, C. (2009). Suburb, Slum, Urban Village: Transformations in Toronto’s Parkdale Neighbourhood, 1875–2002. Vancouver: UBC Press. Willems, W. (2019). “The politics of things”: Digital media, urban space, and the materiality of publics. Media, Culture & Society, 41(8), 1192–1209. Williams, J. B. and Jacobs, J. (2004). Exploring the use of blogs as learning space in the higher education sector. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 20(2), 232–247. Zielinski, F. (2006). Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

PART IV IN SEARCH OF URBAN CITIZENSHIP THROUGH EXPERIENCING VARIOUS MODELS OF SOLIDARITY

15. Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices Maciej Kowalewski

INTRODUCTION When examining the postulates, such as “the right to the city” and the “just city”, it can be observed that they are rooted in historical ideas of the essential power and identity of the urban inhabitants, shaped during a long historical process (Tilly et al. 1975; Castells 1983; Pickvance 2003; Price-Spratlen 2003; Domaradzka 2018). The patterns of citizenship in political and philosophical thought, as well as the legal norms are subject to constant transformation as they result from a specific kind of effort put into the development of local civil democracy and experiments with expanding citizenship rights (Hamel 2005). The return of pre-existing ideas and systemic solutions is accompanied by the emergence of entirely new concepts; tracing their sources is probably one of the most crucial tasks for an urban citizenship researcher to take up. There is no doubt that urban citizenship should be considered in the context of globalization, local redevelopment and de- or re-territorialization (Brodie 2000), and, above all, in the context of the political revival of cities (Barber 2013). For a long time, researchers have drawn attention to the growing contribution of cities to shaping the policies of a changing world and to the aptitude of cities for creating policies outside the nation-state (Purcell 2006; Hughes 2019; Szymański 2019; Hirschl 2020; Bauböck and Orgad 2020), especially in the context of national crises and tensions that arise in the state–city relationship. In the face of crises experienced at the local level, there is an increasing demand for “thinking like a city” instead of “thinking like a state”, as Avner de Shalit (2020) has called it. The chapter begins with an overview of the urban citizenship concept and then turns to issues of urban autonomy and the relationship of cities to the state. These are presented in relation to contemporary political and economic phenomena. In the next section the practice of urban citizenship and issues of urban diversity and pluralism are discussed. The relationship between urban movements and urban citizenship is then introduced, referring to grassroots activism and dissent. The chapter concludes with a consideration of possible transformations of the rights and ideas of urban citizenship. While discussing the nature of urban citizenship, I would like to show a different way of thinking, linking the concept with activism and dissent organized in the form of urban movements. I would like to demonstrate that the heterogeneity of forms of urban citizenship and activities results from the historical process of striving for 232

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  233

autonomy. It is also from this idea that different types of urban movements emerge. Urban movements, as a form of activity and organized influence on urban policy, serve different classes of city citizens, even though they portray themselves as acting on behalf of “the interests of the city and its inhabitants”. And here I find perhaps the most serious problem with the theoretical concept of urban social movements: determining which collective activities or groups in and for the city can be defined in terms of urban (social) movements. Even well-organized forms of urban protest can avoid the label of social movement, often describing themselves as coalitions, “concerned citizens”, organizations, or identifying exclusively with the subject area of their own activity (e.g., housing). Some forms of activism, through their accidence and ephemerality, elude classical definitions of a social movement that presuppose their structural organization. Another problem here is the diversity of interests and groups that constitute urban movements. The very general and broad category of “city dwellers” requires reflection on the sense of its use and its reference to another category – urban citizens, their identities and rights at the local level. Given the complexity and problematic nature of the term, I propose to consider urban movements in this chapter as a form of organized dissent rooted in a shared sense of urban citizenship, providing formal and informal actions that occur in the city, using the urban resources and affecting the change in the city.

WHAT IS URBAN CITIZENSHIP? The growing interest in urban citizenship is the result of intensifying mobility, shifting political scales, and the rising status of local governance (Le Galès 2021). It is not surprising that this term has penetrated the language of city mayors and has gone beyond the academic and urban activists field. This wide-ranging interpretation of urban citizenship blurs the concept, however; even in citizenship studies, there are multiple concepts relating to various issues. Usually, urban citizenship is conceptualized as relational and contrasted with national citizenship in the context of political scale, governance, identity and practices. The nation-state (from which the autonomous city was meant to be an escape route) remains an important reference point. The most common ways of defining urban citizenship refer to the categories of (1) status and rights (formal perspective) and (2) practices and identity (substantive perspective). The definition of urban citizenship, as a status, refers to the entitlements and access to social services resulting from being a resident of a particular city (Bauböck 2003; Gebhardt 2016; Avni 2020; Theiss 2021). Research on urban policies derived from urban citizenship in different contextual and disciplinary approaches has shown detailed formal solutions at the local level (Bauböck 2003; Eizaguirre et al. 2017; Fröhlich 2020). On the other hand, emphasis on practices means that urban citizenship is created and confirmed through specific political, economic and cultural activities (Canepari and Rosa 2017). Engin Isin and Patricia Wood (1999) argue that citizenship is

234  Handbook on urban social movements

defined not only by rights and obligations but also by identities and practices of participation in social and political life and this distinction is particularly applicable to urban citizenship. At the same time, the substantive perspective assumes the importance of the political subjectivity of city citizens, who, regardless of their formal powers, perceive their inalienable and substantive rights to make claims as a justified reason to raise objections. Within this thread, researchers explored the theory of other (non-state) forms of citizenship, together with the study of urban history (Isin 2002; Cunningham 2011; Prak 2018) and the political significance of contemporary cities (Balibar 1996; Sassen 2002; Purcell 2003; Harvey 2012). Researchers have also presented other (non-formal and non-substantive) perspectives; these refer to superior values and define urban citizenship as a means to an end which is (or can be): social justice (Eizaguirre et al. 2017), respecting human rights (Varsanyi 2006), or the exercise of the right to the city (Blokland et al. 2015). In turn, Maarten Prak (2018) suggests that urban citizenship should be considered not so much in moral terms of “rights” but rather in economic terms, such as “property”, “access”, etc. Consequently, granting urban citizenship should be seen as an investment. Although urban citizenship is a phenomenon with a “long history”, it is experiencing a renaissance – the main reason1 for this is likely to be the intensification of migration, which is mainly an urban trend. Guy Standing (2014) writes about the incompleteness and uncertainty of the status of state citizenship in the context of modern migration, pointing to the category of “new denizens”. The term “denizens” – which historically denoted foreigners with the right of permanent residence – today includes asylum seekers, undocumented immigrants, and persons with a temporary right of residence who have limited rights to the labor market in the country of their residence (Standing 2014). In the area of migration, the importance of non-state groups based on the shared place of residence and common origin continues to grow. The politicians of multicultural metropolises are increasingly aware of the challenge to minimize tensions between the imagined community of local identities and the legal rules that construct it. Sanctuary cities are an example of this kind of activity. They develop their own integration policies for refugees and migrants, which are, at the same time, in opposition to central anti-immigration policies (Bauder 2017; Manfredi-Sánchez 2020). In a sense, urban citizenship “handles” the shortcomings of formal national citizenship and instead combines the need for territorial affiliation and social integration (Beauregard and Bounds 2000). In the discussion on urban citizenship, an idealistic assumption can be noticed, which results from the belief in the continuity of cities as autonomous entities that promise freedom, protection, and a “better life”. However, urban citizenship is not only a positive tool of liberation but also an instrument of governance, discipline and control (Lebuhn 2013). As Patricia Wood states, “the city is a place of struggle, with the potential for extraordinary emancipation and oppressive surveillance and control” (Wood 2014: 140). The issues of local citizenship, urban space and exclusion of certain groups of inhabitants, which are intertwined at points such as public space regulations, housing

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  235

policy, and revitalization programs (Van Puymbroeck et al. 2014), convince us that what is formal cannot be easily separated from what is substantive. Political forms and procedures remain interconnected with subjectivity, weakening or strengthening local identity. Nevertheless, where we combine urban movements and citizenship, we turn towards a substantive (rather than a formal) understanding of citizenship. One of the reasons is because the protests of non-citizens (i.e., those excluded from citizenship in the formal sense), who do not practice legal forms of political participation but refer to a specific vision of political subjectivity (McGregor 2011), force us to revise traditional approaches. Our understanding of citizenship – not only theoretical but also intuitive – is shifting from states to cities. This shift is evident in terms of identity, on the one hand, and rights on the other. When talking about civil rights and obligations, we increasingly point to identities and actions rooted in the locality, related to the place of work, life and civic activity, rather than to criteria such as state of birth or formal entitlement of rights. What mediates between rights and a sense of community, between institutions and a sense of justice, are political practices. They transform the identity of the community, but they also seek to change rights and transform institutions. It is the city that creates resources which can be used for political protest and the object of claims. In the practice of everyday life, urban citizenship is not only a question of powers or defining identity but, perhaps, above all, using citizenship as an instrument of urban governance and influencing urban policy. The history of citizenship in the pre-modern era is primarily a history of urban autonomy (King 2010). In Henri Lefebvre’s concept, a citadin (city resident) and citoyen (citizen) become one term, built on the common stem (cit-) (Lefebvre 1996) and equating the “denizen” and “citizen” (which is most evident in the German language in the similar-sounding categories of Stadtbuerger and Staatsburger). Engin F. Isin (2007) argues that the concepts of city, democracy, and citizenship are interrelated in the history of the Western world; therefore, they are usually defined by mutual reference. Moreover, all ideas and actions that we can define as political must relate directly to this triad. The concepts of the common roots of the city, democracy, and citizenship have dominated political thinking in the Western world (Isin 2002). The polis of ancient Greece, the Roman category of civitas and the autonomy of the cities of the Middle Ages are the most prominent points of European history of cities and citizenship which also shape the contemporary discourse of the city’s political autonomy. However, in the era of the evolving modernity it is the state, not the city, that becomes the main domain of citizenship. The triumph of the nation-state and the deprivation of cities of much of their autonomy were fundamental to the emergence of modern nations and projects of formal citizenship (Holston and Appadurai 1999). The city becomes the main place where civil rights are created, applied, engaged with and where sanctions against their violation are adopted. In the light of the above considerations, it seems that the independence of political subjectivity and the privileges derived from living in the city raise the most common argument for the advocates of the specificity of urban citizenship.

236  Handbook on urban social movements

FIGHTING FOR URBAN AUTONOMY: CITIZENS OF CITIES OR STATES? Let us consider the most important elements of urban and state citizenship in more detail. According to Robert Dahl (1998), the democratic model of the city-state developed in Greece is characterized by qualities that are impossible to be met by a nation-state as an entity that is populous, heterogeneous and dispersed over a large territory. These qualities are: (1) the compatibility of citizens’ interests and a common concept of the public good; (2) the relative social and cultural homogeneity that limits possible conflicts; (3) the small size of the civic body, which makes it possible to create strong ties; (4) the ability to gather in physical space to make direct political decisions; (5) the active participation of citizens in the administration of the city; and (6) the sovereignty and self-sufficiency of the city-state. According to Dahl, increased proportions (in terms of territory, population and social diversity) have had consequences such as reducing the direct participation of citizens in favor of representation, organizational pluralism, acceptance of social conflict, the extension of personal rights and the institutionalization of safeguards for the requirements of the democratic system (such as equality, freedom and universality of elections, freedom of expression, access to information, and freedom of association) (Dahl 1989). Dahl’s understanding of a state as a “big city” or as a “sum of cities” does not seem right. Engin Isin (2007) criticizes the perception of political institutions in terms of a hierarchical scale: cities, regions, nations, states, unions, and trans-national federations. According to Isin, such hierarchization unlawfully invalidates historical epochs in which the merging of these political bodies, their fluidity and variability were factual. In contrast to a state or nation, only a city constitutes the structure that simultaneously has a physical (material) form – urbs – and a virtual form – civitas. Regions, states, nations, and empires function only as virtual spaces. Even if their boundaries exist in physical space, they nevertheless take the form of a social contract; they are ephemeral, impermanent and fluid. If the fundamental nature of the city and state is not to be reduced merely to the legal (administrative) status, but also to encompass a sense of belonging and identity, then the hierarchical vision of the political bodies that decide on the possession of citizenship becomes inadequate. In their early stages, nation-states sought to frame citizenship as a legal concept that would give rise to an identity which would subordinate other identities such as religious, ethnic and gender identities. Citizenship was applied at the level of the nation-state but no longer at the level of the city or district; for this reason, the early establishment of the nation-state was accompanied by the diminishing importance of locality and urban citizenship. According to James Holston and Arjun Appadurai (1999), the demands of the citizens excluded from the circle and those who wanted to preserve the dominance of subordinate identities were factors that led to the development of democracy. In this sense, each (subsequent) claim of dissatisfied residents would cause a change in what we call democracy in cities (Kowalewski 2019). In the modern tradition, citizenship is a type of formal, constitutionally guaranteed status that protects the individual not only from other citizens or private economic

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  237

entities but also from the state itself by guaranteeing political freedoms, freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial, among others (Pietrzyk-Reeves 2020). Defining citizenship as a legal institution brings us closer to the systemic order of the state, not the city, at least in the modern sense of these concepts. Another difference is the question of the subjects of citizenship, who, in the case of a city, refer to local communities rather than individuals. Let us return to Isin’s concept; in his opinion, taking the supremacy of the state over the city for granted leads to false assumptions that the state and the city remain in an exclusive relationship, establishing hierarchical and opposing political bodies (Isin 2007). The history of urban development from the beginning to the modern era shows the falsity of such assumptions. It was not until the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the autonomy of the city and its independent political forms, such as guilds and universities, were abolished. The moment when the state, or the relations between the states, is considered the only sovereign political body, is, according to Isin, the first significant moment of the birth of scalar thinking. The second such moment is the Colonial Era – a time of intensive de-territorialization and re-territorialization of the state, supporting the scalar system of the colonized territories. The third turning point is the development of transnational relations after the Second World War with the most spectacular project of the European Union (Isin 2007). According to Étienne Balibar (1996), citizenship can, by definition, exist only where the concept of a city is present; that is, where citizens and non-citizens have clearly defined rights and obligations related to a specific area of residence. The intersection of interests and rights in the context of a large and diverse urban population brings about civil rights more often than in suburban and rural areas. It is not so much the impact of social structure but rather the daily interactions that implicate the application of urban citizenship. In his book about Brazil, James Holston argues that citizenship can break away from the territory and be realized in everyday urban practices. The author’s example of waiting in line at a bank shows how the advantages associated with being a privileged VIP client or belonging to a certain socio-demographic category are enforced (Holston 2008). In turn, Arjun Appadurai (2001) points to the category of “citizens without a city” who live in informal or degraded sheltering, without access to basic urban infrastructure, such as public transport, sewerage, water supply, etc. In the situation of being an invisible inhabitant of the city and existing outside the city’s institutions, the concept of “living in the city” also becomes less obvious. In the struggle between traditional citizenship and its modern versions, there is a clear tendency to hybridize and transform traditional formal belongingness to the city and state. For example, a citizen of the city, deprived of his or her home as a result of displacement, may retain the right to remain in the country, however, for economic reasons, he or she cannot stay in their city or district. In everyday practice, urban citizenship is not just a matter of defining identity or the community that relates to it but of using citizenship as an instrument. Using urban infrastructure or being burdened with tax obligations largely depends on whether or not we are

238  Handbook on urban social movements

defined as residents of the city in the light of certain laws. The feeling of being a resident of the city and the subjective relationship with the city in such practices become of less significance. Nevertheless, this feeling can reveal itself and become the central category. This happens when the existing rights and instruments do not meet the needs of those residents whose civic subjectivity arises not so much from their residential address but rather from the feeling of being a city inhabitant, from that specific sense of being a creator, and having the right to make claims. A city that can be relatively easy to define in a legal or institutional sense, cannot be as easily captured in terms of a homogeneous civic community. If cities are to be seen as an area of a wider community, such community is scattered and amorphous. The politicalness of the city is primarily seen in grassroots activities, the main expression of which are various forms of political involvement and organizations referred to as urban movements.

PRACTICING URBAN CITIZENSHIP Following the indicated substantive-performative path, James Holston distinguishes: (1) urban citizenship resulting from belonging to the city as a political community; (2) urban citizenship built on the basis of living in the city, which is at the same time a starting point for political mobilization; (3) urban citizenship being a practice of civic activities and filing claims. In Holston’s view, urban citizenship is both a practice and a form of community of use and community of residence of a particular space (Holston 2008). The sense of being a resident (identity), the exercising of rights and the performance of duties are present in everyday behavior, especially in the practices of local resistance, for which important factors are local ties, the sense of being an originator, and the claim to be a subject of local politics. The history of urban politics shows that tending to one’s own interests, internal conflicts and struggles between parties, are much more common than the feeling of an united urban community – both in the past and today (Ryan 1997; Kleniewski and Thomas 2019). The political activity of a local protest group may completely disregard the interests of other groups, city districts, social strata, other professional categories, or the interests of residents of the city in general. Another weak point of the approach based on local identity is the overlapping of different levels of territorial identity that build a local identity on the basis of more or less clear boundaries of the imaginary physical space (Lewicka 2008). If the residents of a city identify themselves with their own street, quarter, district, and with the city at the very end, then the subsequent layers of their identity may be in contradiction with each other. Lower levels in the administrative structure (e.g., city subdivisions, districts) and, to an even greater extent, the basic levels of local identification, such as a street or neighborhood, compete with the notion of citizenship applicable to the city. The adoption of such a general concept like urban citizenship, is, at the same time, an attempt to eliminate social differences, to nullify existing economic, ethnic, territorial and other forms of social inequality.

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  239

The heterogeneity of the city is a fact, but how is it possible that a polis can function as a political whole where differences and contrasts operate as its main principles? How is it possible “to bracket” these differences and create beliefs about the cultural unity of the city? The answer to these questions seems to indicate a relationship between actual diversity and imagined community. The daily experience of heterogeneity in today’s urban environment is a reality, whereas urban homogeneity is virtual. A sense of community is triggered only in some extraordinary circumstances, such as external threats, traumatic events, or a collective joy after the local or national team has won a match. The intense atmosphere of connection appears only for a short time, most often for a short time of joint action, the accomplishment of a task, or collective resistance (Lerch 2017; Hamann and Türkmen 2020). When these moments of experiencing togetherness have passed, the fragmented local identities come to the fore again. An alternative generalizing concept of practicing urban citizenship is radical urban pluralism, which refers to the concept of radical pluralism presented by Chantal Mouffe (1993). She assumes that a feature of urban life is the conflicting membership in many groups (circles, social environments, associations) and that these associations are of a variable nature. Tensions and agreements built around differences of interests and differences of identity are the basis of urban policy, the practice of urban citizenship. Practicing citizenship does not mean only one common identity and acting within the limits of a unified law, nor does it mean only licensed actions addressed towards the state or local authority. Some forms of protest aimed at private companies, individuals and collective actors are not usually defined in terms of civic practices, although they are at the heart of urban citizenship practices (Painter 2005). After all, the urban protests are not only addressed towards the authorities but also towards specific enterprises or groups of residents, even if such claims are defined as “illegal” or “inappropriate”. According to these assumptions, the most important execution of the right to the city, in the radical practices of urban citizenship described by Joe Painter (2005), is observed through: (1) access (creation) to local media – including third-party media, pirate radio stations; (2) access to public space (despite existing restrictions); (3) civic engagement (including illegal protests); (4) creativity and innovation (including, in certain cases, solutions aimed at circumventing the existing laws); (5) fun and leisure activities, which, although essential to urban life, are in many cases prohibited; (6) supporting grassroots activities, including the so-called fourth sector (i.e., informal groups without structures of non-governmental organizations). A sense of being a citizen is associated with the city as an ideal entity and independent of the variability of social and political contexts. It is in the city where the ideological assumptions of the urban community clash with obligations and supra-local belonging; although, depending on the political system, this sense of citizenship may be, of course, strengthened or repressed. The principles for the presence of religion in public space (Körs and Lehmann 2020), the problems of housing poverty (Pérez 2017), and the “visibility” of sexual minorities (Grundy and Smith

240  Handbook on urban social movements

2005), are just some of the aspects on which the public debate on (urban) citizenship and human rights is focused. The mobilization of people deprived of these rights takes place primarily in the city, and although exclusion is not only the city’s domain, it becomes a visible problem in the diverse environment.

URBAN CITIZENSHIP AND URBAN MOVEMENTS Contemporary cities determine the extent of our use of infrastructure through formal laws that define us as legal residents of the city. The subjective feeling of being a city resident and the emotional connection with the city seems to be less significant. Nevertheless, this feeling can manifest itself and become a key category of political mobilization. This happens when the existing formal rights and instruments do not meet the needs of those residents whose civic subjectivity arises not so much from their residential address but rather from the subjective feeling of being a city resident and the right to make claims. This topic is emphasized, among others, by James Holston (2008), who focuses on the issues of urban subjectivity and the so-called insurgent citizenship, understood as grassroots rights gained by those who question the validity of the existing system of differences in law. In this sense, citizenship is not only the right to enforce existing rights but also the possibility of creating new powers, new civic practices. Urban citizenship is, therefore, an endless process of negotiating identity and expanding (or limiting) rights through political action. The works of historians, such as William Beik (1997), Craig Calhoun (1993) and Roger Gould (1995), describing historical waves of resistance, also present the search for a universal pattern of claims and related activism aimed at autonomy and achieving specific rights. Regardless of whether we are discussing the revolts of medieval cities (Lantschner 2014), the protests of the starving Roman people (Whittaker 1993), the struggles of the Parisian people on the barricades (Traugott 1993), or the actions of the residents of a district blocking the construction of the city highway (Mohl 2004), in all these cases there is a demand for the right to be a full-fledged citizen of the city and the state. Struggles with power are related not only to the state and political identification but also, above all, to local experiences with authorities and urban civic subjectivity. This subjectivity of “being a citizen of the city” allows a common interpretation that is experienced at the local level and legitimizes the protests addressed towards the authorities. The similarities and repetitiveness of urban opposition and the grassroots struggle for the recognition or realization of rights (Castells 1983) do not allow us to be indifferent, when we are fully aware of the differences in the face of the universalism of the political subjectivity of urban citizens. Even though modern global phenomena change the functioning of cities in a way that has not been previously done, it is nevertheless possible to analyze the “city as it is”, as the universal political community manifested in shared identities and practices. What defines this type of engagement and organization of urban citizens – which we call urban movements – is not abstract formal rights, identities and practices of

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  241

urban citizens but the spatial connection of these elements. Therefore, at the center of our interest is the dissatisfaction of city citizens expressed in action, which arises in response to the deprivation of needs, the restriction of identity and the feeling of inability to exercise civic rights, accompanied by the belief that there is a universal right to make claims. In addition to the class stratification of disaffected urban citizens, the heterogeneity of goals of urban activists is another fact. Their visions of urban change include not only left-wing, progressive and inclusive ideas but also conservative, exclusive, and, sometimes, regressive solutions (Florea et al. 2018; Lancione, 2019; Żuk and Żuk 2020; Kubicki 2020). However, every group appeals to the vision of the city’s improvement and the right to demand a change in the city’s present, future and past. Some urban movements solely aim to demand the quality of life and individual freedoms. Sometimes, they also appeal for more rights of access to space or to enforce the “right to the city”. Critically, sector-based non-governmental organizations, organizations of supporters of one district of the city, and political parties are not interested in solving the overall problems of the city; therefore, it is the responsibility of democratically elected authorities to reconcile the conflicting interests of competing entities. However, local government is becoming one of the many local interest groups and many politicians fail to acknowledge the duty to look after the city. In some situations, it is grassroots organizations that take on the responsibility of managing the urban political community. Ultimately, Henri Lefebvre (2009) may be right when he sees urban movements as a hope for social change, even though these movements are usually unsteady and informal. Urban movements can redefine the meaning of urban citizenship and the needs of city residents, ignoring the language of technocratic experts. It is the urban movements that “translate” the substantial approach to the formal one. Referring to ideas, history and theoretical concepts, movements in their claims indicate the necessary changes, or they themselves carry out activities that are the implementation of already existing rights. In this way, the Berlin campaign of social movements under the slogan Deutsche Wohnen & Co Enteignen (Richter and Humphry 2021) was organized. It referred to the concept of urban citizenship, inclusiveness and space reclamation, mediating between solutions in housing policy and the concept of urban rights. This 2021 campaign, launched in opposition to corporate landlords, called for the socialization of housing, using, for example, banners in different languages, as an expression of an identity not related to economic resources, but to the use of the “city as a home”. Another example would be urban movements’ activities for (and with) migrants. Leandros Fischer and Martin Bak Jørgensen (2021) show the practices of urban coalitions of activists for solidarity with migrants, both in arrival (Seebruecke in Hamburg) and transit cities (Solidarity Cities Network in Athens). The combination of the formal and substantial levels can be seen especially in the example of the first of these cities where campaigns for the “Hamburg Citizenship Card” were created, “guaranteeing access to public services for groups such as irregularized migrants,

242  Handbook on urban social movements

prefiguring new inclusive ways of belonging, in which the city constitutes the main frame of reference” (Fischer and Jørgensen 2021: 1065). Waves of refugees in European cities and the US have created a diverse landscape of border and protest spaces in cities, shaped by the dogmas of accepting and rejecting immigrants (Mayer 2018). Within this landscape, places of both exclusion and inclusion of new urban citizens have emerged, separated according to the lines of the political division. Mayer points out that 2012 was a moment of grassroots mobilization of refugee movements in the European countries. It is important because the creation of social networks thanks to the protests may become the basis for initiating a wider civic mobilization of immigrants, supporting the process of their adaptation. The examples presented above, show that it is in cities that cosmopolitan attitudes are formed and political autonomies expanded. However, at the same time, there is a strong tendency in cities to rationalize social exclusion, spatial segregation and particular localities (Thompson 2017). If urban movements can overcome atomization and urban particularisms (which is not obvious) by engaging in political activities (including protests), it becomes possible to extend political significance to the urban community. The potential of citizenship is realized through protest because conventional forms of political participation are mechanical and not flexible and only the changing (economic, demographic, political) situation becomes challenging for them. Non-institutional practices may lead to increased participation, awareness and the “right to claim”. From the practices described in this paragraph, expressing citizens’ activism and resistance, three areas emerge concerning the narrowing or expansion of urban citizenship: (1) the struggle for recognition – protests for the extension of one’s own status (e.g., involvement of refugees in protest), or activities for the recognition of certain groups; (2) demanding the performance of the contract under the already possessed urban citizenship – demanding compliance with the city’s political subjectivity, equality, and access to public services; (3) activities aimed at the exclusion of certain individuals from their rights (protests against migrants) (Rossi 2018), demands for the exclusion of certain categories of people (incoming, non-indigenous, non-speakers of a particular language).

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF URBAN CITIZENSHIP? If we perceive citizenship as a continuous process, then part of such a process includes redefining identity, changes in practice, and the rights that appear and disappear. Urban citizenship changes with the successive stages of city development. The construction of an urban community that attempts to exceed the interests of families, ethnic groups and professions takes place in a long historical process. If we perceive cities as political objects (Cole and Payre 2016), they strive to expand autonomy in the political, military, economic, and cultural dimensions. Our contemporary view of cities and citizenship may overlook the fact that the pursuit of such independence is an ongoing process inscribed in the logic of the existence of cities. If we accept the perspective of historical sociology, we also accept the assumption that cities in the

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  243

subsequent stages of building autonomy and the rights to protect it were shaped by economic and political factors. Starting from the birth of cities and the idea of urban autonomy, through the medieval stage of an urban commune and the burghership, through the processes of domination of the modern state over the city, to the city’s struggle with global processes and actors, at all these stages we can observe the differently shaped struggle for civic subjectivity. There are many indications that the relationship between rights and identity and the practice of citizenship, which is difficult to reconcile with the national state, may have a different character in relation to the city, especially the city of late modernity, where we observe conflicts of interests of the community and individuals. The “natural” and intuitive understanding of citizenship is shifting from states to cities. This shift is evident both in terms of identity and obligations in the local political community. When talking about civil rights and obligations, we increasingly point to identities and practices rooted in the locality, related to the place of work, life activity, or civic activity, rather than to criteria such as place of birth or formally owned rights. What mediate between the rights and a sense of community, between institutions and a sense of being a creator, are political practices that, on the one hand, transform the community’s identity and, on the other, seek to change rights and transform institutions. The city creates a kind of resource where the locality and identity associated with it can become the object of claims. In the practice of everyday life, urban citizenship is not only a question of power or defining identity but, perhaps, above all, an instrument of governing the city and influencing urban policy – and citizen-focused smart cities play important role here (Cardullo and Kitchin 2019). In the idea of urban citizenship, one can find a justification for the equality of city residents and their right to the city, as well as solutions for everyday life and urban infrastructure. The latter is of special advantage in times of crisis, when cities are faced with the need to minimize the effects of economic, ethnic, territorial, and other forms of social inequality. The activity of city residents and mutual aid that can be seen during the Covid-19 pandemic (Recio et al. 2020; Chevée 2022) is an example of a renaissance of a dormant urban civic activity. Defining local citizenship in expanding metropolises is related not only to issues of belongingness to the local community but also to determining the scope of people eligible for local social services (Marinelli and Parisi 2020). Perhaps, urban citizenship can, therefore, be considered as an attractive factor, alluring not only the creative class but, above all, immigrants, who will be drawn to cities by the accessibility of rights and social services. The search for alternative forms of governance, the gradual “stripping” of powers from the local authorities, regulating the flow of capital are factors that may become a cause for the pride of urban residents. It may be urban activism or alternative ways of using the city that is at the heart of the transformation of political systems and the struggle to defend democracy.

244  Handbook on urban social movements

NOTE 1. The reasons for the growing interest and importance of urban citizenship, outlined in the introduction, also include: intense urbanization (and an increasing number of people living in cities), globalization that makes the economic importance of cities grow, expanding the structure of political possibilities (including constitutional guarantees of decentralization and local government, the growing role of cities in legal systems), authoritarian tendencies, and, finally, the activity of urban movements and the involvement of the inhabitants (sometimes at their explicit request) in the development of policies adapted to the needs and problems affecting their place of residence.

REFERENCES Appadurai, A. (2001). Deep democracy: Urban governmentality and the horizon of politics. Environment and Urbanization, 13(2), 23–43. Avni, N. (2020). Between exclusionary nationalism and urban citizenship in East Jerusalem/ al-Quds. Political Geography, 102314. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.polgeo​.2020​.102314. Balibar, E. (1996). Is European citizenship possible? Public Culture, 8(2), 355–376. Barber, B. (2013). If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities. New Haven: Yale University Press. Bauböck, R. (2003). Reinventing urban citizenship. Citizenship Studies, 7(2), 139–160. Bauböck, R. and L. Orgad (eds.) (2020). Cities vs States: Should Urban Citizenship be Emancipated from Nationality? Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Research Paper No. RSCAS 16. Bauder, H. (2017). Sanctuary cities: Policies and practices in international perspective. International Migration, 55(2), 174–187. Beauregard, R. and A. Bounds (2000). Urban citizenship. In E. Isin (ed.), Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City. London: Routledge, pp. 243–256. Beik, W. (1997). Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Blokland, T., C. Hentschel, A. Holm, H. Lebuhn, and T. Margalit (2015). Urban citizenship and right to the city: The fragmentation of claims. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 39(4), 655–665. Brodie, J. (2000). Imagining democratic urban citizenship. In E. Isin (ed.), Democracy, Citizenship and the Global City. London: Routledge, pp. 110–128. Calhoun, C. (1993). “New social movements” of the early nineteenth century. Social Science History, 17(3), 385–427. Canepari, E. and E. Rosa (2017). A quiet claim to citizenship: Mobility, urban spaces and city practices over time. Citizenship Studies, 21(6), 657–674. Cardullo, P. and R. Kitchin (2019). Smart urbanism and smart citizenship: The neoliberal logic of ‘citizen-focused’ smart cities in Europe. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 37(5), 813–830. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chevée, A. (2022). Mutual aid in north London during the Covid-19 pandemic. Social Movement Studies, 21(4), 413–419. Cole, A. and R. Payre (2016). Cities as political objects. In A. Cole and R. Payre (eds.), Cities as Political Objects: Historical Evolution, Analytical Categorisation and Institutional Challenges of Metropolitanisation. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 1–30.

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  245

Cunningham, F. (2011). The virtues of urban citizenship. City, Culture and Society, 2(1), 35–44. Dahl, R. (1989). Democracy and Its Critics. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dahl, R. (1998). On Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press. de Shalit, Avner (2020). Thinking like a city, thinking like a state. In R. Bauböck and L. Orgad (eds.), Cities vs States: Should Urban Citizenship be Emancipated from Nationality? Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Research Paper No. RSCAS 16, pp. 7–9. Domaradzka, A. (2018). Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(4), 607–620. Eizaguirre, S., M. Pradel-Miquel, and M. García (2017). Citizenship practices and democratic governance: ‘Barcelona en Comú’ as an urban citizenship confluence promoting a new policy agenda. Citizenship Studies, 21(4), 425–439. Fischer, L. and M. Bak Jørgensen (2021). “We are here to stay” vs. “Europe’s best hotel”: Hamburg and Athens as geographies of solidarity. Antipode, 53(4), 1062–1082. Florea, I., A. Gagyi, and K. Jacobsson (2018). A field of contention: Evidence from housing struggles in Bucharest and Budapest. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(4), 712–724. Fröhlich, C. (2020). Urban citizenship under post-Soviet conditions: Grassroots struggles of residents in contemporary Moscow. Journal of Urban Affairs, 42(2), 188–202. Gebhardt, D. (2016). Rethinking urban citizenship for immigrants from a policy perspective: The case of Barcelona. Citizenship Studies, 20(6–7), 846–866. Gould, R. (1995). Insurgent Identities: Class, Community, and Protest in Paris from 1848 to the Commune. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Grundy, J. and M. Smith (2005). The politics of multiscalar citizenship: The case of lesbian and gay organizing in Canada. Citizenship Studies, 9(4), 389–404. Hamann, U. and C. Türkmen (2020). Communities of struggle: The making of a protest movement around housing, migration and racism beyond identity politics in Berlin. Territory, Politics, Governance, 8(4), 515–531. Hamel, P. (2005). Contemporary cities and the renewal of local democracy’. In P. Booth and B. Jouve (eds.), Metropolitan Democracies: Transformations of the State and Urban Policy in Canada, France and Great Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 31–46. Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso. Hirschl, R. (2020). City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holston, J. (2008). Insurgent Citizenship: Disjunctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Holston J. and A. Appadurai (1999). Introduction: Cities and citizenship. In J. Holston (ed.), Cities and Citizenship. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 155–173. Hughes, S. (2019). Repowering Cities: Governing Climate Change Mitigation in New York City, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Isin, E. (2002). City, democracy and citizenship: Historical images, contemporary practices. In E. Isin and B. Turner (eds.), Handbook of Citizenship Studies. London: Sage, pp. 305–316. Isin, E. (2007). City.state: Critique of scalar thought. Citizenship Studies, 11(2), 211–228. Isin, E. and P. K. Wood (1999). Citizenship and Identity. London: Sage. King, L. (2010). Liberal citizenship: Medieval cities as model and metaphor. Space and Polity, 14(2), 123–142. Kleniewski, N. and A. R. Thomas (2019). Cities, Change, and Conflict: A Political Economy of Urban Life. London: Routledge.

246  Handbook on urban social movements

Körs, A. and K. Lehmann (2020). Interreligious dialogue activities in East Germany: Low levels of activities within official organizational structures. Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society, 6(2), 491–512. Kowalewski, M. (2019). Dissatisfied and critical citizens: The political effect of complaining. Society, 56(5), 453–460. Kubicki, P. (2020). Inventing urbanity: Urban movements in Poland. Society Register, 4(4), 87–104. Lancione, M. (2019). The politics of embodied urban precarity: Roma people and the fight for housing in Bucharest, Romania. Geoforum, 101, 182–191. Lantschner, P. (2014). Revolts and the political order of cities in the late Middle Ages. Past & Present, 225(1), 3–46. Le Galès, P. (2021). The rise of local politics: A global review. Annual Review of Political Science, 24, 345–363. Lebuhn, H. (2013). Urban citizenship, border practices and immigrants’ rights in Europe: Ambivalences of a cosmopolitan project. Open Citizenship, 4(2), 12–21. Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writing on Cities. Oxford: Blackwell. Lefebvre, H. (2009). State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lerch, D. (2017). Six foundations for building community resilience. In D. Lerch (ed.), The Community Resilience Reader. Washington: Island Press, pp. 9–42. Lewicka, M. (2008). Place attachment, place identity, and place memory: Restoring the forgotten city past. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(3), 209–231. Manfredi-Sánchez, J. L. (2020). Sanctuary cities: What global migration means for local governments. Social Sciences, 9(8), 146. Marinelli, A. and S. Parisi (2020). (Smart) city and the (open) data. A critical approach to a platform-driven urban citizenship. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 13(2), 1168–1179. Mayer, M. (2018). Cities as sites of refuge and resistance. European Urban and Regional Studies, 25(3), 232–249. McGregor, J. (2011). Contestations and consequences of deportability: Hunger strikes and the political agency of non-citizens. Citizenship Studies, 15(5), 597–611. Mohl, R. A. (2004). Stop the road: Freeway revolts in American cities. Journal of Urban History, 30(5), 674–706. Mouffe, C. (1993). The Return of the Political. London: Verso. Painter, J. (2005). Urban Citizenship and Rights to the City. Project Report. Durham: International Centre for Regional Regeneration and Development Studies. Pérez, M. (2017). Reframing housing struggles: Right to the city and urban citizenship in Santiago, Chile. City, 21(5), 530–549. Pickvance, C. (2003). From urban social movements to urban movements: A review and introduction to a symposium on urban movements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(1), 102–109. Pietrzyk-Reeves, D. (2020). Political (self-) education and the neo-republican perspective. Education, Citizenship and Social Justice, 15(2), 136–150. Prak, M. (2018). Citizens without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c.1000–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price-Spratlen, T. (2003). The urban context of historical activism: NAACP Depression era insurgency and organization-building activity. Sociological Quarterly, 44(3), 303–328. Purcell, M. (2003). Citizenship and the right to the global city: Reimagining the capitalist world order. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(3), 564–590. Purcell, M. (2006). Urban democracy and the local trap. Urban Studies, 43(11), 1921–1941. Recio, R. B., I. Chatterjee, and L. Nahar Lata (2020). COVID-19 reveals unequal urban citizenship in Manila, Dhaka and Delhi. LSE Covid 19 Blog. https://​blogs​.lse​.ac​.uk/​covid19/​ 2020/​06/​05/​covid​-19​-reveals​-unequal​-urban​-citizenship​-in​-manila​-dhaka​-and​-delhi/​.

Claiming urban citizenship: rights and practices  247

Richter, A. and D. Humphry (2021). Ja! Damit Berlin unser Zuhause bleibt! That Berlin will remain our home! ‫ انتيب نيلرب لظت ىتح‬Berlin evimiz kalsın diye! чтобы берлин оставался нашим домом Aby Berlin pozostał naszym domem! City, 25(5–6), 561–569. Rossi, U. (2018). The populist eruption and the urban question. Urban Geography, 39(9), 1425–1430. Ryan, M. P. (1997). Civic Wars: Democracy and Public Life in the American City during the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sassen, S. (2002). The repositioning of citizenship: Emergent subjects and spaces for politics. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 46, 4–26. Standing, G. (2014). A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Szymański, A. (2019). De-democratization: The case of Hungary in a comparative perspective. PS: Political Science & Politics, 52(2), 272–273. Theiss, M. (2021). Local routes to preschool-access policies in Polish municipalities from a social citizenship perspective. European Journal of Social Work, 24(2), 290–301. Thompson, J. P. (2017). The future of urban populism: Will cities turn the political tides? New Labor Forum, 26(1), 18–26. Tilly, C., L. Tilly, and R. Tilly (1975). The Rebellious Century, 1830–1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Traugott, M. (1993). Barricades as repertoire: Continuities and discontinuities in the history of French contention. Social Science History, 17(2), 309–323. Van Puymbroeck, N., P. Blondeel, and R. Vandevoordt (2014). Does Antwerp belong to everyone? Unveiling the conditional limits to inclusive urban citizenship. Social Inclusion, 2(3), 18–28. Varsanyi, M. (2006). Interrogating ‘urban citizenship’ vis-à-vis undocumented migration. Citizenship Studies, 10(2), 229–249. Whittaker, C. R. (1993). Land, City and Trade in the Roman Empire. Aldershot: Variorum. Wood, P. B. (2014). Urban citizenship. In H.-A. Van der Heijden (ed.), Handbook of Political Citizenship and Social Movements. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 133–153. Żuk, P. and P. Żuk (2020). Right-wing populism in Poland and anti-vaccine myths on YouTube: Political and cultural threats to public health. Global Public Health, 15(6), 790–804.

16. Beyond co-optation and autonomy: the experience of two Argentinean social organizations in the face of the left turn Francisco Longa1

INTRODUCTION In Argentina, the neoliberal policies implemented during the 1990s increased poverty and unemployment rates. After a ‘first wave’ of incorporation of the popular sectors into the political arena during the national-popular period of the mid-twentieth century (Collier and Collier 1991), “the neoliberal period marginalized urban and rural popular sectors” (Silva and Rossi 2018: 3), and responded much more directly to the interests of the private sector, ‘disincorporating’ (Rossi 2017) the popular sectors from the political arena. During the presidencies of Carlos Menem in the 1990s, the state privatized most of its enterprises. Business groups took over the service providers, which led to massive layoffs, drastically reducing the number of staff in the companies (Thwaites Rey 2010). Thus, a new social entity became widespread: the unemployed, who began to form groups known collectively as Movimientos de Trabajadores Desocupados (Unemployed Worker Movements [MTD, Spanish acronym]). They fought for work, but also organized community kitchens and food banks in their working-class neighbourhoods. For this reason, they also requested food and subsidies from the government for their neighbourhood organizations. Their main method of protest was through picket lines and roadblocks that impeded the movement of people and goods. Due to the centrality of this method of struggle, people began to speak of the ‘piquetero movement’ (Benclowicz 2011) both in the press and in academia. The first pickets then took place in towns in the provinces. These were towns where the main local production was linked to the state oil company, which, after being privatized during the Menem governments, laid off a large part of its employees. Very quickly, the phenomenon of the piqueteros grew and established in the peripheries of the big cities. Hundreds of organizations of unemployed people flourished, mainly in the suburbs of the province of Buenos Aires. This urban area, in addition to bringing together the largest number of unemployed and poor people in the country, was appropriate for the contentious action of the movements, since they could almost completely block access into the federal capital by picketing on some of its avenues and bridges. 248

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  249

Recent studies on the piquetero movement noted the flourishing of ‘urban pickets’ (Hora 2010), and highlighted that organizations of the unemployed deployed “strategies of appropriation of urban resources” (Perelman 2011: 125); in the same vein, other observers described the piqueteros as “a particular experience of social mobilization of urban popular sectors” (Retamozo and Garrido 2010: 110). For this reason, the urban question is at the centre of these organizations, which gained ground within the public agenda due to their contentious strategies (Tilly and Tarrow 2015). The main response they received from the state was repression, which only changed when Néstor Kirchner became president in 2003. In addition, every time they held protests, they were demonized by the media, who accused them of blocking people from travelling to their jobs. According to Tilly and Tarrow “contention involves making claims that bear on someone else’s interests” (2015: 7). Thus, the contentious politics of these movements through the pickets in the urban sphere brought two rights into conflict: the right of ordinary citizens to circulate freely versus the right of the unemployed to protest. This conflict can be thought of in terms of the concept of ‘game of the city’ (Domaradzka 2015), since the blockades of accesses into the federal capital implied “re-negotiating the public-private divide, which is a crucial part of the urban policy field” (Domaradzka and Wijkström 2016: 291). Although the piquetero movement was ideologically heterogeneous, with Marxist, Peronist and autonomist organizations, they were all opposed to neoliberal governments. The pinnacle moment of radicalism and mobilization occurred on 20 December 2001, when a massive protest ended with the resignation of President Fernando De la Rúa and dozens of protesters were killed by security forces. But this confrontational relationship between the piquetero organizations and the government shifted in 2003, when Néstor Kirchner became president and the political scene changed. Based on policies of regional integration in Latin America and economic reactivation, the government won the sympathies of the progressive fringes, and changed its approach to social protest, reducing its repressive strategy and incorporating numerous social organizations into its ranks (Rossi 2017). The integration of social organizations into the state has always been the subject of academic debate. One trend that strongly influenced field studies in Argentina argued that the movements were faced with a ‘dilemma’ regarding the state: if they rejected the institutional dispute, they could end up marginalized by their own requests and reduced to unimportant groups (Munck 1995); while if they were integrated into the state, they could end up being diluted by governmental structures, losing their capacity for transformation (Unger 1987). This perspective conceives of organizations as intrinsically distant from governments (Jenkins and Klandermans 1995) and associates them almost exclusively with conflict (Melucci 1989). This trend emphasized the limits that social organizations would encounter with the state and argued that they would end up co-opted by the Kirchnerist government (Oviedo 2004; Zibechi 2009). Other studies highlighted the capacity of integrated movements to articulate the state dispute with their own political strategy (Massetti 2009; Gómez 2010). The

250  Handbook on urban social movements

latter studies referred to another theoretical approach, in which social movements show greater familiarity with state institutions (Epstein 1996; Kinchy 2010), and therefore should not be solely associated with conflict (Andrews 2001). This chapter provides empirical evidence that reinforces the papers written on this second theoretical trend. It refutes the two trends that predicted a ‘dilemma’ faced by social movements regarding the state, based on two indicators: their ‘degree of requests from the state’ and their ‘degree of involvement in the state’. It shows how organizations that stayed out of official posts were not marginalized by their original requests, while the groups that joined the state were not co-opted. Before concluding this introduction, I would like to provide three scenes involving the movements studied. First scene. December 2002 marked the first anniversary of the aforementioned social explosion of 2001. Numerous unemployed workers’ movements mobilized, including the MTD Aníbal Verón and the MTD Evita.2 They are the direct organizational forerunners of the FPDS (Frente Popular Darío Santillán; Darío Santillán Popular Front) and the ME (Movimiento Evita; Evita Movement), respectively. At the event, the groups coined slogans that fiercely challenged the existing order. They criticized the government, but also questioned the state, proposing a ‘direct democracy’ to replace the ‘electoral farce’. Second scene. By 2011, the ME had already joined the Kirchnerist government. Its leader, Emilio Pérsico, obtained a position at the National Ministry of Social Development to manage a programme of subsidies for social movements. Some social organizations opposed to the government denounced the management of the programme as ‘clientelist’ and staged a 36-hour camp outside the ministry, demanding participation in allotment of the subsidies. The FPDS played a leading role in this protest. The scene then reflected how the two organizations, once partners on the road, had come to be in opposition. Third scene. At the beginning of 2016, Kirchnerism had lost power, displaced by the new president Mauricio Macri, a right-wing businessman who campaigned with a strong anti-Kirchnerist and anti-social movement rhetoric. After many years of not sharing the streets, the FPDS and the ME once again held a joint demonstration to oppose Macri’s government and request subsidies for their workers’ cooperatives.

