Apologies for cross postings
Call for papers for the 2016 RGS-IBG Annual Conference, 30th August – 2nd
September 2016, London, UK.
Open panel/Call for papers
*Deadline **12 February 2016*
*Social Struggles and Revolts in the Mediterranean Cities in the era of
crisis: urban commons and the right to the city*
Mr. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou
PhD Researcher, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Ms. Vasiliki Makrygianni
PhD Researcher, School of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering, Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki, Greece
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
The last years the discussion on urban commons and the right to the city is
becoming increasingly popular among radical urban scholars and urban social
movements. In most cases the discussion on urban commons revolves mainly
around Marxist geographers’ approaches that focus on the “accumulation by
dispossession” and conceptualize commons as a new version of the “right to
the city”. However, during the current urban struggles and revolts, the
rebels not only claim the urban spaces from the sovereign power but they
tend to occupy and transform it into emancipatory spaces of commoning. In
parallel, neoliberal urban policies tend to appropriate and distort urban
commons, in order to improve the cities’ competitiveness. Consequently the
discourse on “the right to the city” and on “common space” has to be
reconsidered, as the latter is becoming the hybrid arena of cultural,
political and social urban conflicts.
This panel focuses on the cities of North and South Mediterranean. On the
one hand these cities are figured as exemplary places for neoliberal urban
policies. Thus, they aspire to become “global”, “entrepeneurial”,
“resilient” or “creative” as well as they are figured as exemplary places
for neoliberal urban policies, which include, among others, gentrification,
forced evictions, gigantic projects and city branding policies. On the
other, these cities constitute epicenters of riots and rebels. Cases like
those of the “Arab spring” (2011) in North Africa and Middle East, the
“Indignados movement” in Spain (2011), the “December 2008 uprising” and the
“aganaktismenoi movement” in Greece (2011), the “Gezi Park uprising” in
Turkey (2013) and the anti-government social protests in Balkan countries
(2013-2014) push the boundaries over the symbolic, material and social
meanings of the common space and the right to the city.
In this direction, the panel welcomes proposals including among others:
a) Dialectic, decolonial and intersectional perspectives on the right to
the city and the common space;
b) Comparative studies on urban social movements in the Mediterranean
cities;
c) Approaches that focus on the contemporary socioeconomic and political
crisis in the different sites of the Mediterranean.
Please submit your abstract of 250 words by 12th February 2016, to Charalampos
Tsavdaroglou ([log in to unmask]) and Vasiliki Makrygianni (
[log in to unmask]).
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