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*Apologies for cross-posting Dear colleagues *CALL for PAPERS* * “Contemporary Struggles and Revolts in the Mediterranean Cities: The Right to the City and the Battle for the Common Space”* *Session Type: RC15 Political and Cultural Geography * *at the* *IPSA/AISP* *24th World Congress of Political Science* *July 23-28, 2016 | Istanbul, Turkey* *Deadline for Abstract Submissions: 07 October 2015* During the last years, the discussion on urban commons and new enclosures 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 do not just claim the urban space from the sovereign power but they occupy and tend to transform it into emancipatory space of commoning. In parallel, neoliberal urban policies, i.e. processes of gentrification, creative city rhetorics, city branding policies and forced evictions, tend to appropriate and distort the common space, 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 in the cities of North and South Mediterranean. These cities are figured as exemplary places for neoliberal urban policies while simultaneously they constitute the epicenter of urban riots and revolts. 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 Mediterranean cities; c) approaches that focus on the contemporary socioeconomic and political crisis in the different sites of the Mediterranean. *Chair: * Mr. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou PhD Researcher, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece e-mail: [log in to unmask] *Co-chair: * Ms. Vasiliki Makrygianni PhD Researcher, School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece e-mail: [log in to unmask] *Discussant: * Prof. Murat Cemal Yalçıntan Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey e-mail: [log in to unmask] Submit your paper abstract here <https://istanbul2016.ipsa.org/events/congress/istanbul2016/submit-paper> Choose Session Type: RC15 Political and Cultural Geography Requested Panel: Contemporary Struggles and Revolts in the Mediterranean Cities: The Right to the City and the Battle for the Common Space Language: English The Abstract must not exceed 1650 characters (approximately 250 words) Submission deadline: OCT 07, 2015