INDICATORS AND METHODS OF ANALYSIS The study is based on the cycle of political crisis at the end of the 1990s and the three chronological cycles usually identified as the main periods to study the Kirchner years (Bonnet 2015): one heralded by institutional normalization (2003–2007); a second cycle marked by the national-popular turning point (2008–2012); and a third cycle of weakening and subsequent exit from power (2013–2015). The data for this research comes from extensive fieldwork that spanned more than ten years with the FPDS and seven years with the ME. During this time, I carried out field visits and observations with official channels of the movements. In addition,

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  251

Table 16.1

Degrees of requests from the state

Level

Type of request from the State

Examples

4

Request for the implementation of public

Demand for approval of the law on Integral Agricultural

policies designed by the movement

Colonies for Urban Supplya

Request for institutional recognition of the

Demand for the official recognition of school diplomas

movement’s experiences

issued by the movements’ schools

2

Request for general public policies

Demand for a universal financial allowance for the

1

Request for resources

3

unemployed Demand to the government for food to be delivered in the community dining halls organized by the movement

Note: The Spanish name is ‘Colonias Agrícolas Integrales de Abastecimiento Urbano’, and the full text of the law is online at https://intranet.hcdiputados-ba.gov.ar/proyectos/1 5-16D1061012019-06-2609-28-54.pdf. a

I conducted more than twenty in-depth interviews with activists from each group. In order to analyse their strategies in the territory and with the state, it was necessary to operationalize some indicators. To this end, I constructed two dimensions: the ‘degree to which [each organization] made requests from the state’ and the ‘degree to which they saw the state as a space to be occupied’. The degree of their requests was constructed by observing modifications in the requests of urban social organizations in Argentina from the late 1990s to recent years. Table 16.1 shows four ascending and aggregate degrees of requests from the state. When organizations are in a primordial stage, the state is seen only as an actor from which they can request resources (level 1 request), generally economic subsidies or food. If the organization includes a broader political vision, requests for public policies can also be found (level 2 request), such as the request for a universal basic income or the request for defaulting on foreign debt. If the organizations increase in complexity, they may request from the state the ‘institutional recognition of the movement’s experiences’ (level 3 request); in this case organizations request that the state recognize or validate initiatives such as schools built by the movement that use the popular education model. Finally, a higher degree of request is observed when the organizations request that the state ‘implement public policies developed by the movement’ (level 4 request). An example of this was when the movements requested that the state make available a programme of work cooperatives for all the unemployed. Depending on how close their political ties are to the government, the movement may also claim a position for one of its members as an official who implements these policies. This makes it possible to distinguish their ‘degree of involvement in the state’. Table 16.2 shows the four ‘degrees of involvement in the state’ of the organizations. These four levels were designed based on my fieldwork. In the documentary analysis I found a scale similar to the one designed by the FPDS for a political training booklet. I used it for the ME too, because analysing each organization’s relationship with the state is more functional. These levels are descriptive rather than evaluative,

252  Handbook on urban social movements

Table 16.2 Level

Degrees of involvement in the state and government

Type of involvement in the state and

Description

government 4

The movement as a foothold for the

Weak development of the movement’s power strategy,

government’s institutional policy

with full adherence to the government; use of its structures to support government-driven activities only

3

The movement as a combination of direct

Combination of the dispute over the state, with the

action and political-institutional action, with

development of power in the social sphere (it seeks to

the state and the government as a channel for

govern the state)

dispute 2

The movement as a source of pressure and the

A strategy of power in the social sphere, but also

state as an authority for visibility

demanding that the state make the movement’s initiatives visible (it does not seek to govern the state)

1

The movement as a source of pressure on the

Power strategy in the social sphere only

state and the government

i.e., a higher level does not imply a better strategy. Rather, the study is about the different perspectives that social organizations tend to adopt towards the state and governments. The first level of involvement entails looking to the state as a sphere from which to petition. The petitions have to do with material resources to be able to develop the organization’s activities (food, clothing, construction materials), or the implementation of public policies linked to the movement’s original issues. This means conceiving that the development of the movement must take place ‘outside’ the state. The second level of involvement implies that the organization must ‘apply pressure and use the state as a channel for visibility’; here, too, the organization builds a strategy of power outside the state, but it also requests that the state provide visibility to its initiatives, for example that its worker cooperatives be awarded with state public works. The third level shows the movement ‘as a combination of direct action and political-institutional action, with the state and the government as a channel for dispute’. The most complex point in the organizations’ strategy is reached at this level, as they combine the dispute over state institutions with the construction of power in the social sphere. If it is a government with the same political affiliation, the organization seeks to place militants in civil service positions. If they differ ideologically from the government, they seek positions such as seats on the opposition bench in Congress, or position themselves as an alternative government. The fourth level shows the movement ‘as a foothold for the government’s institutional policy’. These are social organizations with little development in terms of their own power strategy,3 but which fully adhere to the current government (whether municipal, provincial or national), and use their structure to support political activities conceived by the government, or secure their activists in government posts.

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  253

THE FOUNDING CYCLE AT THE END OF THE 1990S As mentioned above, the piqueteros were forged in the heat of the demonstrations and adopted a strong anti-state matrix, on the basis of anti-power theories (Holloway 2002). The MTD Aníbal Verón together with other territorial organizations founded the Coordinadora de Trabajadores Desocupados Aníbal Verón (Aníbal Verón Unemployed Workers Coordinating Committee [CTD-AV, Spanish acronym]). The striking thing about this historical context was that the anti-state trend also managed to permeate some Peronist organizations. In December 2002, the MTD Evita, together with the CTD-AV and other organizations, signed a document in which they declared: “the power of the Homeland, as popular power, is built in the streets … The power of Death sits at the desk of the civil servant … The Homeland is not regained through prolixity, but through struggle”.4 Both the doctrine and the history of Peronism itself have always validated the occupation of the state in pursuit of class conciliation (Sidicaro 1981). But the application of neoliberal policies had taken place under the presidencies of the Peronist Carlos Menem, who had achieved an unprecedented association between Peronism and neoliberalism. Many national-popular organizations denounced Menem’s ‘betrayal’ of the ‘historic principles’ of Peronism. It was in this context that the slogans and demonstrations of an organization such as the MTD Evita coincided with autonomist groups. As mentioned, the CTD-AV and the MTD Evita were two spaces that later transformed into the Frente Popular Darío Santillán and Movimiento Evita respectively. The two organizations studied, despite belonging to different ideologies, share a common background, such as the organization of unemployed people and confrontation with the state. But during this piquetero cycle, the organizations did recognize the state as a channel onto which they could put pressure, requesting food for their community kitchens and subsidies for the unemployed. Thus, during this cycle, level 1 requests from the state were favoured by these movements. With regard to institutional involvement, during this cycle they continued to challenge the state as a space for political representation and focus on the social arena. Ana Natalucci (2012) argued that this first stage of the ME was marked by the electoral boycott and construction in the territory. Those who have studied the CTD-AV also point out that this was a time of radicalism and impugnment of the state (Svampa and Pereyra 2004). During this cycle, the two organizations also showed similarities with regard to their levels of involvement in the state and the government, situated at level 1.

THE CYCLE OF INSTITUTIONAL NORMALIZATION (2003–2007) When Néstor Kirchner’s took office in 2003 the political landscape changed. The president’s administration quickly gave rise to a broad consensus, reflected, for

254  Handbook on urban social movements

example, in his party’s re-election in the following presidential elections in 2007. The Kirchner government implemented heterodox economic measures, replacing the neoliberal policies of the previous years. A progressive cycle began in the country with the dawn of Kirchnerism, framed by the ‘left turn’ (Levitsky and Roberts 2011), which operated in Latin America during the first decades of the twenty-first century. From the outset, Kirchnerism modified the state’s relationship with social organizations. The national government sought to include the piqueteros, asking in exchange for them to abandon the roadblocks. The government promoted meetings with piquetero organizations and set up a ‘piquetero cabinet’ (Boyanovsky Bazán 2010), in which some high-ranking officials such as the Secretary General of the Presidency, Oscar Parrilli, met periodically with piquetero leaders to evaluate the government’s direction. These meetings were key in marking an important bifurcation point between the two case studies. The MTD Evita was quick to trust in the new government’s vocation for transformation and accepted positions in the state. In general, organizations that came from the national-popular and Peronist traditions were more easily enthused by Kirchner’s government. On the contrary, many of the MTD members with autonomist and Marxist roots refused to abandon the roadblocks and denounced the capitalist character of the new government. However, there were disagreements even within the CTD-AV: a small sector joined the government, while the majority continued to oppose it. The CTD-AV organizations that did not adhere to the government founded the Frente Popular Darío Santillán towards the end of 2004. Since its creation, this organization has experienced profound growth, incorporating new groups in different provinces of the country and increasing the volume of demonstrations. In addition, during its first years, the FPDS produced significant materials such as political training manuals, which were well received by other organizations on the left. While the organization appreciated some of the national government’s initiatives, the criticism came first: “the human rights policy promoted by the government … is tarnished by the fact that in Argentina twenty percent of the population lives on less than thirty dollars a month” (FPDS [2007] 2013: 72). At election time, they continued to appeal to autonomist slogans such as: “whoever wins, the people will lose”. One FPDS militant explained this position in an interview in 2010: “we believe that popular power should be constructed with a libertarian tendency; it should not, in any case, go hand in hand with bourgeois institutions” (Valeria, FPDS).5 In short, during this first Kirchnerist cycle the FPDS was conceived as a ‘source of pressure’ to the state (level 1 involvement) to request state resources (level 1 request). Although it requested some very general policy measures from the state (such as the reduction of poverty), there was no proliferation of public policy requests. On the contrary, its communiqués were aimed at denouncing the capitalist character of the government and publicizing the organization’s autonomous strategy for the ‘construction of popular power’ (FPDS [2007] 2013). With regard to the MTD Evita, between 2003 and 2004 it formed part of the coordination of national-popular groups that supported President Kirchner. The leaders

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  255

of these groups gradually gained access to positions, albeit minor ones, within the state. In June 2004 they signed a document in which they stated: “we understand that this government is not only better than the previous ones, but it is also qualitatively different” (MTD Evita et al. [2004] 2012). At the beginning of 2006, at the launch event for Movimiento Evita, Emilio Pérsico said: “Movimiento Evita is indivisible, comrade President, from the policies of the state. This movement has no future if things go badly for you … because our strategy is the central strategy of the government” (Movimiento Evita 2006b: 8). This discourse is clearly very different from the anti-statism that the MTD Evita had promoted during the 1990s. Pérsico quickly obtained a post in the government of the province of Buenos Aires, which was also a Kirchnerist administration allied to the national government. Thus, they made a sudden shift from a movement that was involved solely as a ‘source of pressure factor’ to the state (level 1), to one that began to think of itself as a ‘foothold for the institutional policy of Kirchnerism’ (level 4 involvement). Once integrated into the government, ME focused on territorial development and increasing its presence in the national government. It must be said, however, that insertion into the state was incipient. Pérsico was the highest-ranking institutional official, followed by a group of cadres in lower-ranking positions. In terms of demonstrations, although it no longer carried out street actions impugning the government, it did continue to mobilize in support of Kirchnerism. This does not mean, however, that the demonstrations lost all their radical character. In 2005, following a conflict over fuel prices, the Kirchner government called for a boycott of the British-Dutch oil company Shell. Social movements sympathetic to the government mobilized at Shell petrol stations and blocked the entrances. This generated a tense atmosphere and a strong media campaign against what were known as ‘Kirchnerist picketers’. But during this first Kirchnerist cycle, the movement had not yet requested that its initiatives be transformed into public policies. For Pérsico, this was because ME had not yet become a real social and political organization: “when Néstor took office we asked him for social plans and food, and we received social plans and food. There was no development policy” (Emilio Pérsico, ME). Thus, during this first cycle ME mainly requested resources from the government (level 1 request). In some cases it requested generic public policies such as “progress in income distribution” (Movimiento Evita 2006a: 8), but these level 2 requests were only occasional.

THE CYCLE OF THE NATIONAL-POPULAR TURNING POINT (2008–2012) In 2008, a profound change took place in the political scene, as a result of the conflict started by Resolution No. 125 promoted by the government. This conflict placed Kirchnerism in direct conflict with powerful entities from the agricultural sector.6

256  Handbook on urban social movements

The FPDS publicly declared itself in favour of the retentions promoted by the government, but denounced the nature of the ‘assistance’ that the government would provide with the funds collected and refused to participate in the official demonstrations in support of the measure. In those days, together with other organizations, the movement issued a communiqué declaring: “Yes to tax withholding! But let them be used to eliminate VAT on foodstuffs and to increase the minimum wage”.7 This position attracted attention, since other groups on the left rejected the government’s proposal. In those years, the FPDS differentiated itself from both the government and the opposition: “we do not claim to be either Kirchnerists or anti-Kirchnerists … we have supported some things critically and we have also expressed our support”.8 On the other hand, at the macroeconomic level, these were years of stability and improvements for wage earners. In 2008, unemployment indicators were at their lowest level since the 2001 crisis. By 2012 the economy had recovered, the most impoverished sectors had received assistance and inequality had been reduced (Lustig et al. 2012). Since the organizations studied had primarily focused their activism on the unemployed, the decline in unemployment led them to reformulate their social bases. Some movements diversified their initiatives by placing greater emphasis on student activism or alternative communication tools such as web news portals. The protests in secondary schools between 2010 and 2012, where between 60 and 80 schools were taken over by their students for periods of up to a month and a half, showed the upsurge in the student movement in the public agenda. In addition to this, there was a significant advance in the left-wing forces in the university movement, which in this period managed to win the leadership of the main university federations in the country. Thus, a ‘third generation of FPDS militants’ was forged, which meant a: “reworking of causes based on transformations that implied a digression from organizing themselves according to the ‘unemployed’ movement” (Vázquez 2010: 357). Even in territorial activism, the FPDS rolled out new initiatives no longer linked to work or food assistance. In 2008, for example, they opened several Bachilleratos Populares de Jóvenes y Adultos, schools organized by the movement for the completion of secondary education. From the very year of their foundation, they began to request from the state the official recognition of their graduation diplomas and resources to pay teachers’ salaries. This implied a request from the state for the ‘institutional recognition of the movement’s experiences’ (level 3 request). These new perspectives towards the state, and the quantitative growth of sectors such as the student movement, renewed internal debates within the FPDS. There was a heated discussion about how to broaden political alliances with other groups and also about the need to transcend the movement’s historical anti-electoralism in order to incorporate the electoral dispute. These were also years of transformation for Movimiento Evita. The conflict resulting from Resolution No. 125 motivated the ‘national-popular turning point’ of Kirchnerism (Svampa 2011). The confrontation was read as a reinterpretation of the

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  257

polarization between ‘people’ and ‘elites’ typical of populist regimes (Panizza 2009), in this case embodied by Kirchnerism and the businessmen of the rural areas, respectively. This was a favourable context for organizations linked to the government to revive their legendary confrontation with the agrarian bourgeoisie, which harked back to the old antagonisms of Peronism in the mid-twentieth century (Torre 2014). Movimiento Evita mobilized strongly in favour of Resolution No. 125 and engaged in street clashes with opposition demonstrators. The loyalty shown by ME in the streets in favour of the government in the Resolution No. 125 conflict opened doors to the organization in other sectors of the state. In 2009, Emilio Pérsico was appointed as Undersecretary for the Commercialization of the Social Economy at the Ministry of Social Development and took charge of the Programa Argentina Trabaja (Argentina Works Program [PAT, Spanish acronym]): a programme to create 100,000 jobs in cooperatives for unemployed people from the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, whose salaries were paid by the state government. The launching of PAT was in response to a proposal that Emilio Pérsico had made to Néstor Kirchner. The PAT experience marked a change in ME’s state involvement. This is when the movement began to include requests from the fourth level, that is, for the ‘implementation of public policies designed by the movement’. The implementation of PAT was the context in which the two cases under study met again and which led to the second scene described in the introduction. While Movimiento Evita was in charge of implementing the programme, the FPDS and other non-Kirchnerist social organizations complained that the government was excluding them from PAT and staged protests demanding their inclusion. The pinnacle moment in this process occurred in November 2009, when opposition groups mobilized around two thousand people at the doors to the Ministry of Social Development. They set up an encampment at its doors for 36 hours, until the authorities agreed to register their members. Thus, ME and the FPDS found themselves, once again, on opposing sides: one managing their organization from within the state, the other protesting in the streets. The consolidation of Kirchnerism at the legislative level in the 2011 elections also led to the growth of ME in the state structure. The presence of its activists on the electoral lists was significant, winning several provincial and national representatives, as well as several councillors in different municipalities. ME’s greater penetration of state spaces provided it with greater management tools, which it combined with its grassroots work. ME took public policies out into the territory through operativos barriales. This Spanish term means setting up stations in poor neighbourhoods to attend to the various needs of the population (such as ID card processing or medical check-ups for children and the elderly). According to Patricia Cubría (ME): “We were going to do an operativo, more comrades were joining and relationships were being established and the space was growing … we began to grow, with more and more activists”. Thus, in this cycle Movimiento Evita managed to increase its level of requests from the state. The creation and implementation of the PAT programme, together with operativos out in the territories, show that the organization began to request

258  Handbook on urban social movements

the ‘implementation of public policies designed by the movement’ (level 4) and, of course, it also continued to maintain the highest degree of involvement in the state and the government, operating as a ‘foothold for institutional policy’ (level 4).

THE CYCLE OF WEAKENING AND EXIT FROM POWER (2013–2015) In 2013, the national government lost legislative elections in the country’s most important districts. In addition, the economy began to suffer the consequences of the international crisis unleashed in 2008: inflation rose and the poverty rate, which had been decreasing since 2003, began to rise. In the FPDS this cycle was marked by the debates mentioned above; “there was a lot of difficulty in generating consensus, which had always been a common practice in the way decisions were made. The spirit of the organization was lost and trust waned” (Jessica, FPDS). This led to a major divide within the organization. At the beginning of 2013, a large group of organizations decided to withdraw from the official spheres and they decided to form a new space, the Frente Popular Darío Santillán-Corriente Nacional (National Tendency [FPDS-CN]). The divide in the FPDS had a major impact on the left. The new cycle faced by the FPDS since 2013 has brought changes to its relationship with the state. The most significant was the resumption of the electoral dispute: “we have also decided to fight in the electoral arena as another level of dispute to carry forth this popular project of transformation” (FPDS 2013: 132). The first electoral incursion of the FPDS was in the 2015 elections, when it supported the Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores (Workers’ Left Front [FIT, Spanish acronym]), an electoral alliance of the Trotskyist left with a markedly anti-Kirchnerist profile. In any case, the organization took on the electoral dispute by highlighting the transitory nature of its possible passage through the state, and by rejecting intervention at the state level as an “end in itself” (Longa 2016: 162). There were other FPDS initiatives during these years that show the change in its relationship with the state. In the last Kirchnerist cycle, the movement began for the first time to draft bills and request their approval. For example, it promoted a law on Integral Agricultural Colonies for Urban Supply (CAIAU, Spanish acronym). These Colonies are a means of organization and financing for the horticultural industry, where the FPDS evolved from its rural branch. Thus, during this cycle the FPDS inaugurated for the first time level 4 requests from the state, requesting the implementation of policies designed by the movement. If we add to this passing to level 3 involvement in the state and the government, assumed by the incorporation of the electoral dispute, the changes in its relationship with the state are significant. With regard to Movimiento Evita, after the 2013 legislative elections in which the ruling party lost, ME began to raise its critical tone towards the government: “we want to discuss who the next president will be. We want the best of our people, never

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  259

again a borrowed candidate”, said Emilio Pérsico in November 2013. The tone of his words showed a critique of the national government’s choices for the electoral lists. Without ceasing to be part of the government, ME began to make statements about the need to “go after the missing elements”, stressing that poverty still needed to be resolved and pointing out the shortcomings of the Kirchnerist process. According to Pérsico, this is where Movimiento Evita’s process of ‘political independence’ began: “[Movimiento] Evita is building independence and this allows it to have its own agenda”. This ‘own agenda’ was not present in the MTD Evita. Nor was it present during the first years of Movimiento Evita in 2006, when the organization seemed to be merely a support group for the national government. ME’s process of political independence in these years was strongly linked to the world of the Economía Popular (Popular Economy). This was the term chosen by ME and other organizations to designate the type of self-managed work carried out by their cooperatives. Since 2013, ME began to give greater visibility to the Confederación de Trabajadores de la Economía Popular (Confederation of Popular Economy Workers [CTEP, Spanish acronym]), a group of social organizations founded in 2011 that aspired to become a trade union of the Popular Economy. The organizations that made up the CTEP carried out numerous activities demanding that the national government grant them trade union status (Longa 2019). It was only on the last day of Cristina Kirchner’s mandate, on 9 December 2015, that the Minister of Labour, against the clock, granted them a provisional trade union status with little weight in trade union terms. Thus, in these years ME continued to request the ‘implementation of public policies designed by the movement’ (level 4). It also continued until the last day of the government’s power, projecting itself as a ‘foothold of institutional politics’ (level 4), although at the same time it criticized the government and began to conceive of its political independence. In December 2015, Mauricio Macri, leader of the Cambiemos (Let’s Change) alliance, replaced Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as president. The arrival of a right-wing businessman to power was an alarming development for both the leftist movements and the Peronists. In this unusual scenario, we move to the third scene described in the introduction: the FPDS and the ME met again in the streets, this time jointly mobilizing in opposition to the Cambiemos government. The arrival of the right wing to power once again then unified the agendas of these two organizations.

CONCLUSIONS What does the journey of all these years show us in relation to the ‘dilemma’ of the social movements with regard to the state? The longitudinal analysis shows that neither of the two scenarios predicted by the theoretical ‘dilemma’ occurred outright: the FPDS was not marginalized by its requests because of its refusal to join the Kirchnerist government, nor was the ME totally co-opted by having decided to be part of the administration.

260  Handbook on urban social movements

Throughout all these years, the FPDS increased both the degree of its requests and level of involvement in the state and the government, without being part of the government. By 2015 it requested the ‘implementation of public policies designed by the movement itself’ (level 4 request). Furthermore, it incorporated the electoral dispute and began to present bills, combining ‘direct action and political-institutional action, with the state as a channel of dispute’ (level 3 of involvement the state and the government). At the same time, it maintained its ‘territorial construction’, that is, the daily activities in the community centres of the slums. Even though after its internal rupture the movement lost some of the important public influence it had achieved during its first years, it was far from being marginalized. The transformations were much more rapid for Movimiento Evita. From the moment Kirchner became president, it began to think of itself as a ‘foothold for government policy’ (level 4 of involvement in the state and the government). ME articulated state management through neighbourhood development, thereby multiplying also its ‘territorial construction’. Although ME’s demonstrations became mainly supportive of the government, it did not lose its sense of radicalism. Thus, the years in office did not result in the co-optation by the government. How did these organizations manage to avoid the co-optation and marginalization that the theoretical ‘dilemma’ of movements predicted, somewhat pessimistically, with regard to the state? My conclusion, based on the empirical analysis of these organizations over the years, is that they managed to do so by maintaining internal channels of participation and by creating a strong identity among their militants. From the theoretical paradigm of resource mobilization, economic and organizational resources are fundamental for a movement to be sustained over time (McAdam 1999; McCarthy 1999). Internal instances of participation such as assemblies, plenaries or political training courses, are essential organizational resources. In my fieldwork I was able to see how, throughout these years, both the FPDS and the ME encouraged the internal participation of their grassroots activists in decision-making and internal political debate. Furthermore, both organizations were able to forge an identity among their members. Studies from the identity paradigm place great importance on the appropriation of symbols as an explanatory factor for the maintenance of activism in social movements (Pizzorno 1989; Melucci 1994). Although the two organizations studied have different ideologies, both promoted a militant identity among their ranks. They ‘educated’ their members in a political pedagogy that assimilated them into the great struggles of previous generations. The militants of these organizations think of themselves as a historical continuity of, for example, the anarchists and communists of the early twentieth century in Argentina, as well as the Latin American guerrillas of the 1960s and 1970s. This identity is fostered in political training courses, through the reading materials sent to militants and the symbols and images they choose to decorate their community buildings. Thus, it was the participation of the grassroots in internal life and the fostering of an identity among their militancy that helped the organizations to keep growing.

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  261

Therefore, the survival of a social movement can be thought of in terms of theoretical concepts of both the resource mobilization paradigm and the identity paradigm. These findings force us to put into context the rigid and schematic scenarios suggested by the ‘dilemma’ of social movements with regard to the state. The results of this research also show that the dimensions postulated by different theoretical schools can complement each other in the study of social organizations. The empirical analysis shows that both organizations established relations with state structures, and at the same time developed strategies in the social field. What is observed, then, is that the ‘dilemma’ of the movements with regard to the state is a ‘continuous’ and not a ‘discrete’ dilemma, using the mathematical meanings of these two terms. Becoming ‘co-opted’, i.e., lacking the capacity to underpin a strategy of one’s own, or ending up marginalized, are not separate compartments, but rather continuous trends that can appear or disappear in different moments in the life of a social movement. It is therefore essential for the academic agenda to include longitudinal approaches over extended periods of time in order to assess the transformations or continuities of social organizations. In this way, it will be possible to understand the experiences of social movements with regard to the state in a comprehensive manner, rather than simply predicting scenarios of co-optation or marginalization.

NOTES 1. I would like to thank my colleagues from the Political Sociology Study Group, who contributed ideas to improve this chapter: Gabriel Vommaro, Mariana Gené, Martín Armelino, Victoria Ortiz de Rozas, Leandro Eryszewicz, Agustín Salerno, Hernan Campos, Patricio Mogila, Juan Grandinetti, Nahuel Dragún, Nadia Tuchsznaider and Mariana Bonazzi. 2. Aníbal Verón was a young protester killed by police at a protest in northern Argentina in 2000. Evita is the popular nickname for Eva Perón, second wife of former president Juan Domingo Perón and mythical figure of Peronism, who died in 1952. Darío Santillán was a young piquetero militant killed in June 2002 by the police during the repression of a day of protest organized by social organizations. 3. By ‘power strategy’ we mean the power accumulation strategy that the movement chooses, in order to increase its growth and influence. It could be developed in the social field, in the political-state field or in both at the same time. 4. ‘Ante nosotros el camino de la Liberación Nacional’. http://​ www​ .lafogata​ .org​ .cn2​ .toservers​.com/​02argentina/​12argentina/​patria​.htm. 5. The names of the interviewees have been changed to protect their identities. Only in cases of civil servants or publicly recognized figures are real names given. 6. In 2008, Cristina Fernández promoted a legislative project (known as Resolution No. 125) that implied an increase in withholding taxes on agricultural exports. The conflict rose to a high degree of hostility between the government and the rural entities, which included road blockades and a lockout by rural employers who threatened a shortage of goods for the production of foodstuffs. Finally, the National Senate voted against Resolution No. 125, which was a crushing defeat for the government. 7. ‘Dar voz a los que menos tienen’, 2/7/2008. http://​otrocamino​.wordpress​.com/​.

262  Handbook on urban social movements

8. Interview with Federico Orchani (FPDS), 5/9/2012. http://​ www​ .agenciapacourondo​ .com​.ar/​militancia​-590184/​8492​-qes​-muy​-dificil​-hablar​-delkirchnerismo​-sin​-hablar​-de​ -la​-rebelion​-de​-2001.

REFERENCES Andrews, Kenneth (2001). Social movements and policy implementation: The Mississippi civil rights movement and the war on poverty, 1965 to 1971. American Sociological Review, 66, 71–95. Benclowicz, José (2011). Repensando los orígenes del movimiento piquetero: Miseria y experiencias de lucha antes de las contrarreformas de la década de 1990 en el norte argentino. Latin American Research Review, 46(2), 79–103. Bonnet, Alberto (2015). La insurrección como restauración. El Kirchnerismo. Buenos Aires: Prometeo. Boyanovsky Bazán, Christian (2010). El Aluvión del piquete al gobierno. Movimientos Sociales y Kirchnerismo. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. Collier, Ruth and David Collier (1991). Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Domaradzka, Anna (2015). Changing the rules of the game: Impact of the urban movement on the public administration practices. In M. Freise, F. Paulsen, and A. Walter (eds.), Civil Society and Innovative Public Administration. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 188–217. Domaradzka, Anna and Filip Wijkström (2016). Game of the city re-negotiated: The Polish urban re-generation movement as an emerging actor in a strategic action field. Polish Sociological Review, 3(195), 291–308. Epstein, Steven (1996). Impure Science: AIDS Activism and the Politics of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press. FPDS [2007] (2013). ¿Qué es el Frente Popular Darío Santillán? In Breve historia del Frente Popular Darío Santillán. Selección de documentos 2000–2013. Buenos Aires, pp. 68–75. FPDS (2013). Los movimientos populares asumimos nuevos desafíos. In Breve historia del Frente Popular Darío Santillán. Selección de documentos 2000–2013, Buenos Aires, pp. 132–137. Gómez, Marcelo (2010). ¿Acerca del protagonismo político y la participación estatal de los movimientos sociales populares: falacias, alucinaciones y cegueras del paradigma normal de análisis. In A. Massetti, E. V. Ástor, and M. Marcelo Gómez (comps.), Movilizaciones, protestas e identidades colectivas en la Argentina del bicentenario. Buenos Aires: Nueva Trilce, pp. 65–96. Holloway, John (2002). Cambiar el mundo sin tomar el poder: el significado de la revolución hoy. Puebla: Autonomous University of Puebla. Hora, Roy (2010). La crisis del campo del otoño de 2008. Desarrollo Económico, 197(50), 81–111. Jenkins, J. Craig and Bert Klandermans (eds.) (1995). The Politics of Social Protest. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kinchy, Abby (2010). Epistemic boomerang: Expert policy advice as leverage in the campaign against transgenic maize in Mexico. Mobilization, 15(2), 179–198. Levitsky, Steven and Kenneth Roberts (eds.) (2011). The Resurgence of the Latin American Left. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Longa, Francisco (2016). ¿Entre la autonomía y la disputa institucional? El dilema de los movimientos sociales ante el Estado. Los casos del Frente Popular Darío Santillán y el Movimiento Evita (Argentina, 2003–2015). PhD thesis, Buenos Aires, Faculty of Social Sciences, UBA.

Beyond co-optation and autonomy: two Argentinean social organizations  263

Longa, Francisco (2019). Historia del Movimiento Evita. La organización social que entró al estado sin abandonar la calle. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. Lustig, Nora, Carola Pessino, and John Scott (2012). The impact of taxes and social spending on inequality and poverty in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru: A synthesis of results. Working Document 311 of Commitment to Equity (CEQ). New Orleans: Tulane University. Massetti, Ástor (2009). La década piquetera (1995–2005). Acción colectiva y protesta social de los movimientos territoriales urbanos. Buenos Aires: Nueva Trilce. McAdam, Doug (1999). Orígenes terminológicos, problemas actuales y futuras líneas de investigación. In D. McAdam, J. McCarthy and M. Zald (eds.), Movimientos sociales: perspectivas comparadas. Madrid: Istmo, pp. 49–70. McCarthy, John (1999). Adoptar, adaptar e inventar límites y oportunidades. In D. McAdam, J. McCarthy and M. Zald (eds.), Movimientos sociales: perspectivas comparadas. Madrid: Istmo, pp. 205–220. Melucci, Alberto (1989). Nomads of the Present. London: Hutchinson Radius. Melucci Alberto (1994). Asumir un compromiso: identidad y movilización en los movimientos sociales. Zona abierta, 69, 153–180. Movimiento Evita (2006a). Revista Evita, II, No. 4, February. Movimiento Evita (2006b). Revista Evita, II, No. 7, June. MTD Evita et al. [2004] (2012). La hora de los pueblos. In G. Pérez and A. Natalucci (eds.), Vamos las bandas. Organizaciones y militancia kirchnerista. Buenos Aires: Nueva Trilce, pp. 191–195. Munck, Gerardo (1995). Algunos problemas conceptuales en el estudio de los movimientos sociales. Revista Mexicana de Sociología, 57(3), 17–40. Natalucci, Ana (2012). Los movimentistas. Expectativas y desafíos del Movimiento Evita en el espacio kirchneristas (2003–2010). In G. Pérez and A. Natalucci (eds.), Vamos las bandas. Organizaciones y militancia kirchneristas. Buenos Aires: Nueva trilce, pp. 27–56. Oviedo, Luis (2004). Una historia del movimiento piquetero. Razón y Revolución, 9. Buenos Aires. Panizza, Francisco (comp.) (2009). El populismo como espejo de la democracia. Buenos Aires: Fondo de cultura económica. Perelman, Mariano (2011). Pobreza urbana, desempleo y nuevos sentidos del (no) trabajo. Cirujas y movimientos de trabajadores desocupados de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. In M. Di Virgilio, M. Otero, and P. Boniolo (coord.), Pobreza urbana en América Latina y el Caribe. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, pp. 105–132. Pizzorno, Alessandro (1989). Algún otro tipo de alteridad: Una crítica a las teorías de la elección racional. Sistema, 88, 27–42. Retamozo, Martín and Jaime Garrido (2010). Orden y conflicto: reestructuración neoliberal y respuestas colectivas de los sectores populares urbanos en Chile y Argentina. Revista Líder, 17(12), 95–117. Rossi, Federico (2017). La segunda ola de incorporación en América Latina: una conceptualización de la búsqueda de inclusión aplicada a la Argentina. In D. Borda and F. Masi (eds.), Pobreza, desigualdad y política social en América Latina. Piribebuy, Paraguay: CADEP, pp. 155–194. Sidicaro, Ricardo (1981). Consideraciones sociológicas sobre las relaciones entre el peronismo y la clase obrera en la Argentina 1943–1955. Boletín de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe, 31, 43–60. Silva, Eduardo and Federico Rossi (eds.) (2018). Reshaping the Political Arena in Latin America: From Resisting Neoliberalism to the Second Incorporation. Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press. Svampa, Maristella (2011). Argentina, una década después. Del ‘que se vayan todos’ a la exacerbación de lo nacional-popular. Nueva Sociedad, 235, 17–34.

264  Handbook on urban social movements

Svampa, Maristella and Sebastián Pereyra (2004). Entre la ruta y el barrio. La experiencia de las organizaciones piqueteras. Buenos Aires: Biblos. Thwaites Rey, Mabel (2010). Después de la globalización neoliberal. ¿Qué Estado en América Latina? In Cuadernos del Pensamiento Crítico Latinoamericano, No. 32. Buenos Aires: CLACSO. Tilly, Charles and Sidney Tarrow (2015). Contentious Politics. New York: Oxford University Press. Torre, Juan Carlos (2014). Los años peronistas (1943–1955): Nueva Historia Argentina Tomo VIII. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. Unger, Roberto (1987). False Necessity: Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of Radical Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Vázquez, Melina (2010). Socialización política y activismo. Carreras de militancia política de jóvenes referentes de un Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados. PhD thesis, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Buenos Aires. Zibechi, Raúl (2009). Gobiernos y movimientos: entre la autonomía y las nuevas formas de dominación. Viento Sur, 100, 247–254.

17. The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression: the Gezi legacy Aysegul Can

INTRODUCTION The Gezi Park protests (GPP from this point on) were triggered by a seemingly insignificant looking urban decision and evolved into an important right to the city movement and the biggest civil unrest in the history of Turkey. Before GPP (also after), the current government was implementing controversial urban projects that aim to raise the ground rent and land speculation in Istanbul. GPP became the tipping point for political and urban dissent and transformed the discourse on civil society in Turkey. Even if GPP were not the first right to the city or urban dissent resistance, they were by far the biggest and most renowned instance of urban resistance in the history of the Turkish Republic. In addition, during and in the aftermath of GPP, many alliance building networks, encounters among Istanbulites on a grassroots level and neighbourhood forums emerged (Pelivan 2020). These impromptu forums and alliances coupled with the oppression the protesters faced during and after GPP have drawn a significant amount of scholarly attention (Kuymulu 2013; Pelivan 2020; Ozkaynak et al. 2015; Ozen 2020; Bilgiç 2016). These topics covered by these studies range from oppression of the state and the network of alliances built after GPP, to the repercussions the prominent figures have faced to the use of social media. GPP have always been praised for the diversity of the protesters in terms of their political leanings, ethnicities and the sexual orientation of the protesters (Bilgiç 2016). At the same time, this diversity has been considered to be an obstacle in terms of turning these protests into an organized political movement (Pelivan 2020). In spite of that, some urban grassroots movements and neighbourhood associations emerged at the end of GPP and they are still active. Some examples for that are Kadıköy City Solidarity (KCS), Northern Forest Defence (NFD), Beyoğlu City Defence (BCD), Either Istanbul or Canal and Istanbul Urban Defence (IUD). In this chapter, I aim to analyse the effects of GPP on urban social and resistance movements in Istanbul and the latest reversal of acquittal of all of the prominent figures from the protest-related lawsuits. To do that, I employed semi-structured interviews (around 15 important people in urban resistance movements and Gezi protests), document analysis and cyber ethnography tracing hashtags that contained and reflected on Gezi protests in the last seven to eight years. My findings inform on the ‘legacy of Gezi’ and the transformation of urban resistance movements in Istanbul. 265

266  Handbook on urban social movements

The chapter starts with a brief section on neoliberal urbanism in Istanbul to introduce the processes and events that triggered GPP. In spite of the narrative of deregulation, neoliberalism has come to be seen more and more as an uneven and hybrid process that involves excessive state intervention in order to ensure the continuation of capital accumulation (Bruff 2016). Neoliberalism is not a homogenizing framework for different experiences and localities as these manifest differently under different circumstances. It is rather a pattern that can be observed in these different contexts and realities (Pelivan 2020). Following that, I discuss the events of GPP as they happened in 2013 and discuss the urban networks and alliances formed as a result of it. I explore the legacy of GPP to date, how the surviving networks operate, what that means for urban resistance and politics in Istanbul and more importantly the consequences and repercussions prominent figures, protesters and organizations faced and are facing, because they openly backed and spread the message of GPP under a more politically closed environment in Turkey.

NEOLIBERAL URBANISM IN ISTANBUL Since the 1970s, the era we live in is usually referred to as the neoliberal era (Merrifield 2014; Wacquant 2012; Pelivan 2020; Can 2020; Lees et al. 2016). Neoliberalism is categorized as a political agenda as much as it is an economic one (Wacquant 2012), and it varies between different local and geographical contexts which in turn, lead to varying forms of governance (Eraydin and Kok 2014). One indicator of this era in the field of urban governance is cities’ or regions’ need to compete with each other (Mayer 2013). This urban restructuring that puts the capital and neoliberal urban agenda in the forefront of cities has had several consequences. One is the deregulation in the housing market and expanding the role of real estate developers. This has reached the point that international major real estate actors have been able to reshape neighbourhoods according to their own profit driven agendas (Mayer 2013; Pelivan 2020). Another consequence has been the widening gap between major and ‘thriving’ cities and what are usually referred as ‘peripheral’ cities. In the case of major and global cities of the world (including Istanbul) the city centre and even some parts of the periphery are being turned over to the processes of gentrification in the guise of improving run down neighbourhoods (Can 2020; Pelivan 2020). This first happened through market-led gentrification with indirect state involvement and then evolved into state facilitated urban renewal or redevelopment projects in the run down neighbourhoods (e.g. London council estate housing, Istanbul urban renewal projects) (Can 2020). As Mayer (2013: 9) puts it: As cities compete for global investors, affluent residents and flows of tourists, they have developed a whole new set of policies that center on their own marketization: they brand themselves as event cities, culture cities or creative cities with festivalization and mega events, or with the attraction of creative industries, all of which require a sanitation of urban space for the purposes of consumerism, tourism and ‘work–play’ environments for the desired clienteles.

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  267

This neoliberal restructuring and rebranding of cities and local governments to accommodate the needs of national and international capital rather than the needs of their own inhabitants has led urban social movements to adopt an umbrella aim to attract urban citizens that are being pushed away or excluded: the ‘right to the city’ (Mayer 2013). The neoliberal era in Turkey started with the coup d’état in 1980 and the subsequent civilian government that showcased characteristics that overlapped with the global patterns of increased privatization and state subsidized strategies for capital accumulation (Pelivan 2020; Öktem 2011). Beginning in the early 2000s, this neoliberal restructuring started to be embraced by urban actors and policy makers as well. The Justice and Development Party (JDP aka AKP), which is the ruling political party of Turkey since 2002, gradually embraced more authoritarian and divisive measures that were usually accompanied by neoliberal decisions that sought to increase capital accumulation and inequality within the Turkish society (Onis 2015). Authoritarian populism works not by the suspension of all democratic channels and outlets, but rather by retaining them in a very weak form (Hall 1979). This means that the populist government or authority listens to and complies with certain social demands while completely ignoring and/or suppressing other ones through authoritarian means. In addition, it can use and mobilize public concerns, anxieties and fears to increase support for authoritarian practices (Hall 1988). To further elaborate on that, when there is a confrontation between the populist power and the oppressed and silenced segment of the population, state power is used to completely eradicate this discontent because the presence of the populist force and group means the non-presence of the other (Laclau 1990). As an example of this, JDP first came to power with a democratic agenda which they coined ‘conservative democracy’. However, further democratization was not an essential part of the party’s hegemonic project (Ozen 2020). At the start, they also did not specifically have an authoritarian plan and agenda. Their agenda can best be described as practical and pragmatic (Ozen 2020). This means that they adopted various and even sometimes conflicting positions depending on the political landscape of the time. That is why, during their first term (aka their ‘golden years’), they mostly implemented more democratic policies with less military presence and some civil rights, even though their neoliberal and conservative project also existed alongside these policies (Ozen 2020). Ozen (2020: 250) summarized this contradictory situation as: The contingent constellation of social forces’ that assigned the AKP to the role of bringers of democratization and liberalization. The relation that is formed in this way between the AKP and democratization derived, then, just from a ‘relation of contiguity’, which formed ‘a new link between task and agent’.

In reality, there was no such real connection and it is because of that, that when the JDP’s agenda of restructuring the social and urban formation through their conservative and neoliberal policies was threatened, they did not refrain from oppressing what they consider as a danger to them with authoritarian and brutal force (Ozen 2020).

268  Handbook on urban social movements

Before the eruption of GPP, there were many other protests against JDP’s neoliberal urban agenda in the areas of energy, mining and urban regeneration projects. These were repressed in a similar fashion but did not draw as much attention as GPP. One reason for that was JDP’s self-appointed task of democratization and the international support it gained from powerful regional actors such as the EU and the USA (Ozen 2020). The abovementioned neoliberal urban restructuring of Istanbul happened through several national and macro level policies and national institutions. The most important of these institutions is the Mass Housing Development Agency that was founded in 1984 to facilitate low-cost, affordable social housing for the vulnerable urban population (Can 2020). However, this institution was re-branded by JDP to carry out most of the large scale urban regeneration and redevelopment projects in the squatter areas, run down historical inner city neighbourhoods and urban areas prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes (Lovering and Turkmen 2011). Another important national level institution is the Ministry of Urbanism and Environment which emerged with the merging of two separate ministries in 2011: the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Urban Planning. This new ministry has the authority to plan and also facilitate the acceleration of urban redevelopment projects (Pelivan 2020). These neoliberal urban decisions gradually evolved into urban mega projects that not only have the aim of increasing capital accumulation by dispossession but also creating the necessary political leverage and ammunition to garner votes through the narrative of a “strong and magical state” and “while the whole world is watching us” (Serin et al. 2020; Koch and Valiyev 2016; Öktem 2019). As the biggest city in Turkey, Istanbul saw the lion’s share of these urban projects and restructuring. As a result of these profit driven, culturally conservative and environmentally unfriendly policies, the well-educated, environmentally conscious and/ or oppressed urban population started to express their dissent towards oppression and the attack on their ‘secular’ lifestyle (Pelivan 2020). The alienated Turkish population did not only consist of the poor and vulnerable population who do not have the same access to resources as the middle and upper social classes, but also included the culturally progressive Turkish with more ‘European’ lifestyles (Pelivan 2020).

GEZI PARK PROTESTS One day in late May 2013, academics, activists, and intellectuals from the area of urban studies staged a modest occupy-style demonstration in Istanbul’s Gezi Park. Their purpose was to prevent the destruction of one of Istanbul’s rare green areas to make room for a shopping centre under the pretence of reconstructing a historical military structure (Topçu Kışlası) that had been demolished decades before. Bulldozers moved into the park in the late hours of 27 May, with no warning or legal authority, and began tearing down the trees. In response, activists occupying the Park used Facebook and Twitter to invite people to join them. Hundreds of individuals arrived in a matter of hours. Only 21.1 per cent of the protesters belonged to a political party

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  269

or organization and 78.9 per cent were non-affiliated (KONDA 2014). In addition the KONDA (2014) study reports that 93.6 per cent of the protesters stated that they participated in the protests as ordinary citizens. These statistics reinforce the fact that the GPP started without much organization or mobilization by political organizations and highlighted the breaking point for an important part of Istanbul’s society. This initially largely unplanned rally would quickly grow into the largest urban unrest seen since the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 (Figure 17.1). The demonstration, which began to conserve trees, evolved into a protest against neoliberal and authoritarian urban policy (Kuymulu 2013; Can 2022). According to KONDA (2014) most of the protesters fell within the age group of 21–30 with a fairly equal distribution between genders. In terms of education level, half of the protesters in the park were college graduates. In addition, most of the protesters came from affluent and secular neighbourhoods of Istanbul such as Kadıköy (13.4 per cent), Şişli (11.4 per cent) and Beşiktaş (7.3 per cent) (KONDA 2014).

Source:

BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-22853007.

Figure 17.1

One of the most circulated pictures of the GPP

Due to the demographic of the protesters, when it first started GPP were labelled as a bourgeois, middle class and ‘White Turk’ protest with some environmentalist sensibilities; however, as mentioned above, the fact that so many different groups of people belonging to different segments of the population were involved highlighted that the protests erupted as a ‘right to the city’ protest focusing on spatial equality and an anti-capitalist movement that challenged the neoliberal agenda (Can 2022; Goksel and Tekdemir 2017). Nine out of ten protesters believed that they were subjected to human rights violations (KONDA 2014). According to the same study, half of the protesters decided to join the protests after seeing the police brutality (KONDA

270  Handbook on urban social movements

2014). This underlines Mayer’s (2013) point once again in terms of the alienation of groups, and shows that GPP’s driving force was the growing discontent and dissatisfaction with JDP policies by a part of the public that JDP decided to label as ‘other’ (Goksel and Tekdemir 2017). These policies included urban neoliberal projects (see below for examples), the authoritarian ways they were implemented, and the increase in the religious language of JDP while they meddled in the everyday life of citizens (Ozen 2020). This also overlaps perfectly with the components of authoritarian populism that JDP started to exhibit around those times. During GPP, the occupation brought together many different groups of people who belonged to different ideologies, social classes, ethnicities and identities. This heterogeneity was initially celebrated and was considered to be an amazing component of the protest (Karakayalı and Yaka 2014). These groups included the secular population, Islamist groups such as Anti-Capitalist Muslims and Revolutionary Muslims, Marxist groups such as EMEP and ESP, Alevi communities, women’s groups, feminist organizations, environmentalists, LGBTQ+ organizations and pro-Kurdish organizations (Goksel and Tekdemir 2017; Arat 2013). As the protests spread, the Ministry of Home Affairs reported that around 3,600,000 activists participated in the protests that were held in 80 cities out of 81 (Goksel and Tekdemir 2017). In addition, Twitter users from Turkey increased from 1.8 million to 9.5 million during the first five days of the protest with hashtags such as ‘#direngeziparki (resist gezi park)’ trending with more than 13 million tweets (Arda 2015; Goksel and Tekdemir 2017). However, in the coming years, this heterogeneity was also considered to be the reason why the legacy of Gezi did not turn into a legitimate political organization or movement with a clear goal and structure (Pelivan 2020). Having said that, this coalition building and a sense of a ‘right to the city’ started before GPP. There has been a frenzy of urban regeneration and renewal projects implemented in the inner city and previously squatter neighbourhoods of Istanbul since the early 2000s. These state-facilitated projects essentially triggered processes of state-led gentrification and led to the displacement of vulnerable urban populations (Can 2020). At the same time, this has led to neighbourhood level urban coalitions and associations to resist these projects (e.g. Tarlabasi Association, Sulukule Platform, Febayder). This sense of alliance that emerged from urban issues and a sense of spatial equality was at its height during GPP and even though the protests were met with extreme police brutality to the point that eight civilians (including a child) lost their lives, some of the coalitions survived (see next sections). In addition to the police abuse, the government filed a lawsuit against 26 protest figures, accusing them of running a terrorist group. The regional court exonerated all of the defendants on 29 April 2015 (Diken 2020). A criminal court prosecutor, on the other hand, launched a separate inquiry and began gathering ‘evidence’ of the demonstrators’ purported offences. This investigation was completed in 2019 and charged 16 defendants, all of whom were exonerated in a separate lawsuit (Can 2022). As mentioned before, even though this kind of treatment of the protesters was not happening for the first time, because of the extent of the protests and the international coverage, GPP marked the end of JDP’s democratization that they had promised

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  271

in their previous terms and undermined the perceived ‘success’ of political Islam and conservative democracy that was once celebrated by many international actors around the world (Ozen 2020).

METHODS The fieldwork for this research took place between May and October 2020 through the methods of in-depth semi-structured interviewing, cyber ethnography and document analysis. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of the interviews were conducted online. I conducted approximately 15 interviews with prominent urban actors who attended GPP and became part of an urban grassroot organization or were part of the lawsuits. For the sake of anonymity, I do not give much detail on the respondents’ organizations or how much they were involved in the protest and the following aftermath. The local government and urban grassroots organizations I interviewed include the Chamber of Architects, Chamber of Urban Planners, the organization ‘Either Istanbul or The Canal’, Istanbul Urban Defence and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. The qualitative data is complemented by document analysis of the KONDA Gezi Report and a literature review of articles on the protests and newspaper reports especially on the ongoing and finished lawsuits. I have traced back certain hashtags to investigate the online presence of GPP and how it was used in online social and political interaction. These hashtags were: #direngezi(resist gezi), #gezidesoylemistik (we told you at gezi), #gezi8yasında (gezi is 8 years old), #gezionurumuzdur (gezi is our honour/pride), #gezi7yasinda (gezi is 7 years old), #gezi6yasinda (gezi is 6 years old) and #gezidirenisi (gezi resistance). These hashtags are not the only ones relating to GPP; there are many more, and also the English versions of the Turkish hashtags are used as well. I chose the most used and recent ones to complement the in-depth interview data I collected and to be able to analyse as much social interaction as possible. I used cyber ethnography (or virtual/digital/online ethnography) for the data collection. This is a research approach that is used for the study of communities and cultures formed via online or computer-mediated social interaction (Garcia et al. 2009). As an urbanist who has been researching and analysing Istanbul since I was 18, I have formed several networks with urban grassroots, chambers, and social organizations. As a scholar-activist, my existing networks with the aforementioned urban actors allowed for frank discussions regarding the processes under consideration here. It needed additional work at times to consider myself as an outsider and not be blinded by my own feelings and ideas about these procedures. That required placing space between myself and the field, as well as taking time off between interviews and field excursions to allow myself to digest everything. All interviews were conducted in Turkish and translated into English by the author. There is no one way of writing up qualitative interview and ethnography data that is universally accepted. The interview material was analysed by first transcribing and then thematically coding. All collected data was broken into smaller parts in order

272  Handbook on urban social movements

to find patterns, themes, and concepts that were similar or distinct. For the analysis, the data was divided into several subjects and themes, allowing the author to uncover similarities and contrasts between examples while also demonstrating the operations of ideas in distinct examples. These topics include: urban alliances and organizations, lawsuits and effects on urban politics. Now I turn to the explanation and analysis of these topics.

THE AFTERMATH AND LEGACY In this section, I divide the analysis from cyber ethnography, in-depth interviews and document analysis into three sub-sections: Urban Alliances and Organizations, Effects on Urban Politics and Lawsuits. These sub-sections highlight the importance of GPP from different perspectives and showcase the oppression that followed the protests. They also discuss the possible future effects of the protest for urban politics while underlining the urban resistance that continues to grow. Urban Alliances and Organizations As mentioned above, the fact that there were so many diverse groups in GPP was later perceived as an obstacle for it to evolve into a legitimate organized political movement (Eslen-Ziya et al. 2019; Goksel and Tekdemir 2017). However, as evidenced by the research of Eslen-Ziya et al. (2019), Goksel and Tekdemir (2017) and my interviews, these conflicting groups managed to spend time together in the space provided by GPP and established connections with people whose ideas they did not support. This togetherness in GPP space and its somewhat utopic environment allowed for a social and spatial belonging and gave way to a different kind of urban alliance. As one of the respondents put it: During the protests, we had to find the minimum common ground with any other group of people and form an alliance. Otherwise we were going to lose the park. To be honest, this necessity taught us a lot about forming alliances. (August 2020, Interviews)

These alliances were made possible through the transformative effect of emotions which started as anger and outrage against the policies of JDP and then during the protests turned into pride, a sense of belonging and hope (Eslen-Ziya et al. 2019). Another respondent commented on the lessons learnt in terms of forming alliances: The most important thing we learnt during Gezi is the way in which we politically organize our movements. Gezi taught us that we cannot organize our movements separately without any collaboration. That is a great achievement. (July 2020, Interviews)

The most important organization formed during the protest was Taksim Solidarity (Taksim Dayanışması in Turkish). It still works as an umbrella organization which many different NGOs, grassroots organization and social movements can be part

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  273

of. During the initial phase, it was under the name of this organization that many demands were voiced and forums were organized. To this day, almost all of the protests and events regarding the lawsuits and the anniversary of GPP have been organized by this organization (see Figure 17.2). During the early phase of GPP, in 2013, due to the increased public attention and alongside the occupations, there were public forums in the public parks all around the country, and some of them transformed into neighbourhood associations in the following years (e.g. Kadıköy Solidarity Network, Sarıyer City Solidarity, Islands Defence Group). One important component of these ongoing urban associations was that they did not create a macro level change or political framework and they stayed mostly local. This meant that they focused mostly on the micro level changes that affected the lives of city dwellers in their respective neighbourhoods. Their ultimate focus on the ‘local’ in contrast to the space and attention which massive urban redevelopment, regeneration and infrastructure projects have been given in urban justice activism have hindered their ability to form long-term coalitions.

Source:

Taksim Solidarity Twitter account.

Figure 17.2

The poster prepared by Taksim Solidarity for the eighth year anniversary

Nonetheless, this clearly shows, regardless of the heterogeneity of GPP, that alliances formed and lessons learnt on urban rights during the protest are continuing to

274  Handbook on urban social movements

live on under the umbrella movement of Gezi and the Gezi legacy. When asked about the importance of the Gezi legacy one respondent said that: I almost see GPP as a modern version of Paris Commune. If we tie this up with urban rights and resistance movements and add the question of ‘who owns the city?’, then we arrive to Gezi Protests and see an invaluable experience of demanding urban rights and spatial equality. These people the national state once called ‘looters’ [çapulcu in Turkish], claimed back the term and created a commune in 2.5 weeks during the protest. They did this through taking possession of the city and public space, and direct democracy. Those forums that happened over the course of several months allowed this commune to live on for a while. I see all this as an amazing representation of urban rights protest. (September 2020, Interviews)

During my analysis of the hashtags and tweets mentioned in the Methods section, it was clear that GPP and its legacy is increasingly used as an umbrella concept or a way to organize people to form further connections and urban alliances. Not only urban grassroots organizations, but also many other social democratic, feminist, LGBTQ and social justice movements use the legacy of Gezi as part of their narrative and in their demands from the status quo. Effects on Urban Politics One important effect of GPP happened during the 2019 local elections. Even with such a concentration of power, the JDP was unable to affect the results of the 2019 local elections, and the opposition party won the country’s most major metropolitan regions (Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir) (Öktem 2020). Most of my respondents stated that there was a direct link between this change in local elections, the huge losses of the JDP, and GPP. One of the respondents stated that: I believe we can see the effects of Gezi even in the local elections in 2019. And through that, we can surmise that the consciousness of urban citizenship has increased in the minds of Istanbulites. We see people occupying their neighbourhood park and having protests in front of their small home in the periphery of Istanbul. I think they learnt this through the experience of Gezi. (July 2020, Interviews)

Of course, it is very hard to have ‘concrete proof’ for this claim; however, the new Mayors of Istanbul and Ankara (Ekrem İmamoğlu and Mansur Yavaş) and the party they belong to (which is the main opposition party of Turkey) have shown support for the protesters and they condemned the lawsuits opened against the prominent GPP figures (Hurriyet 2021; Evrensel 2021; Sozcu 2021). In addition, according to my respondents, some of whom are in important positions in various urban justice movements, Istanbul’s new local administration open their door to urban justice organizations and have periodic meetings with them on controversial urban issues. As a researcher, I was also welcomed by Istanbul’s new local administration when I wanted to interview them and was able to ask my questions freely. This was not the case before.

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  275

On the other hand, another effect surfaced when I asked about the mistakes or obstacles for urban resistance movements after the experience of GPP. Most respondents talked about the increasing oppression and how most people were afraid to take to the streets in the immediate aftermath. One respondent elaborated on how some neighbourhood associations were dissolved because people were just too afraid. I can confirm from my personal experience as a scholar activist and most respondents agreed that there has been more police presence on the streets and protesters were treated much more harshly during any kind of protest organized after the GPP. One slightly different and important response for this was: I do not completely agree with that. Even if there was a decrease in urban resistance and alliances immediately after the protest, it is not because people were afraid to go out. I think it was because we [she means activists and urban grassroot organizations] could not connect with the inhabitants properly. It is also that many urban and social justice organizations chose to fight against urban mega projects and for the public space, because you can gain more traction. It is more popular. You can reach more people. But I still acknowledge that after the protests, the oppression increased immensely through police brutality and spatial violence. (August 2020, Interviews)

It is correct that in the last few years, urban resistance movements are starting to gain more traction. This is because of the greater visibility of the consequences of urban policies that encourage or result in dispossession by accumulation and gentrification and the vulnerable population is getting pushed away further and further while accumulating more and more debt. One respondent described this situation as follows: One of the most ‘successful’ policies of the government has been to create a whole working class people that are indebted to them through the cheap mortgage credits provided by MHDA. Now because of their debt these people cannot say anything against the government. They are wrongfully fired, pushed to the periphery, away from urban amenities, pushed out of the inner city and they are forced to stay silent. They cannot complain or strike. Why? Because they are indebted to the national government. I am saying this because you asked me what is missing in the present urban resistance movements in Turkey or Istanbul. It is affordable housing in the rental market. This is an open wound in current urban resistance politics of Istanbul and Turkey. (September 2020, Interviews)

She also admitted that this situation was partly because of a lack of efficiency on the part of urban and social movements and grassroots organizations: Before GPP, as urban social movements, we failed to clearly express the connection between these urban redevelopment and regeneration projects and accumulation by dispossession, to the public. We kept saying they are making you indebted to themselves through pushing home ownerships with cheap credits, pushing you to the periphery and edging you out of the inner city and public space. We simply could not let the vulnerable urban population know about the connection between labour and urban space. (July 2020, Interviews)

GPP worked as a way to bring the theoretical urban concerns to the ground level. It is undeniable that GPP has had huge impacts on the urban politics of not only Istanbul

276  Handbook on urban social movements

but Turkey as a whole. As mentioned above, all of my respondents and the tweets I analysed seem to agree that the 2019 local election was heavily influenced by the Gezi legacy. In addition, Taksim Solidarity behaves as an organization that not only fights for urban politics but also on other civil rights’ fronts such as women’s rights, ecological issues, human and workers’ rights. One example for that is the online (mostly on Twitter) presence they have and how most people support, retweet and engage with these issues on online platforms through hashtags and comments. Some examples of this are shown through their posters for ecological issues and women’s rights (there are many more on other issues) (see Figures 17.3 and 17.4) and how they actively use and push hashtags such as #gezidesoylemistik (we told you at Gezi), #direngezi (resist Gezi), #gezi8yasında (Gezi is 8 years old) and #gezionurumuzdur (Gezi is our honour/pride).

Figure 17.3

Poster prepared by Taksim Solidarity (We told you at Gezi, do not touch women)

How GPP is perceived to have had an important and long-lasting effect is visible also in the statement by Taksim Solidarity: Gezi is the women fighting for their equal rights with the Istanbul Convention; the villagers fighting for their land against infrastructure projects; demands of justice for increasing unnecessary deaths of the miners in Soma and women everywhere in Turkey … we told you at Gezi. (Eighth anniversary (2021) of the GPP by Taksim Solidarity)

When asked about why GPP has been so important in the history of the Republic, one respondent explained it very well:

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  277

The most important thing about Gezi is that we won and we did it all together. Now, it is not that easy to demolish that park. The park still stands. (August 2020, Interviews)

Figure 17.4

Poster prepared by Taksim Solidarity (We told you at Gezi, do not touch nature)

Lawsuits As mentioned above, the second bill of indictment was prepared in February 2019, which is almost six years after the start of the protests, and it accused prominent figures in civil society and especially in urban social movements, academics, journalists and actors of trying to overthrow the government along with some other charges (Ozen 2020; Can 2022). This move was supported and encouraged by the pro-government media and the government itself. All of the accused were exonerated from the accusations in early 2020 (Can 2022). However, in early 2021, Istanbul Regional Court of Law reversed the judgement and decided that the trial should continue for the defendants. In addition to that, in April 2021, the Supreme Court reversed the judgement from the 2015 decision for 35 people who belonged to Beşiktaş Çarşı Group which is a supporter group for the Beşiktaş football team and decided that their trial should continue as well. Çarşı was a prominent figure during GPP (BBC Türkçe 2021). At the time of writing, one trial took place in May 2021 with no real decision and the next trial was scheduled for 6 August (BBC Türkçe 2021). This means that these people are being tried by the national state for the third time since the start of GPP. All of the interviews for this chapter were conducted before the reversal of the decision, so the statements of the respondents do not reflect on this decision. There was almost a unanimous answer from all of the respondents to the question of why

278  Handbook on urban social movements

they think some people were being put on trial. The answers pointed towards the element of fear. One answer stated that: In my opinion, the aim was to instil fear in people, that is why the lawsuits have been happening. Through all that, what we had to do was to stand tall despite everything. Because, at the same time, what else are we going to do? We are innocent and we are right … but of course, this has made my life and especially my children’s life harder. They have been very worried. (September 2020, Interviews)

However she continued: Our trials were very crowded, so many just came to support us. We never felt alone. (September 2020, Interviews)

Another respondent stated that: They are trying to demonize real democracy and while doing that they are trying to give a message to the public which is: ‘do not even think about doing these kind of protests because even years after, we could still make you pay for it’. It is about instilling fear … There is no evidence, there is just a hypothesis and the defendants are supposed to prove the opposite. (July 2020, Interviews)

The notion of being an urban citizen and preserving urban space so that everyone can live in it was central to GPP. Most significantly, it became a beacon of hope amid a violent and unfriendly urban landscape regulated purely by neoliberal urban policies at the expense of the well-being of the most vulnerable. The demonstration produced a one-of-a-kind alternative political platform for individuals to express their urban discontent. That is why during the lawsuits there was a notion that everyone who participated in the protest was being put on trial which then translated into support. In the last trial in May 2021, all of the defendants reiterated their innocence: I reject the decision of reversal. I demand my acquittal. I was already acquitted twice and these acquittals were approved. I demand the cancellation of this reversal decision immediately. (May 2021, defendant statements)

Another statement was: As I stated in my defence before, there is no legal ground or a real claim for this lawsuit. (May 2021, defendant statements)

At the time of making the last revisions for this chapter (June 2022), the public figures on trial were sentenced to 18 years in jail each and they are currently appealing their sentences. This has been a significant setback for urban justice movements, but at the same time, has brought GPP once again to the centre of public attention and debate. Many protests are being held at the time of writing. The consequences of this

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  279

form of slow violence exerted on the figures on trial and the public at large through the time consuming and expensive legal processes remain to be seen.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, I examine the impact of GPP on Istanbul’s urban, social and resistance movements, as well as the recent reversal (and now sentencing) of all important personalities’ acquittals in protest-related litigation. This initially unassuming environmental protest has become one of the most important urban unrests of Turkey and opened the way for many different urban, housing and social justice movements and people from all walks of life to gather under the same umbrella. People who could be categorized as ordinary residents felt compelled to go out and demonstrate for what appeared to begin as opposition to a local decision and developed into a countrywide urban unrest that included many political and economic concerns that had been simmering for a decade. Even after the extreme police violence, people did not stop demonstrating, and in fact, their resistance grew stronger. Even a government lawsuit containing grave allegations did not discourage individuals from expressing their views. In the last eight years, GPP and how it came to be, has become a turning point not only for the public, but also for the JDP government as the retaliation for these protests is still ongoing in the form of lawsuits and more oppressive policies against any chance of a protest. The initial phase of GPP created a trauma both for the government and for the part of the public who were protesting. In the 2011 elections the JDP achieved their highest vote rate (49 per cent) and seemed to be at the height of their strength. Even then, however, a significant part of the country and especially the young people who showed their urban and political dissent were not convinced and even felt unsafe and angry about the future policies JDP put forward. On the other hand, for most of the people who participated in GPP, it was one of their first experiences of excessive and repressive police force being imposed on them. The consequences of GPP and the following never-ending lawsuits, in a way, fit with the tenets of authoritarian populism where some components of democracy are preserved and are usually mobilized for only one segment of the population. For Turkey, this segment of the population seems to be the religious and conservative nationalists and their fears and anxieties are triggered by portraying any kind of dissent or opposition as an attack on their value systems and even a threat to the well-being of the government and the state (Ozen 2020). This, in turn, means the opposition and the needs of the marginalized and alienated are ruthlessly suppressed. In terms of the Gezi legacy, many people who met during GPP became part of other urban grassroots organizations and continued to meet in similar platforms, sometimes attending same rallies. This allowed them to feel part of a national and in some cases international movement, as GPP attracted quite a lot of attention from international urban social movements and organizations as well. In other words and as mentioned in the previous sections, the initial anger and discontent has been turned

280  Handbook on urban social movements

into hope for the politically alienated. This is clearly visible in the statements of all of my respondent and my analysis of the social interaction about GPP on online platforms. As showcased in the analyses section of this chapter, the GPP legacy or spirit (or whatever we may call it) is often times used as an umbrella concept to draw attention to any kind of unjust treatment that the public is experiencing. It is also clear from the ongoing lawsuits and the national state’s desire to draw them out for as long as possible that GPP has had a long-lasting effect on not only the urban policy, but also on macro level politics. On the other hand, as mentioned above, many well-educated protesters now venture into urban justice activism only at the local level and are not able to garner as much momentum to affect the political dynamics at the macro level in a meaningful way. In addition, it might often seem discouraging for citizens of Istanbul and many other cities across the world to protest under authoritarian policies. Nonetheless, urban resistance is increasing in Istanbul. The notion of the right to the city has always been criticized for being too ‘abstract’ (see Purcell 2006) and in a way, the GPP showed the physical representation of this notion in a strategic way. The GPP was a direct response to pursuing a neoliberal urban agenda vehemently with a twist of authoritarianism and showed the importance of furthering radical urban democracy practices. As many respondents have noted, the sense of Turkish civil society continues to exist and flourish in the face of more authoritarian urban decisions, and it is gaining traction. In addition, it is no secret that the discourse the GPP created has had an important effect on the urban citizens of Istanbul (and the whole of Turkey). This chapter ultimately showcases that the GPP demonstrated how urban public places can be strategic in terms of claiming urban democracy and how this narrative can live on. This longevity is equally important, as there is a clear need not only for Istanbul but so many other cities and non-urban areas under the same kind of pressures to resist the neoliberal urban agenda and develop radical democratic practices.

REFERENCES Arat, Y. (2013). Violence, resistance, and Gezi Park. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 45(4), 807–809. Arda, B. (2015). The construction of a new sociality through social media: The case of the Gezi uprising in Turkey. Conjunctions: Transdisciplinary Journal of Cultural Participation, 2(1), 75–99. BBC Türkçe (2021). Gezi Davası: Osman Kavala’nın tutukluluğunun devamına karar verildi, bir sonraki duruşma 6 Ağustos’ta [Gezi Trial: Osman Kavala continues to be under arrest and next trial is on the 6th of August], accessed May 2021 at https://​www​.bbc​.com/​turkce/​ haberler​-turkiye​-57195098. Bilgiç, A. (2016). Sofa and Facebook or tent and Syntagma: Understanding global resistance movements from Syntagma to Tahrir. Global Affairs, 2(1), 79–90. Bruff, I. (2016). Neoliberalism and authoritarianism. In S. Springer, K. Birch, and J. MacLeavy (eds.), The Handbook of Neoliberalism. New York: Routledge, pp. 107–117.

The rise of urban resistance movements and spatialized oppression  281

Can, A. (2020). A recipe for conflict in the historic environment of Istanbul. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 19 (1), 131–162. Can, A. (2022). The struggle for Istanbul: Authoritarianism and resistance in Turkey. In N. Koch (ed.), Spatializing Authoritarianism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, pp. 297–317. Diken.com.tr (2020). Gezi Davası Pazartesi Başlıyor. Neler Olmuştu? [Gezi Lawsuit starts this Monday. What happened?], accessed 20 March 2020 at http://​www​.diken​.com​.tr/​gezi​ -davasi​-pazartesi​-basliyor​-neler​-olmustu/​. Eraydin, A. and Kok, T. T. (2014). State response to contemporary urban movements in Turkey: A critical overview of state entrepreneurialism and authoritarian interventions. Antipode, 46(1), 110–129. Eslen-Ziya, H., McGarry, A., Jenzen, O., Erhart, I., and Korkut, U. (2019). From anger to solidarity: The emotional echo-chamber of Gezi park protests. Emotion, Space and Society, 33, 100632. Evrensel (2021). Ekrem İmamoğlu’ndan Gezi Parkı açıklaması: Mülkiyet davası açıyoruz [Gezi Park statement from Ekrem İmamoğlu: We are filing a lawsuit], accessed February 2022 at https://​www​.evrensel​.net/​haber/​428694/​ekrem​-imamoglundan​-gezi​-parki​-aciklamasi​ -mulkiyet​-davasi​-aciyoruz. Garcia, A. C., Standlee, A. I., Bechkoff, J., and Cui, Y. (2009). Ethnographic approaches to the internet and computer-mediated communication. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 38(1), 52–84. Goksel, O. and Tekdemir, O. (2017). Questioning the ‘immortal state’: The Gezi protests and the short-lived human security moment in Turkey. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 45(3), 376–393. Hall, S. (1979). The great moving right show. Marxism Today, January, 14–20. Hall, S. (1988). The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of the Left. London: Verso. Hurriyet (2021). Kılıçdaroğlu: Gezi eylemini aydınlanma hareketi olarak görmemiz gerekiyor [Kılıçdaroğlu: We need to view Gezi movement as an enlightenment movement], accessed February 2022 at https://​www​.hurriyet​.com​.tr/​gundem/​kilicdaroglu​-gezi​-eylemini​ -aydinlanma​-hareketi​-olar\ak​-gormemiz​-gerekiyor​-41450180. Karakayalı, S. and Yaka, O. (2014). The spirit of Gezi: The recomposition of political subjectivities in Turkey. New Formations, 83, 117–138. Koch, N. and Valiyev, A. (2016). Urban boosterism in closed contexts: Spectacular urbanization and second-tier mega-events in three Caspian capitals. Eurasian Geography and Economics, 56(2), 575–598. KONDA (2014). Gezi Report: Public Perception of the ‘Gezi Protests’. Who Were the People at Gezi Park?, accessed April 2021 at http://​konda​.com​.tr/​en/​raporlar/​KONDA​_Gezi​ _Report​.pdf. Kuymulu, M. B. (2013). Reclaiming the right to the city: Reflections on the urban uprisings in Turkey. City, 17(3), 274–278. Laclau, E. (1990). New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso. Laclau, E. (2014). The Rhetorical Foundations of Society. London: Verso. Lees, L., Shin, H. B., and Lopes-Morales, E. (2016). Planetary Gentrification. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lovering, J. and Tuurkmen, H. (2011). Bulldozer neo-liberalism in Istanbul: The state-led construction of property markets, and the displacement of the urban poor. International Planning Studies, 16(1), 73–96. Mayer, M. (2013). First world urban activism: Beyond austerity urbanism and creative city politics. City, 17(1), 5–19. Merrifield, A. (2014). The New Urban Question. London: Pluto Press. Öktem, K. (2011). Turkey since 1989: Angry Nation. London: Zed Books.

282  Handbook on urban social movements

Öktem, K. (2019). Erasing palimpsest city: Boom, bust, and urbicide in Turkey. In H. Yacobi and M. Nasasra (eds.), Routledge Handbook on Middle East Cities. New York: Routledge, pp. 295–318. Öktem, K. (2020). Ruling ideologies in modern Turkey. In G. Tezcür (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 53–74. Onis, Z. (2015). Monopolising the centre: The AKP and the uncertain path of Turkish democracy. The International Spectator, 50(2), 22–41. Ozen, H. (2020). Reproducing ‘hegemony’ thereafter? The long-term political effects of the Gezi protests in Turkey. Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, 20(2), 245–264. Ozkaynak, B., Aydιn, C. İ., Ertor-Akyazi, P. and Ertör, I. (2015). The Gezi Park resistance from an environmental justice and social metabolism perspective. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 26(1), 99–114. Pelivan, G. (2020). Going beyond the divides: Coalition attempts in the follow-up networks to the Gezi movement in Istanbul. Territory, Politics, Governance, 8(4), 496–514. Purcell, M. (2006). Urban democracy and the local trap. Urban Studies, 43(11), 1921–1941. Serin, B., Smith, H. and McWilliams, C. (2020). The role of the state in the commodification of urban space: The case of branded housing projects, Istanbul. European Urban and Regional Studies, 27(4), 342–358. Sozcu (2021). Ekrem İmamoğlu’ndan Gezi Paylaşımı [Gezi post by Ekrem İmamoğluu], accessed February 2022 at https://​www​.sozcu​.com​.tr/​2021/​gundem/​ekrem​-imamoglundan​ -gezi​-paylasimi​-6461404/​. Wacquant, L. (2012). Three steps to historical anthropology of actually existing neoliberalism. Social Anthropology, 20(1), 66–79.

PART V COLLECTIVE ACTION, URBAN POLITICS AND/OR URBAN POLICIES

18. The everyday politics of the urban commons: ambivalent political possibilities in the dialectical, evolving and selective urban context Iolanda Bianchi

INTRODUCTION Urban movements are understood in this chapter as conflict-oriented networks of informal relationships between individuals and groups/organizations, based on collective identities, shared beliefs, and solidarity, which mobilize around urban issues, through the frequent use of various forms of protest (Andretta et al. 2015). Although this definition is somewhat open and broad, it is clear that not all modalities through which collective action is expressed in the city can be considered urban movements. As argued by Hamel (2016), the analysis of urban movements should be considered more as the end result of a process of theoretical construction and analytical demonstration. However, it is certainly worth using urban movement theory to observe the diversity of the repertoires of collective action that develop in the city, especially emerging ones (Hamel 2016), in order to understand if and how they contribute to the transformation of the urban context and its meanings (Castells 1983) alongside urban movements. This chapter focuses on one of these emerging repertoires: the urban commons. The latest cycle of urban mobilizations that has spread throughout different European cities over the past fifteen years has been characterized by a diversification and innovation of the repertoires of collective action (Briata et al. 2020). Beyond contentious repertoires, such as the demonstrations, protests and occupations of squares that took place in many European cities and that evolved into the anti-austerity movement (Mayer et al. 2016), this cycle has also seen the emergence of a multitude of self-government practices, also called urban commons. These practices seek to collectively reappropriate crucial (both material and immaterial) resources, services and facilities in the city, to horizontally manage and decommodify them. Urban commons include community-managed urban gardens, housing cooperatives, squatted and non-squatted sociocultural centres, migrant-led housing squats, food co-ops, popular canteens, self-managed health care centres and clinics, time banks and work cooperatives, among others. Unlike the disruptive and conflictual politics enacted by other, more contentious repertories, including urban movements, that call for more democratic, autonomous and decommodified cities (although such demands often go beyond the urban dimen284

The everyday politics of the urban commons  285

sion), the politics of urban commons is based on the everyday, i.e. on the practice of more a democratic, autonomous and decommodified pattern of urban life (Arampatzi 2017; Roussos 2019). In other words, although the goals of urban movements and urban commons are similar, what distinguishes them are the modalities through which these goals are pursued: a claim-oriented modality in the case of the former, and an everyday-oriented modality in the case of the latter. This does not mean that urban movements do not adopt any repertoires of collective action based on the everyday, but that their activities are tendentially more claim-oriented that those developed by urban commons. We are aware that this distinction between urban commons and urban movements might be questioned. Firstly, some of the practices that are considered here as urban commons have often been analysed as types of urban movements, such as the squatting movement or the cooperative movement (Martínez López 2013). This analytical choice has led to a clearer definition of their social bases, their strategies, their aims and their outcomes. The same analytical determinacy is more difficult to construct in the case of the set of practices that are considered urban commons. Secondly, some authors have suggested that the spread of these self-governing practices can in itself be framed as an urban movement (Varvarousis 2020; Villamayor-Tomas and García-López 2021), something that would be a commons movement. This has been defined as a movement of “politically active community projects that scale-out within a territory and/or social mobilizations that materialize into practices of communal management, all aiming for a transformation toward a commons-based society” (Villamayor-Tomas and García-López 2021: 513). This analytical choice makes it possible to insert the debate of urban commons directly within the theoretical development of urban movements. It is true that urban commons share some commonalities with urban movements, for instance their goals. However, in this chapter we prefer to maintain the analytical distinction between urban commons and urban movements, since we contend that everyday-oriented and claim-oriented politics do actually represent two differentiated modalities of collective action. In this way, in the light of the simultaneous proliferation of these practices in different urban European contexts (Cellamare 2018), the revival of autonomist political theories that eschew state and party politics (Hardt and Negri 2009; Holloway 2010) and the re-emergence of the concept of commons that can bring such practices under the same analytical umbrella (Bianchi 2018a), we follow the theoretical development of several authors that have begun to analyse these practices as a standalone phenomenon of collective action to be treated separately from urban movements (De Angelis 2017; Varvarousis et al. 2021). This analytical distinction, however, does not also have to be an empirical one. We are aware that contentious and everyday repertoires are strictly related to one another in the urban context and we will delve into the relationship between them empirically. What we cannot do is to assess their interrelated outcomes. Although the number of urban commons is on the rise in many European cities, such as Barcelona, Athens, Naples, Ghent, Rome, Istanbul, and Berlin, among others, they are projects that are still at an early stage in their development, and assessing the outcomes

286  Handbook on urban social movements

achieved by them and by related urban movements is a task that will have to be performed once they evolve and consolidate. The contribution of this chapter actually aims to better equip the scholars who will carry out this task, by providing them with a deeper knowledge of the political potentialities embodied in the urban commons. From a theoretical and empirical perspective, two streams of literature are particularly relevant for understanding the everyday politics of the urban commons and their relationship with urban movements: Marxist analysis and social movement studies. Nevertheless, even though most Marxists and social movement scholars’ reflections on the commons are grounded in, or at least take their cue from, the urban context, both have a tendency to neglect the theoretical and empirical implications that the urban has for the urban commons. We thus argue that we need to develop a more accurate urban account of the urban commons, in order to better understand their everyday politics and assess the outcomes of their relationship with more contentious repertoires, including urban movements. We contend that the urban holds ambivalent possibilities for the everyday politics of the urban commons, since the urban sphere embodies a dialectical, evolving and selective terrain for enacting everyday politics. The chapter begins by illustrating Marxist and social movement scholars’ theorizations of the everyday politics of the urban commons and its relationship to urban movements. We highlight how, although most of their reflections and studies are inspired by the urban commons, they actually appear to pay scant attention to what the urban actually means for the urban commons. We then contribute to situating the everyday politics of the urban commons within the urban context by analysing how three processes that constitute the urban terrain – urban capital accumulation, urban social relations and urban power configurations – affect the emergence and development of the urban commons. We show that these processes offer ambivalent possibilities for enacting the everyday politics of the urban commons. We conclude that this ambivalence must be taken into account when urban political scholars assess the outcomes of the interplay between urban commons and more contentious repertories of collective action, including urban movements.

THE EVERYDAY POLITICS OF THE URBAN COMMONS, BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE Over the last few decades, the political dimension of the urban commons has received increasing scholarly attention from multiple disciplines, the predominant ones being Marxist and social movement studies. Theoretically, Marxist scholars conceive the urban commons in different ways: as modes of collective production and reproduction (De Angelis 2017; Federici 2018); as political and social instruments for the direct fulfilment of fundamental rights (Mattei 2011; Quarta and Spanò 2016); and as forms of organizing the production and distribution of wealth and value to displace market forces and capital accumulation (Harvey 2012). Without wishing to belittle the specificities of each understanding, it might be useful to propose a summary based on Harvey’s definition that, although not exhaustive, could work for all of

The everyday politics of the urban commons  287

them. The critical geographer defines a commons as being “a social relation between a particular self-defined social group and those aspects of its actually existing or yet-to-be-created social and/or physical environment deemed crucial to its life and livelihood” (Harvey 2012: 73). The crucial nature of the social relationship between the group and the resource informs the political dimension of the commons (Bianchi 2018b): the group does not simply act as a mere collective manager of the resource, but as a political actor that, by recognizing that the resource is crucial for its survival, demands that it not be used according to the economic logic of capitalism, i.e. a profit-making logic, that it not be governed according to capitalism’s preferred government system, i.e. representative democracy, and that it not be structured according to the capitalist mode of social relations, i.e. competitive social relations. The crucial nature of the social relationship thus pushes the group of people involved to develop a management model that operates according to the economic logic of use-value, to form a governing system based on direct democracy, and to foster social relations based on reciprocity (Federici and Caffentzis 2013). In short, for Marxist scholars, the commons, by representing a governing practice that is an alternative to the state and the market, become an instrument to be used to trace out progressive social transformation. Marxist literature on the commons is particularly valuable for framing the theory of the everyday politics of the urban commons. However, it tells us little about how these politics are enacted in practice (Varvarousis 2020). This question has been recently addressed by the social movement literature, which illustrates how urban commons have emerged and how they are connected to other forms of political mobilizations. Urban commons, and practices of self-government in general, have always existed in European cities (De Moor, 2013). Housing cooperatives, sociocultural centres and work cooperatives have always represented an alternative way of conceiving urban life, one opposed to the dominant capitalist paradigm and its different urban phases. However, social movement scholars have shown that ever since the neoliberal turn of capitalism, they have begun to diversify, in particular since the 2007/8 economic recession and the implementation of austerity measures. They have steadily grown in number, and they now include practices such as community-managed urban gardens, food co-ops, and popular canteens. Several studies have in fact shown how many of these practices have emerged and multiplied from 2007/8 onwards to collectively reappropriate and self-manage crucial urban resources and/or services (Cruz et al. 2017). This data confirms the role of neoliberalism and its crises as variables that, although they do not exhaustively explain the phenomenon, which is undoubtedly connected to structural processes that go beyond the urban dimension, are factors that are important to consider when explaining the emergence of urban commons (Mayer et al. 2016). Social movement scholars have also explored the relationship between the urban commons and more contentious repertoires of collective action, including urban movements, that have taken root over the latest protest cycle. They argue that the ‘movements of the square’ that have developed in many European cities such as

288  Handbook on urban social movements

Barcelona and Athens have accelerated the emergence and proliferation of commons. These scholars frame this acceleration within the concept of social outcomes (Varvarousis et al. 2021). They maintain that beyond the political, biographical and cultural outcomes of urban movements on which social movement scholars tend to dwell, it is equally important to consider the social outcomes, i.e., the social infrastructure that is created in the urban fabric. When underlining this point, they uphold that commons represent one of the social outcomes that have emerged within, through and because of the urban anti-austerity mobilizations. Furthermore, they argue that these contentious mobilizations have not only accelerated the emergence and development of a system of commons in the urban fabric, but also that this system may function as a breeding ground from where new cycles of mobilization can emerge, as they stimulate and coordinate instances of protest and confrontation (Blanco and León 2017). The relationship between the urban commons and more contentious repertoires of collective action, including urban movements, is currently a subject of study taken up by different urban political scholars who seek to trace the continuities and evolutions of the latest cycle of urban mobilization (Roussos 2019; Varvarousis et al. 2021). However, as suggested by Bianchi et al. (2022), it is still too early to make an assessment of the actual achievements of the latest protest cycle, and of the urban commons within it, and this assessment can only be carried out when this cycle has evolved and consolidated over time. Only then will it be possible to analyse retrospectively whether the combination of both everyday and contentious repertoires of collective action have managed to bring about the transformation of the urban context and its meanings that they strive to engender. For the time being, therefore, it would be more appropriate to understand the everyday politics of the commons as politics in the making, as a phenomenon that may also function as a springboard for the development of more contentious repertoires, including urban movements, but whose outcomes are still unknown. Once it is possible to carry out this analysis, we suggest that urban political scholars should be better equipped to examine one crucial aspect of urban commons: the very fact of them being urban. As stated by many social movement scholars, cities cannot merely be considered as a backdrop, as empty canvasses on which political action unfolds (Uitermark et al. 2012). Cities and political action are mutually constitutive and involve a distinctive, urban way of acting politically (Beveridge and Koch 2019), which also gives a particular slant to the urban commons. However, neither Marxist studies and social movement theory, although they mostly ground their theoretical and empirical reflections in the urban realm, examine the urban context exhaustively. From the discursive perspective, it can be noted that they hardly ever use the notion of urban commons, but refer to commons more generally. This semantic choice translates into a lack of theoretical and empirical attention given to what the peculiarities of being urban are for these urban commons. However, we argue that this aspect is crucial to retrospectively analyse the limits and possibilities of the urban commons, and to understand their effects on more contentious repertoires of collective action, including urban movements, and their combined outcomes.

The everyday politics of the urban commons  289

SITUATING THE URBAN COMMONS IN THE URBAN TERRAIN The concept of the city is a hotly contested one (Gallie 1956). Various contributors to urban theory, especially urban geographers, have long gone beyond the conception of the city as a single bounded unity with fixed socio-spatial characteristics, interpreting it instead as a dynamic, historically evolving and variegated scaling process1 (Brenner and Schmid 2015), characterized by and characterizing other economic, political and social processes. In this chapter we use this definition, and we conceptualize the urban as a specific scaling process, which overlaps a series of multi-scalar scaling processes – global, national, regional, neighbourhood (Brenner 2004) – that are each produced by and in their turn produce specifically urban processes of capital accumulation, social relations, and power configurations. This conceptualization of the urban allows us to delve into the distinctively urban nature of the urban commons by unpacking the urban into its three main constitutive processes, and showing how they each affect the everyday politics of the urban commons. In the following section we will thus delve into how the everyday politics of the urban commons is affected by urban capital accumulation processes, urban social relations and urban power configurations. The Urban Commons and the Urban Capital Accumulation Process The relationship between the city and the specific capital accumulation process it engenders has been analysed extensively by both Marxist and critical urban scholars. Although Marxist scholars began to reflect on this relationship at the end of the nineteenth century (Merrifield 2002), it was mostly defined with the spatial turn of Marxism and with the work of authors such as Lefebvre (1970) and Harvey (2010). They were the first to point out the importance of the second circuit of capital to the capital accumulation process. Capital, in fact, does not only use the first circuit of capital to produce value, i.e. that of industrial production, but also uses a second one, i.e. real estate investment (Lefebvre 1970).This happens in particular during capitalism’s over-accumulation crisis – i.e. when too much capital has been accumulated in the hand of capitalists and there are no more productive industrial outlets to reinvest it in. Because of this, the urban environment become one of its preferred sites (Harvey 2010). This process has become key in Global North economies, especially from the 1970s onwards and the neoliberal turn of capitalism, when profit from production decreased and the political-economic elites transformed cities into key sites for deploying a specific kind of accumulation process, i.e. a neoliberal urban accumulation process, which in turn deploys a system of strategies to succeed. Neoliberal urban accumulation strategies include, among other elements: (i) the privatization of urban public spaces; (ii) the privatization and outsourcing of Keynesian urban welfare services; (iii) the gentrification-led, regeneration-led and mass tourism-led restructuring of low-rent and inner-city neighbourhoods; and (iv) the financialization of housing (Brenner and Theodore 2002). Hodkinson (2012), appropriating Marxist

290  Handbook on urban social movements

terminology, frames these strategies as urban enclosure, contending that they all seek to fence off the resources of the city, preventing them from being used by their inhabitants, and that they seek to displace and segregate the urban poor. The implementation of these neoliberal urban accumulation strategies, whose effects were dramatically exacerbated with the 2007/8 economic recession and the adoption of austerity measures (Peck 2012) gives rise to ambivalent political possibilities for the emergence and development of the urban commons. Marxist scholars have widely demonstrated how, since the contradictions of the capitalist accumulation process are more manifest in the city, the urban context becomes a privileged stage for the populace to organize and challenge them through different repertories of collective action (Lefebvre 1970; Castells 1983; Harvey 2012). These repertories include the urban commons. As already mentioned above, the urban commons began to develop with the implementation of the neoliberal urban accumulation process, and became especially pervasive in the aftermath of the 2007/8 economic recession. This does not mean that the urban commons emerged exclusively because of the deepening of the contradictions of the neoliberal urban accumulation process. However, it cannot be ignored that urban commons have emerged and proliferated precisely when these contradictions have become more evident and their effects more severe (Arampatzi 2018). Urban scholars who focus on the spatial effect of the neoliberal urban accumulation process have shown how the 2007/8 economic recession, which temporarily halted speculation in the urban environment, leaving a series of derelict or neglected spaces, opened up cracks in the urban fabric (Tonkiss 2013); these are spaces that some urban commons – self-managed urban gardens, squatted and non-squatted sociocultural centres and collectively-managed public squares – have reappropriated, not only generating an alternative production of the urban space, but also articulating political demands for more just and democratic urban development (Rossini and Bianchi 2020). Some scholars have focused instead on the social dimension of the neoliberal urban accumulation process, and have shown how several urban commons – soup kitchens, time banks, migrant-led housing squats, etc – emerged when the social effects of the 2007/8 economic recession (soaring unemployment, home repossessions) became unbearable, functioning not only as a means of survival for people that had been marginalized and excluded, but also as a way of defining alternatives to the production of urban life as a whole (Arampatzi 2018). Nevertheless, even if the development of the neoliberal urban accumulation process might favour the emergence of urban commons, it often both directly and indirectly hinders their survival and expansion. This occurs in a direct way with the deliberate destruction of urban commons by economic and political elites. In the cases of the urban commons that reappropriated derelict and vacant spaces during the 2007/8 economic recession – self-managed urban gardens, squatted and non-squatted sociocultural centres, and collectively-managed public squares – some collectives have now been evicted. They functioned as a form of temporary beautification of the urban fabric. When the economic machine once again started up and the plots in which they were located became targets of private-led urban redevelopment projects,

The everyday politics of the urban commons  291

they were cleared out to restore the neoliberal modus operandi (Tornaghi 2017). The indirect hindrance affecting them reflects the intensification of urban neoliberal accumulation process, which is making it extremely hard to access and maintain a space in the city. When urban commons such as sociocultural centres, food co-ops, time banks or housing cooperatives need to rent or buy a space or a building to carry out their activities, real estate pressures and the increase in both rental and purchase prices in most European cities (Rolnik and Hirschhorn 2019) mean that such operations are extremely challenging. Many initiatives are at an early stage in their development, and have very little initial capital to invest (e.g. groups of people that aim to set up a housing cooperative, cooperatives searching for a working space). For other initiatives, economic gain is not the main objective of their activity (e.g. sociocultural centres and food co-ops). And many often do not carry out any economic activities at all, and operate in the realm of social reproduction (self-managed health care centres and clinics, time banks and urban gardens). Both direct and indirect hindrances produce a scarcity of urban commons in the city, especially in areas that are particularly attractive for real estate investors, such as inner-city areas targeted for urban mass tourism and gentrification processes. The Urban Commons and Urban Social Relations The relationship between the city and the social relations it produces has been the subject of extensive studies carried out by both Marxist scholars and urban sociologists. Although some thinkers have argued that the city does not give rise to different social relations in a qualitative fashion, but only concentrates them quantitatively (Saunders 1981), there are many other scholars who believe the opposite (Cox 2001; Miller and Nicholls 2013). The first accounts of the peculiarity of urban life can be traced back to the classic works of Wirth and Simmel. These accounts – such as the blasé attitude found in Simmel’s work – are characterized by a strong anti-urban sentiment and a nostalgic vision of rural life. In their view, the city is a pathological organism that brings disorder and corruption, one where social relations between individuals are characterized by superficiality, anonymity and transience; this is in contrast with rural life, in which people used to develop deeper feelings and closer emotional relationships (Borelli 2012). However, the longed-for return to the countryside and its idyllic social relations has not been possible. The process of urbanization has been relentless and has outlined social relations that are typical of what we might call, in Lefebvre’s terminology, urban society (Lefebvre 1970). These social relationships are influenced by several factors, which include density, diversity and social differentiation. The city is where diverse individuals, in terms of class, gender, ethnicity, etc. – i.e., diverse subjectivities – live in close quarters with one another. This experience is mediated by the socio-spatial effects of the neoliberal urban accumulation process, such as displacement and segregation, that lead to different political responses in each subjectivity. These characteristics give rise to ambivalent political possibilities for the emergence and development of the urban commons.

292  Handbook on urban social movements

Firstly, these characteristics facilitate the emergence of urban commons. These practices, like other repertoires of urban collective action, are based on the coming together of diverse subjectivities. As pointed out by many Marxists, first and foremost Lefebvre (1970), cities and urban society offer the possibility of encountering the other in the public space (Merrifield 2012). It is in the city that diverse subjectivities meet because it is here that resources and spaces are shared, where communication takes place, and where goods and ideas are exchanged. However, the coming together that the Marxists speak about is not only a process of random and unpredictable mingling that comes about simply by the way that urban life is lived in a crowded space; it is also a process in which collective identities are forged, ones that mediate experiences of displacement and segregation, and succeed in transforming mere encounters into a political, organizational process where individual claims and demands coming from different subjectivities and social groups coalesce to become collective claims and demands (Miller and Nicholls 2013). It is in this sense that Hardt and Negri (2009) argue that if in the Fordist era the factory was the place the working class organized and expressed its antagonism and rebellion, now this place is the city, since production has gone beyond the boundaries of the factory to spread throughout the whole urban fabric. The city is thus the space where those subjectivities, i.e. those that are future members of an urban commons, are able to meet and develop a crucial collective social relationship with a resource (Harvey 2010) that must be kept safe from economic speculation and away from state control. However, the urban commons are very particular repertoires of collective action. Whether they are ephemeral or long-lasting, they not only imply the encounter of subjectivities and the development of collective social relations between the subjectivities and the resource, but they also imply its collective management. In this way, they are practices where subjectivities learn to self-govern, i.e. where they learn to transmit their ideas and beliefs to the other, in order to build shared codes and norms, which although being open and changing, allow resources to be managed collectively according to the principles of reciprocity, use-value, and participatory democracy. This process of transmitting ideas and constructing norms, i.e. the process of outlining and maintaining new commons institutions (Stavrides 2016), represents the defining element of the everyday politics of the urban commons; however, it is also their most challenging element, due to the very nature of urban social relations. Several empirical studies on urban commons have highlighted the various difficulties of creating and maintaining these practices among what Huron (2015) calls strangers, that is, diverse subjectivities. The first difficulty lies in the fact that to create commons institutions, members have to work across their differences. This means that the members must find a common language that bridges their differences while at the same time maintaining them, and while continuing to respect the multiplicity of all subjectivities (Hardt and Negri 2009). Huron (2018) explains in detail how when Spanish-speaking Central Americans, Amharic-speaking Ethiopians, and English-speaking African Americans built a housing co-op in Washington DC, they held meetings in all three languages. This process was arduous, but eventually led to the co-op being built. However, the differences may also sometimes lie in the

The everyday politics of the urban commons  293

different social relations that each subjectivity expresses towards the resource and which is often the result of the mediation of social differentiation that has previously been discussed. For some, a vacant plot can mean an opportunity for producing local organic food as an alternative to large-scale distribution, while for others it offers the opportunity to build a public community space (Kip 2015). In other words, one must not only translate cultural differences between subjectivities, but also mediate the differences produced by the urban neoliberal accumulation process in each subjectivity. These two difficulties can lead to deviant forms of urban commons developing and can sometimes lead certain subjectivities to progressively reject others, giving rise to exclusionary practices of urban commons (Stavrides 2016), such as urban gardens or sociocultural centres composed of only homogeneous subjectivities. These practices, instead of expanding the possibilities of building alternatives to capitalism opened up by the everyday politics of the urban commons, reinforce the processes of urban segregation on which they are based. This is likely to be one of the most critical issues that urban commons will have to tackle (Stavrides 2016). The Urban Commons and Urban Power Configurations The relationship between the city and the configurations of power that are produced there have been studied extensively by both Marxist and urban political scholars, with each having different viewpoints on how this power is distributed locally. At the risk of oversimplification, the pluralist school sees urban politics as politics where power is unevenly distributed among social groups, but with the groups all still able to exert some influence on local state decisions (Harding 2009); the elitist school sees urban politics as a situation where power is held mainly in the hands of a minority constituted by the economic elite that exerts its influence on the local government (Harding 2009); Marxists see urban politics as power being in the hands of the capitalist class that uses it to direct the work of the local authorities and to reproduce the capitalist system (Geddes 2009). In any case, irrespective of how we think this power is distributed among different groups, it is also and above all exercised through the local state. Although it must be understood as an integral part of a multilevel and multi-situated government around which different actors and pressure groups are articulated, the local state remains a crucial institution for the exercise of power, one that has become increasingly important in the last few decades. Recent studies by Marxist geographers on the re-territorialization of power have successfully highlighted how, since the 1970s, regional and municipal governments have developed new regulatory and policy capacities (policies to attract capital investment, new urban planning schemes, forms of controlling the public space, etc.), in order to promote and facilitate the development of the urban neoliberal accumulation process (Brenner 2004). In other words, in the current institutional arrangement, the local authorities have acquired more power. This power has given rise to ambivalent political possibilities for the emergence and development of the urban commons. The local state can be an actor that facilitates the emergence and development of the urban commons. Precisely because the urban commons’ politics is rooted in the

294  Handbook on urban social movements

everyday, they may require additional resources to address their more immediate material needs (especially early in their development), such as economic, property and infrastructure resources. Since the local state is the administration closest to them, it is often the actor that can more easily provide these resources. The work of several urban scholars has shown that, although the local state is not a neutral subject and tends to facilitate the process of capitalist accumulation, it can support the emergence and development of some urban commons. In the case of housing squats and squatted sociocultural centres, their legalization, that is, the local authority’s concession of a public space to be used or them renting out a public space, can be a way of them gaining stability and political recognition (Martínez López 2014). It has been widely demonstrated that the local state is an essential partner for housing cooperatives to emerge when it develops policy and planning frameworks that provide the initial capital to set up a project and to provide access to land (Huron 2018). This does not mean that the local state is a full ally of the urban commons, but that it can make material concessions to them to guarantee a certain level of social cohesion within the process of capitalist accumulation (Jessop 2015). However, it may also be true that at the local level, particular power configurations may develop based on the articulation between urban movements and institutional representatives, such as in the case of the municipalist candidacies that won 2015 local elections in Spain. Here, the local state has been seen to genuinely support the emergence and development of urban commons through concrete policies, such as a policy to foster social and cooperative economic practices and a policy to facilitate community asset management, among others (Bianchi et al., 2022). However, the local state can also prevent the emergence and development of the urban commons. Many authors, especially Marxist ones, have illustrated how the local state can destroy and/or co-opt the urban commons if their everyday politics take on overwhelmingly radical lines, and thus risk undermining the current political-economic order. In her study of immigrant-led housing squats in Barcelona, Bianchi (2022) shows how the City Council, which initially tolerated these squats’ emergence in the urban margins of the city, proceeded to break them up as they multiplied and their members developed political demands regarding their citizenship rights. The co-optation of the urban commons, on the other hand, tends to be a subtler process that depoliticizes the radical claims of the commons either by offering its members significant posts within the municipal administration, or by offering concessions and subsidies that transform and re-direct the urban commons’ political action away from being self-governing practices that challenge the capitalist system, leading them instead to become domesticated self-governing practices that eventually come to form an integral part of this system (Coy and Hedeen 2005). Some authors have argued how the aforementioned economic support that the local state provides to the urban commons can be interpreted as a co-optation strategy that intends to change the logic by which these practices function; their discourses adapt to the bureaucracy of the state, and their radical claims become watered down. This co-optation was demonstrated in the case of the community practices that emerged out of the wave of mobilization in the 1970s (Mayer 2013; Uitermark and Nicholls

The everyday politics of the urban commons  295

2014). However, it still remains to be assessed in the case of the urban commons that have emerged within the latest protest cycle. A Summary The urban terrain produces ambivalent possibilities for the everyday politics of the urban commons. This can be enhanced but also be threatened by the urban capital accumulation process and the development of its neoliberal variant, by the social relations that are sustained between the diverse subjectivities that elaborate the accumulation process in different ways, and by power configurations that do not fully coalesce in the local state but are primarily exercised through it. These ambivalent political possibilities are not mutually exclusive but are dialectical. As we have seen, the economic support that the local state can give to the urban commons allows them to increase their stability and impact but can at the same time also depoliticize them and diminish their radical claims. Diverse subjectivities can come across each other more easily in the urban environment, but they can also reject each other and give form to exclusionary urban commons. Moreover, these ambivalent political possibilities are not fixed in time but are constantly evolving. The effects of the neoliberal urban accumulation process can favour the development of urban commons in times of economic recession, for instance when real estate speculation comes to a halt and leaves urban voids that are reappropriated by urban commons; but once such speculation starts up again, the urban commons find it difficult to survive because market actors reclaim those spaces in order to implement speculative projects. Furthermore, these ambivalent political possibilities do not affect all urban commons in a city in the same way, but are selective. The effects of the urban neoliberal urban accumulation process may favour the development of urban commons that respond to immediate needs such as soup kitchens, time banks and migrant-led housing squats, but some of these, such as migrant-led housing squats, may not be tolerated by the current power configuration and may not find a space to survive in the city. In other words, urban processes offer ambivalent political possibilities for developing the everyday politics of the urban commons, since the city embodies a dialectical, evolving and selective terrain for enacting them.

CONCLUSION In this chapter we have delved into the political dimension of the urban commons. This is a repertoire of collective action that has developed especially during the latest cycle of urban mobilizations alongside more contentious repertoires, such as protests, demonstrations and occupations of squares that spread across many European cities, and that later evolved into the anti-austerity movement (Mayer et al. 2016). Unlike these contentious repertoires, the urban commons develop direct political actions rooted in everyday life: the everyday politics of the commons (Arampatzi 2017; Roussos 2019). Interest in this type of political action has increased over the last few

296  Handbook on urban social movements

decades among different groups, especially Marxist and social movement scholars. Both sets of scholars see the urban commons as practices of self-government in the city that, by acting according to the principle of use-value, reciprocity and participatory democracy, reappropriate crucial (both immaterial and material) resources, services and facilities (De Angelis 2017; Federici 2018), in order to self-manage them and foster a more democratic, autonomous and decommodified pattern of urban life. Urban commons are a recent phenomenon of collective action that is situated in the process of evolution and continuity of the latest cycle of urban mobilization; as such, they can be considered a possible breeding ground for the development and strengthening of urban movements and other more contentious repertoires of action. However, the effects and results of the everyday politics of the urban commons and its interplay with urban movements and contentious repertoires have still to be assessed by urban political scholars, since urban commons are still at an early stage in their development. In this chapter, we argue that when this assessment is carried out, it is especially important to consider how the urban context itself shapes the everyday politics of the urban commons, since this is an aspect that has been somewhat neglected by both Marxist and social movement scholars. Drawing on the different theoretical and empirical contributions of urban scholars – geographers, sociologists, political scientists, and planners – we have tried to illustrate the implications that the urban terrain has for the everyday politics of the urban commons. We have conceptualized the urban as a specific scaling process which overlaps a series of other multi-scalar processes (Brenner 2004). This is produced by and produces specific processes of capital accumulation, social relations, and power configurations, and we have tried to understand how these processes affect the everyday politics of the urban commons. We have shown how the neoliberal urban accumulation process, social relations among diverse subjectivities that take part in the capital accumulation process in different ways, and power configurations that do not fully coalesce in the local state but are primarily exercised through it offer ambivalent political possibilities for the everyday politics of the urban commons, potentially enhancing them but also sometimes threatening them. These ambivalent political possibilities are not mutually exclusive, but are situated in a terrain in which enhancing and threatening possibilities can sometimes be concomitant or consecutive, and can selectively affect the everyday politics of the many urban commons that exist in a city. It is in this sense that we argue that the urban represents a dialectical, evolving and selective terrain for enacting the everyday politics of the urban commons. It will be the task of urban political scholars to take these ambivalent possibilities into consideration when they assess the results and achievements of the latest cycle of urban mobilization of which both urban commons and urban movements are a part, and analyse how this ambivalence has affected the transformation and meaning of the urban context that both everyday and contentious repertoires strive to engender.

The everyday politics of the urban commons  297

NOTE 1. According to Brenner (2004), scales are not static, fixed or permanent geographical dimensions but a socially produced dimension of particular social processes.

REFERENCES Andretta, M., Piazza, G., and Subirats, A. (2015). Urban dynamics and social movements. In D. Della Porta and M. Diani (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 200–216. Arampatzi, A. (2017). Contentious spatialities in an era of austerity: Everyday politics and ‘struggle communities’ in Athens, Greece. Political Geography, 60, 47–56. Arampatzi, A. (2018). Constructing solidarity as resistive and creative agency in austerity Greece. Comparative European Politics, 16(1), 50–66. Beveridge, R. and Koch, P. (2019). Urban everyday politics: Politicising practices and the transformation of the here and now. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 37(1), 142–157. Bianchi, I. (2018a). A relational approach for the study of urban commons: The case of the Escocesa Art Centre in Barcelona. Tracce Urbane: Italian Journal of Urban Studies, 4, 171–193. Bianchi, I. (2018b). The post-political meaning of the concept of commons: The regulation of the urban commons in Bologna. Space and Polity, 22(3), 287–306. Bianchi, I. (2022). The local state’s repertoires of governance strategies for the urban commons. Nuancing current perspectives. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 40(8), 1784–1800. Bianchi, I., Pera, M., Calvet-Mir, L., Villamayor, S., Ferreri, M., Reguero, N., and Maestre Andrés, S. (2022). Urban commons and the local state: Co-production between enhancement and co-optation. Territory, Politics, Governance. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​21622671​ .2022​.2108491. Blanco, I. and León, M. (2017). Social innovation, reciprocity and contentious politics: Facing the socio-urban crisis in Ciutat Meridiana, Barcelona. Urban Studies, 54(9), 2172–2188. Borelli, G. (2012). Immagini di città. Processi spaziali e interpretazioni sociologiche. Milan: Mondadori. Brenner, N. (2004). New State Spaces: Urban Governance and the Rescaling of Statehood. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brenner, N. and Schmid, C. (2015). Towards a new epistemology of the urban? City, 19(2–3), 151–182. Brenner, N. and Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and the geographies of “actually existing neoliberalism”. Antipode, 34(3), 349–379. Briata, P., Colomb, C., and Mayer, M. (2020). Bridging across difference in contemporary (urban) social movements: Territory as a catalyst. Territory, Politics, Governance, 8(4), 451–460. Castells, M. (1983). The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cellamare, C. (2018). Cities and self-organization. Tracce Urbane: Italian Journal of Urban Studies, 3, 6–15. Cox, K. R. (2001). Territoriality, politics and the ‘urban’. Political Geography, 20(6), 745–762. Coy, P. G. and Hedeen, T. (2005). A stage model of social movement co-optation: Community mediation in the United States. Sociological Quarterly, 46(3), 405–435.

298  Handbook on urban social movements

Cruz, H., Martínez Moreno, R., and Blanco, I. (2017). Crisis, urban segregation and social innovation in Catalonia. Partecipazione e Conflitto, 10(1), 221–245. De Angelis, M. (2017). Omnia Sunt Communia. London: Zed Books. De Moor, T. (2013). Homo Cooperans: Institution for Collective Action and the Compassionate Society. Utrecht: Universiteit Utrecht. Federici, S. (2018). Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Federici, S. and Caffentzis, G. (2013). Commons against and beyond capitalism. Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action, 15, 83–97. Gallie, W. B. (1956). Essentially contested concepts. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 56(1), 167–198. Geddes, M. (2009). Marxism and urban politics. In J. S. Davies and D. Imbroscio (eds.), Theories of Urban Politics, 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications, pp. 55–73. Hamel, P. (2016). Urban social movements. In H.-A. van der Heijden (ed.), Handbook of Political Citizenship and Social Movements. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 464–493. Harding, A. (2009). The history of community power. In J. S. Davies and D. Imbroscio (eds.), Theories of Urban Politics, 2nd edition. London: Sage Publications, pp. 27–40. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harvey, D. (2010). The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism. London: Profile Books. Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities. London: Verso. Hodkinson, S. (2012). The new “urban” enclosures. City, 16(5), 500–518. Holloway, J. (2010). Crack Capitalism. London: Pluto Press. Huron, A. (2015). Working with strangers in saturated space: Reclaiming and maintaining the urban commons. Antipode, 47(4), 963–979. Huron, A. (2018). Carving Out the Commons: Tenant Organizing and Housing Cooperatives in Washington, D.C. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Jessop, B. (2015). The State: Past, Present, Future. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kip, M. (2015). Moving beyond the city: Conceptualizing urban commons from a critical urban studies perspective. In M. Dellenbaugh, M. Kip, M. Bieniok, A. Müller, and M. Schwegmann (eds.), Urban Commons: Moving beyond State and Market. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, pp. 42–60. Lefebvre, H. (1970). The Urban Revolution. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Martínez López, M. (2013). The squatters’ movement in Europe: A durable struggle for social autonomy in urban politics. Antipode, 45(4), 866–887. Martínez López, M. (2014). How do squatters deal with the state? Legalization and anomalous institutionalization in Madrid. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 38(2), 646–674. Mattei, U. (2011). Beni comuni. Un manifesto. Bari: Laterza. Mayer, M. (2013). First world urban activism: Beyond austerity urbanism and creative city politics. City, 17(1), 5–19. Mayer, M., Thörn, C., and Thörn, H. (eds.) (2016). Urban Uprisings: Challenging Neoliberal Urbanism in Europe. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Merrifield, A. (2002). Metromarxism: A Marxist Tale of the City. London: Routledge. Merrifield, A. (2012). The politics of the encounter and the urbanization of the world. City, 16(3), 269–283. Miller, B. and Nicholls, W. (2013). Social movements in urban society: The city as a space of politicization. Urban Geography, 34(4), 452–473. Peck, J. (2012). Austerity urbanism: American cities under extreme economy. City, 16(6), 626–655.

The everyday politics of the urban commons  299

Quarta, A. and Spanò, M. (2016). Beni comuni 2.0. Contro-egemonia e nuove istituzioni. Milan: Mimesis. Rolnik, R. and Hirschhorn, F. (2019). Urban Warfare: Housing under the Empire of Finance. London: Verso. Rossini, L. and Bianchi, I. (2020). Negotiating (re)appropriation practices amid crisis and austerity. International Planning Studies, 25(1), 100–121. Roussos, K. (2019). Grassroots collective action within and beyond institutional and state solutions: The (re-)politicization of everyday life in crisis-ridden Greece. Social Movement Studies, 18(3), 265–283. Saunders, P. (1981). Social Theory and the Urban Question. New York: Holmes and Meier. Stavrides, S. (2016). Common Space: The City as Commons. London: Zed Books. Tonkiss, F. (2013). Austerity urbanism and the makeshift city. City, 17(3), 312–324. Tornaghi, C. (2017). Urban agriculture in the food-disabling city: (Re)defining urban food justice, reimagining a politics of empowerment. Antipode, 49(3), 781–801. Uitermark, J. and Nicholls, W. (2014). From politicization to policing: The rise and decline of new social movements in Amsterdam and Paris. Antipode, 46(4), 970–991. Uitermark, J., Nicholls, W., and Loopmans, M. (2012). Cities and social movements: Theorizing beyond the right to the city. Environment and Planning A, 44(12), 2546–2554. Varvarousis, A. (2020). The rhizomatic expansion of commoning through social movements. Ecological Economics, 171, 106596. Varvarousis, A., Asara, V., and Akbulut, B. (2021). Commons: A social outcome of the movement of the squares. Social Movement Studies, 20(3), 292–311. Villamayor-Tomas, S. and García-López, G. A. (2021). Commons movements: Old and new trends in rural and urban contexts. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 46, 511–543.

19. The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: the emergence of a movement of urban memories Alicia Olivari and Manuela Badilla1

PROTESTS IN CHILE: THE ERUPTION OF MEMORY FROM LOCAL SPACE What about us is similar to what happened 40 years ago? We are involved in a shared struggle … I feel like we are all raising collective struggles, but I would say that the coolest and most important thing is that we have to be seen as territories, peripheral territories. Territories with a dictatorial tinge that never went away, where life is precarious. (Sara, Cerro Navia)

Sara, 22, studied art in college before dropping out in her sophomore year. Now she works sporadically doing informal jobs and lives with her grandparents on the outskirts of Santiago in Cerro Navia, one of the city’s most impoverished areas. Sara says she was not really political until the 2011 student protests. After that, she became politically active, especially in feminist student protests. During the recent anti-neoliberal protests in Chile, her participation increased significantly and her political activism turned towards her home territory. Protesting the precarious living conditions on the city’s outskirts, Sara has participated in a series of collective actions in Cerro Navia. These actions also recover the area’s historical memories, underscoring the continued socio-territorial segregation and the effects of the neoliberal city. Sara’s words shed light upon the phenomenon that ensued following October 18, 2019, the beginning of Chile’s largest social movement in 30 years. Over at least the next six months, the movement changed the political landscape of the country. People demanded dignity and an end to the inequality that had increased since the era of the military dictatorship. The movement referred to as the estallido social (literally “the social explosion”) seemed to arise spontaneously and diffusely. It took shape over several months, garnering widespread public participation and support. The main targets were the effects of the neoliberal economic system and the repression and criminalization of protest. Participants also called for a new constitution. According to the media, ground zero for the protests was downtown Santiago, particularly in Plaza Italia, which protesters renamed Plaza Dignidad. However, the peripheral areas where the manifestations of discontent began and their respective centers also played an essential role. Throughout the country, the largest protests occurred between October 2019 and March 2020, when the pandemic hit. However, the economic crisis triggered by the effects of Covid-19 meant that protests on the 300

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  301

outskirts of Santiago never stopped. Residents created their own spaces for protest, rebuilt the social fabric and local memory, and created a social movement centered on urban memory, which is the focus of this chapter. One of the most common phrases during the protests, “It is not the 30 pesos; it is the 30 years”, is a reference to the relationship between the current discontent triggered by the 30-peso subway fare hike and the recent past, the 30-year transition period since the end of the military dictatorship. The relationship was even more intense on the outskirts of Santiago, where memories emerged of dictatorial violence, the anti-dictatorial movement, the experience of urban marginalization and the forceful socio-territorial segregation that took place under the dictatorship and persisted in democracy. These memories are absent from Chile’s official historical narrative, which has focused on recognizing the victims of the dictatorship at the national level. This chapter draws on reflections from the fields of social movements, memory studies and political geography to contribute to the argument that connects social movements to the production of space. Thus, we understand urban social movements as social organizations with a territorially constructed identity that seek emancipation through collective action (Schuurman 2011). We propose that during times of social upheaval, local memories can activate, intensifying the presence and circulation of subaltern memories, which, in turn, reinforce the movement’s demands. The analysis and reflections presented herein are based on qualitative research conducted in 2019 and 2020, including 20 in-depth interviews with young people who live on the outskirts of Santiago and who have recently played a leading role in protest actions related to social movements. The emergent categories that sustain the narratives of our interviewees were identified through discourse analysis. The chapter begins by offering a historical contextualization of the 2019 Chilean protests and the conformation of Santiago as a neoliberal city. Then, it presents a theoretical revision about the relationship between social movements space, time and memory. In the next section, it presents the analysis of the interviews that shows a mechanism that is present in different neighborhoods that locates memory in a central role for the recent Chilean mobilizations. It defines this mechanism as the actualization and circulation of familial and local memories. The chapter concludes with a reflection about the movement’s possibilities of emancipation at the local level and the territorial impact of strengthening peripheral memories.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT: RECENT HISTORY AND MEMORIES OF POPULAR AND PERIPHERAL RESISTANCE October 18, 2019 marked the beginning of an especially radical and widespread movement referred to as the estallido social. It began and took place simultaneously in the downtown area and peripheral neighborhoods of the country’s capital city of Santiago. The day after the first massive event, the movement expanded to the entire country. Its decentralized, peripheral nature – especially in Santiago – has a precedent in Chile’s recent history.

302  Handbook on urban social movements

Between 1983 and 1986, a series of anti-dictatorial protests that brought together thousands of people were met with strong repression by the Pinochet regime. The role of these protests has been concealed under the shroud of the official historical record, which emphasizes political agreements and paints a picture of a democratic transition through a consensus-based, peaceful process. This official version of the story omits the role of social movements and resistance (Bravo 2017). Social activists, especially young people and residents of Santiago’s peripheral and impoverished areas, were fundamental to that resistance movement. Actions of solidarity and resistance were part of everyday life in these neighborhoods, making them targets of repression by the military apparatus (Corporación José Domingo Cañas 2005). These neighborhoods were also important during the period because the dictatorship imposed a land privatization policy that exacerbated socio-economic differences, creating one city for those who could pay and another on the outskirts for the rest of society (Imilan 2016). As is the case in several Latin American cities, the notion of “the peripheral areas” encompasses more than the physical limits of Santiago. The term refers to the areas within or outside the limits of urban development that lack infrastructure and have limited access to basic social and institutional services (Ruiz Flores 2012). The origin of peripheral areas characterized by poverty and exclusion dates back many years in the Chilean capital (Márquez and Pérez 2008). However, accelerated growth in these areas coincides with two historical periods. First, in the 1950s and 1960s, large-scale migration from rural areas to the city (De Ramón 1990) resulted in a demographic explosion that led to impoverished informal settlements in several areas and a string of marginalized neighborhoods (Espinoza 1998; Castells 1973). Second, housing policies under the civil-military dictatorship (1973–1990) enabled the expansion of Santiago’s urban limits and the marginalized conditions in peripheral areas. The policies favored private investment and land distribution based on the ability to pay (Rodríguez 2016), leaving urban planning to the mercy of the market. The process set the stage for highly segregated planning, which continues today and has defined urban policy in the 30 years since the dictatorship ended (Abufhele 2019). Many of these areas are still at the margins of economic growth centers and public memory of the dictatorship and the transition. The dominant memory has centered on the notion of a non-politicized victim and the need for symbolic and material reparations (Hite and Collins 2009). The hegemonic symbolization of the past omits the specific type of violence, repression and raids that occurred during the dictatorship, the resistance deployed by the anti-dictatorial movement and the consequences of urban segregation in these areas of Santiago. Nevertheless, these neighborhoods have been creating various forms of memory and political participation beneath the surface for years. One example is the alternative commemoration practices deployed each September 11 and on other symbolic dates to channel current problems and question the official memories of the recent past (Olivari et al. 2021). Another example is found in the methods of local political participation that have been in place since the dictatorship, most of which center on the issue of housing (Angelcos and Pérez 2017).

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  303

These forms of political memory and mobilization have had scant visibility in analyses of collective memories of the dictatorship and protest movements over the past 30 years in Chile. However, the fact that local uprisings gave rise to and strengthened the estallido social movement has reaffirmed the validity of these peripheral urban memories. Prior to 2019, these memories had been deployed only on specific dates or in specific contexts and did not seem to transcend the local scale of memorialization, demands and resistance.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN MOBILIZATION, SPACE AND TIME As several authors have argued, collective action is tied to space through the ground where it takes place as well as the construction of the identities, strategies and demands of the contentious action. This was clear in the recent social uprising, which demonstrated the critical relationship between collective action and space as well as their requisite connection to time (Tilly 1994). The explosive nature of these expressions and the absence of the characteristics of a classic social movement in this uprising are new in Chile. The overarching, inorganic movement includes a range of different social players, has no clear leadership and is distanced from traditional political parties (Somma et al. 2020; González and Le Foulon 2020). The origins of the causes vary and the diversity of the participants, networks, collectives, communities and movements prevent a single body from representing the demands (Ganter and Varela, in press). Protests at the local level also added territory-based demands, intensifying the movement’s fragmented nature and, thus, contributed to the rapid configuration of an urban social movement with a strong territorial identity (Schuurman 2011) and fortifying neighborhood memories. Protest is one type of collective action through which it is possible to make demands related to common interests. Protest repertoires – shared cultural practices that impact the political and symbolic strategies of social movements – have been passed down from generation to generation but also include elements of creativity and improvisation (Tilly 1994; Tarrow 1997). They are loaded with memory and include techniques codified by others as well as innovative components that speak to comprehension of the present and a desire for change (Delgado 2004). As such, carrying out collective action depends on the past, the time at which it is undertaken, the political conditions and the available opportunities. Loaded with meaning and carried out in collective, social contexts (Auyero 2002), the form and content of protest are connected to different temporalities. These elements are, in turn, related to the place where the collective action occurs. Place is more than just context; elements like the structuring and meaning of the action and collective identity configurations come into play. Collective action requires concrete spaces that can be transformed over the course of protests (Daphi 2017), but the spaces themselves are also produced and imagined through these interactions (Lefebvre 1991; Massey 1996). When these interactions are meaningful

304  Handbook on urban social movements

or break away from everyday life, they become memorable actions – the concrete and symbolic traces of which can transform the present and future of social movements. This connection inevitably leads to the city, public space and the urban context. In urban life, the passers-by can mobilize, that is, appropriate the public stages of their everyday life in coordination with others, transforming and distinguishing that time and place with symbolic load, making these spaces their own (Delgado 2004). In this sense, understanding of collective action must account for the topographic dimension as these forms of semantic appropriation of space often contain a demand for the right to reconfigure urban space, that is, the right to the city (Lefebvre 1991).

NEOLIBERAL CITY, PRACTICES OF RESISTANCE AND THE WORK OF MEMORY The construction of collective memories is an eminently social process and is inseparable from its temporal, social and spatial frameworks (Halbwachs 1980; Jelin 2002). When we talk about the construction of memories, we are talking about a process that is inseparable from the production of the city and the organization of social space (Hoelscher and Alderman 2004; Sak and Senyapili 2018). If we accept that the city is essentially a multi-layering of power relationships, we must consider that these relationships include disputes that are both concrete, like access to services, and symbolic. It is here that memory, which is also up for dispute, plays a key role (Massey 2004; Till 2012). In Chile, particularly in the capital of Santiago, segregation and its adverse impacts –isolation, impoverishment, limited infrastructure and the perception of exclusion – were exacerbated during the dictatorship (Sabatini and Brain 2008). At the same time and in the context of a major economic crisis, massive protests and practices of resistance and solidarity were fiercely repressed. Urban memories from the period, particularly those related to the anti-dictatorial movement and its territorialized nature, have not played a central role in national or official memorialization processes (Badilla and Olivari 2021). We discuss urban memories precisely to highlight their relationship to the production of the city. In Chile, the latter is closely related to unequal access to the city itself, which is important for two reasons. The first is the structural violence that these neighborhoods suffered as a result of urban segregation. Second, in many cases, state intervention and police violence have become part of residents’ everyday lives, resulting in socio-territorial stigmatization (Wacquant 2008). The studies that address the production of local memories in these neighborhoods are recent. Some analyze the role of collective memories of the repression experienced during the dictatorship as it relates to the violence exercised over them today (Raposo 2012). They also show how everyday practices beneath the surface have transmitted many of these memories, keeping them current and active at the local level, where they are activated on certain commemorative dates (Olivari 2020). Scholars have also identified the importance of the production of local memory of

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  305

popular power experiences in shaping counter-cultural political projects, mainly those led by young people in peripheral areas of the city (Salazar 2012). These studies provide clues for understanding that, as noted by Angelcos et al. (2020), the local uprisings that powered the October 2019 protests are more than a reaction to the structural violence suffered by this type of neighborhood, as Wacquant (2008) had argued while studying violent actions by young people from marginalized and segregated neighborhoods. Rather, the local uprisings are ways of interpreting and addressing current events. The clues for doing so lie in the collective memory of dictatorial repression, the struggle against it and practices of resistance and solidarity. During periods of crisis and social change, the collective memory of current or past social movements and the questioning of hegemonic memories created by the state can play a fundamental role in the legitimacy of collective actions and demands as well as in strengthening the identities of participants (Daphi and Zamponi 2019). Remembering past events and/or conflicts and recovering and resignifying practices, symbols and discourse from other periods in history may revive the imagination of the social movement and its political impact to favor the goals of the collective action (Eyerman 2016).

ANALYSIS: BECOMING AN URBAN SOCIAL MOVEMENT ON MEMORY The anti-neoliberal protests that began in 2019 awakened Chile’s past at the local level. Since the movement began, the memory of several important historical periods has emerged in Santiago’s peripheral areas, nurturing the continuity of the protests and shaping a social movement of urban memory, a movement that claims the right to the city and to remembering its past. We describe the formation and continuity of this movement based on an analysis of 20 interviews of mobilized young residents of these peripheral neighborhoods. We argue that the shape of the movement emerged as a result of a mechanism universal to the different neighborhoods – updating and circulating family and local memories. These are memories connected to long-term and recent territorial demands, for example demands for affordable housing, urban infrastructure, basic services or a well-connected transport system (Schuurman 2011). These demands have been present in these areas for decades and in some of these neighborhoods since their very origins. Thus, recent protests in Chile have not only mobilized contemporary urban issues but at the same time have denounced the continuities of many of these problems, illuminating the relevance of remembering in these areas. The mechanism of updating and circulating family and local memories has been especially present at spontaneous protests in public areas and cooperation and solidarity initiatives. In both of these public spaces, encounters with others and the emotions connected to those encounters are the drivers that enable the memories to emerge and be shared.

306  Handbook on urban social movements

FROM THE HOUSE TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD TO SOCIETY: UPDATING AND CIRCULATING FAMILY AND LOCAL MEMORIES Young people’s stories about the protests associated with Chile’s most recent social movement, their participation in the movement and its connection to the recent and farther-removed past are woven together with different family stories. Their parents’ youthful political activism, a grandmother’s involvement in neighborhood struggles, uncles’ and aunts’ participation in protests and great-grandmother’s arrival in the neighborhood are stories that young people hear all their lives at home, in the intimacy of the family space. Now, those stories, that are linked to territorial demands or local forms of organization, transcend those limits, going out into the neighborhood and society as a whole. Different memories emerge to connect the young people’s experiences with what is happening in the country. The dictatorship and political violence of the past emerge along with memories of founding neighborhoods and a family history connected to the territory. While, for many, their homes and neighborhood are personal and family experiences, they also reflect the deficiencies and precarious conditions under which most of society lives. The pasts that emerge make that connection, as Denise, a university student who works at the neighborhood farmer’s market in Lo Hermida, an area with a long history of territorial struggle, explains: My grandmother is pretty much bedridden. She doesn’t leave the house, and she needs assistance to do many things. So that gives you a dose of reality. Like, “That’s how old people live, and that’s how I am going to live. This is my country. This is the farmer’s market. This is Peña (her nickname for her neighborhood, Peñalolén).” It is like not forgetting where I come from. In my house, we always say, “No one in this family can forget where they come from”. (Denise, Peñalolén)

Repeatedly, the young people say, “I grew up hearing those stories”. Now, triggered by the uprising, these stories reemerge and are updated outside the intimacy of the home. These memories help young people to interpret and address the present in at least two ways. First, they are bridges between their relatives’ pasts and their own experiences in the present. For example, Katy, from Puente Alto, describes the difficulties students faced when attempting to organize at her university and how she remembers the actions and challenges that her father faced in their neighborhood, which ended up serving as a model: We didn’t like the advisors. After that, we had another assembly, and the advisors boycotted it again. So, we hated them. They make me really angry. I tried to fight it because I thought about what my dad did here in the neighborhood. We have neighbors who are really fascists, even some cops. Others are really left-wing. So, you have to find a balance. (Katy, Puente Alto)

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  307

Second, family memories are shared to the extent that they are tied to the stories of neighbors and other local memories that also speak to the nation’s past and present. Through this circulation, neighbors come to understand that they share much more than a place of residence. They also share a history of mobilization, suffering, effort and solidarity. Coming together and sharing past experiences shapes a sense of what is shared, which according to the young people interviewed, had already been made clear. As Bruna says: There really were a lot of people on protest days. Lots of our neighbors went. We saw how the protest had meaning for many neighbors who had experiences similar to my mom’s. Some lived in informal settlements during the 80s and received a subsidy that allowed them to have their own home, so they came to Maipú. Stories of protests, banging on pots and pans and community meals from the 1980s came up a lot in our conversations with local residents. (Bruna, Maipú)

The uprising that began on October 18 emerges as a powerful, large-scale opportunity for local and family memories that had been protected and shared within the home to circulate beyond it. Familial and local memories are deeply connected to territorial problems that in many cases are still present and affecting these communities. The 2019 Chilean protest at the local level allowed remembering these problems and demands, and as Domaradzka (2018) suggests, facilitated a situation in which neighbors of these peripheral areas could “achieve some control over their urban environment” (Domaradzka 2018: 608). Family, local and national memories join together, creating dialogues and discussions that, in turn, generate systems of memory that the young people resignify in order to interpret and address the present of their territories and project into the future.

SPONTANEOUS PROTESTS IN PUBLIC SPACES Leo was 24 when the uprising began. He lives in Puente Alto, another of the poorest and most peripheral municipalities of southern Santiago. His family was among the first to arrive in the neighborhood as part of a land occupation in the 1970s. They have felt a part of it ever since. Under the dictatorship’s neoliberal housing policies, the sector grew without regulation. It became the site for major social housing projects that failed to include basic infrastructure and encouraged overcrowding and segregation. In that context and from the perspective of depoliticization in the territory, according to many young people, the spontaneous local protests that followed the estallido were very important. As Leo remarks: And suddenly, the local residents started to come, people started to come together. We got people together … it was wonderful. The police came … I was super excited at that point because, to my mind, as I said before, the territory was really politically dead. So, when I started to see local residents come out to protest, I had hope about what was happening. (Leo, Puente Alto)

308  Handbook on urban social movements

The 2019 Chilean protest fueled the politization of neighbors around problems of the urban environment, including issues such as pollution or the absence of public transportation, the social fabric of the area and the bottom-up political process (Pruijt 2007). As Ramona, also from Puente Alto, mentions: Here we don’t have nothing, there is not subway, there are just a few buses, there are two lines of colectivos. I knew I was a marginal person, because of the lack of a good transportation system. But during the protest I started to add a political dimension to this feeling of marginality. (Ramona, Puente Alto)

The mobilization of urban problems in peripheral territories also happened in historically politicized areas in which actions of resistance and social struggle have been part of their residents’ identity. This is the case of the Lo Hermida, a poor neighborhood in which its dwellers recalled a historical housing problem and the related demand for the occupation of neighboring lands that belong to a private vineyard. During October and November 2019 they not only demolished part of the wall that surrounds the vineyard but also attempted to occupy those lands as a form of protest (Rasse 2019). The uprising spurred political action in local public spaces. The resulting encounters in the peripheral areas enabled different memories to be connected to national events, shared and placed into circulation at the local level. Our interviewees report that this engendered recognition between residents and a connection to the territory itself. Across the board, this impact moved the young people who participated. Ramona, from Puente Alto, says that the spontaneous encounters in the streets meant seeing and recognizing each other again. It also meant using public space to share a “never-before-told” story that the young people did not know, the history of the areas they described as disconnected from the city’s political life. Taking to the streets uncovered a long history, revealing origins as land occupations and more recent changes. For this young woman, it meant breaking away from the stigma she held regarding the political disinterest of her neighborhood. She began to understand her assessment and the territory’s present through the lens of history and the collective effects of the neoliberal city: So, I saw this other side of the neighborhood, which is super close-knit, super aware. I realized that we have a lot of anger and sadness. We feel like no one has ever listened to us, that we are mute. But we aren’t mute because we don’t have a voice. We are mute because others make us feel that way. They don’t listen to us. (Ramona, Puente Alto)

For some young people, those stories of stigmatization and socio-territorial segregation are tied to the legacies of the dictatorship. For example, José, a nineteen-year-old lifelong resident of La Pintana, another of Santiago’s poorest municipalities, refers to drugs flowing into his neighborhood: They brought drugs in during the dictatorship, and now you see the repercussions. Not having a more or less “normal” childhood because you can’t really leave the house.

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  309

Encounters in public space also uncovered intense, emotional memories of the dictatorial past related to stories of protest and violence. Denise remarks: A ton of people told me that [the recent protests] stir up their very recent past, so … For a lot of people, seeing the military in the streets was a symptom of “let’s protect ourselves”. And for others it was like, “Not again”. I will defend the street to the death …

Denise describes those first days of protests as a time when her neighbors connected intensely with past struggles against the dictatorship and specific protest actions, such as banging on pots and pans, lighting bonfires and building barricades. A neighbor came by and taught us a lesson: “Here’s my backpack and my pot”. She took out the pot and said, “I’m here because no one is going to steal what we worked so hard to get back. The streets are ours. I’m not giving them up”.

Narrations of shared anti-dictatorial protest repertoires thus reappeared on the streets and were updated for the context of the anti-neoliberal uprising. Local collective action enables intergenerational exchange, an element central to updating and circulating memories. The work of memory is done among peers but also transmitted between generations. One example of this relates to the memories of the repression unleashed during the dictatorship. Early in the protests, the authorities’ reaction and excessive police violence triggered intense memories of the repression experienced in peripheral areas during the dictatorship. The older generations’ fear of experiencing that violence again was quickly transmitted to younger generations at home and during spontaneous neighborhood encounters: When they set the curfew, older residents were clearly reliving trauma. Many said, “Don’t go out after 12”, and the younger people didn’t care. Even my mom went out after 12. But I think it was interesting from that perspective to find points in common with stories of the past, mainly those about protests in poor neighborhoods. (Bruna, Maipú)

This intense intergenerational emotion led to open conversations, some of them in the streets, about the local past of political violence. Some of these turned into concrete actions around memory. For example, Carola, who lives in a neighborhood with a long history of organizing, describes how one of these commemorations developed: I know that several people were kidnapped from my neighborhood, and we had a tribute to them after October 18 just around the corner from my house. They had kidnapped three people who then disappeared. That is the closest story that I have. (Carola, Conchalí)

The narratives explaining the activation of memories from the recent and moreremoved pasts are emotionally charged. Young protesters are moved by being part of local political actions, coming together and recognizing each other through stories and experiences. In some cases, this also allows them to experience their neighborhood and look at local residents differently.

310  Handbook on urban social movements

This explosion of activity really brought people together. For example, I am much more comfortable walking in my neighborhood than I used to be. (José, La Pintana)

Unplanned encounters between neighbors in the streets created a vital space for exchanging and circulating different fragments of family and neighborhood memories. This transmission and movement shaped meanings in the narratives and practices that the neighbors engaged in as part of the social movement. The process was also reinforced by the organization and cooperation initiatives that arose from these spontaneous encounters.

RECOVERING LOCAL MEMORIES THROUGH COOPERATION Spontaneous encounters often led to coordination among neighbors, other forms of mobilization and protest, and planning solidarity initiatives. Neighborhood assemblies, community kitchens and the organization of commemorations are among the initiatives that stand out for their longevity and meaning in peripheral neighborhoods. Like spontaneous protests, these initiatives provide a space for coming together and mutual recognition among neighbors. However, in this case, political action transcends the ephemeral and intuitive and adds coordination and planning. As Bea notes, young people have participated intensely in this process: I have participated in every way. I marched at home. I went out to bang on pots and pans outside with my grandmother and I participated in assemblies. I also went to the workshops that they hold. Because when they hold the assembly, they invite you to the community kitchen. Things have happened here that had never happened before, and that is super interesting. I think that is the most valuable thing about this movement. (Bea, Quilicura)

The implications and intensity of local participation gave the assemblies a magnitude that literally transformed residents’ daily lives and interactions. New dynamics of space for coming together emerged. Iconic spaces – like Quilicura Plaza and La Palmilla Plaza in Conchalí – assumed a leading role in neighborhood organization while other lesser-known spaces were put to new use, as occurred in Puente Alto: Before, you would go on the weekend and there was nobody, or there were families. Now you go to the plaza on Fridays and Saturdays and there are assemblies from all over Puente Alto. It has become the plaza for assemblies. The feminist assembly happens in that corner. The cyclists’ assembly happens in the other corner. It is full of assemblies and groups. (Katy, Puente Alto)

These spaces, particularly the assemblies, which are autonomous and horizontal spaces for organizing, proved to be real catalysts of memory, as Leo explains: The high school students started the fare hopping. They’re the ones responsible for this movement. But it is also part of a very long history of very difficult and meaningful

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  311

experiences here in our territory. Those memories weren’t active before the uprising. That assembly has a direct relationship to those memories. It is also a space for collectivizing those memories. (Leo, Puente Alto)

The facilitated assemblies and memories that intertwined there showed the participants the need to come together and address the history of segregation: So people were motivated by what I proposed. I wanted an assembly that included all the residents. I thought that it was time to create a neighborhood petition. Because I thought the uprising would force local government to respond to the demands that no one was listening to … All my life I have been aware that no one listens to us here. (Ramona, Puente Alto)

The intergenerational transmission processes that were triggered promoted the organization of activities directly related to constructing meanings of different pasts, from the origins of the territories to the repression experienced during the dictatorship. For example, Mateo describes how the idea of organizing a neighborhood anniversary celebration and commemorations connecting current police repression to episodes of police violence in the recent past and during the dictatorship came about: We held a candlelight vigil. There was also a tribute to the people who were killed during that time, those who died. People brought pictures, painted a mural of the victims and the image of Catrillanca [a young Mapuche leader who was killed by police on November 14, 2018], and read statements. (Mateo, Independencia)

These spaces create a strong sense of community and shared understanding of the effects of the dictatorship, particularly the social fragmentation of the neighborhood and individualism. As Ramona puts it, these are spaces for recovering “what it is to be a community, which none of us had experienced before, not even our parents, because of what we inherited from the dictatorship – fear of communicating with others”.

FINAL REFLECTIONS A social uprising began in Chile on October 18, 2019 that quickly spread and put down roots in various Chilean neighborhoods and cities, taking on a strong local character. A network of local uprisings created a urban movement of memory, that is, it fueled a form of social organization strongly linked to the territories that through collective action seeks important social transformations in which collective memory plays a fundamental role. Local subaltern memories, when they were activated and circulated beyond the limits of peripheral areas, also legitimized the general demands of the movement, such as the end of the Pinochet constitution, while at the same time encouraging the rise of particular struggles in each territory, many of which have a long-term history.

312  Handbook on urban social movements

Neighborhood encounters in public spaces and cooperation initiatives, like assemblies and community kitchens, created places where the local and family memories that are meaningful to the participants and their territories could circulate, reinforcing collective initiatives and the expression of local demands. In other words, they shaped a territorialized movement with an important impact on identity, spatial appropriation, recognition and strengthening of community ties. This local urban movement also has a fundamental generational element. Young people have taken a leading role in collective action in Chile since the student movements of 2006 and 2011. Politically socialized during those protests, they act as catalysts for economic discontent and their family and neighborhood stories. They are not just leading the protests. They are challenging the traditional forms of protest employed by older generations, who are also participating. This new generation has incorporated the historicity of their struggles, passed down from generation to generation, emphasizing present demands and the future of their territories. The demands highlight the affective value of encounters, strengthening ties and reinforcing the sense of belonging to the territory and the movement. In Mateo’s words, coming together meant “having experienced what it is to be in community spaces, care for others, share with others and share a territory and a life”. In this sense, the recognition of a “shared life” and “being a community” is one of the most significant achievements of this movement. It illustrates the movement’s emancipatory potential, challenging the consequences of the neoliberal city, especially social fragmentation and individualism, building and recovering a shared historical narrative. This urban movement of memory, knit together on the ground and led by young people, has revealed a different type of politicization. This movement has shown a different form of politization with distinctive features, it is less ideological and far from institutional aspirations regarding formal and electoral politics. It also has a strong generational aspect, deeply connected to affects, and linked to segregated territories. Therefore it also involves a strong sense of belonging and a recognition of the past, with its struggles and continuities. Understanding this form of local politicization may be critical at the constituent moment in which Chile finds itself. In an unprecedented process, a constitutional assembly will discuss the foundations for a new constitution that will outline the country’s political coexistence. Understanding that neighborhoods and their memories have positioned themselves as key players in this process may lead the way for thinking about the Chile of the future.

NOTE 1. We are extremely grateful to our young interviewees without whom this work would not have been possible and to Ignacio Herrera for his assistance and helpful comments. We also thank the PIA CONICTY SOC 180007 Anillo Project, at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University from Valparaíso, as well as ANID Postdoctoral Fondecyt projects 3220446 and 3210074, that made possible the fieldwork of this study.

The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: a movement of urban memories  313

REFERENCES Abufhele, V. (2019). La política de la pobreza y el gobierno de los asentamientos informales en Chile. Revista Eure 45(135), 49–69. Angelcos, N. and Pérez, M. (2017). De la “desaparición” a la reemergencia: Continuidades y rupturas del movimiento de pobladores en Chile. Latin American Research Review 52(1), 94–109. Angelcos, N., Roca, A., and Cuadros, E. (2020). Juventudes populares: Decencia, contracultura y militancia en el estallido social de Octubre. Última Década 54, 41–68. Auyero, J. (2002). Los cambios en el repertorio de la protesta en la Argentina. Desarrollo económico 42(166), 187–210. Badilla, M. and Olivari, A. (2021). Encender las barricadas: Artefactos afectivos para la transmisión de la memoria del movimiento antidictatorial en Chile (1983–1986). Clepsidra. Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios Sobre Memoria 8(15), 32–47. Bravo, V. (2017). Piedras, Barricadas y Cacerolas. Las Jornadas Nacionales de Protesta, Chile 1983–1986. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Castells, M. (1973). Movimiento de pobladores y lucha de clases en Chile. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales 3(7), 9–35. Corporación José Domingo Cañas (2005). Tortura en Poblaciones del Gran Santiago (1973–1990). Santiago. Daphi, P. (2017). Imagine the streets: The spatial dimension of protests’ transformative effects and its role in building movement identity. Political Geography 56, 34–43. Daphi, P. and Zamponi, L. (2019). Exploring the movement-memory nexus: Insights and ways forward. Mobilization: An International Journal 24(4), 399–417. De Ramón, A. (1990). La población informal: Poblamiento de la periferia de Santiago de Chile, 1920–1970. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales 17(50), 5–17. Delgado, M. (2004). Del movimiento a la movilización. Espacio, ritual y conflicto en contextos urbanos. Maguaré 18, 125–160. Domaradzka, A. (2018). Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29, 607–620. Espinoza, V. (1998). Historia social de la acción colectiva urbana: Los pobladores de Santiago, 1957–1987. Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Urbano Regionales 24(72), 71–84. Eyerman, R. (2016). Social movements and memory. In A. L. Tota and T. Hagen (eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Memory Studies. New York: Routledge, pp. 79–83. Ganter, R. and Varela, G. (In press). Violencias / Desobediencias: un antes-durante el estallido social chileno 18/O. Santiago: LOM. Gonzalez, R. and Le Foulon C. (2020). The 2019–2020 Chilean protests: A first look at their causes and participants. International Journal of Sociology 50(3), 227–235. Halbwachs, M. (1980). On Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row. Hite, K. and Collins, C. (2009). Memorial fragments, monumental silences and reawakenings in 21st-century Chile. Journal of International Studies 38(2), 379–400. Hoelscher, S. and Alderman, D. H. (2004). Memory and place: Geographies of a critical relationship. Social & Cultural Geography 5(3), 347–355. Imilan, W. A. (2016). Políticas y luchas por la vivienda en Chile: El camino neoliberal. Working paper series: Contested Cities. Jelin, E. (2002). Los Trabajos de La Memoria. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Márquez, F. and Pérez, F. (2008). Spatial frontiers and neo-communitarian identities in the city: The case of Santiago de Chile. Urban Studies 45(7), 1461–1483. Massey, D. (1996). Politicising space and place. Scottish Geographical Magazine 112(2), 117–123.

314  Handbook on urban social movements

Massey, D. (2004). Geographies of responsibility. Geografiska Annaler 86B(1), 5–18. Olivari, A. (2020). Tramas de memoria local, presente y cotidianidad en la transmisión intergenerational: El caso de un ‘barrio crítico’ de Santiago de Chile. Revista de Antropología Social 29(1), 59–72. Olivari, A., Badilla, M., and Reyes, M. J. (2021). Conmemoraciones periféricas en barrios segregados en Santiago de Chile: Efectos sociopolíticos en la configuración de comunidad. Bitácora Urbano Territorial 31(1), 211–222. Pruijt, H. (2007). Urban movements. In G. Ritzer (ed.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 5123–5127. Raposo, G. (2012). Territorios de la memoria: La retórica de la calle en Villa Francia. POLIS [Online] Revista Latinoamericana 31. https://​journals​.openedition​.org/​polis/​3709​?lang​=​en. Rasse, A. (2019). Lo Hermida: Botar el muro y abrir el imaginario. In K. Araujo (ed.), Hilos tensados. Para leer el octubre chileno. Santiago: USACH, pp. 339–351. Rodríguez, P. (2016). El debilitamiento de lo urbano en Santiago, Chile. Revista Eure 42(125), 61–79. Ruiz Flores, J. C. (2012). Violencias en la periferia de Santiago: La población José María Caro. Revista Invi 74(May), 249–265. Sabatini, F. and Brain, I. (2008). La segregación, los guetos y la integración social urbana: Mitos y claves. EURE 34(103), 5–26. Sak, S. and Senyapili, B. (2018). Evading time and place in Ankara: A reading of contemporary urban collective memory through recent transformations. Space and Culture 22(4), 341–356. Salazar, G. (2012). Movimientos sociales en Chile: Trayectoria histórica y proyección política (Vol. 3). Santiago: Uqbar. Schuurman, F. (2011). Urban social movements: Between regressive utopia and socialist panacea. In F. Schuurman and T. Van Naerssen (eds.), Urban Social Movements in the Third World. London: Routledge, pp. 9–26. Somma, N., Bargsted, M., Disi Pavlic, R., and Medel, R. (2020). No water in the oasis: The Chilean spring of 2019–2020. Social Movement Studies. Online first. doi:10.1080/147428 37.2020.1727737. Tarrow, S. (1997). El poder en movimiento. Los movimientos sociales, la acción colectiva y la política. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Till, K. E. (2012). Wounded cities: Memory-work and a place-based ethics of care. Political Geography 31, 3–14. Tilly, C. (1994). Afterword: Political memories in space and time. In J. Boyarin (ed.), Remapping Memory: The Politics of Time Space. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 241–256. Wacquant, L. (2008). Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality. Cambridge: Polity Press.

20. Rage against the machine: how twenty-first century political machines constitute their own opposition Stephanie Ternullo and Jeffrey N. Parker

INTRODUCTION “Machine is a venerable word, evocative of both quaint and sinister images”, Guterbock (1980) begins his study of machine politics, before offering a standard social scientific definition of a machine as a political party “which has a tight, hierarchical organization, includes party agents at the grass roots level, and systematically distributes patronage among its members” (Guterbock 1980: 3). Machines proliferated in American cities beginning in the nineteenth century and maintained control largely “by granting petty favors to various nationalistic and local groups, by taking advantage of the subsidies offered by the national government, by keeping the attention of the voters distracted by factional quarrels and sham disputes” (Gosnell 1937: 183). Essentially, they offered something to the voter, whether it was something as substantial as a patronage job, as Gosnell observed in Chicago in the 1930s, or as amorphous as a sense of affective belonging, as Guterbock observed in the same city in the 1970s. Regardless of whether the exchange model is material or affective, the basic premise of the machine has typically been that it provides something, and this something creates a voting public that supports it. This chapter does not dispute the basic veracity of this model, but it does identify something else that that goes on with machines, or at least something that has gone on with one of its prototypical cases, the Chicago Democratic machine. While the machine has indeed created a voting public for itself over the course of the twentieth century, it has also created a political bloc that defines itself largely in opposition to the very idea of the machine. In other words, in going about constituting its support, the Chicago machine has also constituted its opposition. In this chapter, we examine one of the consequences of this state of affairs, as we demonstrate the ways grassroots anti-gentrification efforts in Bridgeport, the neighborhood home of the machine, are organized to take advantage of the machine’s stigmatized reputation among certain populations in Chicago. This suggests that machine politics, even in a weakened state, can create a unique political opportunity for urban social movements to mobilize residents not just on the grounds of their rights to the city (Lefebvre 1968), but also their rights to democratic representation (McAdam et al. 1996; McCammon et al. 2007). But we also reveal the unintended consequences of this strategy, namely the hardening of boundaries between groups in 315

316  Handbook on urban social movements

the neighborhood that potentially diminish the strength of intra-Bridgeport political mobilization. In so doing, we show the challenges that urban social movements face in building place-based collective identities across longstanding lines of political division (Di Masso 2012; Hopkins and Dixon 2006).

POLITICAL MACHINES AND GENTRIFICATION IN THE AMERICAN CITY The political machines of US cities were largely born during Reconstruction and persisted in various forms throughout much of the twentieth century (Trounstine 2008). During that time, they served an important “function” in American political life: before the sustained intervention of the federal government into its citizens’ social welfare, machine politicians supplied jobs, resources, and services to clients, only if they gave their vote in return (Hicken 2011; Merton 1957). The result is what Susan Stokes (2005) refers to as “perverse accountability”: politicians hold voters accountable for their ballot, rather than the reverse. Machines, in sum, are a type of political “monopoly” designed to concentrate and perpetuate political power within ostensibly democratic institutions (Trounstine 2008). But they often do so by funneling patronage to their voters: in US cities organized by ethnically-defined territories, machines have controlled politics by strategically delivering funds to their neighborhoods (Katznelson 1981). This necessarily means that there are certain people left out of the patronage networks – until at least the New Deal era in northern cities, this generally meant Black voters (Schickler 2016). However, if the machine is running smoothly, it should be able to contain any opposition that might arise from those corners. But since at least the 1970s, machines – along with many urban governments – have been grappling with another potential source of opposition: anti-gentrification movements. City officials are often part of growth machines that seek to market their cities – often through subsidies and tax incentives – to global capital, and in so doing produce “antigrowth coalitions” composed of residents who want to retain autonomy over their communities (Castells 1983; Logan and Molotch 1987). But as Brown-Saracino (2009) has argued, the anti-growth constituency is often composed of more than just long-time residents; it also includes some newcomers who want to preserve rather than replace the authenticity of their new neighborhood. This suggests the potential for an alliance – between those residents left behind by gentrification, on the one hand, and those who oppose the perverse accountability of machines, on the other. And yet, as we show, the machine creates a much more contradictory set of politics: because Bridgeport’s anti-gentrification arguments also target the machine as the purveyor of gentrification, they risk alienating longstanding clients who might otherwise align with their concerns over housing affordability.

Rage against the machine  317

DATA, METHODS AND CASE Data and Methods: Two Sets of Interviews To make this case, we draw on in-depth interviews and ethnographic observation conducted in Bridgeport between 2016 and 2019. The data used in this chapter was collected by each author individually: Parker carried out 33 interviews between 2016 and 2019, as well as ethnographic observation during that time and while living in the neighborhood. The majority of his interviews are with local merchants, although he also spoke with political and religious leaders. Ternullo spent the winter and spring of 2019 observing and participating in Bridgeport Alliance (BA) meetings and campaign activities during Chicago’s mayoral and aldermanic elections that year. As part of this, she also collected 11 in-depth interviews with BA members and residents. While collected separately, the conflicts around neighborhood change that we describe emerged as clear patterns in both data sets. We entered the field with different research questions and sampling strategies – Parker was interested in the role that local merchants play in the social production of place reputation and Ternullo was interested in political affiliation during Chicago’s municipal elections – but we each found similar patterns that pointed to the role of Bridgeport’s dual reputation as home of the Daley machine as well as a racist enclave, in structuring local political and social life. As such, we were able to triangulate our findings among different types of data within each study, as well as between the studies. The Case: The Chicago Democratic Machine and Old Bridgeport Chicago is, in many ways, a deviant case in the history of machine politics in America, insofar as the Regular Democratic Organization of Cook County did not wither away over the course of the twentieth century as it did in cities like New York and Philadelphia (Lowi 1968). “Precisely because it is the last ‘machine’”, Janowitz says in the foreword to Guterbock’s Machine Politics in Transition, “it supplies a relevant example” (1980: xii). Typically associated with the municipal Democratic Party, machine politics in Chicago go back at least as far as the 1890s when “‘Bathhouse John’ Coughlin and ‘Hinky Dink’ Kenna, two notorious First Ward politicians succeeded in controlling the city’s mayor” (Taylor 1972: 41). There was also a Republican machine run by William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson (Gosnell 1937: 10–12), but when Thompson lost the 1931 election, it marked the last time Chicago had a Republican mayor. It also represented the rise of the current Democratic machine, whose power was consolidated in 1932 with Democratic victories at the state and national level (Gosnell 1937: 9). And yet, the basic regime stayed the same. Chicago politics switched from Republican to Democrat between 1928 and 1936, and yet nothing really changed in terms of how things were run in the city (Gosnell 1937: 8), in contrast to massive upheaval in other cities amidst the Great Depression. Chicago just replaced one

318  Handbook on urban social movements

machine with another, and various power brokers got in line, as they knew “they could count upon the local machine to do business in the old way in spite of the changes that had taken place in the role of the national government” (Gosnell 1937: 184). So the machine stayed. And by and large, it stayed rooted in one place: the near South Side neighborhood of Bridgeport, an ethnically polyglot neighborhood abutting the city’s Black Belt. Anton Cermak, the first leader of the post-Thompson Democratic machine, was from Pilsen, the neighborhood immediately to the North. He was shot in 1933, though, and Edward J. Kelly of Bridgeport became mayor. Four more mayors from the neighborhood served between then and now, including Richard J. Daley and Richard M. Daley. Chicago had a mayor from Bridgeport continuously from 1933 to 1979, when Northsider Jane Byrne took office (Moser 2011), followed by Harold Washington, David Orr, and Eugene Sawyer. But this too was a brief interruption of Bridgeport-based mayoral power: Richard M. Daley was elected in 1989 and served until 2011, one year longer than the 21 years served by his father Richard J. Daley, from 1955 and 1976. Just because the mayors tended to be from Bridgeport does not mean the machine did not have influence elsewhere, of course. An intensely structured organization that ran on a ward system complete with ward bosses and precinct captains (Gosnell 1937), the machine’s reach expanded across the city. Guterbock’s reappraisal of the machine (1980) came from the perspective of a North Side ward, and there was a Black submachine headed by William Dawson (Gunderson 2016) during the tenure of Richard J. Daley. Although the machine eventually expanded to incorporate Black politicians, this did not prevent racial politics and racial violence from defining Chicago politics. While the machine generally made efforts to consolidate power among all constituencies, its politicians used racial and ethnic tension to maintain power (Taylor 1972) and took steps to entrench segregation and inequality in housing and schools (see Ewing 2018). As with the city’s history of machine politics, Bridgeport played a central role within these racialized politics. Bridgeport has been the site of racialized conflict stretching back at least as far as the pro-Confederacy marches during the Civil War (Pacyga 2004) and extending all the way up to the contemporary moment, which has in recent years seen both anti-Black Lives Matter vigilantes in the neighborhood (Morell 2020) and property destruction of an art gallery displaying Black Lives Matter art (Ward 2020), with notable moments of racial conflict in-between. This history is rooted in a few different structural issues, including its boundary with the Black Belt and historic labor market competition in the early twentieth century between newly arrived Black migrants from the Great Migration and European immigrants for industrial jobs, like those in the nearby stockyards (Drake and Cayton 1945). The isolation in the neighborhood only became more extreme after the Supreme Court ruled in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) that restrictive covenants were unenforceable. While the rest of the then predominantly White South Side saw White flight to the suburbs, Bridgeport remained an island of Whiteness throughout the twentieth century in a South Side

Rage against the machine  319

that became increasingly Black. A significant reason Bridgeport did not replicate the pattern of other neighborhoods on the South Side but stayed White is because as the center of the machine, the neighborhood was home to lots of people with patronage jobs in the city government. These jobs required its holders to maintain city addresses, so people who might otherwise have fled to the suburbs stayed in Bridgeport. This is the historical context for contemporary debates in Bridgeport, which now features sizable non-White populations as well as a neighborhood contingency organized against gentrification in the neighborhood (Parker and Ternullo 2022).

ANALYSIS: CHOOSING YOUR ENEMY IN BRIDGEPORT How do machine politics shape anti-gentrification movements? What are the opportunities and challenges for mobilization provided by this form of party organization? In the following sections, we first describe how the contemporary machine is one factor contributing to gentrification in Bridgeport. We then analyze how the anti-gentrification efforts of a grassroots organization in Bridgeport, BA, often conflate machine politics with gentrification despite the fact that there are several other causes of rising house prices and symbolic changes in the neighborhood. We show that BA uses the fact that some people hate the machine to symbolically align the machine with gentrification and gain support in the neighborhood. And finally, we conclude by showing how, by taking advantage of this discursive opportunity structure (McCammon et al. 2007), they also run afoul of longstanding machine loyalists, suggesting the limitations of neighborhood-based mobilizations when confronted with traditional lines of political division. Gentrification and the Machine in Present-Day Bridgeport Although Chicago has not had a mayor from Bridgeport since Richard M. Daley stepped down in 2011, the machine persists in the neighborhood. The two most powerful political figures in the ward in recent years are both members of the Daley family, with John Daley (son of Richard J. Daley and brother of Richard M. Daley) serving as the 11th Ward Democratic Committeeman, and Patrick Daley Thompson (grandson of Richard J. Daley and nephew of Richard M. Daley) until very recently serving as the 11th Ward Alderman. During the drafting of this chapter, Thompson was indicted on federal charges for “filing false federal income-tax returns for five years and making false statements to federal banking regulators” (Novak 2021). Thompson refuted the charges, but was subsequently convicted (Seidel et al. 2022). It is not the first time in living memory a Bridgeport politician has been accused of corruption, with former alderman Patrick Huels pushed to resign in 1997 over charges he used his office to gain personal benefit for his business (Washburn and Martin 1997). As such, Bridgeport’s reputation as the home of the machine and political corruption has persisted.

320  Handbook on urban social movements

So has its reputation as an epicenter of racism. And yet, Bridgeport has not stayed White. In recent decades, the neighborhood has seen an increase in both Chinese/ Chinese-American residents moving to the neighborhood from nearby Chinatown, and Mexican/Mexican-American residents moving to the neighborhood from nearby Pilsen. At this point, non-Hispanic Whites only make up about a third of the neighborhood, and the largest single ethno-racial group is non-Hispanic Asians. Bridgeport is also witnessing increasing signs of gentrification. In addition to new art galleries, independent coffee shops, and other visible symbols of gentrification, it is becoming less affordable: the Bridgeport/Brighton Park area of Chicago saw the third-fastest rate of growth in housing prices in Cook County between January 2000 and June 2020 (Cook County House Price Index). And while a 2014 report by the Nathalie P. Vorhees Center for Neighborhood Improvement and Community Improvement classified Bridgeport as experiencing “positive change” but not gentrification, it also concluded that “if current trends of upward change continue … Bridgeport [is] likely to be classified as gentrified in the next decade” (Nathalie P. Vorhees Center 2014: 22). This account comports with residents’ concerns about increasing gentrification (Parker and Ternullo 2022). Bridgeport thus provides insight into how urban social movements are shaped by machine politics: machines do not just constitute their supporters, they also help create an opportunity for the opposition to organize around several issues using the frame of the machine to make their arguments. In part, this is because machines have long been associated with corruption (e.g., Gosnell 1933), imbuing them with what Goffman (1963) would call a stigmatized identity, at least among those excluded from the machine. This means that connecting the stigmatized machine to social processes one opposes is a useful political move, regardless of whether the machine is primarily responsible for those processes. In this case, that process is neighborhood gentrification. This is not to say that the machine has not been involved in gentrification in Bridgeport – while alderman, Thompson succeeded in bringing a Starbucks into the neighborhood at a city-owned lot at a discount (Stoner 2019), despite some neighborhood opposition (Parker and Ternullo 2022). Starbucks is precisely the kind of commercial development that Thompson supported. As Stoner (2019) reports, “A priority for the 11th Ward is the continued improvement along Halsted Street”, Thompson wrote in his letter of support for the project. “The addition of a Starbucks will help to attract other national retailers to this location”. This is an instance where the Chicago machine is also part of what Logan and Molotch (1987) call the growth machine. And yet, Thompson does not support all national chains. During an interview with Parker in 2017, Thompson talked about how certain kinds of chains are simply not needed in Bridgeport, saying “You know, I’m not a big fan of the neon, as I call it, but all like national – you know, it’s like oh, well, Chipotle. I’m like, no, we’ve got the Martinez family on Morgan who make way better food than Chipotle has ever”, and “It’s like well, Panda Express. No, we’ve got great Chinese [food]”.

Rage against the machine  321

There are also factors contributing to gentrification in Bridgeport that have nothing to do with machine politics. First, Bridgeport has a thriving art scene, which we know from work about other Chicago neighborhoods (Lloyd 2006; Parker 2018) attracts not just artists but those who want to be around artists. The art scene is also supported by a small and growing set of eclectic businesses in the neighborhood including a bar (Maria’s), multiple restaurants, and a brewery, many owned by a single family, the Marszewskis. The neighborhood has further changed because of new residents from nearby Pilsen and Chinatown who have moved to Bridgeport because they were priced out of those neighborhoods; as such, they have some economic means above the level of those who find even Bridgeport unaffordable. In other words, gentrification in Bridgeport can be attributed to several sources: the machine, but also in-migration of various groups whose movement to the neighborhood is rooted in economic and cultural reasoning. But those opposing gentrification in Bridgeport have found it most useful to tar the process with the stigmatized machine because it elicits negative affective reactions from many people. Publicly opposing gentrification also means publicly choosing your enemy, and that choice is strategic. Becoming the Voice of the Neighborhood It is in this political context that BA, a grassroots organization that meets monthly in a local church, crafts its anti-gentrification frames. The organization’s members often change, but during the time of our fieldwork, were generally young, White, and middle-class. They are also relative “newcomers” to the neighborhood (BrownSaracino 2009). BA began, as one of its founders Karla recalled in the spring of 2019, amidst the 2008 financial crisis, when Karla was laid off and found herself with more time on her hands. She began connecting with local religious and civic leaders, discussing the seemingly ever-growing pile of problems in the neighborhood that the city – and Bridgeport’s then-alderman Balcer – were not addressing. She wanted BA to be, as she said, “the voice of the people in this neighborhood”. As she continued: We’ve never had a voice. We were on the boot and the machine was on our necks or you were an outsider, which is what my family was. Even though I’m like screaming Irish … used to see the old man, Mayor Richard the First, going to church every morning … my family was not involved with the machine. My dad was a union steward and told me basically to stay away from them, “You don’t know what they want”. So, I never got involved with the machine […] I know we never had a voice, and [then in 2008] We were losing our homes. We didn’t have work. […] We were talking and we’re like, “The need is so great here. There’s constantly something that needs to be done, and the powers that be, the alderman, bosses, all of them, didn’t do anything. Nothing”.

As Karla indicates, early BA members were a practical group: they saw an old theatre being razed to the ground and fought against it; they helped local food pantries; and they worked to reinstate a bus line running through the neighborhood. Through all of

322  Handbook on urban social movements

these actions, they saw themselves as filling in a void left by “the bosses”, as Karla refers to them. Although they were not necessarily agitating against the machine, the machine’s lack of representativeness and responsiveness – as BA members understood it – gave them their raison d’être. Although Karla and many of the group’s original founders are no longer involved, BA’s members today still consider representation as a key goal, as Kyle says: BA seeks “to bring regular everyday people to the decision-making table … to exert influences on decisions that affect our everyday lives”. This is because, as BA members understand it, the machine is not actually responsive to its constituents or interested in serving them. As Katherine says: “Like traditionally it’s been machine politics, like the Daleys, ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ Just like, let’s pretend like we’re making things happen but maybe not so much”. BA, in contrast, wants to be this voice for the community. For BA members and other Bridgeport residents we spoke to during Chicago’s 2019 municipal elections, the machine was the central organizing heuristic through which they understood city politics. For them, the machine represents stasis, corruption, and quid pro quo – as Katherine’s comment indicates – and “outsider” candidates represent, more than anything, the hope of change and real representation. In Bridgeport, given its history, the machine is a particularly salient heuristic. Bridgeporters are well aware of their neighborhood’s history as the seat of political power in Chicago, and those we spoke to mention it regularly as a defining feature of the neighborhood. Sarah, for example, is not a BA member but is aware of their activities and generally supports their work in the community. When asked how well she thinks Alderman Thompson represents the neighborhood, she says “I don’t think so, and part of that is it’s a judgment because he’s a Daley. I’m being honest about that”. She goes on to say that he was “very diplomatic” when running for office and “skirted the answers to our questions” about neighborhood concerns like gentrification, affordable housing, and constituent access. She frames her judgment of him in terms of his connections, saying “I felt like I definitely judged him and I felt like I think because his family has been involved in the political machine for so long, I just saw this continuation of that”. As Sarah admits, part of her negative appraisal of Alderman Thompson’s performance stems from her distaste for the machine and her understanding of Thompson as involved in the machine’s current operations. And as a machine politician, he is unrepresentative. As Jim contends in another conversation, it is only the “outsider” candidates in the city elections who have any hope of getting things done. Even people who express some support for the machine recognize that it is a stigmatized form of political organization. For example, Ed Marszewski, whose family owns a number of neighborhood businesses and contributes to processes that many neighborhood residents decry as gentrification, expresses a desire for a political mechanism like a machine to accomplish progressive political ends, while acknowledging the reasons for the form’s stigma:

Rage against the machine  323

I wish we had a machine that was effective again, so I wish there was a Daley family that could fucking organize political force to oppose the fucking xenophobic garbage, and hate, and bigotry, and just anti-everything that I believe in, even though at one point I thought those were the very forces I was fighting against, when in fact they were just able to be real politicians and compromise and let everyone have a say.

Marszewski, who himself is half-Korean, supports anti-racism and progressive causes – it was at one of his venues where Black Lives Matter art was vandalized – but for him, the machine, associated with racism for many, represents aspirational power. Still, he also recognizes that “in the past, machine equals establishment and scary”. The Old vs. New Bridgeport In sum, for BA members and other Bridgeporters, Chicago politics revolves around two choices: the machine and the status quo or outsiders and change. While this is in some ways a common heuristic in Chicago politics, among BA members Thompson represented not just the epitome of the machine, but everything about the “old” Bridgeport they wanted to change. BA conceives of the machine as a domineering force hoping to return Bridgeport to its White, suburb-within-a-city past through a particular strategy of urban development. As such, in their efforts to fight gentrification, BA comes to define it as the machine’s version of development: suburbanization with undertones – and occasionally overtones – of racial exclusion. In contrast, they see themselves as working to represent “the people” in advocating for a new, racially inclusive, affordable neighborhood. How did these rhetorical associations emerge? How did gentrification become synonymous with the machine, racial exclusion, and suburbanization, to the exclusion of other forces also contributing the gentrification process? Nearly everyone we spoke to described “development” as a core challenge for the neighborhood: Halsted Street, the neighborhood’s main commercial drag, is full of empty storefronts that have languished for years. Many long-time residents can still recall when their “Main Street” buzzed with commercial activity from local businesses. But as first big box and later online retailers changed the landscape for those businesses, the street’s buzz began to die down. BA members would love to see that change, as – they agree – would Thompson. But they see themselves as promoting a different kind of development than Thompson. BA is looking toward the future; Thompson, as they see it, is looking toward the past. And given Bridgeport’s reputation as a racist, White enclave, BA members fear that part of that retrogression is about protecting the neighborhood’s Whiteness. Jenny, for example, explains how she sees Thompson’s efforts to control which businesses take up space in the vacant storefronts on Halsted: The question is what kind of investment and who does it benefit? I think he wants us to look a little bit like a suburb. His idea of what success looks like is upscale development. I really

324  Handbook on urban social movements

think there are racist overtones into what businesses he seeks and what he tries to exclude. He had a big push of keeping out nail salons.

The nail salons, primarily owned and operated by Chinese and Chinese-American families, represent the changing racial profile of the community as Chinatown continues to merge with Bridgeport’s historic boundaries. BA members agree with Jenny that Thompson is using his control over building and zoning permits on Halsted to influence the racial composition of business owners. As Jenny concludes: “He has an exclusionary vision of what he wants that investment to look like”. But BA worries not just that the machine’s development strategy is racist; they also worry that it is an attempt to commercialize their neighborhood in a homogenous way. As one member, Abby, tells us, there are two competing visions for local development – one is the machine’s hope to return the neighborhood to its “suburban roots”, as she says, and the other is to create a walkable, bikeable, urban space. As Karla says: “[Daley] wants to tear everything down and make it look like Madison Street” – a commercial drag in Chicago that is full of national chains. Thus, for BA members, the question is precisely as Jenny articulates it: for what kind of investment should they be advocating? As members of the group overwhelmingly agree, it should be urban, not suburban; racially inclusionary not exclusionary; and geared toward preserving affordability. At a monthly meeting in February 2019, when Kyle asks the group of 12 attendees to explain their hopes for the future of the neighborhood, Jim speaks up. “I’d like to see more economic development on Halsted Street”, he says. He explains that he used to live on 18th Street in Pilsen, where the many businesses drew people out, and there were always people walking up and down the street. “It created a better sense of community”, he concludes. Kyle has a large sheet of yellow paper laid out on the table in front of him, and he’s poised to record responses. “So, can I write that down as ‘equitable economic development?’” he asks. “Yeah, economic development … equitable economic development”, says Jim. In this interaction, Jim accepts Kyle’s edit, although it is not quite true to the meaning of his original statement. But “equitable development” is the definitive stance of BA members. And in Bridgeport, equity takes on two meanings: ensuring a voice for all members of the community, particularly for those of all races, and preventing development that would make it unaffordable for residents. Because BA understands gentrification as deeply entangled with the machine’s vision of development, they frame their opposition to new developments – like the building of a Starbucks in a vacant lot on the corner of 31st Street and Halsted in the spring of 2019 – in these terms. To BA members, Starbucks represented the epitome of the Daleys’ efforts at a suburban kind of gentrification, and they were particularly incensed at the lack of community input into the development. Crafting a strategy to oppose the Starbucks development was BA’s central focus for most of 2019. And yet, at the same time, the Marszewskis’ neighborhood business empire has continued to expand, both within Bridgeport and beyond (Bloom 2021), and Ed Marszewski even publicly backed the Starbucks after initially opposing it (Stoner 2019). On this, BA was silent. The inclusive environment that

Rage against the machine  325

the Marszewskis cultivate and the fact that their businesses are not part of a national chain allows them to escape the attention of BA’s development concerns. But when BA talks about gentrification, they talk about the machine. In contrast to their relative silence on other potential sources of gentrification in the neighborhood, in their opposition to the Starbucks, BA members recognize that they are also opposing Thompson, the machine, and their efforts to leverage political clout to reinstate Bridgeport’s White, suburban character. Anti-gentrification politics in Bridgeport is melded seamlessly with anti-machine politics. The Challenges of Anti-Machine Politics This anti-gentrification/anti-machine association is politically useful as a mobilizing frame: it attracts residents who, like Karla, have felt left out of machine politics for decades. But it also presents a new set of challenges for BA: they are supposed to represent the community, and yet, what if the “community” likes the machine’s vision for the neighborhood? This concern seems somewhat contradictory: BA came into being because it saw the machine as unrepresentative, but now BA members worry just as often that they are unrepresentative. How did this come to be the case? Caroline, a Mexican-American resident who grew up in the neighborhood, describes the distinctive visions for the neighborhood as she sees it: the old-timers might just support the Starbucks and other chains coming into the community. But, she goes on: “I think like new people to the neighborhood, I think younger people might want to see something that’s cool. It’s not cookie cutter or something that’s on every street corner”. This is, in fact, exactly what BA members want – independent development, despite the fact that some of this development, like Maria’s, is also contributing to gentrification. The challenge is that this vision, as Caroline indicates, might not be shared by old-timers. Moreover, BA members worry that those old-timers might in fact support the Daleys and the politics-as-usual they represent. This concern continued to re-emerge among BA members as they crafted their opposition to the Starbucks development. As one member pointed out during a meeting in 2019, their anti-gentrification movement was necessarily going to be limited in Bridgeport if they could not welcome Daley supporters into the fold. Bridgeport’s anti-gentrification movement had become an anti-machine movement, a political stance that alienated them from those who have long benefited from the machine. And in a community such as Bridgeport, this undermined the movement’s ability to attract broad-based support. As Jenny explained, she worried that BA was off-putting to old-timers who might be worried about the increasing unaffordability of housing in the neighborhood but who do not identify with the “cultural ethos of activism” of BA and its young members.

326  Handbook on urban social movements

DISCUSSION Shared place attachment is a source of potential mobilizing power for urban social movements seeking to return cities to places made for living rather than tracts of land sold for profit (Cuba and Hummon 1993; Lewicka 2011). Although urban scholars at one point posited the death of place at the hands of an increasingly connected, globalized, networked society, recent work has suggested that it is precisely because of diminishing social connections that urban dwellers are increasingly finding meaning in their communities (Castells 2010; Di Masso 2012). But through the case of an anti-gentrification movement in a largely machine-run city, this chapter has shown that such efforts can run afoul of traditional lines of political division within urban settings. In the case of Chicago, those traditional lines of division are wrought by decades of machine politics during the twentieth and twenty-first century. In other places in the US, the most salient divisions might by party politics; as political scientists have shown, partisanship is increasingly dominating Americans’ voting behavior even at the most local levels (Hopkins 2018). But many cities in the US are not unlike Chicago – having experienced a history of machine politics as well as efforts at reform that led to nonpartisan local elections (Dorsett 1972; Trounstine 2008). Pointing out that existing political structures create both challenges and opportunities for social movements is not new (Meyer and Staggenborg 1996). What the case of Bridgeport suggests is that anti-gentrification movements may often confront similar trade-offs in mobilizing people to their cause: balancing place-based goals that neighborhood residents might agree on with political objectives that might be more divisive. In particular, given that the machine’s base of support has shifted in many ways from material patronage to affective belonging in Chicago (Guterbock 1980), the fact of its ongoing power in shaping political mobilization in Bridgeport is striking. This indicates that anti-gentrification movements, which will always struggle with balancing the claims of the new and the old to a shared community, may further struggle as neighborhood newcomers are confronted with political forces that they may have imagined were obsolete (Brown-Saracino 2009). That said, the enduring importance of Chicago’s machine as a mobilizing force – both of its opposition and its supporters – may be somewhat rare given that its organization has lasted much longer than in other major US cities. But the long tails of twentieth-century urban politics are not unique to Chicago: city politics remain defined, as they did during the height of the machine, by ethnic and racial segregation and demands for adequate political representation by marginalized communities (Levine 2021; McQuarrie 2010). These concerns, and the community organizations already mobilized to represent them, will provide the political context that anti-gentrification movements in other cities must navigate.

Rage against the machine  327

REFERENCES Bloom, Mina. 2021. Marz Brewing’s Logan Square taproom opens this weekend. Block Club Chicago. https://​blockclubchicago​.org/​2021/​04/​21/​marz​-brewings​-logan​-square​-taproom​ -opens​-thisweekend/​. Brown-Saracino, Japonica. 2009. A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and the Search for Authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Castells, Manuel. 1983. The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Castells, Manuel. 2010. The Rise of the Network Society, Vol. 1, 2nd edition, with a new preface. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Cuba, Lee and David M. Hummon. 1993. A place to call home: Identification with dwelling, community, and region. Sociological Quarterly, 34(1): 111–131. Di Masso, Andrés. 2012. Grounding citizenship: Toward a political psychology of public space. Political Psychology, 33(1): 123–143. Dorsett, Lyle W. 1972. The city boss and the reformer: A reappraisal. The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 63(4): 150–154. Drake, St. Clair and Horace R. Cayton. 1945. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ewing, Eve. 2018. Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Goffman, Erving. 1963. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. New York: Simon & Schuster. Gosnell, Harold F. 1933. The political party versus the political machine. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 169: 21–28. Gosnell, Harold F. 1937. Machine Politics: Chicago Model. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gunderson, Erica. 2016. Original Chicago cocktail: The submachine. WTTW News. https://​ news​.wttw​.com/​2016/​08/​19/​original​-chicago​-cocktail​-submachine. Guterbock, Thomas. 1980. Machine Politics in Transition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hicken, Allen. 2011. Clientelism. Annual Review of Political Science, 14(1): 289–310. Hopkins, Daniel J. 2018. The Increasingly United States: How and Why American Political Behavior Nationalized. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hopkins, Nick and John Dixon. 2006. Space, place, and identity: Issues for political psychology. Political Psychology, 27(2): 173–185. Janowitz, Morris. 1980. Foreword to Machine Politics in Transition by Thomas Guterbock. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Katznelson, Ira. 1981. City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States. New York: Pantheon Books. Lefebvre, Henri. 1968. Le droit à la ville. Paris: Anthropos. Levine, Jeremy R. 2021. Constructing Community: Urban Governance, Development, and Inequality in Boston. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lewicka, Maria. 2011. Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3): 207–230. Lloyd, Richard. 2006. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Postindustrial City. New York: Routledge. Logan, John R. and Harvey Luskin Molotch. 1987. Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lowi, Theodore J. 1968. Foreword to the second edition: Gosnell’s Chicago revisited via Lindsay’s New York. In Machine Politics: Chicago Model by Harold F. Gosnell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

328  Handbook on urban social movements

McAdam, Doug, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald. 1996. Introduction: Opportunities, mobilizing structures, and framing processes – toward a synthetic, comparative perspective on social movements. In Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald (eds.), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–20. McCammon, Holly J., Courtney Sanders Muse, Harmony D. Newman, and Teresa M. Terrell. 2007. Movement framing and discursive opportunity structures: The political successes of the US women’s jury movements. American Sociological Review, 72(5): 725–749. McQuarrie, Michael. 2010. Nonprofits and the reconstruction of urban governance: Housing production and community development in Cleveland, 1975–2005. In E. S. Clemens and D. Guthrie (eds.), Politics and Partnership. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 237–268. Merton, Robert K. 1957. Some functions of the political machine. In Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press, pp. 72–82. Meyer, David S. and Suzanne Staggenborg. 1996. Movements, countermovements, and the structure of political opportunity. American Journal of Sociology, 101(6): 1628–1660. Morell, Claudia. 2020. Some Bridgeport residents call men with bats ‘protectors.’ WBEZ Chicago. https://​www​.wbez​.org/​stories/​some​-bridgeport​-residents​-call​-men​-with​-bats​ -protectors/​a8727a02​-ec51​-4946​-8d49​-4fb1d1f3eda2. Moser, Whet. 2011. Snowpocalypse then: How the blizzard of 1979 cost the election for Michael Bilandic. Chicago Magazine. https://​www​.chicagomag​.com/​Chicago​-Magazine/​ The​-312/​February​-2011/​Snowpocalypse​-Then​-How​-the​-Blizzard​-of​-1979​-Cost​-the​ -Election​-for​-Michael​-Bilandic/​. Nathalie P. Vorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement. 2014. The Socioeconomic Change of Chicago’s Community Areas (1970–2010). https://​voorheescenter​ .red​.uic​.edu/​wp​-content/​uploads/​sites/​122/​2017/​10/​Voorhees​-Center​-Gentrification​-Index​ -Oct​-14​.pdf. Novak, Tim. 2021. Facing foreclosure, Patrick Daley Thompson turned to Clout’s piggy bank. Chicago Sun-Times. https://​chicago​.suntimes​.com/​2021/​5/​7/​22423204/​patrick​-daley​ -thompson​-washington​-federal​-bank​-savings​-clouts​-piggy​-bank. Pacyga, Dominic A. 2004. Bridgeport. In James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Parker, Jeffrey N. 2018. Negotiating the space between avant-garde and ‘hip enough’: Businesses and commercial gentrification in Wicker Park. City & Community, 17(2): 438–460. Parker, Jeffrey N. and Stephanie Ternullo. 2022. Gentrifiers evading stigma: Social integrationists in the neighborhood of the future. Social Problems. Schickler, Eric. 2016. Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Seidel, Jon, Tim Novak, Mitch Dudek, and Fran Spielman. 2022. Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson guilty on all counts. Chicago Sun-Times, February 14. https://​chicago​.suntimes​ .com/​2022/​2/​14/​22932307/​patrick​-daley​-thompson​-guilty​-verdict​-tax​-fraud​-trial. Stokes, Susan C. 2005. Perverse accountability: A formal model of machine politics with evidence from Argentina. American Political Science Review, 99(3): 315–325. Stoner, Rebecca. 2019. A Starbucks is born. South Side Weekly. https://​southsideweekly​.com/​ a​-starbucks​-is​-born​-pay​-to​-play​-bridgeport/​. Taylor, Quintard. 1972. The Chicago political machine and black-ethnic conflict and accommodation. Polish American Studies, 29(1/2): 40–66. Trounstine, Jessica. 2008. Political Monopolies in American Cities: The Rise and Fall of Bosses and Reformers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ward, Joe. 2020. Marz Brewing owner’s Black Lives Matter display smashed by ‘Jagoffs’ outside Bridgeport Art Gallery. Block Club Chicago. https://​blockclubchicago​.org/​2020/​08/​

Rage against the machine  329

26/​bridgeport​-art​-gallerys​-i​-cant​-breathe​-installation​-smashed​-by​-vandals​-were​-saddened​ -by​-this/​. Washburn, Gary and Andrew Martin. 1997. Huels feels the heat, resigns as alderman. Chicago Tribune. https://​www​.chicagotribune​.com/​news/​ct​-xpm​-1997​-10​-22​-9710220076​-story​.html.

21. Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul Chungse Jung

INTRODUCTION South Korean neoliberal urbanization substantively began under the neoliberal states that followed the 1997–1998 financial crisis. Large-scale urban development and redevelopment projects and changing urban policies were key practices of neoliberal urbanization in South Korea. Serval types of urban redevelopment projects from small-sized urban renewal projects to mega-sized construction for urban regeneration proceeded with the labeling of neoliberal urbanization. Indeed, urban redevelopment in Seoul has been an endogenous process embedded in South Korea’s speculative urban development that revealed distinctive characteristics due to the influence of the neoliberal state (Shin and Kim 2016: 542). This chapter explores changing urban politics and rising urban activism on neoliberal urbanization through the areas of large-scale urban redevelopment projects called “New Town Projects” in Seoul. The analysis focuses on the following questions: (1) What is the impetus behind the state’s urban redevelopment projects in South Korea? (2) How do urban actors – local government, capital sectors, property owners, and urban inhabitants – respond to these urban redevelopment projects? (3) How does urban activism emerge through struggles against the urban redevelopment project? To answer these questions, the analysis examines the changing urban politics in the context of urban redevelopment projects in Seoul, the strategies adopted by key actors in the urban redevelopment projects and their relationships to and within the institutional framework of urban redevelopment, and the sociopolitical interactions and dynamics with the inhabitants that arose from the redevelopment process. To illustrate the structure and dynamics of urban politics on urban redevelopment in South Korea, this chapter examines the New Town Projects undertaken by Seoul Metropolitan Government from 2002 to 2015. As “the highly speculative megadistrict redevelopment program” (Shin 2018: 364), the case of New Town Projects in Seoul allows us to produce a more comprehensive analysis of the extent to which changing political and economic circumstances have affected the sociospatial restructuring outcome of the urban redevelopment scheme.

330

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  331

NEOLIBERAL URBAN REDEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN SEOUL

Source: Ministry of Construction and Transportation (2000); Excerpted from Seoul Development Institute (2002: 100).

Figure 21.1

Residential land value in Seoul, 2000

The New Town Projects in Seoul began in 2002 ostensibly to reduce disparities in the social, economic, and cultural infrastructure between the newer districts south of the Han River, Gangnam, and the outside of Gangnam. Even though the word Gangnam literally means “south of the river”, Gangnam broadly indicates Gangnam-gu, Seocho-gu, and Songpa-gu, 3 out of 25 districts in Seoul, as administrative classification. Historically, the development of Gangnam in the late 1970s was undertaken to disperse the population of the older districts north of the Han River, Gangbuk. Gangnam benefited from policy-driven development, which firmly established a better infrastructure and residential environment, and consequently greater financial capacity. Thus, the Gangnam area developed as a new urban district and the residential area defined by large apartment complexes. Gangbuk, on the other hand, had been excluded from the priority of development: restrictions on development caused further degradation and infrastructure shortages. The concentration of urban development in Gangnam thus led to differentiating the residential land value

332  Handbook on urban social movements

and deepening urban inequalities between Gangnam and the outside of Gangnam in Seoul (see Figure 21.1). Since Gangnam developed as the richest neighborhood in South Korea, Gangnam nowadays generally refers to a lifestyle associated with the urban rich and a symbol of the desire for wealth in South Korea. The New Town Project of Seoul was initiated in 2002 by the Mayor of Seoul, Lee Myung Bak, who was later elected as President of South Korea in 2008. The official objective of the New Town Project in Seoul was introduced “to maintain the equality of basic living service facilities and educational conditions across the regions and alleviate the financial gap between autonomous regions (Gu). By doing so, it set an ultimate aim at improving the urban functions comprehensively in living areas. The new town plan deals with the combination of several neighborhood districts (Gu) in the same living zone. Therefore, it targets an entire scope of several projects that influence residents’ city lives” (Seoul Institute 2017a: 1). The New Town Projects, as a mode of urban redevelopment, inevitably intended the spatial transformation of inner-city areas and wider processes of economic restructuring of the city. According to Marcuse (2009: 195), the case of New Town Projects clearly showed that “most problems have a spatial aspect, but their origins lie in economic, social, political arenas, the spatial being a partial cause and an aggravation, but only partial”. The substantive objective of the New Town Projects was to secure political support from urban residents by sharing their economic interests through redevelopment and turning urban residents over to the upper middle class through gentrification for a conservative party that was affiliated with a newly elected Mayor of Seoul in 2002. Consequently, 26 areas including 3 pilot areas were designated as the New Town Project areas between 2002 to 2007, and these covered a total area of 24 square kilometers, about 4 percent of Seoul (Seoul Metropolitan Government 2010). Most of the New Town Project areas were located outside of Gangnam (see Figure 21.2). These endogenous dynamics of urban redevelopment have been fertile ground for the rise of urban redevelopment since the early 2000s.

POLITICS OF URBAN REDEVELOPMENT IN SEOUL Linking urban redevelopment with local power relations was key to understanding the capacity of powerful capital sectors in the emerging urban development projects that permeate central and local governments and implementations in Seoul (Shin 2009; López-Morales 2016). Seoul Metropolitan Government was a key institutional actor in the New Town Projects. Seoul Metropolitan Government made comprehensive efforts to ensure the success of the New Town Projects and prepared development plans and implemented projects. Through the New Town Projects, Seoul Metropolitan Government intended to institutionalize a governed interdependence framework in their urban governance structure. Weiss (1995: 594) explained that a governed interdependence framework refers to a system of cooperative coordination between the state and business under state guidance. According to Weiss (1995: 607–611), there are four types of governed

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  333

Source:

Seoul Development Institute (2004); Excerpted from Seoul Institute (2013: 113).

Figure 21.2

New Town Project area in Seoul, 2002–2007

interdependence: disciplined support, public risk absorption, private-sector initiative in public policies, and public-private innovation alliance. First, Seoul Metropolitan Government provided disciplined support through city regulation and permission. Second, Seoul Metropolitan Government absorbed the public risk of New Town Projects by securing loans from financial institutions. Third, a New Town Project association frequently requested modifications in zoning, reducing the amount of public affordable housing, easing height limitations, and landscape review to Seoul Metropolitan Government and local district offices to maximize profits. Fourth, a New Town Project association and local governments requested the construction of key urban infrastructures such as roads, subways, parks, libraries, schools, public offices, and urban facilities for the central government. Profit-oriented government-driven urban redevelopment policies and projects could be maintained in this institutional framework, in which only those with economic capital can survive. The capital sectors, construction firms, and financial institutions, actively responded to this incentive structure to maximize their profits.

334  Handbook on urban social movements

The New Town Projects were inevitably in favor of those few owners who already owned their properties in the project areas. Eligibility for redevelopment incentives and compensation was based solely on property ownership. Property owners who could pay the investment costs of redevelopment actively participated in the New Town Projects. They only had to pay the difference between the price of the land and the new housing. They provided their part in the urban redevelopment costs in their pursuit of living in high-rise apartments and were able to improve their housing situation in the context of the highly commodified housing market. Furthermore, pro-New Town Project property owners demanded more favorable urban regulations in negotiation with the central and local governments and supported politicians who want to maximize their political interests. They could increase the value of their properties and capitalize on them through the New Town Projects. The speculative nature of urban redevelopment thus enticed the emerging gentrifying classes to become strong advocates for the New Town Projects while disempowering resistance movements against displacement (see Shin and Kim 2016). However, many property owners who were not able to afford the cost of the New Town Project could not participate in this incentive structure. Low-income property owners unable to invest money into the project strongly opposed the New Town Project as they would have to resettle in another area. Low-income property owners who owned housing by withholding the tenants’ deposits were forced to return their deposits and had to sell their property and leave for a less expensive area. The politics of urban redevelopment, in turn, worked very much to the advantage of property-based interests, which were heavily dominated by speculative property owners. Even though tenants accounted for most of the inhabitants in the New Town Project areas, during the entire project period most of the tenants were structurally excluded from the institutional framework because of their lack of property rights. The average tenant rate of 15 New Town Project areas including 3 pilot and 12 first designation areas was 72.5 percent (Seoul Metropolitan Government 2007). On the one hand, residential tenants from low-income households accepted in-kind compensation and moved to public rental apartments. On the other hand, residential tenants above the affordable income level were not offered any compensation. While they were claiming compensation, they were often accused of being motivated by greed for more compensation, and of pursuing their interests at the expense of the public good (Shin and Kim 2016: 553). Inhabitant struggles that happened at the sites of the New Town Projects were of crucial importance to low-income property owners and tenants who bore the brunt of redevelopment in the form of involuntary displacement. However, ambiguous property rights and legal and bureaucratic obstacles limited the action of anti-project property owners and tenants in the New Town Project areas. Tenants’ struggles against forced eviction and their claims to housing rights were frequently dismissed by Seoul Metropolitan Government. Most of the poor property owners and tenants in the New Town Project areas have been forced to leave their long-term houses. As a result, profit-oriented government-driven urban redevelopment projects in Seoul advanced as one of the strategies of capitalist accumulation through the spatial

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  335

fix to transform lower-income urban spaces into planned, gentrified communities. It was very unlikely that existing inhabitants would be resettled: indeed, the resettlement rate in one of the New Town Project areas was 17.1 percent (Seoul Metropolitan Government 2007). This shows that the political intention of redevelopment projects was for the low-income class to be evicted from their neighborhoods and replaced by a new middle-class town (see the case of Donuimun New Town Project Area, Figure 21.3). The lack of widespread political support and strong opposition from pro-development property owners and the emerging gentrifying classes against the urban coalition weakened mobilization and discouraged the formation of a social force among the urban marginalized.

RISING URBAN MOVEMENTS AGAINST NEOLIBERAL URBANIZATION The aftermath of the global economic recession of 2007–2008 became a critical turning point that transformed neoliberal urbanism in South Korea. As the real estate bubble burst in South Korea, neoliberal urbanization projects including the construction of iconic skyscrapers, the establishment of free economic trade zones, the creation of international business districts, the construction of mega-urban infrastructures, and massive urban redevelopment projects were suspended (Choi 2012). The floundering real estate market was a financial setback for property owners and construction firms. With the depression in the real estate market, most of the New Town Project areas slated for redevelopment were left as they were as there were no longer any financial benefits to be gained from the redevelopment. Lefebvre (1992) claimed that the increase in capitalist accumulation has led to the displacement of urban inhabitants. To reverse this phenomenon, Lefebvre called for “the right to the city” that involves “an urban spatial approach to political struggles with the participation of all those who inhabit the city without discrimination” (Dikeç 2001: 1790). Harvey (2008: 23) moreover asserted that “the right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city. It is, moreover, a common rather than an individual right since this transformation inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power to reshape the processes of urbanization”. Increased polarization in housing affordability and conditions, accelerated by neoliberal capitalist expansion, generated a variegated landscape of urban struggles. As Weinstein and Ren (2009: 420) argued, this fragmentation and uneven distribution of housing rights paradoxically created insurgent spaces for residents to engage in resistance. Large-scale urban redevelopment triggered by the New Town Projects produced displacement and violent confrontation at the sites (Ha 2004; Lee 2018). In many New Town Project areas, some of the inhabitants resisted displacement and dislocation by urban squatting, making rights claims to housing, organizing protests against the privatization of housing, and practicing everyday resistance. They produced a series of urban struggles to contest state-led urban redevelopment and displacement

336  Handbook on urban social movements

Source: Seoul Museum of History (2009: 171); Seoul Institute (Seoul Research Data Service Photo Archive).

Figure 21.3

Change of Donuimun New Town Project area (top – 2009, bottom – 2020)

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  337

during the process of the New Town Projects. The Yongsan tragedy, which occurred on January 20, 2009, in central Seoul was a critical example of the advent of urban struggles against displacement and dislocation in urban redevelopment projects. The Yongsan tragedy was an unprecedented incident and a total of six people (five protesters and one policeman) died in the process of the police’s militant operation to suppress evicted commercial tenants, who ran a small business at this site and protested in a watchtower built on the top of the building. Laster, the Yongsan Tragedy and Memorial and Reflection Committee indicated that “one of the most significant causes for the incident was the inhumane development-related legal system prioritizing profits from the development over the housing rights of the tenants and the socially disadvantaged” in the White Paper of the Yongsan tragedy (Seoul Institute 2017b: 236). After the Yongsan tragedy in 2009, the idea of “the right to the city” began to appear in the scenes of urban movements against urban redevelopment in earnest (Kim 2009). According to Shin (2018: 365), this was a critical thematic turn of urban movements in South Korea from “the right to settlements” focusing on residential tenants to “the right to the city” focusing more extensive urban inhabitants against exclusion and dispossession (see the case of Ahyeon New Town Project Area, Figure 21.4).

Note: Source:

The writing on the banner reads “Demolition (eviction) is expulsion from life”. Chungse Jung.

Figure 21.4

Tent sit-in against eviction in Ahyeon New Town Project area, 2013

Rapid social changes, such as the economic crisis, create new openings for the radical interpretation of the right to the city, reflecting the growing demand for the democ-

338  Handbook on urban social movements

ratization of cities and changes to decision-making practices (Domaradzka 2018: 616). Urban activism is an important part of urban governance processes as local inhabitants and activists participate in urban politics and influence decision-making through participatory practices. Resistances against the New Town Projects have been carried out by a wide variety of subordinate groups excluded by urban policies and against neoliberal urbanization. With the need to involve marginalized urban inhabitants, the struggles for “the right to the city” seek to secure access not only to urban space but also to “political space” (Dikeç 2001: 1790). Indeed, we can find these struggles in the case of one of the New Town Projects areas – Changsin-Sungin. The Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area was designated in 2007 as one of the first New Town Project areas but was aborted in 2013. Urban activism in this area grew throughout the urban redevelopment process as inhabitants began to strategize to fight for their rights. In the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area, resistance against the New Town Project emerged at every stage in the process: designating the New Town Project area, organizing an association, and claiming fair compensation. Solidarity among tenants, property owners, local activists, and other civic organizations created a new cross-class alliance through the urban movement against displacement. Nicholls (2008, 2009) develops three concepts to analyze the formation and activities of urban movements: networks, contact points, and strong/weak ties. First, networks play a vital role in coordinating activities, allowing activists to establish connections, and making the flow of information and financial and political support possible. Second, contact points where diverse activists gather and exchange ideas develop networks. Third, strong ties between the activists enhance collective capacities and increase motivation for action, whereas weak ties generate opportunities to access new resources and information. Inhabitants and local activists in the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area organized the Changsin-Sungin New Town Opposition Promotion Committee, which had specific and clearly defined demands represented through various means of opposition struggles against the local and metropolitan authorities. As Nicholls (2009: 80) argued, the place-based social network strengthened ties among activists and led to stronger solidarity (see also Pasotti 2020: 36–42). The urban coalition in the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area relied on meetings, demonstrations, and gatherings, which Nicholls (2008) calls “contact points”. Contact points brought activists into interaction and allowed them to exchange ideas. Frequent confrontations included mass petitioning to the higher government authority, protests at the City Hall of Seoul Metropolitan Government and the district office, and litigation through the courts. Public protests including street demonstrations, marching, picketing, and sit-ins happened regularly in coordination with the National Alliance of Squatters and Evictees (NASE) and the National Council of Center to Victims of Forced Evictions (NCCVFE). Strong ties among local activists contributed to generating social capital, consolidating solidarity, and easing collective activities, and weak ties accelerated the flow of information (see Nicholls 2008). In particular, national NGOs played a significant role in establishing weak ties with distant allies and obtaining national attention. Most press conferences

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  339

and public hearings were preceded by the assistance of urban activist groups, such as the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), Nanumgwa Mirae for Housing Right Equality, and the Network for Publicity in Land and Housing (NPLH). In addition, online bulletin board system communities became a powerful public sphere for inhabitants to communicate with other inhabitants, seek legal advice, and share experiences and strategies. In the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area, property owners and tenants appeared as a new subject in urban activism. Many commercial property owners and tenants in the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area had been running sewing factories and sweatshops to supply garments to large retail stores in Dongdaemun markets. Many residential property owners and tenants had also been working at these sewing factories and sweatshops. They shared a common interest in securing their local economic and living community from the urban redevelopment project. Both property owners and tenants participated as key actors in the process of antagonism to the New Town Project. Property owners and tenants in the project area earlier initiated inhabitants’ movements to protect and enhance their property values and housing rights, and actively expressed their opinions at the beginning of the New Town Project. The question “Urban redevelopment for whom?” was commonly echoed by both property owners and tenants. Moreover, based on establishing a cross-class alliance, property owners and tenants actively mediated conflicting interests caused by the redevelopment. They assumed essential roles in project operations while intensifying conflicts among speculative property owners, construction firms, and the local government and adding momentum to reconsiderations of the New Town Project in the area. Hamel (2014: 466) asserts that urban movements seek to build democratic and solidarity-based roots in local culture. Owners of sewing factories and sweatshops have long belonged to strong garment guilds (Jang et al. 2015). In many cases, older workers and residents started their job earlier in this area and were witnesses of the contentious labor struggles of Dongdaemun in the 1970s and 1980s. Inhabitants in the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area showed that their struggles against the redevelopment project were rooted in the local community and the broader sociopolitical context and adopted historical experience with regard to their subjectivity and rights. The uniqueness of urban movements against the New Town Project in the area of Changsin-Sungin was placed in the broader contexts of sociopolitical mobilizations and is associated with the experiences of contentious social movements and democratization (Porteux and Kim 2016). Even though inhabitants in other urban redevelopment areas failed to establish a public sphere due to the destruction of the local community and conflicting interests caused by redevelopment, inhabitants of the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area were able to resist structural changes in their urban atmosphere such as direct threats of displacement and loss of their cultural heritage. Transforming a community organization into a political force is one of the key elements for changing the urban structure (Castells 1983: 129). Changing urban politics required local urban development actors, particularly government institu-

340  Handbook on urban social movements

tions, to see themselves as closers of the urban redevelopment project in Seoul in the face of the revalorization of urban politics. After the change of mayorship of Seoul in 2010, the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area has been designated as the first pilot area for the Urban Regeneration Project fostering the sustainability of existing communities in the old town with a new urban policy (Seoul Metropolitan Government 2012a). Then, the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project was officially revoked with the agreement of inhabitants in 2013 (see Figure 21.5). Furthermore, except for the New Town Project area that had already been launched, 85 percent of the proposed New Town Projects were aborted (Seoul Metropolitan Government 2012b). Consequently, the struggles in the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area demonstrated how urban movements can have a direct influence on the urban governance structure at the local level as “critical urban planning” agents (Souza 2006).

Note: The writing on the banner reads “Cleared New Town and Secured Budget for Urban Regeneration Project”. Source: Chungse Jung.

Figure 21.5

Changsin-Sungin New Town Project area, 2014

CONCLUSION This chapter explores the changing urban politics and resultant urban activism through urban redevelopment projects in South Korea. Speculative profit-oriented government-driven urban redevelopment projects in Seoul advanced as one of the strategies of capitalist accumulation through the spatial fix to transform

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  341

lower-income urban spaces into planned gentrifying communities. Through fluctuating force of capital investment after the global economic recession of 2007–2008, neoliberal urban redevelopment was contested by increasingly organized and empowered urban social forms of local-level activism to claim a more expanded and particularized right to the city. As Mayer (2009: 367) points out, although urban neoliberalization created an environment hostile to progressive urban movements, it also enabled urban inhabitants to articulate urban protests and gave birth to coalitions that joined together various strands in the right to the city. In particular, urban inhabitants across property owners and tenants have risen as a new subject of urban activism in the areas of urban redevelopment projects. As we can see in the case of the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project, the solidarity among urban inhabitants and local activists created a new cross-class alliance through urban movements against exclusion, dispossession, and displacement. Urban inhabitants increased their capacity to challenge the urban governance structure in the city. Therefore, the site of the Changsin-Sungin New Town Project attested to how urban movements can change the urban governance structure against corporate capital and the entrepreneurially minded state apparatus. This chapter makes sense of the conflicts and struggles for “the right to the city” in the process of urban redevelopment in South Korea. These urban movements were based on the context and history of the locale. In the South Korean context, the state, including central and local government, has relinquished its role as a redistributive agent of public goods and capital accumulation. Urban society against the state and capital also produced “a space of resistance and counterhegemony” through their urban struggles (Shin 2018: 357). By a close examination of the urban governance structure framed by the state and resistance dynamics from urban inhabitants, we can reveal the rising urban activism in South Korea during neoliberal and post-neoliberal urban transformations.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my gratitude to the editors of this Handbook, Anna Domaradzka and Pierre Hamel, for their helpful suggestions. Various versions of this chapter were presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in 2013; the Social Science History Association Annual Meeting in 2013; and the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in 2014. I thank all of the discussants and participants who gave meaningful comments and suggestions on this research. A longer version of this chapter appears as "From Place of Speculation to Space of Resistance: Transforming Urban Politics on Urban Redevelopment Projects in Seoul" in Gülçin Coşkun, Tuba İnal -Çekiç, and Ertuğ Tombuş (eds), Reclaiming Democracy in Cities (London: Routledge, 2024)

342  Handbook on urban social movements

REFERENCES Castells, Manuel. 1983. The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements. London: Edward Arnold. Choi, Byung-Doo. 2012. Developmental neoliberalism and hybridity of the urban policy of South Korea. In Bae-Gyoon Park, Richard Child Hill, and Asato Saito (eds.), Locating Neoliberalism in East Asia: Neoliberalizing Spaces in Developmental States. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Dikeç, Mustafa. 2001. Justice and the spatial imagination. Environment and Planning A 33: 1785–1805. Domaradzka, Anna. 2018. Urban social movements and the right to the city: An introduction to the special issue on urban mobilization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 29(4): 607–620. Ha, Seong-Kyu. 2004. Housing renewal and neighborhood change as a gentrification process in Seoul. Cities 21(5): 381–389. Hamel, Pierre. 2014. Urban social movements. In Hein-Anton van der Heijden (ed.), Handbook of Political Citizenship and Social Movements. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing. Harvey, David. 2008. The right to the city. New Left Review 53: 23–40. Jang, Nam-Jong, Da-Mi Maeng, Yoo-Jin Kim, and Jong-A Hwang. 2015. Analysis and Support Plans for Micro Enterprises in Urban Revitalization Area. Seoul: Seoul Institute. Kim, Yongchang. 2009. From physical redevelopment of cities to the right to the city. Changjaggaw Bipyeong 144: 339–353. Lee, Seon Young. 2018. Cities for profit: Profit-driven gentrification in Seoul, South Korea. Urban Studies 55(12): 2603–2617. Lefebvre, Henry. 1992. The Production of Space. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. López-Morales, Ernesto. 2016. Gentrification in Santiago, Chile: A property-led process of dispossession and exclusion. Urban Geography 37(8): 1109–1131. Marcuse, Peter. 2009. From critical urban theory to the right to the city. City 13: 185–197. Mayer, Margit. 2009. The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements. City 13(2–3): 362–374. Ministry of Construction and Transportation. 2000. Land Properties. Gwacheon, South Korea: Ministry of Construction and Transportation. Nicholls, Walter. 2008. The urban question revisited: The importance of cities for social movements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 32(4): 841–859. Nicholls, Walter. 2009. Place, networks, space: Theorizing the geographies of social movements. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 34(1): 78–93. Pasotti, Eleonora. 2020. Resisting Redevelopment Protest in Aspiring Global Cities. New York: Cambridge University Press. Porteux, Jonson N. and Sunil Kim. 2016. Public ordering of private coercion: Urban redevelopment and democratization in South Korea. Journal of East Asian Studies 16: 371–390. Seoul Development Institute. 2002. Thematic Maps of Seoul. Seoul: Seoul Development Institute. Seoul Development Institute. 2004. The Plan of City Housing Environmental Renewal in 2010. Seoul: Seoul Development Institute. Seoul Institute. n.d. Donuimun New Town. The Seoul Research Data Service Photo Archive. https://​data​.si​.re​.kr/​node/​63285. Seoul Institute. 2013. Thematic Maps of Seoul 2007. Seoul: Seoul Institute. Seoul Institute. 2017a. The Town Project in Seoul. Seoul: Seoul Institute. Seoul Institute. 2017b. 2017 Yongsan Tragedy White Paper: Yongsan Tragedy Memory and Reflection. Seoul: Seoul Institute.

Neoliberal urban redevelopment and its discontents: rising urban activism in Seoul  343

Seoul Metropolitan Government. 2007. Measures to Improve the Resettlement Rate of Inhabitants in Accordance with the New Town Project. Seoul: Seoul Metropolitan Government. Seoul Metropolitan Government. 2010. Seoul New Town Project Archives: 7 Years of History. Seoul: Seoul Metropolitan Government. Seoul Metropolitan Government. 2012a. New Town and Redevelopment Civil Discussion of the Future Residential Renewal Policy. Seoul: Seoul Metropolitan Government. Seoul Metropolitan Government. 2012b. We Will Rewrite the History of New Town and Redevelopment. Seoul: Seoul Metropolitan Government. Seoul Museum of History. 2009. Outside of Donuimun, a Lower Village of the City Wall: History, Space, Residence. Seoul: Seoul Museum of History. Shin, Hyun Bang. 2009. Property-based redevelopment and gentrification: The case of Seoul, South Korea. Geoforum 40(5): 906–917. Shin, Hyun Bang. 2018. Urban movements and the genealogy of urban rights discourse: The case of urban protesters against redevelopment and displacement in Seoul, South Korea. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 108(2): 356–369. Shin, Hyun Bang and Soo-Hyun Kim. 2016. The developmental state, speculative urbanisation and the politics of displacement in gentrifying Seoul. Urban Studies 53(3): 540–559. Souza, Marcelo Lopes de. 2006. Together with the state, despite the state, against the state: Social movements as ‘critical urban planning’ agents. City 10(3): 327–342. Weinstein, Liza and Xuefei Ren. 2009. The changing right to the city: Urban renewal and housing rights in globalizing Shanghai and Mumbai. City & Community 8(4): 407–432. Weiss, Linda. 1995. Governed interdependence: Rethinking the government-business relationship in East Asia. Pacific Review 8(4): 589–616.

22. Political engagement of urban social movements: a road to decolonization or recolonization of urban management? Tomasz Sowada1

INTRODUCTION One of the main aims of urban social movements (USM) is the empowerment of city residents and the development of the idea of social participation (Sowada 2019). This idea was born shortly after the end of the Second World War (Augur 1945). Since then, participation has been developed in both theoretical works and practical activities implemented almost all over the world and has become an essential component of contemporary democracies (Arnstein 1969; Innes and Booher 2010; Kotus and Sowada 2017; Sowada 2019). Still, the level and development of mechanisms responsible for socializing decision-making processes are geographically diversified to a great extent. The post-socialist countries such as Poland may be an example of the delay in implementing participatory solutions. Over several decades of functioning in the totalitarian socialist system, the real influence of citizens on decisions taken by the authorities was negligible. The social involvement was arranged and directed by the Communist Party and the manifestations of bottom-up activity were allowed only in cases where they were consistent with its will. After the 1989 transformation, social and economic difficulties pushed the question of socializing the decision-making processes into the background (Kotus 2013). The implementation of participatory procedures in Poland was accelerated due to the accession to the EU in 2004, which means a several-decade delay in relation to Western democracies. This chapter explores the complexity of power relations in contemporary Polish cities created under the influence of communism and democracy, and socialism and capitalism. Firstly, I will present the theoretical background of my research. In the following part, I will describe the local context of my study, including a phenomenon which I metaphorically call the ‘colonization’ of cities, characteristics of Polish USM, and the current situation in Polish politics. In the empirical part, referring to the results of my research, I will present the attitudes of urban movements and local authorities towards public participation and the empowerment of residents, identify inhabitants’ opinions regarding the actions of urban movements and look into their engagement in political activity. In my deliberations, I will seek the answer to the question: Is the activity of USM leading to decolonization or rather recolonization of urban management? 344

Political engagement of urban social movements  345

Table 22.1

Respondents to the questionnaire survey Sex Female Male

Age n/a

Total

25 and 26–35 36–45 46–55 55–65 65 and less

City Białystok

n/a

more

165

135

0

37

60

59

41

47

56

0

300

Gorzów Wielkopolski

170

129

1

40

61

44

53

58

42

2

300

Opole

127

171

2

96

66

44

35

33

25

1

300

Poznań

174

124

2

79

47

63

43

51

16

1

300

Total

636

559

5

252

234

210

172

189

139

4

1200

Source:

Own compilation.

METHODOLOGY AND SCOPE OF THE STUDY The empirical material was collected as part of the research project using methodological triangulation. Research was conducted in 2017 in four Polish cities: Białystok, Gorzów Wielkopolski, Opole and Poznań. The main criterion for selecting cities for the research was the high level of USM activity. A set of methods and tools applied involved a questionnaire survey and individual in-depth interviews (IDIs). The survey was conducted in the form of paper and pencil interviews (PAPI) among the inhabitants of four selected cities. The sample included 1,200 respondents in total (300 in each city). Respondents were chosen with a non-probability quota sampling method considering their gender and age to ensure that the total sample will have the same distribution of characteristics as the broader population of each city (see Table 22.1). IDIs were carried out in the same cities with 19 representatives of local authorities and 20 USM activists. Interviewees were selected with purposive sampling methods. Chosen representatives of local authorities deal with urban social movements activism on a daily basis which was necessary to collect valuable information on the chapter’s subject. Selected USM participants are involved in cooperation or struggle with local authorities. All interviews were recorded with participants’ consent and transcribed. The NVivo software package was used to code and analyze transcribed interviews. Used codes were both concept- and data-driven. In this chapter, I used mainly concept-driven codes referring to the behavioural model of collaborative urban management (Kotus and Sowada 2017).

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Urban Social Movements Manuel Castells (1977) argued in his work that citizens’ actions could result at one of three levels in the urban and political context: participation, protest, and urban social movements. This author emphasized that fundamental changes in the pattern

346  Handbook on urban social movements

of city powers are only possible at the level of urban movements. Such a detailed understanding of the discussed notion was later abandoned in favour of more general definitions in which all citizens’ actions, irrespective of their actual or potential results, were perceived as USM. This approach was related to the assumption that even limited results in a given moment may lead to an extensive change in the future (Pickvance 2003). Modzelewski (1987), writing about local social initiatives, defines them as social movements, reformatory in character – a group activity intended for introducing a partial change in the living conditions of a larger or a particular community, treated as the one requiring help. In a more general approach, urban movements are socially diversified networks of organizations and groups with various interests and degrees of engagement in planning and urban management (Martínez 2011). In this chapter, I understand the notion of urban movements as organizations and informal groups diversified in terms of structure, subject matter, and form of activity, influencing management and planning in a city, which seek to achieve a permanent change in the functioning of cities (Sowada 2019). According to Modzelewski (1987), the definition does not include bodies or state institutions, organizations that dominate and occupy a stable position in social life, political parties, churches, etc. The Right to the City An essential motto for urban movements, regarded by some researchers as their ideology, is ‘the right to the city’ (Pluciński 2012). Reframed numerous times, supplemented with new semantic and ideological layers, the motto is the title of Henri Lefebvre’s (1968) essay. He stated that the ‘reclaiming’ of the city for a human being is to take place with broader participation of the working class as the only one interested in urban problems. Evoking the continuity of the fight for the democratization of life and rights related to gender, age, work, education, or housing refers to emancipatory ideas placed at the centre of the ‘right to the city’ ideology. In the literature, there even appears the view that the common right to the city, understood as the right to change ourselves by changing the city, is a fundamental human right (Harvey 2012). This ideology recognizes the city as a new ‘natural’ environment of human life and defines it as a battlefield for civil rights (Pluciński 2012). Currently, the struggle often takes place in cities that are democratic in systemic terms. At the same time, they are challenged by shortcomings of direct democracy, limitations in the use of public space, huge social inequalities, or the emergence of gated estates or entire neighbourhoods to which access is restricted (Mayer 2009). In the light of neoliberal changes observed worldwide, the ‘right to the city’ is then being transformed, updated, and enriched with local contexts. This adaptability allows various urban movements to be constructed in somewhat different ways and be used as a common ideology (Mayer 2009; Pluciński and Nowak 2017).

Political engagement of urban social movements  347

The Behavioural Model of Collaborative Urban Management To present the attitudes of local authorities and USM towards public participation, I used the behavioural model of collaborative urban management (Kotus and Sowada 2017). In this model, three actors have been considered: local authorities, citizens, and USM. The fundamental assumption is that the level and quality of public participation results from the coinciding attitudes represented by each actor. The attitudes taken into account in this concept are as follows: 1. Local authorities: directive – deliberative-directive – deliberative; 2. Citizens: withdrawn – collaborating – rebellious; 3. Urban movements: feigned – collaborative – radical. This model is a frame for the empirical considerations undertaken in this chapter, in which I will mainly focus on the attitudes of authorities and urban movements.

RESEARCH CONTEXT Before I present the study results, I will describe the local context of post-socialist Polish cities. I will focus mainly on the issues connected with urban management, USM activity, and politics to make this context clear to international readers. ‘Colonization’ of Urban Management in Polish Cities Owing to the socio-historical background described in the introduction and rapid implementation of the market economy along with all its advantages and disadvantages, the management of cities and urban space in Poland was subject to a specific ‘colonization’. This metaphor refers to the situation in which local elites manage the city and its development disregarding the inhabitants’ opinions, frequently not meeting their needs, and remaining in opposition to self-government principles. Referring to the dictionary definitions, colonization understood in such a way is not only “The action of appropriating a place or domain for one’s own use” (Oxford Dictionaries n.d.). The metaphorical understanding of colonization in urban management also refers to the traditional meaning of this word: “The action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area” (Oxford Dictionaries n.d.). This meaning makes sense when we realize that among those exercising nominal and real power, it is easy to find people who do not belong to the group comprising “indigenous people of an area”. Persons of external origin often hold positions among local authorities (especially in large cities where a party policy plays an important role). Even more often, behind-the-scenes actors exerting considerable influence on urban policy come from external environments: regional, national, or transnational entrepreneurs for whom favourable decisions of city authorities are a source of income.

348  Handbook on urban social movements

A space that constitutes a valuable good became subject to the capitalist game played in the 1990s based on market rules. Potential investors with capital enabling them to develop the space as they wished wielded significant influence on planning decisions made by local authorities. The submission of authorities was visible, especially in the face of financial problems, an unclear ownership structure, competence feuds, numerous shortcomings in the housing market, and a critical situation in the labour market (Grochowski 1992; Nawratek 2008). In the light of several social and economic problems, each investor raised hopes that the situation could improve at least partially, and local governments even competed for investments. It is easy to see that in this situation, urban management that would consider the inhabitants’ needs was nobody’s priority (in the face of existential problems, residents themselves did not pay attention or devote their time to the question of city functioning). Thus, legal regulations back then favoured the domination of a bureaucratic approach to planning which did not consider the issue of life quality and practically did not allow residents to participate in making decisions regarding urban management and urban space (Domaradzka 2022). The period of the transformation and transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market one was also a time of growing social inequalities and a general decrease in living standards. It contributed to the emergence of space-related conflicts. The following entities were competing for it: established self-governments with former owners seeking reprivatization; entrepreneurs with owners of plots and premises; property owners with tenants; investors with apartment buyers (Jałowiecki 1992). Much as the indicated conflicts take place commonly, in the transformation period, government and self-government, financial or planning institutions regarded as those mitigating these types of conflicts were not efficiently managed. There were no strong pressure groups in the form of independent NGOs either. At the time of the capitalist ‘game of space’, several collective entities emerged exerting a real influence on the management and development of Polish cities: ● Investors (entrepreneurs) ● Local authorities ● Urbanists/experts/scientific environment. The concentration of the actual planning power in the hands of small groups of individuals, often from outside the city (external investors), makes it possible, in the author’s opinion, to use the metaphor of the colonization of urban management. One wonders in this context if the situation has changed over 30 years after the system transformation and 18 years after Poland’s accession to the EU. Was spatial planning in Polish cities, influenced by changes in public management concepts or the residents’ pressure, decolonized? Can we, in 2023, talk about the empowerment of inhabitants and their actual influence on urban reality? I will try to answer these questions later in this chapter.

Political engagement of urban social movements  349

Urban Movements in Poland As I mentioned in the introduction, the functioning of USM was virtually impossible in the heyday of the communist regime. The first Polish studies referring to the issue of local social initiatives similar in their nature to USM come from the late period of the People’s Republic of Poland and the first years of the functioning of the democratic system (the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s). The characteristics taken into account in the works of that period indicate the domination of NIMBY-type movements and local protest groups opposing specific decisions of authorities or struggling for changes in their immediate neighbourhood (Jałowiecki 1988; Modzelewski 1987; Prawelska-Skrzypek 1992). Nowadays, this type of social activity is experiencing a kind of renaissance, and urban activism has become an object of interest in various scientific disciplines (Kowalewski 2013, 2016; Mergler 2008; Mergler et al. 2013; Pluciński 2012, 2013; Pluciński and Nowak 2017; Sowada and Kotus 2015). According to Anna Domaradzka (2022), in the post-communist and capitalist context, it was urban movements and non-governmental organizations that filled the urban policy gap. Over a decade-long activity of urban movements is an opportunity to carry out in-depth analyses. The present research results allow identifying significant differences between various local groups and organizations operating within an ephemeral formation called USM. This is connected to the presence of at least two possible factions that can be distinguished: urban-related and social (neo-anarchist) (Pluciński 2012, 2013; Sowada 2019). The first relates primarily to the issues concerning the quality of life in the city, spatial planning, public transport development, or the implementation of participatory solutions. Urban-related movements created a dense network of relations around the Congress of Urban Movements covering almost the entire country (Kowalewski 2013). This is a faction reformatory in character. Basic strategies and forms of activities involve lobbying for specific solutions, participation in social consultations, formal submission of own proposals, and other peaceful forms of influence on urban management. Activities more radical in nature are regarded as secondary by activists from an urban-related faction and used only when formal ways are not efficient (Sowada 2019). Because of the concentration of mostly educated individuals with a stable economic situation, urban-related movements are called the representatives of the new middle-class or new urbanites. A social faction of urban movements comes from neo-anarchist environments. They are often called neo-anarchist factions (Pluciński 2012, 2013). Their activity is focused primarily on the neediest city residents. The participants of the social faction struggle to empower urban dwellers, concentrating first on groups particularly subject to social exclusion (due to economic reasons as well as ethnicity, health, age, and so forth). The thematic areas of their activity involve, among others, housing, environmental protection, healthcare, equal rights, and fight against exclusion. In contrast to ‘new urbanites”, these factions are characterized as revolutionary, fighting for the ‘right to the city’ in its traditional understanding. Actions undertaken by neo-anarchists are often radical. One of the flagship examples is the protection of

350  Handbook on urban social movements

tenants’ rights organized in the form of the occupation of buildings, preventing the execution of eviction orders (also if it involves a physical confrontation with police). Polish Mainstream Politics The current balance of power in Polish politics is connected to both ideological and economic divisions in society, resulting from the division between winners and losers of the transformation period. After eight years of neoliberal rule by the Civic Platform party (between 2007 and 2015), Poland has been since governed by a coalition of right-wing parties under the permanent leadership of the populist Law and Justice party. Current government success in 2015 and 2019 elections was mainly driven by its politics of redistribution based on cash benefits for families and pensioners. Currently, the ruling coalition operates under the common name of the United Right. The most significant opposition forces in the country are Civic Platform (referred to as the central party, which brings together people with Christian democratic, conservative-liberal, and social-liberal views), The Left, and Poland 2050 (a centrist political movement founded by Szymon Hołownia, a showman, who came third in the presidential 2020 elections with a result of 14 per cent). Smaller but also important political forces are Polish People’s Party – Polish Coalition (traditional representation of farmers), Confederation (radical right-wing and nationalist), and the Kukiz’15 Movement (right-wing populist). The strong polarization of the political scene is often reflected in animosities on the local level. Especially in the biggest cities, the two most potent and conflicted parties are visibly dominating, with Law and Justice holding power mainly in the eastern part of Poland and Civic Platform mainly in the western part. In several cities, however, there is a visible presence of smaller, local groups and USM among city mayors and councillors. They often strive to keep ‘equal distance’ from both dominant parties, entering coalitions depending on how the issue at stake relates to the urban movements agenda.

RESULTS OF THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH Attitudes towards Public Participation I will start the analysis of the empirical studies by describing the attitudes of local authorities and urban movements towards social participation and the empowerment of residents. In the questionnaire interview, the surveyed residents assessed to what extent the authorities consider residents’ voices when making decisions. A mere 4.4 per cent of the surveyed stated that the authorities always listen to the inhabitants’ opinion in that case (Figure 22.1). The rest of the respondents were divided almost in half, with the slight advantage of individuals who believe that the authorities disregard the residents’ views in decision-making processes over those who are of the opinion that their views are partially considered. However, the expectations of the

Political engagement of urban social movements  351

surveyed regarding the attitude of the local authorities are entirely different. Nearly 80 per cent believe that authorities should always consider residents’ opinions, and only 3.2 per cent think that the authorities’ decisions should be independent of the residents’ views.

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.1

Present and expected attitudes of the local authorities in the residents’ opinions

These results are confirmed by the statements of participants of urban movements. Of the 20 interviewees, as many as 13 noticed directive attitudes of the authorities (Figure 22.2). However, they coexisted most often with deliberative-directive or deliberate attitudes (only five persons noticed solely directive attitudes of the local authorities).

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.2

Attitudes of the local authorities in the statements of participants of urban social movements

352  Handbook on urban social movements

The participants of urban movements believe that the lack of openness and barriers of a mental nature make it impossible to implement participatory solutions and block the cooperation of the authorities with USM and other inhabitants. The representatives of the local authorities declared, in most cases, deliberative attitudes, often coexisting with deliberative-directive ones (Figure 22.3). Some representatives of the authorities demonstrated a deliberative attitude, concentrating their attention on cooperation with non-governmental organizations at the same time. Such an attitude limits the circle of potential stakeholders and can lead to the ‘NGO-ization’ of civil society.

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.3

Attitudes of the local authorities in the statements of their representatives

A smaller number of respondents clearly expressed a directive attitude. It remains essential in the light of the opinions of residents and USM activists given earlier. Local politicians relate a directive attitude to the conservative understanding of representative democracy and trust in a social mandate obtained in general elections: I think if we elect authorities once every four years, we give them a right to decide. [LA 10]

One of the city councillors expressed reluctance to involve residents in decisionmaking processes, noticing at the same time that politicians use social participation as a tool to manipulate residents: I am, kind of, not in favour of this social participation. This is, in my opinion some kind of a toy given to residents so that they could feel they influence something. [LA 17]

The representatives of urban movements calling themselves collaborative, also showing more radical tendencies (Figure 22.4). The empirically proven fact that none of the activists at the self-definition level reveals feigned attitudes which are the contradiction of the social movement idea, seems quite obvious. The statements of the surveyed participants of urban movements indicate that they perceive their role on the urban scene variously. For some of them, a key objective is

Political engagement of urban social movements  353

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.4

Attitudes of urban social movements in their participants’ opinion

the empowerment of residents, often related to educational activities and lobbying at the level of local authorities. In other cases, a collaborative attitude is demonstrated in the closeness to authorities rather than residents. This can be illustrated by the bicycle council functioning by the mayor in one of the cities, where the social side in talks is simply one of the local NGOs. Thus, a social actor in the debate is predetermined, gaining a dominant role in the community. A radical attitude among the participants of urban movements results most frequently from the failure of ‘collaborative’ strategies. One of the activists struggling for tenants’ rights talks about the radicalization of actions: [There is] a particular spectrum of these applied tools and strategies. From the debates with urban officials, petitions, direct actions, and the tenants’ occupation of the tenement house to a stalking trial still underway today. [UM 06]

The statements given by the representatives of the local authorities reveal a somewhat different picture of participants of urban movements. Attitudes similar to those of a collaborative nature are still noticed most often, while the manifestations of the radicalization of activities are also more frequently observed. In some cases, there also appeared objections to the feigned character of movements’ activities (Figure 22.5). The representatives of the authorities assessing urban movements as collaborative notice their broad spectrum of activities for the city. What is also noticed by local politicians is the positive value of the constructive criticism made by urban movements. Feigned movements have been spotted concerning two types of situations. First, when single individuals appeal to multiple NGOs to lobby effectively for their own interests. The second situation concerns direct relations between a movement and the existing mainstream political party. According to one of the respondents, such an organization does not run actual, bottom-up social activity: […] there is an NGO represented in the city council […]. The question is if it is still an NGO. Because it is something like an urban association but also politically affiliated with a political party. For me, it is not a NGO anymore. [LA 17]

354  Handbook on urban social movements

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.5

Attitudes of urban social movements in local authorities representatives’ opinion

Radical attitudes of movements were most frequently noticed in the form of protests organized by activists. Usually, they are concerned with NIMBY-type movements, striving to block specific decisions or intentions of city authorities or investors. One of the interviewed city councillors additionally noticed that a radical attitude is characteristic of movements related to the so-called social (neo-anarchist) faction: If there are some anarchists, they are difficult to talk to […] because their whole vision is very polarized and impossible to be included in any standard patterns. [LA 03]

Respondents’ Opinion on USM Activity The respondents in the questionnaire survey assessed the attention of urban activists given to collective interests, the influence on city life, and the mutual attitude to local authorities. The intentions of social activity of participants of urban movements turned out to be unclear in the respondents’ opinions. Over half of the surveyed acknowledged that urban movements partly express the collective interests of residents and partly their own (Figure 22.6). However, over one-third of the queried residents believed that urban movements always concerned themselves with the collective interests of all inhabitants. It was also unclear to survey participants how urban movements’ activities influenced their life. Over 47 per cent participants recognized that thanks to the discussed activity, the city becomes a better place to live (Figure 22.7). However, the indications that movements do not make the city better or worse were equally numerous. The smallest group assessed the city as a less convenient place to live under the influence of urban movements. Assessing the relations between urban movements and local authorities, nearly 70 per cent of the surveyed recognized that urban movements are in constant dialogue with the authorities, which leads to both feuds and agreements (Figure 22.8). Between 10 and 20 per cent of respondents thought that movements always support the incumbent authorities (16.2 per cent), or always criticize them (14.7 per cent).

Political engagement of urban social movements  355

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.6

Source:

Activities of urban movements vs. collective interests – opinions of the surveyed residents

Own compilation.

Figure 22.7

Influence of activities of urban movements on the city in the residents’ opinion

An important factor affecting the ability of urban movements to decolonize urban management is the willingness of residents to participate in activities organized by the movements. They express it in the questionnaire research about various forms of activities for the city (Figure 22.9). A net indicator of positive answers shows that residents are more prone to participate in traditional forms of social participation than in those applying new technologies. What is also noticeable is the impact of the scale factor – respondents are more prone to participate in a meeting about neighbourhood issues than citywide issues. The number of negative answers predominates when it comes to involvement in more radical or engaging forms: protest participation, independent propositions of ideas for activity, and finally standing in the social register of candidates in self-government elections.

356  Handbook on urban social movements

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.8

Source:

Relations between local authorities and urban movements in the residents’ opinion

Own compilation.

Figure 22.9

The tendency of residents to participate in activities of urban social movements

Political Activity of USM The next question raised in the study is the political activity of USM. In the questionnaire survey, the residents expressed their expectations about the future political attitudes of urban movements. Over 60 per cent of the respondents believe that movements should be politically neutral, and cooperate with authorities, not replacing them (Figure 22.10). One-quarter, however, are of the opinion that USM

Political engagement of urban social movements  357

should reach for power by starting in local elections. The smallest number of people expected long-term criticism of local authorities without direct political engagement.

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.10 Expectations of residents regarding the involvement of urban movements in political life As part of the in-depth interviews, I identified three types of attitudes of urban activists toward politics: withdrawal, neutrality, and engagement. Most interviewees declared active involvement in politics, but other perspectives are not isolated cases (Figure 22.11).

Source:

Own compilation.

Figure 22.11 Urban social movement participants’ attitudes towards political engagement A withdrawal attitude, associated with the rejection of strictly political activity, is usually related to the belief that it would be a negation of social activity. Standing

358  Handbook on urban social movements

in elections is considered in this case as gathering political capital under cover of feigned bottom-up activities and betraying one’s ideals at the same time. A neutral attitude towards public engagement doesn’t mean USM activists should keep away from politics. It means that standing in local elections is always an individual decision of a given person or organization. Individuals who were neutral about political activity emphasized that the decision to stand in elections or continue bottom-up activity cannot be assessed positively or negatively in advance. A different view was presented by participants of USM, whom I describe as politically engaged. They believe that movements should participate in local elections because entering the structures of power is the only effective way to implement their goals. The respondents also believed that taking power by urban movements would mean depoliticizing self-government and avoiding ideological arguments, with attention paid to local and substantive issues. About the political activity of urban movements, what also appeared was the topic of national coordination of actions motivated by the need to develop a strong representation at the level of state authorities: […] we have united to have a nationwide voice, access to national media, and an opportunity to address a common position supported by, for instance, 30 Polish cities. [UM 12]

The political engagement of urban movements meets with both positive and negative opinions of representatives of local authorities. The positive ones concern, e.g., the involvement of activists in a councillor’s work: They bring ferment as every new city councillor and I like it: they ask about everything, want to know everything, and are involved, right? So they accept their role and do not only sit there to take allowances. And I like this involvement. [LA 10]

Negative impressions of political engagement of USM were connected, among others, with the lack of USM’s ideological or worldview cohesion, which can be a break-up factor. Thus, the feature of movements which is indicated as an advantage by the activists themselves, which allows cooperation of people with different views, is perceived as a disadvantage from the perspective of a politician: […] but urban movements are […] a jumble of people who want to act. And at a certain point, it all gets out of hand, and everyone turns in one’s direction, right? Because someone is closer to the right, someone is closer to the left, someone has no specific views and is generally anti-systemic. [LA 11]

One of the city councillors argued that urban movements declare they do not go into politics and at the same time engage in elections, functioning on principles similar to political parties: They apply the same methods as a political party but do it more noisily. […] they have to win voters. They act underhandedly under the name of being independent and good for the

Political engagement of urban social movements  359

city. It sounds as if we, or someone from a different party, wanted something wrong for the city. [LA 10]

The political engagement of Polish USM could also be illustrated by short case studies. In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the course of events in two of the surveyed Polish cities. First, I will refer to Poznań – the city with the longest tradition of USM standing in local elections. The results of subsequent local elections can evidence their slow but continuous development. In 2010, the We – The Inhabitants of Poznań Association failed to introduce its representatives to the city council. In 2014, the Right to the City Coalition was established, which managed to introduce one representative to the council. The coalition’s candidate for mayor of the city took 7th place in the election, with a result of 3.52 per cent. In the second round, the Civic Platform candidate, supported by urban movements, won. In 2018, the Right to the City Coalition introduced two representatives to the council. In exchange for support in the second round of the 2014 presidential election, a representative of the Coalition was appointed vice-president of the city, responsible, among others, for spatial planning and transport. Thus, urban movements have significantly impacted issues related to their own demands and election promises. However, this was done at the expense of entering into political ties with the new city authorities, which impacted independence from traditional political parties. Later, cooperation at this level was terminated, and currently the Right to the City Coalition has only two votes in the 34-member city council. The second of the discussed cities is Gorzów Wielkopolski, the flagship example of the big electoral success of Polish USM. In 2014, activists gathered in a group called ‘People for the City’ formed an election committee, which received 20.4 per cent of the vote in the elections to the city council. The Association introduced seven representatives to the council, becoming the largest club of councillors in a body of 25 people (6 representatives of the Civic Platform, 5 of Law and Justice, 3 of the Democratic Left Alliance, and four independent councillors). An independent candidate for the city’s mayor, Jacek Wójcicki, supported by the People for the City, won in the first round of the election, obtaining over 60 per cent of the votes. A significant electoral success heralded a powerful position on the local political scene. However, this did not happen. Members of the movement came into conflict with the president, ending with a complete break in cooperation. As many as 4 out of 7 people left the club of councillors during just one term. Some of them became associated with the dominant political parties.

CONCLUSIONS The emergence of urban movements on the local scene was undoubtedly connected with the process I call the colonization of urban management. The need to empower residents and give them back the right to the city is a common demand put forward by urban movements in their official declarations. The activity of USM

360  Handbook on urban social movements

is changing power relations in Polish cities. Their members still face directive or deliberative-directive local authorities, which are not always ready to implement participatory decision-making processes. USM are trying to reach for the right to the city using different, more or less radical strategies. One of them is connected with political engagement and standing in local elections. On the one hand, possible electoral success can allow making fundamental changes in city management. However, this activity is also connected with many threats, especially for politically inexperienced idealists fighting for the people’s right to the city. It is also essential that USM are not able to achieve real change in city management without the long-term support of city dwellers. Study results showed that ordinary citizens are not convinced if USM activity is worth their support and can make a city a better place to live in. The study discussed in previous paragraphs allowed me to present two scenarios of USM’s impact on the transformation of the inhabitants’ right to the city in Polish cities. Slow Decolonization of Urban Management I understand the decolonization of urban management metaphorically as the process of ‘reclaiming’ the city by its inhabitants. This is the process (and ultimately its result) of the transition from managing the city by the elite, when the residents’ opinion is disregarded, to empowering the inhabitants and socializing decision-making processes in the city. One should remember that the decolonization of urban management can have both positive and negative consequences. The former certainly include the democratization of urban management, the empowerment of its residents, the limitation of land speculation, greater social control over urban officials’ work, and the end of corruption. The negative aspects of decolonization are related to the need for developing new management mechanisms, which can mean temporary chaos and lower decision-making efficiency of authorities. The issue here can also be the blurred responsibility connected to an increase in the number of actors engaged in decision-making. The open and involved attitudes of key actors are undoubtedly conducive to the decolonization of urban management. In the case of directive authorities, only radical urban movements, capable of provoking rebellious attitudes of inhabitants, can lead to decolonization. Under such conditions, however, this will be done in a revolutionary and violent way. The milder return of the city to inhabitants can take place when authorities are at least partially deliberative. This scenario seems more probable because the presently dominating urban-related faction of USM is more reformatory than revolutionary. Because of a lack of political power, experience, and long-term, comprehensive citizens’ support, USM are making slow, step-by-step progress in decolonizing city management. They still do not have a tangible impact on decisions leading to full empowerment of inhabitants, but by their activities USM are continuously fighting for the right to the city. This scenario is being realized in some Polish cities, which

Political engagement of urban social movements  361

could be illustrated by the current situation on the local political scene in Poznań. Representatives of the USM in the city council create the image of people guided only by substantive premises, free from party discipline and the orders of senior politicians. A small representation of USM in city council gives insight into urban management without actual impact on decision-making. Unintentional Recolonization of Urban Management A completely different scenario connected with the effects of the activities of USM is the recolonization of urban management. This regards the situation in which the activity of movements results in changes in the relations between actors on the urban scene, but it does not lead to the empowerment of inhabitants. Movements become, in this case, another ‘colonizer’, joining the entities exercising power in the city. This scenario is more likely when specific attitudes of particular actors occur: ● Directive authorities ● Withdrawn residents ● Feigned urban movements. It is worth adding that in the situation of the total withdrawal of other residents, even cooperative urban movements can lead to the recolonization of urban management. The reason, in this case, will be not the pursuit of power by activists themselves, but the lack of a social partner willing to engage in the city’s affairs. This scenario is partially being realized unintentionally by some USM members manipulated by politicians. Gorzów Wielkopolski and People for the City Movement is an illustration of this scenario. It is an example of a city and movement that could have become a flagship example of the decolonization of city management and the success of USM. Due to the lack of political experience, numerous conflicts, and private ambitions of some participants, the goal was not achieved. Instead, the residents observed the process of recolonization, in which some representatives of the People for the City were perceived as new colonizers. One should bear in mind that scenarios of decolonization and recolonization are extreme, while in reality, there may also be a broad spectrum of intermediate options. Nowadays, in Polish cities, we can observe a hybrid scenario containing both elements of recolonization and decolonization. Local chapters of USM have representation in local authorities, which is often connected with softening their demands. In some cases, they are cooperating or struggling with former elites, while in others they are joining them. This kind of activity bears the hallmarks of recolonization. However, one of the results of movements’ activity is development of public participation and at least partial empowerment of inhabitants, which could lead to decolonization in future.

362  Handbook on urban social movements

NOTE 1. This work was supported by the National Science Centre under Grant 2017/25/N/ HS4/00018.

REFERENCES Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216–224. Augur, T. B. (1945). Citizen participation in city planning. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 242, 101–103. Castells, M. (1977). The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach. London: Edward Arnold. Domaradzka, A. (2022). The un-equal playground: Developers and urban activists struggling for the right to the city. Geoforum, 134, 178–186. Grochowski, M. (1992). Gra o miasto – gra przegrana? Biuletyn KPZK, 157, 15–26. Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. Brooklyn: Verso Innes, J. E., and Booher, D. E. (2010). Planning with Complexity: An Introduction to Collaborative Rationality for Public Policy. London and New York: Routledge. Jałowiecki, B. (1988). Lokalne ruchy społeczne w perspektywie procesów globalnych. Rozwój Regionalny. Rozwój Lokalny. Samorząd Terytorialny, 11, 9–31. Jałowiecki, B. (1992). Gra o miasto w sytuacji transformacji ustroju. Biuletyn KPZK, 157, 7–14. Kotus, J. (2013). Position of the Polish city on the ladder of public participation: Are we going the right way? The case of Poznań. Cities, 35, 226–236. Kotus, J., and Sowada, T. (2017). Behavioural model of collaborative urban management: Extending the concept of Arnstein’s ladder. Cities, 65, 78–86. Kowalewski, M. (2013). Organizowanie miejskiego aktywizmu w Polsce: Kongres Ruchów Miejskich. Social Space Journal, 6(2), 99–126. Kowalewski, M. (2016). Protest miejski. Przestrzenie, tożsamość i praktyki niezadowolonych obywateli miast. Kraków: Zakład Wydawniczy Nomos. Lefebvre, H. (1968). Le Droit à La Ville. Paris: Anthropos. Martínez, M. (2011). The citizen participation of urban movements in spatial planning: A comparison between Vigo and Porto. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 35(1), 147–171. Mayer, M. (2009). The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements. City, 13(2–3), 362–374. Mergler, L. (2008). Poznań konfliktów. Poznań: MJP Drukarnia Wydawnictwo. Mergler, L., Pobłocki, K., and Wudarski, M. (2013). Anty-Bezradnik przestrzenny – prawo do miasta w działaniu. Warsaw: Biblioteka Res Publiki Nowej. http://​medcontent​.metapress​ .com/​index/​A65RM03P4874243N​.pdf. Modzelewski, W. (1987). Lokalne inicjatywy społeczne. In P. Dutkiewicz and A. Mync (eds.), Układy lokalne. Zarys monografii problemów. Seria Rozwój regionalny, rozwój lokalny, samorząd terytorialny, nr 6 (pp. 211–233). Warsaw: Uniwersytet Warszawski, Instytut Gospodarki Przestrzennej. Nawratek, K. (2008). Miasto jako idea polityczna. Kraków: Korporacja Ha!art. Oxford Dictionaries. n.d. Colonization. https://​en​.oxforddictionaries​.com/​definition/​colonization. Pickvance, C. (2003). From urban social movements to urban movements: A review and introduction to a symposium on urban movements. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27, 102–109.

Political engagement of urban social movements  363

Pluciński, P. (2012). Prawo do miasta jako ideologia radykalnych miejskich ruchów społecznych. Przegląd Zachodni, 1, 17–42. Pluciński, P. (2013). Miejskie (r)ewolucje. Radykalizm retoryki a praktyka reformy. Praktyka Teoretyczna, 3(9), 133–157. Pluciński, P., and Nowak, M. (2017). E pluribus unum ? Źródła i specyfika ruchów miejskich we współczesnej Polsce. Przegląd Socjologiczny, 66(3), 115–135. Prawelska-Skrzypek, G. (1992). Gra o osiedle – Prądnik Czerwony w Krakowie. Biuletyn KPZK, 157, 85–96. Sowada, T. (2019). Ruchy miejskie w działaniu. Oblicza partycypacji. Poznań: Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe. Sowada, T., and Kotus, J. (2015). Rola stowarzyszeń lokalnych w procesie partycypacji społecznej w zarządzaniu miastem. Przykład Poznania. Poznań: Bogucki Wydawnictwo Naukowe.

23. Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements: the mutual fragmentation of policies and community-based organizations in the city of Buenos Aires Joaquín Andrés Benitez, María Cristina Cravino, Maximiliano Duarte and Carla Fainstein

INTRODUCTION Since the first community-based organizations (CBOs) of slum dwellers emerged in the 1940s, the informal settlements in the city of Buenos Aires have been sites of collective action and contentious politics. Through political organizing, urban social movements have claimed for upgrading policies, land tenure, adequate housing, and standard infrastructure connections, against a local government hesitant to recognize their urban rights. In this context, the mid-2000 decade brought the consolidation of an agenda of actually existing neoliberal urban governance (Rodríguez et al. 2011; Cravino and Palombi 2015; Theodore et al. 2015), with budget cuts and fragmentation of housing policies (Mutuberría Lazarini et al. 2013), especially in regards to slum upgrading policies, as they were fragmented into a convoluted and ever-changing set of local government institutions (Brikman 2016). Meanwhile, as structural conditions made it harder to find a home in the formal housing market, the population living in slums and informal settlements in the Greater Buenos Aires Area grew from 1.06 million people in 2006 to 1.47 in 2015 (Cravino 2018). Nonetheless, the structure of political opportunities and risks discouraged contentious mobilization for housing and urban grievances (Benitez 2017). CBOs faced serious difficulties to build broad-reaching solidarities and organize the slums in the city under a unified coalition, as they had successfully done in previous decades (Cravino 1998; Camelli 2011), or as we currently find in other cities of the Global South (Patel et al. 2001). However, the literature on slum and informal settlements in Buenos Aires has not examined the deleterious effects of the neoliberal urban reform on broader slum dwellers’ political organizing. Most academic production has focused on settlement-level struggles, analyzing through case studies how CBOs have reacted to urban interventions (or the lack thereof), but disregarding wider slums politics and organizing. At the most, some studies have looked at governability and grassroots– government relationships (Fainstein and Palombi 2019) or the effects of neoliberal governance on upgrading agendas (Rodríguez et al. 2011; Cravino and Palombi 364

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  365

2015). However the demise of slum dweller movement coalitions during the early to mid-2000s, and the inability of CBOs leaders to rebuild a unified city-level front, still remain unexplained. In this chapter we analyze the dynamics of contention (McAdam et al. 2001) of the slum dwellers’ social movements in the city of Buenos Aires, tracing how CBOs mobilized and claimed for the upgrading and formalization of their communities. We will explore how, through the years, the organizational fields in these CBOs (Klandermans 1997; Diani 2013) and the upgrading and formalization efforts from the GCBA (Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires) mutually fragmented in a feedback loop. We believe that, in response to a structure of political opportunities and constraints (Tarrow 2011) of disjointed urban and housing policies, the CBOs resorted to dispersing themselves and demanding the upgrading of their own settlements, rather than building a broad-reaching movement coalition. Moreover, this strategy brought even more fragmentation of urban policies and political mobilization as each partial victory created new ad hoc normative frameworks and policy interventions. We aim to create a “cartography of the specific modes of interaction between the State, political and civic societies” (Cefaï 2011: 146) exploring its interfaces, interpenetrations, mediations and friction points, while showing how roles are assigned to different actors in conflict according to situations, phases, and levels of institutionalization. The results presented in this chapter are based on qualitative empirical research carried out in three informal settlements undergoing upgrading and relocation programs in the City of Buenos Aires: Barrio Padre Mugica, Playón de Chacarita and Villa 21-24 (Figure 23.1). The research included: (a) 10 in-depth interviews with community residents, grassroots leaders, NGO advocates and street-level public officials and observation of meetings of the official participatory board in the upgrading program of Barrio Padre Mugica between 2015 and 2020; (b) 12 in-depth interviews with community residents, grassroots leaders, NGO advocates and street-level public officials, observation of meeting and gatherings of grassroots political activists, as well as reading 95 minutiae of official participatory spaces of the Playón de Chacarita upgrading program, between 2017 and 2019; and (c) 15 in-depth interviews with community residents, grassroots leaders, and NGO advocates as well as observation of community leaders’ meetings in Villa 21-24 between 2014 and 2017. For all three cases we also conducted extensive desk research analyzing mass-media coverage of slum dwellers’ mobilization as well as government reports and documents on the upgrading programs.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SLUM DWELLER MOVEMENTS IN THE CITY OF BUENOS AIRES The first slums and informal settlements in Buenos Aires emerged as a result of a wave of rural–urban migration in the 1940s. As internal migrants arrived to the city, they quietly occupied interstitial spaces and carved a place of their own within

366  Handbook on urban social movements

Figure 23.1

Slums and informal settlements in the City of Buenos Aires, with three fieldwork communities labeled

their economic, political, and urban possibilities (Camelli 2017; Cravino 2016). In this context, the first slum dwellers’ CBOs, called comisiones barriales (neighborhood commissions), were a product of the social and economic life of these neighborhoods (Cravino 1998) and extended to: (a) infrastructure and housing, (b) the expanded reproduction of life in the broadest sense, e.g., education, health, childcare; and (c) organizing recreational and leisure activities. These organizations brought slum dwellers together, creating solidarities and grounding communal forms of cooperation that, in time, grew in scope and established links with political forms of organizing, particularly with peronismo trade unionism or the Communist Party (Pastrana 1980). In 1960, in a context of distrust between these two political factions the Federación de Villa y Barrios de Emergencia (Federation of Slums and Neighborhoods in Emergency) was forged, a coalition that empowered neighborhoods organizing juntas vecinales (communal assemblies) with institutional recognition to manage resources granted by the local authorities (Ziccardi 1977; Cravino 1998). These resources came from housing programs framed by an understanding, shared both by slum dwellers and government officials, that slums were a transient phenomenon that would eventually disappear with rising labor wages (Pastrana 1980; Cravino 2013). In any case, these slum dwellers’ organizations consolidated as legitimate agents representing these territories and channeling government’s resources for housing and habitat.

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  367

These organizations flourished during the early 1970s with deepening political polarization: the slum dwellers’ organizations to the political left of the peronismo movement built bridges with trade unionism to create the Frente Villero de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation Slum Dweller’s Front) and the Movimiento Villero Peronista (Peronist Slum Dweller Movement). The main grievances of these two coalitions revolved around land tenure, banning evictions, and in situ upgrading (Cravino 1998). In this way, these slum dwellers’ organizations demanded a solution to structural hardships shared by all slums within the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. However, the civic and military dictatorship from 1976–1983 radically altered this political landscape by implementing a harsh citywide policy of slum clearance (Oszlak 2017). It deployed violent policies of territorial control that made unbearable everyday life in the slums of the city: disrupted economic activities, harassed residents, and controlled access to these neighborhoods. It persecuted all forms of political expression within these communities arresting, torturing, and disappearing grassroots leaders, particularly those of the peronist slum dweller movement. It carried out violent evictions, usually late at night, loading people and their belongings in trucks to leave them stranded in peri-urban areas, or in other slums in the outskirts. Those who were not evicted, left the settlements out of fear or their inability to maintain themselves. Evictions and slum clearance meant not only the displacement of the slum dweller population and the material eradication of the slum, but also the destruction of the organizational fabric and political coalitions that had developed since the 1940s. The slum dwellers’ population in the City of Buenos Aires went from 226,000 people in 1976 to 16,000 in 1981 (Oszlak 2017). The return of democracy in 1983 brought a slow repopulation of the informal settlements of the city (Cravino 1998; Camelli 2011), while a model of structural adjustment that had started during the de facto government consolidated with particular effects on housing policies. The paradigm of in situ upgrading, centered on tenure regularization and neighborhood improvements, became mainstream in the region (Cuenya 2005; Clichevsky 2003; Fernandes 2008). These policies followed the guidelines of UN-Habitat and were financed by international development banks – mainly the Inter-American Development Bank and World Bank. In the City of Buenos Aires, these shifts created a juxtaposition of national and local upgrading programs with poor results that fragmented the offer of housing programs (Prévot-Schapira and Cattaneo Pineda 2008; Di Virgilio et al. 2014). Nevertheless, this decade was characterized by the absence of stable and effective policies in a context of impoverishment and deterioration of housing issues (Cravino et al. 2002). Early in the 1990s, as demands and claim-making expanded and consolidated in the slum dweller movement, expectations for participating and locally managing slum policies increased among grassroots leaders. However, the participatory Mesas de Concertación (Round Tables) had a brief existence, as the allocated budget was low and the interventions focused on only a few settlements, creating distrust and unease among dwellers and grassroots leaders, particularly as a result of major evictions in Villa 31 to build a highway. Nevertheless, slum dwellers’ mobilization grew as community leaders: (a) created links with political parties and began to learn

368  Handbook on urban social movements

the bureaucratic working of the local government; (b) organized demonstrations in public spaces; and (c) established alliances with other groups to gain support. In this context, two coalitions of organizations rose to articulate, coordinate and unify the slum dweller movement to confront and negotiate with the local government. First, the Movimiento de Villas y Barrios Carenciados (MVBC) (Movement of Impoverished Slums and Neighborhood), and later on, splintering from it, the Federación de Villas, Núcleos y Barrios Marginados de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (FEDEVI) “Federation of Marginalized Slums, Public Housing and Neighborhoods of the City) (Cravino 2009; Camelli 2011). The MVBC emerged in 1987 as an independent movement, without party connections and with the goal of representing all slum dwellers throughout the city. It was organized around a central leadership made up of two representatives from each slum. By the mid-1990s, however, its strategy of having their leaders accept political offices within the GCBA, and press for changes from within, led to a significant loss of legitimacy among slum dwellers (Camelli 2011). As a result, the FEDEVI emerged as a split from the MVBC, fueled by dissatisfaction on what was perceived as a form of co-optation by the Partido Justicialista party in office. A tension arose between dwellers’ representation and political alignments (Frederic 2004; Manzano et al. 2010), affecting territorial organizations in a context of delegitimization of more traditional ways of organizing – like unions and political parties (Sidicaro 2003). Nevertheless, there was some cooperation between these two slum dwellers’ coalitions and party politics, but the formers still preferred to maintain their autonomy and presented themselves as pluralistic non-partisan spaces aiming to build a broad base of support (Cravino 1998; Clichevsky 2003). Most of the claims and grievances were somewhat narrow, focusing only on access to property rights and connection to public services, now privatized as part of neoliberal reforms in Argentina (Pírez 1999). Existing upgrading efforts were gradually slowed down or paralyzed and a few slums lying on national public lands were included in a federal program of tenure regularization that bypassed the local government, called Programa Arraigo. Since upgrading and tenure programs at the time were not based on a real understanding of these communities, government relied heavily on these organizations – MVBC and FEDEVI – as intermediaries for policy implementation, instrumentalizing their role and compelling them to adapt their political claims to actual government programs (Cravino 1998).

THE AUTONOMIZATION OF BUENOS AIRES, RE-URBANIZATION LAWS AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF SLUM DWELLERS’ COALITIONS (1998–2007) By the mid-1990s, the city of Buenos Aires went through a major institutional and legislative overhaul. It gained a new status as an Autonomous City, receiving all the attributions of a province (such as local courts and a constitution) and the devolution of public services. These reforms created a favorable window of opportunity for progressive housing rights (Sehtman 2009). As a result of this structure of polit-

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  369

ical opportunities, CBOs gained some progressive forms of lawmaking, such as article 31 in the city constitution and law 148 in the year 1998, the latter being an initiative of the FEDEVI with the support of MVBC. This bill created the Programa de Radicación, Integración y Transformación de Villas y Núcleos Habitacionales Transitorios (PRIT) (Program for the Upgrading, Integration and Transformation of Slums and Temporary Housing Projects), setting a deadline of five years for the upgrading and formalization of all slums in the city of Buenos Aires while establishing participatory requirements for upgrading programs. It also created the Comisión Coordinadora Participativa (Participative Coordinating Commission) integrating representatives from the local government, the legislature, the slum dweller movement, and from neighborhood commissions from every slum in the city. However, this initiative did not prosper, as multiple conflicts took place within the Commission and it stopped meeting after a few months. After failing to have Law 148 implemented in 1999, a breaking point was reached in the slum dweller movement: FEDEVI and MVBC were so politically weakened that several CBOs decided to mobilize individually for the upgrade of their own settlement. In the absence of major upgrading programs reaching out to all slums in the city, communities withdrew from these movement coalitions to claim for their own urban integration. The first ones to successfully mobilize on their own were CBOs from Villa 1-11-14, proposing an upgrading law of its own that was passed by the local legislature in the year 2000. This victory brought a novelty to the repertoires of contention of slum dwellers’ organizations, as it aimed to expand and specify the vague requirements of Law 148 as well as to force GCBA to upgrade the slum with the binding power of law. This strategy was quickly adopted by CBOs from other settlements. Villa 20Lugano gained an upgrading law of its own in 2005 (Law 1,770) that required the GCBA to organize within 90 days a public assembly with dwellers to define together the works needed in urban form, public service connections, street openings, etc. Unlike the case of Villa 1-11-14, it did not set ongoing participatory gatherings, but instead, occasional non-binding public audiences. This law was the result of negotiation between the local government and slum dwellers after a scandal broke out, as plans for creating a pharmaceutical industry cluster in lands originally intended for the upgrade of Villa 20-Lugano leaked to the press.

COMMUNITY BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND NEOLIBERAL URBAN GOVERNANCE (2007–2020): FEEDBACK LOOPS OF FRAGMENTATION IN URBAN POLICIES AND SLUM DWELLERS ORGANIZATIONS The election of Mayor Mauricio Macri and the administration of the Propuesta Republicana (PRO) party brought an open hostility towards slums and informal settlements in late 2007. However, it quickly shifted to a more sophisticated form of actually existing neoliberalism: a contextual and path-dependent process of reg-

370  Handbook on urban social movements

ulatory restructuring, market-driven, socio-spatial transformation (Theodore et al. 2015). Under this administration the GCBA favored the commodification of housing and urban space, replaced policies of redistribution for market competition, and facilitated projects of urban renewal for capitalist accumulation, all while keeping some inherited welfare programs and commitments (Rodríguez et al. 2011; Cravino and Palombi 2015). An overall regressive structure of political opportunities for mobilizing and claiming for urban and housing grievances was ultimately shaped (Benitez 2017). Nevertheless, many slums continued to fight for formalization and upgrading programs, as was the case of the Mesa Abierta por la Urbanización de Villa 31 (Open Board for the Upgrading of Villa 31), which, together with NGOs and academics from the University of Buenos Aires, proposed an upgrading project and a law at the local legislature. Although Law 3,343 was passed in 2009, the GCBA blocked its implementation for years as it had plans of its own for this settlement, located in one of the most valuable areas of the city (Sehtman 2009; Ons 2018). In a similar fashion, a law was passed for the upgrading of Villa 19-INTA in 2012, a small slum in the south-side of the city. However, unlike previous cases, this upgrading law was sponsored and written by the GCBA itself, and aimed to give land titles without any actual improvement to the built environment. At the same time, a trend of judicialization of urban struggles in the slums of the city emerged as a result of a particular structure of legal opportunities, grounded on the upgrading laws passed since the 1990s decade. Appealed against a multiplicity of unattended rights – including claims like housing, public services, environmental, political representation, etc. – these legal cases brought a new set of actors to the political contention for slum upgrading (Delamata et al. 2014). Legal activism (Nosetto 2014) by magistrates, lawyers, ombudsman institutions, and/or NGOs represented grassroots leaders in court and litigated for human rights violations (Smulovitz 2008). Among the more prominent court cases we find those tending to elections of communal representatives, substandard connections to public services, and environmental health risks (Arqueros et al. 2011; Delamata et al. 2014; Cravino and Fainstein 2017). Throughout this stage of judicialization, slum dwellers mobilized demands in terms of urban citizenship and social rights, with some NGOs and political organizations framing them as struggles for the right to the city (Benitez 2018b). But in most grassroots CBOs, these forms of claim-making were loosely expressing a language of rights learned in this judicialization of their urban struggles, rather than the Marxist radical frameworks or the principles of the World Charter of the Right to the City (Benitez 2019a). We found that the right to the city as a cry and demand (Domaradzka 2016; Mayer 2009) was stated more like a structure of feeling: a pre-emergent cultural formation, not fully articulated, that expresses how subtle changes in a society are lived and felt, and can be inferred by reading between the lines (Benitez 2018a). The change of mayor in the GCBA in December 2015 implied a continuity in terms of party and neoliberal orientation, but some rearrangements in the policies towards slums in the city. After no longer needing to legitimize itself through

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  371

roll-back (lean government and cost-cutting measures) and roll-out (institutions coordinating to sustain the accumulation process) (Brenner and Theodore 2002), the re-election of the PRO party marked the passage to a new stage of roll-with-it neoliberalism as certain practices of neoliberal urban governance were normalized (Keil 2009). The local government started the upgrading of four slums, and the re-localization of a fifth from the riverfront of the Riachuelo river, with high levels of public investment, but without a transparent criterion for selecting those among the multiple slums and informal settlements within the city limits. Some researchers have argued the existence of commodification and pro-market logics behind this decision, as all four settlements lay nearby real estate development projects (Rodríguez 2019; Zapata et al. 2020). During this 12-year period, two processes mutually fragmented urban policies and CBOs in a feedback loop: (a) a fragmentation from above, a product of institutional dispersion and undemocratic practices in participatory spaces; and (b) a fragmentation from below as a result of territorialization of politics that poised community leaders to compete with each other for grassroots support. Fragmentation from Above: Institutional Dispersion and Undemocratic Participatory Spaces in Slum Upgrading As the new government took office in the city of Buenos Aires by the end of 2007, it gradually fragmented slums and informal settlements policies into a convoluted arrangement of four agencies under two ministries (Mutuberría Lazarini et al. 2013; Brikman 2016): Instituto de Vivienda de la Ciudad (IVC), Secretaría de Hábitat e Inclusion (SECHI), Unidad de Gestión de Intervención Social (UGIS), and Corporación Buenos Aires Sur (CBAS). These institutions held overlapping territorial and sectoral responsibilities without any form of coordination. Depending on the neighborhood in question, infrastructure, housing, public space, land tenure, or social and workfare programs would be implemented by one or the other, sometimes with more than one institution working in the same community. Moreover, as housing and upgrading budgets suffered considerable cuts during this period, interventions were scarce, limited to minor or aesthetic works, tenure regularization without improvements, or the construction of very few social housing units (Mutuberría Lazarini et al. 2013; ACIJ 2014; Cravino and Palombi 2015). As we described in the previous section, courts represented a new space of contention for upgrading efforts for CBOs, but judicialization compartmentalized urban grievances in a multiplicity of court cases by groups, claims, and reduced spatial scales (some cases to merely a few blocks within a settlement). Cases and rulings could also overlap within a slum, further fragmenting territories and community organizing. This was the case of Villa 21-24, where a Supreme Court ruling ordered the GCBA to relocate and provide adequate housing to slum dwellers residing on the riverbank of the Riachuelo river, one of the most contaminated river basins in the world. For Villa 21-24, this implied the fragmentation of territory and community with an area (the riverbank) being intervened, while the rest of the settlement

372  Handbook on urban social movements

remained unattended. Those dwellers affected by the court ruling created their own organizations to negotiate and articulate with the government and the Court, separated from the rest of the neighborhood (Fainstein 2018). This fragmentation resulting from upgrading policies and judicialization made any attempt to build a city-wide coalition of slum dwellers politically sterile, as each settlement was served by a different government institution with its own problems and grievances. It made no sense to ally with other communities that would have to mobilize and demand to a different government office, under its own upgrading law. As a result, the GCBA effectively demobilized slum dwellers and secured their governability for most of the 2007–2015 period (Fainstein and Palombi 2019). Since 2016, this situation has been partially amended by a reorganization of the institutional frameworks tending to slums, reverting some of policy fragmentation and budget cuts of the 2007–2015 period. The mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta re-centralized into the IVC, the historical housing authority of the city, and the new Secretaría de Inclusión Social y Urbana (SISU), many of the responsibilities that had been dispersed into several agencies. Nevertheless, as we mentioned before, the local government prioritized upgrading efforts in four slums in zones close to projects of urban requalification (Arqueros et al. 2019; Capalbo and Percossi Bossero 2020), as it continued with relocations required by the Supreme Court ruling on the Riachuelo river (Fainstein 2018). These four upgrading projects were: the aforementioned Barrio Padre Mugica (formerly known as Villa 31), near the central business district; Villa Rodrigo Bueno, next to Puerto Madero, the most upscale neighborhood in the city; Villa 20-Lugano, near an Olympic Village projected for the 2018 Youth Olympic Games; and Playón de Chacarita, a small slum located in a burgeoning middle-class neighborhood. Within these upgrading projects the GCBA applied a set of practices to participatory spaces that frustrated, demobilized and alienated residents. As required by international standards and local normative frameworks, any slum upgrading or tenure regularization calls for community participation and collective decision-making (Imparato and Ruster 2003; Fernandes 2008). However, both in our fieldwork and in academic literature, we found there were severe deficits in participation in public audiences, assemblies, management and participation boards (Benitez 2019b; Zapata et al. 2020). Although some programs might have been more successful in articulating and considering residents’ opinions in the urban project, as was the case of the Villa 20-Lugano upgrading program (Motta et al. 2018; Ronconi and Cataldo 2021), in the other three projects participatory mechanism tended to become meetings where information provided by the government was scarce and presented in a technical language, hard for residents to understand (Ortone 2020; Zapata et al. 2020). Collective decisions were taken within short timeframes inadequate to create a democratic consensus, and guided by narrow options and framings set by the GCBA. Mostly, dwellers were consulted over minor details of the upgrading process (like street names or color schemes for buildings) and not key aspects of project design (like urban form, construction materials, land titling, etc.) (Sánchez and Baldiviezo 2019). At the same time, meeting schedules were erratic, announced with short notice, set

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  373

at times when it was hard for working dwellers to attend, and issues to discuss were not publicly announced in advance, which effectively discouraged participation. This moved CBOs demanding for an upgrading program, from an invented space of participation, where organizations lead planning of upgrading with proposals of their own, to an invited space of participation, where government agencies defined who had a voice and a vote (Miraftab 2004) (Figure 23.2).

Source:

Government of the City of Buenos Aires.

Figure 23.2

Meeting of the participatory management commission (CGP) of the upgrading program of Barrio Padre Mugica

In sum, the initial multiplication of the housing and upgrading agencies, the incomplete re-centralization from 2016 on, and the undemocratic practices in the participatory spaces in the slum upgrading programs created a fragmentation from above. As a result, every slum had to negotiate and struggle for upgrading policies for their communities with diverse public agencies, each with its own particular legal framework and bureaucratic requirements. The cooperation and exchange of experience from different neighborhoods was difficult, and most of the struggles and negotiations with public agencies revolved around technical and political issues as defined by the local government. This fragmentation ensured the governability of these communities to the GCBA, who successfully imposed its own upgrading agenda.

374  Handbook on urban social movements

Fragmentation from Below: Territorialization of Politics and the Emergence of Right-Wing Grassroots Organizing While these transformations in urban and upgrading policies were taking place, social and political shifts were redefining the political landscape in the slums of the city. As part of a long-term trend, politics in Argentina were going through a process of increasing territorialization, with contentious and routine politics intertwined in such a way that the territory emerged as a new cleavage and political divisions “produced as a result of the physical encounter of or distance between political actors, and also of the dispute for the control of a territory for sociopolitical goals and causes not always territorially defined”. (Rossi 2019: 817). As described by Rossi (2019), this fragmentation resulted from (a) a neoliberal process of fiscal, political and administrative decentralization; (b) the use of grassroots organizing as the main strategy of working-class movements; (c) the transformation of the Partido Justicialista into a patronage-machine and catch-all party; (d) the pluralization of trade unions; and (e) territory becoming the locus of contention. In 2008, shortly after the new administration took office, the GCBA created a program of workfare cooperatives organized and run by community leaders. These would provide jobs to unemployed slum dwellers in maintenance works within the community, such as cleaning public spaces or building some minor, low-complexity infrastructure (Cravino et al. 2014). Because of the highly discretional, nontransparent and unaccountable hiring practices in these cooperatives, they became a tool of political intermediation for the government to distribute resources and finance allied grassroots leaders (ACIJ 2013). The GCBA used this program as a token in exchange for governability, withholding resources for those cooperatives run by leaders and CBOs critical of the government’s policies or aligned to opposing parties. In all the slums in which we conducted fieldwork and interviews, the allocation of resources for these workfare cooperatives was a highly contentious issue perceived as a clientelist practice and a partisan use of government resources. At the same time, the PRO party began the recruitment of well-established grassroots leaders from contending political parties and social movements in slums and informal communities of the city, creating fractures and quarrels within these communities and profoundly changing the local political landscapes. As part of this process of territorialization of politics in Argentina, the PRO administration changed its positions towards slum dwellers, from its original animosity to now approaching them as a strategy to expand their voter’s base (originally made of middle and upper classes) and gain support for its urban policies in slums and informal settlements. Moreover, “the entrance of a center-of-right political party to the traditional peronista world of working-class organizing, [was] a profound alteration in the logics that rule grassroots political building” (Vommaro et al. 2015: 381). Some of these organizers were offered prominent places in the party’s communication and political strategy. Such was the case of a community leader recruited by the PRO party in Villa 20-Lugano who became the first elected slum dweller for the legislature of the City of Buenos Aires, even though he used to be a Peronist activist (Dominzain 2015).

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  375

As a result, community leaders now had to compete against each other for votes and political support, eroding their legitimacy as working for the community was perceived to be in direct conflict with working for partisan politics (Ferraudi Curto 2012). In any case, these initiatives did not translate into massive electoral support from the slum dwellers to the PRO party, on the contrary, their votes remained somewhat contested between Peronist, PRO and left-wing political parties in both national and local elections. In the slums of the City of Buenos Aires, these shifts in policy and politics created an intensification of movement- and party-politics competition, as all sorts of political and social movements converged to contend for constituency and gain the legitimacy of rallying informal communities. As such, local leaders and CBOs began to join and affiliate to national-level parties or movements, introducing unprecedented forms of political organizing. This was the case of, among others, the Playón de Chacarita slum, where the elections of community representatives took place as a result of the judicialization of unattended housing and human rights established in Law 148 (Vacotti 2017). These elections took place in 2011 and 2014 and became a catalyst for the intensification of party politics. New actors with their own ways of engaging in territorial politics arrived to the community, clashing with the group of leaders behind the judicialization (Pace 2013), and “creating significant fractures in the local political fabric by co-opting delegates and leaders, who began to prioritize their own organizations in communal political spaces” (Vacotti 2017: 59). In short, these new ways of territorial political organizing drastically shifted solidarities within slums and informal settlements, aggravated political divides and eroded the legitimacy of community organizing in general. For many leaders, rallying their constituency for upgrading and/or formalizing their communities became harder, as local support was conditioned to resource mobilization from major political parties and social movements. This form of fragmentation from below conspired against coalition-building within settlements, as political actors prioritized their own party or movement political-building. These processes aggravated uncertainty among slum dwellers with insecure forms of tenure, facing urban transformation in their communities that could potentially mean future evictions. As a result, slum dwellers, leaders, and organizations preferred to mobilize for claims and interests of their own (such as of their own settlement block, informal economic activity, workfare cooperative, type of informal housing, etc.) over general grievances set through coalition building.

CONCLUSIONS This chapter addressed the dynamics of contention of the slum dweller movement in the City of Buenos Aires, tending particularly to how the consolidation of neoliberal urban governance affected the structure of political opportunities for the slum dweller movement coalition building. We wondered how the transformation in urban agendas and policy making impacted on the possibilities for grassroots leaders to

376  Handbook on urban social movements

organize and mobilize together for the upgrading and formalization of their communities. Looking at the history of these forms of political organizing, we found that for much of the second half of the twentieth century, CBOs had created productive ties and alliances to build broad-reaching multi-slum coalitions and demand in situ upgrading and land tenure formalization. However, the turn of the century brought the collapse of both the MVBC and the FEDEVI due to internal conflicts and insufficient political results. Since then, the slum dweller movements have not organized again under a broad-reaching unified front. As a neoliberal urban agenda consolidated under the PRO administration, so did a trend of atomization and fragmentation in CBOs from slum and informal settlements. To better understand the dynamics of contention that discouraged coordination and coalition building, we classified them into two processes. With fragmentation from above we referred to the multiplication of overlapping agencies and programs tending to informal settlements, as well as the judicialization of housing and environmental grievances, making any attempt to build an inter-slum movement coalition politically unproductive. With fragmentation from below we analyzed the creation of a program of cooperatives with clientelist practices and the co-opting of community leaders that intensified political competition for constituencies, pitting CBOs against each other for votes and political support. As of 2023, the future of slum dwellers’ mobilization in Buenos Aires seems uncertain. The possibility for broad coalition building is unlikely: political divides have deepened and some recentralization of housing policies under the IVC have not translated into unified forms of grassroots mobilization. Nevertheless, CBOs have not lost their long-standing tradition of contentious politics. Despite the constraints we analyzed in this chapter, CBOs have mobilized to official participatory spaces and successfully strong-armed the GCBA into considering their voices and preferences in current upgrading projects. Meanwhile, unattended informal communities are still fighting for upgrading and land titling programs for their settlements and organizing efforts have flourished in Villa 1-11-14 (now renamed Barrio Padre Ricciardelli by their dwellers) or La Carbonilla settlements, among others. Moreover, the slums in the city of Buenos Aires continue to be sites of collective action and contentious politics, as slum dwellers still organize and claim for their right to the city and adequate housing.

REFERENCES Arqueros, M. S. A., Rodríguez, F., Rodríguez, C., and Zapata, C. (2019). Gobernanza Neoliberal: una lectura crítica de la política de villas (2015–2018). Revista Pensum, 5, 13–26. Arqueros, S., Calderón, C., Jauri, N., Ramos, J., Vitale, P., and Yacovino, P. (2011). Territorios y expedientes. Cuatro casos de intervenciones judiciales en villas de Buenos Aires. Paper presented at the VI Jornadas de la carrera de Trabajo Social. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires.

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  377

Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia [ACIJ] (2013). Obstáculos en el acceso a la economía formal en las villas. https://​acij​.org​.ar/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2011/​11/​Obst​%C3​ %A1culos​-en​-el​-acceso​-a​-la​-econom​%C3​%ADa​-formalc​.pdf. Asociación Civil por la Igualdad y la Justicia [ACIJ] (2014). El derecho a la vivienda en el proyecto de presupuesto 2015 en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. https://​acij​.org​.ar/​el​-derecho​-a​ -la​-vivienda​-en​-el​-proyecto​-de​-presupuesto​-2015/​. Benitez, J. (2017). Estructura de oportunidades políticas y movimientos sociales urbanos en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (2007–2015). Espacialidades, 7(2), 6–33. Benitez, J. (2018a). El derecho a la ciudad como estructura de sentimiento: ¿nuevas formas pre-emergentes de significar la vivienda y el espacio urbano en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires? Cuaderno Urbano, 25(25), 31–49. Benitez, J. (2018b). El derecho a la ciudad como marco de significación colectiva. Producciones de sentido de los movimientos sociales en la disputa por el acceso a la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Revista Direito da Cidade, 10(2), 1023–1053. Benitez, J. (2019a). Los límites del derecho a la ciudad como prisma para entender conflictos urbanos: acción colectiva y lenguaje de derechos en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Población & Sociedad, 28(1), 6–31. Benitez, J. (2019b). La reurbanización del Playón de Chacarita como problema público. Arenas, actores y políticas públicas. Paper presented at I. Encuentro de la Red de Asentamientos Populares: aportes teórico-metodológicos para la reflexión sobre políticas públicas de acceso al hábitat. Córdoba: Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Brenner, N. and Theodore, N. (2002). Cities and the geographies of “actually existing neoliberalism”. In N. Brenner and N. Theodore (eds.), Spaces of Neoliberalism: Urban Restructuring in North America and Western Europe. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 2–32. Brikman, D. (2016). ¿Gestión social de Hábitat? La política del PRO en las Villas de CABA, 2011–2015. Quid, 16(6), 1–26. Camelli, E. (2011). Las organizaciones políticas en las villas de Buenos Aires: entre la radicalidad sesentista y la fragmentación neoliberal. Revista de Estudios sobre Genocidio, 5(4), 58–71. Camelli, E. (2017). La ocupación silenciosa del espacio. Conformación y crecimiento de las villas en la ciudad de Buenos Aires, 1930–1958. Cuaderno Urbano: Espacio, Cultura, Sociedad, 22(22), 73–90. Capalbo, T. and Percossi Bossero, F. L. (2020) La urbanización de la Villa 31 en su contexto: un estado de la cuestión de la rehabilitación del barrio de Retiro (2015–2019). Cuaderno Urbano: Espacio, Cultura, Sociedad, 29(29), 139–164. Cefaï, D. (2011). Diez propuestas para el estudio de las movilizaciones colectivas. De la experiencia al compromiso. Revista de Sociología, 26, 137–166. Clichevsky, N. (2003). Pobreza y acceso al suelo urbano. Algunas interrogantes sobre las políticas de regularización en América Latina. Serie “Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo” No. 75, CEPAL. https://​www​.cepal​.org/​es/​publicaciones/​5780​-pobreza​-acceso​-al​-suelo​-urbano​ -algunas​-interrogantes​-politicas​-regularizacion. Cravino, M. C. (1998). Las organizaciones villeras en la Capital Federal entre 1989–1996. Entre la autonomía y el clientelismo. Paper presented at 1er. Congreso Virtual de Antropología y Arqueología, Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires. https://​acij​.org​.ar/​wp​-content/​ uploads/​Las​_organizaciones​_villeras​_en​_la​_Capital​_Federal​_entre​_1989​.pdf. Cravino, M. C. (2009). Entre el arraigo y el desalojo. La Villa 31 de Retiro. Derecho a la ciudad, capital inmobiliario y gestión urbana. Los Polvorines: Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento. Cravino, M. C. (2013). Construyendo barrios: Transformaciones socioterritoriales a partir de los Programas Federales de Vivienda en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, 2004–2009. Polis (Santiago), 12(36), 539–544.

378  Handbook on urban social movements

Cravino, M. C. (2016). Desigualdad urbana, inseguridad y vida cotidiana en asentamientos informales del Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires. Etnografías contemporáneas, 2(3), 56–83. Cravino, M. C. (2018). Evolución cuantitativa y transformaciones cualitativas de los asentamientos populares del Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (1980–2015). In M. C. Cravino (org.), La ciudad (re)negada Aproximaciones al estudio de asentamientos populares en nueve ciudades argentinas. Los Polvorines: Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento, pp. 67–102. Cravino, M. C. and Fainstein, C. (2017). Disputas por el acceso al ambiente sano y la vivienda en la ribera del Riachuelo: derechos de los vecinos, acción de la Justicia y políticas públicas. In M. C. Cravino (coord.), Detrás de los conflictos. Estudios sobre desigualdad urbana en la Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires. Los Polvorines, Buenos Aires: Editorial UNGS, pp. 53–113. Cravino, M. C., Fernández Wagner, R. and Varela, O. (2002). Notas sobre la política habitacional en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires en los años 90. In L. Andreacci (org.), Cuestión social y política social en el Gran Buenos Aires. La Plata: Ediciones Al Margen, pp. 107–124. Cravino, M. C. and Palombi, A. (2015). El macrismo ¿neoliberal? Política urbana en el sur de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Cuadernos de Vivienda y Urbanismo, 8(15), 40–51. Cravino, M. C., Ricciardi, V. and Sehtman, A. (2014). De la programación a la administración o de los anuncios al pragmatismo: avatares de la(s) política(s) de villas del macrismo (2007–2011). In G. Maurino and L. Bercovich (coords.), Los derechos sociales en el AMBA. Una aproximación desde la teoría, las instituciones y la acción. Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, pp. 335–358. Cuenya, B. (2005). Cambios, logros y conflictos en la política de vivienda en Argentina hacia fines del siglo XX. Boletín CF+ S, 29/30, 239–247. Delamata, G., Sethman, A., and Ricciardi, M. V. (2014). Actores populares y hábitat. Efectos e impactos del activismo judicial en las villas de Buenos Aires. In L. Pautassi (dir.), Marginaciones sociales en el área metropolitana de Buenos Aires. Acceso a la justicia, capacidades estatales y movilización legal. Buenos Aires: Editorial Biblos. Di Virgilio, M. M., Guevara, T. A., and Arqueros, M. S. (2014). Un análisis comparado sobre la implementación de políticas de regularización de asentamientos informales en Argentina, Brasil y México. Revista INVI, 29(80), 17–51. Diani, M. (2013). Organizational fields and social movement dynamics. In J. van Stekelenburg, C. Roggeband, and B. Klandermans (eds.), The Future of Social Movement Research: Dynamics, Mechanisms, and Processes. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 145–168. Domaradzka, A. (2016). El derecho a la ciudad como consigna. In C. Tamayo Gómez (ed.), Pensar y construir el territorio desde la cultura. Medellín: Universidad EAFIT, pp. 9–25. Dominzain, J. M. (2015). De Evita a Mauricio: el PRO villero. Anfibia. https://​ www​ .revistaanfibia​.com/​de​-evita​-a​-mauricio​-el​-pro​-villero/​. Fainstein, C. (2018). Conflictos urbanos judicializados: relocalizaciones en la Villa 21–24. Direito e Práxis, 9(4), 2071–2099. Fainstein, C. and Palombi, A. (2019). Pragmatismo, desaliento de expectativas y gobernabilidad. La política de villas de las gestiones de Mauricio Macri en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (2007–2015). Territorios, 40, 227–244. Fernandes, E. (2008). Consideraciones generales sobre las políticas públicas de regularización de asentamientos informales en América Latina. EURE (Santiago), 34(102), 25–38. Ferraudi Curto, M. (2012). La urbanización de una villa en Buenos Aires y los sentidos de la política. Estudios Sociológicos, 30(88), 119–142. Frederic, S. (2004). Buenos vecinos, malos políticos. Moralidad y política en el Gran Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires: Prometeo.

Neoliberal urban governance and slum dweller movements  379

Imparato, I. and Ruster, J. (2003). Slum Upgrading and Participation. Lessons from Latin America. Washington, DC: World Bank. Keil, R. (2009). The urban politics of roll-with-it neoliberalization. City, 13(2–3), 231–245. Klandermans, B. (1997). The Social Psychology of Protest. Cambridge, M.A.: Blackwell Publishers. Manzano, V., Groisman, L., Moreno, L., and Hurtado de Mendoza, M. S. (2010). Dinámicas políticas en “villas de emergencia” del Área Metropolitana de Buenos. Paper presented at VI Jornadas de Sociología de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata. December 9–10, La Plata, Argentina. http://​www​.memoria​.fahce​.unlp​.edu​.ar/​trab​_eventos/​ev​.5191/​ev​.5191​ .pdf. Mayer, M. (2009). The ‘right to the city’ in the context of shifting mottos of urban social movements. City, 13(2–3), 362–374. McAdam, D., Tarrow, S., and Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miraftab, F. (2004). Invited and invented spaces of participation: Neoliberal citizenship and feminists’ expanded notion of politics. Wagadu, 1, 1–7. Motta, J., Almansi, F., Rocca, M., Acerbo, A., Figueredo, B., Ramos Mejía, P., Encina Tutuy, N., and Oliveira, R. (2018). La planificación y gestión participativa holística en el ejercicio del derecho a la ciudad. Proceso participativo en el marco del Proyecto Integral de Re-Urbanización de Villa 20. Lugano, CABA. Revista Cuestión Urbana, 2(3), 179–196. Mutuberría Lazarini, V., Navatta, J. L., Rodríguez, M. F., and Zapata, M. C. (2013). La Ciudad de Buenos Aires y el derecho a la Ciudad. Un abordaje a las políticas urbanas de la gestión local de la última década. In J. Marín (comp.), La ciudad empresa. Espacios, ciudadanos y derechos bajo lógica del mercado. Buenos Aires: Ediciones CCC, pp. 45–66. Nosetto, L. E. (2014). Reflexiones teóricas sobre la judicialización de la política argentina. Documentos y Aportes en Administración Pública y Gestión Estatal, 23, 93–124. Ons, M. (2018). La ley de urbanización de la Villa 31–31bis en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. El debate parlamentario y público en torno a su sanción y aplicación (2007–2015). Quid, 16(9), 184–196. Ortone, F. A. (2020). Intervenciones en la reurbanización del Playón de Chacarita. La construcción del derecho a la ciudad y los espacios de participación vecinal. Revista Debate Público, 10(19), 103–114. Oszlak, O. (2017). Merecer la ciudad: los pobres y el derecho al espacio urbano. Buenos Aires: Ediciones UNTREF. Pace, M. (2013). Prácticas de comunicación en procesos participativos: la organizacional en el barrio “Playón de Chacarita”. AVATARES de la comunicación y la cultura, 6, 1–19. Pastrana, E. (1980). Historia de una villa miseria de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (1948–1973). Revista Interamericana de Planificación, 14(54), 124–140. Patel, S., Burra, S., and D’Cruz, C. (2001). Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI): Foundations to treetops. Environment & Urbanization, 13(2), 45–59. Pírez, P. (1999). Gestión de servicios y calidad urbana en la ciudad de Buenos Aires. Eure (Santiago), 25(76), 125–139. Prévot-Schapira, M. and Cattaneo Pineda, R. (2008). Buenos Aires: la fragmentación en los intersticios de una sociedad polarizada. Eure (Santiago), 34(103), 73–92. Rodríguez, M. C., Arqueros Mejica, S., Rodríguez, M. F., Gómez Schettini, M., and Zapata, M. C. (2011). La política urbana “pro”: continuidades y cambios en contextos de renovación en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Cuaderno Urbano, 11(11), 101–121. Rodríguez, M. F. (2019). Urbanismo “pasito a pasito”. Villas y reconfiguración de la centralidad metropolitana en Buenos Aires, Argentina. Andamios. Revista de Investigación Social, 17(39), 15–45. Ronconi, I. M. and Cataldo, A. M. (2021). Entre la construcción de consensos y la definición por votación: alcances y límites de la participación en el proceso del Plan Integral de

380  Handbook on urban social movements

Reurbanización de Villa 20. Revista Institucional de la Defensa Pública de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 11(26), 292–347. Rossi, F. (2019). Conceptualising and tracing the increased territorialisation of politics: Insights from Argentina. Third World Quarterly, 40(4), 815–837. Sánchez, S. and Baldiviezo, J. (2019). Los conjuntos habitacionales en los procesos de “integración socio-urbana”: los casos de Playón de Chacarita y barrio Padre Carlos Mugica. Cuaderno Urbano: Espacio, Cultura, Sociedad, 26(26), 153–185. Sehtman, A. (2009). En construcción. Reconocimiento estatal y ejercicio social del derecho al hábitat en una villa de la ciudad de Buenos Aires. In G. Delamata (coord.), Movilizaciones sociales: ¿nuevas ciudadanías? Reclamos, derechos, Estado en Argentina, Bolivia y Brasil. Buenos Aires: Biblos, pp. 161–204. Sidicaro, R. (2003). Consideraciones sociológicas sobre la Argentina en la Segunda Modernidad. Estudios Sociales, 24, 127–152. Smulovitz, C. (2008). La política por otros medios. Judicialización y movilización legal en la Argentina. Desarrollo Económico, 48(190/191), 287–305. Tarrow, S. (2011). Power in Movement. Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Revised and updated 3rd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Theodore, N., Peck, J. and Brenner, N. (2015). Neoliberal urbanism: Cities and the rule of markets. In G. Bridge, S. Watson, and N. Brenner (eds.), The New Blackwell Companion to the City. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 15–25. Vacotti, L. (2017). La judicialización de la lucha por la vivienda en Buenos Aires. European Review of Latin America and Caribbean Studies, 103, 51–70. Vommaro, G., Morresi, S., and Bellotti, A. (2015). Mundo PRO. Anatomía de un partido fabricado para ganar. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana. Zapata, M. C., Rodríguez, M. F., Arqueros Mejica, M. S., and Rodríguez, M. C. (2020). Gobernanza y conflicto. Dilemas de la participación social en el proceso de re-urbanización de la Villa 31 y 31 bis en la Ciudad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). Revista de Direito da Cidade, 12(1), 420–453. Ziccardi, A. (1977). Políticas de vivienda y movimientos urbanos. El caso de Buenos Aires (1963–1973). Informe Final de Investigación. Buenos Aires: CEUR/Di Tella.

Index

Armstrong, E. A. 142 attitudes 54, 191, 344, 347, 350–53, 357, 361 public participation 350–54 Attoh, K. A. 150 austerity politics 99, 101 authoritarianism 100, 280 autonomy 64, 71, 73, 232, 233, 235–7, 240, 242, 243, 248–61 Avritzer, L. 174

Abt, Thomas 135 accumulation 34, 47, 59, 62, 174, 275 activism 28, 36, 37, 98, 99, 106, 108, 199–205, 208–10, 256, 330, 341 activists 45–50, 53, 55, 123, 124, 188, 189, 192, 204, 257, 268, 338, 358 actors 3, 5, 14–16, 20, 22, 28, 30–32, 39, 116, 293, 347 advisory services 189, 194 advocacy 23, 36–8, 144, 153, 155, 157, 158, 160, 162 affective bonds 200, 203, 205 affirmative repositioning movement 157, 162 affordable housing 68, 88, 89, 97, 99, 101, 107, 186, 189, 190, 195 Africa 6, 81, 84, 92, 152, 153 African Americans 133–6, 139 agency 40, 84, 85, 88–90, 92, 171, 371, 372 Alexander, Michelle 135 alliances 38–9 Alony, I. 217 ambivalent political possibilities 284–97 anarchist movements 189, 208 Anderson, Elijah 136 Andretta, Massimilano 132, 133 Angelcos, N. 305 Angotti, Tom 119 antagonist movement 45, 56 anti-austerity movement 284, 295 anti-eviction mobilizations 9, 115, 116, 125 in Barcelona 9, 114–27 in Montreal 114–27 in New York city 114–27 anti-eviction movements 8 anti-gentrification movements 316, 319, 325, 326 anti-machine politics 325 challenges 325 anti-speciesism groups 209 anti-violence movements 134, 139, 144 Appadurai, A. 236, 237 Arato, A. 18 Argentina 6, 103, 248, 249, 251, 254, 257, 260, 368, 374 Argentinean social organizations 248–61

Balibar, E. 237 Barcelona 6, 9, 114–19, 121–3, 125, 285, 288 ‘contentious triad’ of 122–5 Barcelona housing groups 124, 125 Barcelona housing rights movement 123–5 Barman, E. 30 Berlin 58, 59, 63–7, 70–75, 190, 193 tenant protest in 58, 59, 61, 63, 65, 67, 69–71, 73, 75 Berlin’s tenant movement 58, 64, 65, 68, 71, 74 in Fordist city 68–71 in laissez-faire urbanism 65–8 in neoliberal city 71–4 regulation approach 64–5 Bernstein, Mary 137, 139–43 Bianchi, I. 288, 294 Bradley, Q. 104 Brazil 9, 168–73, 175–80 insurgent planning, instances 176–9 Luta Pela Reforma Urbana 173–6 rights-based approach 170–73 urban social movements 168–80 urban transformations in 168–70 Brenner, N. 297n1 Brickell, K. 115 Bridgeport choosing your enemy 319–25 gentrification and machine in 319–21 old vs. new Bridgeport 323–5 voice of neighborhood 321–3 Bridgeport Alliance (BA) meetings 317 Bronx Housing Court 120 Brown-Saracino, Japonica 114, 316 381

382  Handbook on urban social movements

Bucharest 29, 32, 36–8 Budapest 29, 32, 35, 37, 38 Buenos Aires city 255, 257, 364–71, 373–6 autonomization of 368–9 community-based organizations (CBOs) 364–76 slum dweller movements 365–8 Caldeira, T. P. R. 177, 179 Cape Town, South Africa 81–93 capital accumulation 59–63, 68, 72, 74, 266, 267, 286, 289, 296 capitalism 45, 47, 59, 61, 64, 74, 84, 100, 287, 289, 293 capitalist development 58, 59, 61, 131 Castells, Manuel 1–3, 14, 22, 44, 61, 97, 172, 345 Changsin-Sungin New Town Project 339–41 Chicago 5, 315, 317–24, 326 Chicago Democratic Machine 317–19 Chile 300, 301, 303–6, 311, 312 Chilean protests 300–312 citizen-focused smart cities 243 citizens 81, 83–5, 90, 91, 136, 137, 152, 153, 235–7, 239, 347 citizenship 7, 9, 168, 170, 171, 173, 174, 179, 232–43 rights 170, 171, 179, 294 The City and the Grassroots 3 city/cities 4, 5, 44, 69, 72, 73, 81–4, 119, 121, 137, 149, 155, 175, 215, 232, 233, 235–8, 240–43, 266, 291, 316, 326, 345–7, 359–61 authorities 158, 347, 354 building attachment to 205–6 development 135, 140, 242 dwellers 177, 233, 273, 360 framework 143, 153, 155, 156, 158 life 1, 7, 9, 140, 354 management 4, 360, 361 politics 61, 322, 326 residents 235, 240, 241, 243, 344 safety and 131–44 civic engagement 154, 158, 161, 162 civil society 4, 6, 15, 17–19, 22, 24, 82, 85, 87, 152, 175, 277, 280 coalition building 108, 119–22, 270, 375, 376 Cohen, J. L. 18 collaborative urban management 345, 347

collective action 1, 2, 4, 6–8, 15, 20, 44, 52, 98, 103, 104, 152, 154, 158, 161, 162, 284, 285, 288, 303 contentious repertoires of 287, 288 collective defence, rights 116–19 collective goals 48–9 collective identities 44, 51, 52, 54, 97, 102, 104, 194, 201, 203–5, 209 collective memories 303–5, 311 collective power 84, 215, 335 Colosso, P. 180 commons 83, 221, 285–8, 294, 295 community, reconceptualization of 214–27 community-based organizations (CBOs) 364–6, 369–76 Buenos Aires city 364–76 community gun violence (CGV) 134–40, 142–4 community leaders 158, 162, 365, 367, 371, 374–6 community spaces 215, 312 companies 4, 72, 73, 195, 204, 223, 224, 248 comunidades eclesais de base (CEBs) 180 conflicts 38–9 constitution 67, 87, 174, 175, 368 contemporary cities 5, 234, 240 contemporary movements 98, 99 contemporary urban landscapes 221, 227 contemporary urban social movements 214, 217, 225–7 contention approach 28, 29, 31–3, 35, 37–41 global to local repertoire of 82–5 structural field of 28–41 contentious politics 4, 7, 140, 195, 199, 200, 202, 249, 364, 376 contentious repertoires 105, 284, 286, 288, 295, 296 contentious triad 122–5 of Barcelona 122–5 contradictions, unreflected 38–9 Conway, Janet 83 cooperation 18, 19, 24, 98, 104, 305, 310, 352, 358, 359, 366, 368, 373 local memories, recovering 310–11 co-optation 9, 248–61, 294 Corr, A. 186 Couldry, N. 217 creative city politics 137 creative space 83, 91 creativity 84, 239, 303 critical communities 209, 210 Crossley, N. 32

Index  383

cyber ethnography 271, 272 Dahl, R. 236 debt 32–4, 275 debtors 33, 37–40 decision-making processes 21, 22, 133, 201, 214, 344, 350, 352, 360 decolonization 10, 344, 360, 361 democracy 21–4, 169, 170, 177, 179, 180, 235, 236, 278–80, 287 democratic space 5, 158 democratization processes 21, 22 de Shalit, Avner 232 Diani, Mario 4, 132 dictatorship 168, 170, 172, 301–4, 306, 308, 309, 311 displacement 70, 71, 106, 108, 114, 115, 291, 292, 334, 335, 337–9, 341 diverse subjectivities 291, 292, 295, 296 Domaradzka, Anna 307, 349 Dubet, F. 15 dynamic temporality 2 Earle, L. 173 economic development 224, 324 elitism 153, 154, 161, 162 emotions 7, 9, 199–210 empowerment 159, 160, 162, 344, 348, 350, 353, 360, 361 Epstein, G. 219, 220 Eslen-Ziya, H. 272 estallido social movement 300–301, 303 ethnicity 131, 132, 137, 141, 265, 270, 291, 349 Europe 6, 97–105, 107–9, 207, 208 tenants’ movements in 97–109 European cities 99, 242, 284, 285, 287, 291, 295 everyday politics 284–9, 291–6 of urban commons 284–97 theory and practice 286–8 evictions 33, 36, 81, 89, 114–16, 118, 121, 122, 124, 125, 161, 162, 367 processes 114–16, 124 Faces of Gun Violence Prevention in Connecticut project 138–9 Fainstein, N. I. 4 Fainstein, S. S. 4, 16 Feigenbaum, Anna 90 field-level transformations 39, 40 financial apartheid 81–93

financialization 16, 28, 33, 37, 72, 100, 114, 289 Finquelievich, S. 5 Fischer, B. 179 Fischer, L. 179, 241 Fligstein, N. 30 forced evictions 91, 157, 158, 161–3, 334, 338 Fordist housing regime 69–72 Fordist urbanism 60, 63–4, 70, 71 Förster, Till 84 founding cycle, 1990s 253 fragmentation feedback loops of 369–75 institutional dispersion and undemocratic participatory spaces 371–3 right-wing grassroots organizing 374–5 territorialization of politics 374–5 Freitas, C. F. S. 176, 179 Frenzel, Fabian 90 Gallié, Martin. 116 Gaudreau, Louis 117 GCBA 365, 368–74, 376 generations 81, 260, 309, 312 gentrification 9, 19, 81, 82, 85, 86, 90, 91, 214–18, 220, 221, 225, 316, 319–21, 323, 325, 326 American city 316 forces of 220, 221 gentrification processes 9, 17, 81, 86, 91, 218, 225, 266, 291, 323 Gezi legacy 265–80 Gezi park 265, 268, 270 Gezi park protests (GPP) 265–6, 268–80 Ghana 148, 149, 151–3, 155–63 informal settlements 148–63 Global Justice Movement 199, 207 Goffman, Erving 320 Goksel, O. 272 Gomes, M. A. 180n6 grassroots activism 4, 199–205, 208–10 practices, politicized framing 200–202 grassroots groups 199–202 grassroots leaders 365, 367, 374, 375 Gray, N. 103 gun violence 131, 132, 134–40, 142–4 gun violence prevention (GVP) 135, 138, 139 activism 139 movement 139–43

384  Handbook on urban social movements

Guterbock, Thomas 315, 318 Hamel, Pierre 284, 339 Hardt, M. 292 Harvey, David 3, 4, 84, 133, 172, 178, 215, 289, 335 helping poor people 188 Hirsch, Joachim 61 Hirst, C. 16 Hochschild, A. R. 203 Hodkinson, S. 289 Holston, J. 172, 173, 176, 179, 180n1, 236, 240 homeless people 36, 37, 88, 90, 138 housing 33, 34, 39, 40, 65, 67–9, 72–4, 99–101, 103, 117, 118, 120, 123, 188 activism 8, 34, 37, 65, 99, 126 activists 100, 101, 106 contention 29, 31–4, 40 courts 115, 117, 119, 120, 122 crisis 69, 74, 86–90, 92, 100, 117, 190 movements 34, 35, 41, 75 policies 87, 90, 97, 99, 100, 106, 107, 364, 365, 367, 376 politics 65, 72 poverty 33, 34, 36, 39, 239 provision 64, 65, 67, 73–5 regimes 58, 64–6, 68, 74 rights movements 122–6 struggles 30, 104, 122 systems 33, 34, 73, 103, 109 housing conflicts 29, 34, 37, 39 multiple scales and unreflected contradictions 37–8 human rights 83, 150, 187, 234, 240, 375 Hungary 32–40, 43 Huron, A. 292 hyper diversity 140 identities 7, 8, 16, 17, 64, 232–6, 238, 239, 241, 243, 260 in-depth interviews 251, 272, 301, 317, 357, 365 indicators 250–52 individual drivers 49–51 individual services 116–19 inequality, context of 168, 173 informal settlements 9, 148–51, 153, 155–63, 364, 365, 371, 376 Ghana 148–63 Namibia 148–63 residents of 150, 153, 155, 157–60

in Sub-Saharan Africa 150–52 institutional normalization, cycle of 253–5 institutional racism 131, 132, 134, 140, 143–4 insurgent planning 169, 171, 173, 176, 177, 179, 180 Isin, E. 233, 235, 236 Istanbul 265, 266, 268–71, 274, 275, 279, 280, 285 Italy 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53–5, 99, 102, 103, 185, 191, 192, 194 Jacobi, P. R. 170 Janowitz, Morris 317 Jasper, J. M. 203, 206 Johnson, Blair T. 135 Jones, M. 217 Jørgensenm, M. Bak 241 judicialization 370–72, 375, 376 justice 18, 120–22, 132, 133, 137, 170–74, 207, 274, 350 Katznelson, Ira 16 Kirk, David S. 136 KONDA Gezi Report 271 labour movements 97, 98, 100, 103–5, 108, 185 laissez-faire urbanism/urbanization 62–3, 65, 66, 68 Landless People's Movement 157, 162 landlords 67, 68, 97–9, 115–18, 120, 125, 126, 151, 152 La question urbaine 14 latest protest cycle 287, 288, 295 lawsuits 115, 186, 270–74, 277–9 Lees, Loretta 114 Lefebvre, Henry 2, 84, 178, 215, 241, 292, 335, 346 left housing activism 36–8 left housing groups 36–40 local authorities 157, 158, 293, 344, 345, 347, 348, 350–54, 356–8 local identity 71, 200, 201, 234, 235, 238 local memories 301, 304–7 local state 64, 293–6 local uprisings 303, 305, 311 Logan, John R. 320 lower-income urban spaces 335, 341 low-income groups 64, 70 Luta Pela Reforma Urbana 173–6

Index  385

machine politics 8, 315, 317, 318, 320–22, 325, 326 macro-level conditions 32–7 Maheirie, K. 180n6 Marcuse, Peter 332 marginalization 97–109 marginalized groups 71, 157, 202 Maricato, E. 175, 180 Martinez, M. 45, 54 Marxism 58, 289 Marxists and social movement 286 Massey, D. 2, 20, 21, 216, 226 mass incarceration 134–7, 140, 143 Mayer, Margit 3, 70, 83, 84, 99, 100, 134, 138, 266, 270, 341 McAdam, D. 30 McCurdy, Patrick 90 McMillan, Jordan 139, 142–3 Medearis, J. 23 memories 300–312 family and local memories 306–7 urban social movement on 305 work of 304–5 Merton, Robert K. 126n4 methods of analysis 250–52 middle-class activists 36, 37, 71 middle-income groups 34, 38, 70, 72, 73 migrant-led housing squats 284, 290, 295 Miller, B. 44, 45, 54 Miraftab, F. 176 Mitchell, D. 215 mobilization 303–4 process 204–6 mode of regulation 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 74 Modzelewski, W. 346 Molotch, Harvey Luskin 320 moral emotions 204–5 Mouffe, C. 239 movement actors 31, 32, 38, 107, 175 movement groups 38, 143 movement politics 29, 32, 33 conjunctures of 32–7 multi-institutional politics 132 municipal housing companies 68, 72, 73 mutual fragmentation, of policies 364–76 Namibia 9, 148, 149, 151, 152, 156–8, 161–3 informal settlements 148–63 narrative inquiry 218–19 Natalucci, Ana 253

national organizations 138, 139 national-popular turning point, cycle of 255–8 nation-state 232, 233, 235, 236 Negri, A. 292 neighborhoods 52–4, 70, 71, 152, 191–3, 204, 206, 218, 219, 221, 224, 226, 266, 302, 304–6, 308, 309, 316, 318–25, 366, 368 groups 83, 191, 219 Nel.lo, O. 45 Nelson, Kyle 126n2 neoliberal city 58, 64, 65, 71, 83, 300, 301, 304–5, 308, 312 neoliberal housing regime 71–4 neoliberal policy 100, 107 neoliberal urban governance 10, 364–76 and slum dweller movements 10, 364, 365, 367, 369, 371, 373, 375 neoliberal urbanism 60, 64, 71, 73, 266, 335 in Istanbul 266–8 neoliberal urbanization 10, 203, 330, 335–40 neoliberal urban redevelopment 330–41 Netherlands 100, 185–9, 191, 193–5 new social movements 17, 20, 61, 63, 64, 71, 73, 97, 98 new town projects 330, 332–5, 337–40 new urbanites 349 new urban practices 18, 19, 22–4 New York city 114–17, 119–23, 125 coalition-building 119–22 expansion of rights 119–22 Nicholls, W. J. 19, 44, 338 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) 36, 40, 85, 88, 154, 156, 158–63, 171, 172, 174, 272, 349, 352, 353, 365, 370 occupations 53, 55, 85, 87, 88, 90, 91, 118, 124, 185, 270, 273, 350, 353 old Bridgeport 317–19 old social movements 97 Oliver, Pamela 131, 141–3 opportunities 115–16 opposition movements 35, 40 oppressed communities 132, 135–8, 142 oppressed people 131, 132, 134–8, 143 oppression 131, 132, 140, 141, 143, 144, 265, 267–9, 271–3, 275, 277 organizational forms 98, 148, 153–6, 159, 162 Ozen, H. 267

386  Handbook on urban social movements

Painter, Joe 239 Papachristos, Andrew V. 136 parallelisms 38–9 Parkdale 223–4 brief history of 219–20 @ParkdaleLife 218–19 @ParkdaleLife 218–19 commodifying community capital 221–3 community food bank handoff 224–5 right to the city, reconstructing 221–5 Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust 220, 224 participation 21, 43, 50, 155, 174, 175, 177, 236, 242, 260, 300, 302, 306, 344, 347, 350, 352, 355, 372, 373 physical spaces 206, 214, 220, 226, 236, 238 Piazza, Gianni 132 Pickvance, C. 4, 14, 24n1 piquetero movement 248, 249 place 5, 7, 19, 52–4, 124, 205, 206, 214–16, 218, 220, 221, 225, 226, 292, 303, 326 attachment 7, 9, 200, 201, 203, 205, 206, 210, 326 place-based social media 214–27 pluralism 153, 154, 158, 161, 162, 232 Poland 104, 344, 347–50 police violence 132, 134–6, 138, 139, 279, 304, 309, 311 Polish cities 345, 347, 348, 358, 360, 361 Polish mainstream politics 350 political activity 50, 238, 242, 252, 344, 356–8 political alliances 35–7, 39, 41, 256 political bodies 236, 237 political fields 32–7 political machines 315–26 and gentrification, American city 316 political rights 44, 155, 161, 173 political silence 30, 32, 39 political sphere 15, 18, 22, 30 transformation of 22–4 political subjectivity 234, 235, 240, 242 popular economy 259 popular movements 104, 171, 174 Prak, M. 234 prefigurative politics 9, 199–210 property owners 330, 334, 335, 338, 339, 341, 348 protest movements 92, 303 Pruijt, H. 45, 54, 132, 214

public housing 39, 71, 99, 106 provision 103 public policies 156, 161, 163, 177, 251, 252, 255, 257–60 public spaces 52, 53, 55, 141, 239, 274, 275, 292–4, 304, 305, 307–9 spontaneous protests in 307–10 Purcell, M. 16 racism 131–7, 140–44, 204, 207, 320, 323 radical left-wing movements 43, 51, 54 Italy 43–6 radical movements 9, 43, 45, 47, 49, 51, 53, 55, 56 Italy 43–56 Ragon, Kathleen 134, 141, 143 real estate actors 74, 266 real estate industry 68, 69, 71–3 real estate market 66, 117, 335 reclaim the city (RTC) 82, 85, 87–92, 121, 122 activists 82, 86–91 burden of past challenges 85–8 multiple repertoires of contention 88–91 recolonization 10, 344, 361 regulation approach 58–65, 74, 75 Berlin’s tenant movement 64–5 social movement studies and 61–2 and urban studies 58–61 regulation theory 58–75 Ren, Xuefei 335 rental housing 34, 106, 107, 109 renters 75, 116, 117, 119 repertoires 43, 108, 115–16, 118, 122, 126, 200, 292, 295 of action 115, 116, 122 of contention 82, 85, 88, 91, 92, 369 representatives 89, 349, 352, 353, 359, 361, 368, 369 research agenda 142–3 residential tenants 334, 337 resistance 9, 91, 92, 114, 124, 214–27, 265, 271, 275, 279, 302, 304, 335, 341 movements 177, 265, 274, 279, 302 practices of 304–5 re-urbanization laws 368–9 Reyes, Daisy Verduzco 134, 141–3 rights 83, 122, 123, 125, 150, 153, 155, 157, 163, 169–71, 173, 179, 234, 235, 240, 241, 243, 276 movement 119, 121 of residents 155, 160, 162, 163

Index  387

typologies of 153, 155, 157, 159, 162 rights-based approach 7, 170, 179 rights-based ideas 172 right to have rights 170, 171 right to the city (RTTC) 1, 2, 8, 9, 82, 131, 141, 148–63, 168, 172, 173, 178, 214–17, 221, 225, 232, 335, 337, 338, 341, 346, 359, 360 analytical framework 152–5 movements 215, 216, 222 Rios, Victor M. 137 Romania 32–40 Rossi, F. 374 Runciman, Carin 83 rural–urban migration 148–63 Sader, E. 171 Sagaris, L. 150 Sampson, Robert J. 5, 134 Santiago 300–302, 304, 305 Sassen, S. 4 Scott, A. J. 20 segregated neighborhoods 305 self-government 284, 287, 296, 347, 348, 355, 358 self-managed urban gardens 290 Sennett, R. 44 Seoul 330–41 urban activism in 330–41 urban redevelopment politics in 332–5 Seoul Metropolitan Government 330, 332–5, 338, 340 Serafim, L. 175 Shin, Hyun Bang 337 silences 38–9 Silva, A. A. 174 slum dweller movements 10, 364–76 Buenos Aires city 365–8 slum dwellers 364–72, 374–6 slum dwellers’ coalitions, disintegration 368–9 slum dwellers organizations 369–75 slums 149, 364, 366–76 slum upgrading policies 364 Smith, B. 218 Snow, David A. 132 social activism 108, 157, 162 social actors 1, 3, 9, 10, 14–16, 18, 21, 23, 24, 202, 209 social collective action 152 social housing 68, 69, 71, 72, 81, 82, 86–91, 117, 118, 191

construction of 68, 69, 71 social media 8, 9, 82, 214–18, 221, 223, 225–7 as recursive source material 217 urban social movements 217 social movements 2, 4, 5, 17, 23, 24, 44, 45, 61–4, 97, 132–4, 168–70, 226 actors 107, 175 cycles 62, 63 notion of 6, 24 repertoire 185 scholars 142, 286–8, 296 space 20, 301 struggles 31, 83 studies 7, 29, 32, 58, 61, 62, 91, 286 theory 5, 82, 288 social organizations 248–55, 257, 259, 261 social relations 5, 10, 18, 22, 50, 287, 289, 291, 293, 295, 296 social rights 19, 155, 159, 169, 171, 178, 370 sociedades de amigos de barrio (SABs) 180 society, present 46–8 Sorensen, A. 150 South Africa 81, 83–5, 91 South Korea 10, 330, 332, 335, 337, 340, 341 space 2, 19, 20, 45, 51–5, 83, 84, 91, 154, 175, 191, 206, 275, 291, 292, 303–4, 310, 348 for activities 185, 188, 191 production 2 representations of 45, 46 Sparkes, A. C. 218 spatialized oppression 265–80 spatial segregation 9, 81–93, 169, 242 squatting movements 99, 285 squatting/squatters 123, 133, 185–96 movements 64, 133 opportunities 187–8 building, cityscape or function, conserving 192–3 favourable circumstances 193 helping poor people, housing 188 self-help housing 188–91 space for activities, establishing 191–2 strengths 185–6 strengths–weaknesses–opportunities– threats (SWOT) analysis 185–96 threats 193–5 weaknesses 186–7

388  Handbook on urban social movements

state 17, 60, 72, 84, 133, 134, 142, 143, 236, 237, 249–54, 257, 258, 260, 294 citizenship 234, 236 governments 133, 257 housing 32, 34, 37 institutions 68, 72, 73, 250, 252, 346 regulation 22, 59 Steinman, Erich 141 Stokes, Susan C. 316 Stoner, Rebecca 320 Storper, M. 20 strategy 35, 90, 91, 121–3, 175, 249, 252, 254, 255, 323, 324, 368, 374 street protests 119, 120, 123, 124 strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats (SWOT) analysis 185, 187, 189, 191, 193, 195 structural field of contention 28, 29, 31–3, 35, 37–41 structural processes 29–32, 287 structural racism 140 student movements 256, 312 Subirats, Anna 132 Sub-Saharan Africa 148, 150, 152, 153 informal settlements in 150–52 urban social movements in 152–3 suburbanization 68, 323 Sweden 103–7 Swedish tenants 98, 104, 105 movement 104–7 tactics 84, 88–92, 116, 119–26 Tarrow, S. 249 Tavolari, B. 172, 173 Tekdemir, O. 272 tenants 67, 97–108, 115, 117, 118, 120, 121, 334, 339 activism 107–9 collective action of 103, 104 initiatives 70, 73 protest 70–73 rights 101, 118, 121, 123 tenants’ movements 58, 64–8, 71, 73–5, 97–103, 105, 107–9 development of 98, 101, 108 in Europe 9, 97–109 as urban movements 98–102 tenants’ struggles 102 significance 102–4 Tilly, C. 249 time 303–4 transformations, field 39–40

Turkey 192, 265–8, 270, 274–6, 279, 280 United States 16, 115, 120–22 urban 1, 3–5, 9, 10, 169, 175, 233, 275, 285, 286, 288–90, 293, 295, 296, 330, 341 urban accumulation process 289–91, 295, 296 urban accumulation strategies 289, 290 urban activism 199, 200, 202–6, 330, 331, 333, 337–41 emotions, explanatory variable 202–3 in Seoul 330–41 urban activist groups 28, 339 urban activists 137–8 urban actors 175, 267, 271, 330 urban alliances 272–4 urban autonomy 232, 235–8, 243 urban battlegrounds 43–56 urban citizenship 7, 9, 155, 232–43 claiming 232–44 practice of 232, 239 practicing 238–40 rights and practices 232–44 and urban movements 240–42 urban collective action 16, 20, 292 urban commons 8, 10, 284–96 development of 294, 295 everyday politics of 284–97 theory and practice 286–8 situating in urban terrain 289–95 and urban capital accumulation process 289–91 and urban power configurations 293–5 and urban social relations 291–3 urban communities 133, 140, 143, 203, 242 urban conflicts 1, 5, 6, 59, 204 urban crisis 5, 6, 16 urban democracy 21, 280 urban development 7, 14, 65, 74, 132, 133, 140, 173, 177, 323, 331 urban environment 4, 5, 8, 132, 139, 214, 289, 290, 295, 307, 308 urban experience 4, 143 urban governance 10, 22, 108, 235, 364, 365, 367, 369, 371, 373, 375 urban grassroots activism 199–210 urban grassroots organizations 271, 274, 275, 279 urban GVP organizations 141–3 urban infrastructures 60, 64, 237, 243, 305, 333 urban inhabitants 232, 330, 335, 337, 341

Index  389

urbanism 19, 59, 60, 64, 172, 268 urbanization 21, 60, 84, 131, 134, 149, 215, 291, 330, 335 processes 3, 63 urban justice 89, 106, 108 urban life 5, 215, 225, 239, 285, 287, 290–92, 296, 304 urban management 10, 169, 344, 346–9, 355, 359–61 behavioural model of 347 colonization, Polish cities 347–8 decolonization 344–61 decolonization of 360 methodology and scope 345 recolonization 344–61 recolonization of 10, 344, 361 slow decolonization of 360–61 unintentional recolonization of 361 urban memories 10, 300–312 eruption of 300–301 movement of 10, 300, 301, 303, 305, 307, 309, 311 popular and peripheral resistance 301–3 urban migration 9, 148–51, 153, 155, 157, 159, 161, 163 urban mobilization 5–9, 148, 149, 153, 156, 158, 161, 295, 296 informal settlements, Ghana 158 communication and advocacy, forms 160–61 ontological and epistemological framing 158–9 organizational forms 159 rights, typologies of 159–60 informal settlements, Namibia 156 communication and advocacy, forms 157–8 ontological and epistemological framing 156 organizational forms 156–7 rights, typologies of 157 urban movements 5, 15–18, 22, 24, 29, 43, 216, 233, 241, 284–6, 288, 311, 312, 335–41, 346, 349, 353, 354, 358, 359 actions of 4, 22, 344 activities of 216, 338, 355 defining 18–22 landscape of 16, 100 localism of 15–18 participants of 352–4 in Poland 349–50 role of 22–4

shortcomings of 15, 24 study of 3, 7, 10, 200, 202 and urban citizenship 240–42 urban neoliberal accumulation process 291, 293 urban organizations 272–4 urban peripheries 149, 173 urban policies 1, 5, 7, 9, 10, 169–70, 175, 176, 179, 202, 233, 235, 239, 243, 249, 275, 278, 280, 340, 347, 349, 369–75 urban political scholars 286, 288, 293, 296 urban politics 7, 10, 199, 272, 274–6, 293, 326, 330, 338–40 changing 330, 340 effects 274–7 urban power configurations 286, 289, 293 urban power relations 4, 25 urban problems 1, 3, 83–5, 88, 91, 308, 346 urban processes 21, 51, 59, 289, 295 urban protests 10, 239, 341 urban public spaces 9, 289 urban redevelopment 273, 275, 330–35, 337–41 urban reform 9, 169, 171, 173–6, 179, 364 urban regeneration project 268, 340 urban renewal 70, 99, 215, 370 urban resistance 265–7, 269, 271–3, 275, 277, 279, 280 movements 10, 265, 275 urban resistance movements 265–80 urban resources 215, 233, 249, 287, 335 urban rights 169, 241, 273, 274, 364 urban services 4, 9, 171, 173 urban social movements (USM) 1–6, 44, 45, 62–4, 74, 132–4, 152, 168–70, 214, 226, 344–7, 349, 350, 352, 356, 358–61 activity 344, 345, 347, 354, 359, 360 Brazil 168–80 Fordist urbanism 63–4 informal settlements 148–63 laissez-faire urbanism/urbanization 62–3 localism of 14–25 on memory 305 neoliberal city 64 political activity of 356–9 Political engagement of 344, 345, 347, 349, 351, 353, 355, 357, 359, 361 political engagement of 344–61

390  Handbook on urban social movements

and regulation theory 58–75 respondents’ opinion 354–6 in Sub-Saharan Africa 152–3 see also individual entries urban social relations 286, 289, 291, 292 urban society 1–3, 291, 292, 341 urban space 43, 45, 46, 55, 56, 88, 90–92, 153, 154, 174, 175, 206, 347 urban sphere 3, 249, 286 urban squatting 100, 185, 335 urban struggles 6, 28–41, 62, 63, 335, 337, 370 urban transformations 81, 83, 168–71, 173–5, 177, 179 in Brazil 168–70 paradoxes and 179–80 urban unrest 269, 279 utopias 199–210

Van Haperen, S. 5 Villanueva, J. 215 Wacquant, Loïc 134, 135, 305 Wates, N. 192 Watkinson, D. 193 weakening, cycle of 258–9 Weinstein, Liza 335 Weiss, Linda 332 welfare state 16, 60, 71, 99, 101, 106, 134 Willems, W. 214, 217 Wilson, William Julius 135 Wood, P. K. 233 working-class struggles 97–109 young activists 45, 46, 50, 51, 55 young people 208, 279, 301, 302, 305–8, 310, 312