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- Convenors:
-
Tiina-Riitta Lappi
(University of Jyväskylä)
Pia Olsson (University of Helsinki)
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- Stream:
- Politics and Social Movements
- Location:
- Aula 20
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 17 April, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
In examining motivations, practices and contemplations of city dwellers' active involvement with their local surroundings, the aim of this panel is to define the notion of a ‹pro-active urbanity›, as well as to outline different values, meanings and consequences that might relate to this concept.
Long Abstract:
People in different urban areas are, as it seems in more progressive ways than before, taking responsibility for the physical as well as social environments they live in. Thus many city dwellers try eagerly to cope and deal with a diversity of local developments that affect them. From little activities such as collecting garbage while jogging (‹plogging›) to bigger and more politically motivated meetings in their neighbourhood, people try dynamically to change and shape their surroundings towards what they think a good and including city should or could be like.
In this panel we focus on revealing and analysing the practices as well as hopes and thoughts of the people that engage in what we would like to call a ‹pro-active urbanity›. Furthermore, we want to discuss different perspectives and ideologies related with that concept. We welcome papers dealing with a variety of questions such as why or when people get enthusiastic and start directly to engage in or with their local settings. How do people make sense of their (more or less politically) influencing position and how are they organized for realizing their aspirations? What dilemmas do people possibly have to face with their activities? Furthermore we invite papers that offer insights into the effects of such engagements and self-organized activities on peoples' sense of place as well as on their sense of community, hence opening up for another set of questions and reflections regarding the formation of new or alternative forms of groups and communities that arise along with these activities.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 17 April, 2019, -Julia Wedel (Oxford Brookes University)
Paper short abstract:
By exploring the notion of emptiness in discourses on urban informality, the paper analyses the possibilities and limitations of individual and collective agency in the pro-active construction of urban space and illustrates these proposals with data from an ethnographic study in Lima, Peru.
Paper long abstract:
In contexts of rapid urbanisation and informality, the struggle for space tends to obliterate the notion of emptiness. This paper engages with imaginations and memories of emptiness as analytical lenses to explore divergences between material advancements in livelihood construction and persistent land tenure insecurity in such contexts.
Drawing on a wider ethnographic study on resilience to water scarcity in an informal settlement in Lima, Peru, imaginations and memories of emptiness are explored to understand how, 12 years on from the occupation of an empty mountainside, residents' lives have become suspended within multiple and nested processes of rapid change.
The discord between residents' exhaustive investment into livelihood construction and continued absence of title deeds is charted along residents' memories of the empty landscape at the point of occupation; imaginations of the lives they hoped to create from this; and set against their lived experiences of struggles over now-scarce space.
As efforts to obtain land tenure are persistently thwarted by political obstructionism, yet communities continue to exhaust mental and material resources in pursuit of this goal, memories and imaginations of emptiness serve to unravel how processes of normalization and the interaction of multiple forms of scarcity have converged to obstruct feasible pathways towards the goal of titling provision.
As the empty fringes of rapidly urbanising areas continue to transform into highly contested urban spaces, the paper concludes by reflecting on the effects of being 'suspended in rapid change' on communities' sense of place and self.
Susana Boletas (ICS - Universidade de Lisboa)
Paper short abstract:
Cova da Moura is a neighbourhood built by its own residents, a poor, migrant and multiethnic population, on the outskirts of Lisbon, using mutual aid practices, that generates a strong sense of belonging, as well as resistance to its demolition and to expulsion, exclusion and violence.
Paper long abstract:
Alto da Cova da Moura is a neighbourhood built by its own residents, a poor, migrant and multiethnic population mostly of African origin or descent, on the outskirts of Lisbon, using mutual aid practices which resulted in a strong and active associative network that resists demolition, relocation and expulsion. It's a highly mediatized space, and the subject of hybrid discourses that either stigmatize or rehabilitate it. It is also a touristic area, where guided tours are held. Kola San Jon, a Cape Verdean event held annually has recently become Portugal's cultural heritage. It as also become an important centre for blackness in the metropolitan area of Lisbon. The neighbourhood has been greatly intervened aiming its urbanistic rehabilitation, and was recently the subject of a state initiative for socio-spatial qualification, which was subsequently suspended. Despite the enormous interest that this neighbourhood has sparked, especially in academic and artistic circles, it remains at risk of demolition and its population at risk of expulsion, and also at risk of exclusion and violence from the police. This paper focuses therefore on the political, social, economic, cultural and symbolic interactions held between the Bairro do Alto da Cova da Moura (and its residents), and the various areas of the metropolitan area of Lisbon, seeking to discuss their different integration strategies in society as well as the marginalization traits as they are perceived from inside the neighbourhood, as well as from outside.
Alexandra Bitusikova (Matej Bel University)
Paper short abstract:
The paper shows an example of local activism in the city of Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. It is based on the example of a grassroots civic movement called Not in Our Town, which was established in 2013 after a shocking result of regional elections when a Neo-Nazi governor was legally elected.
Paper long abstract:
The paper discusses civic activism in the city of Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, on the example of a grassroots civic movement Not in Our Town, which was established in 2013 after a shocking result of regional elections when a Neo-Nazi governor was legally elected. The paper demonstrates the development of this bottom-up built movement, its strategies, activities and achievements (mainly the defeat of the governor in the next elections). The paper focuses on young generation representatives, their views, motivations and aspirations and their ways to contribute to political and social change. It is based on a theoretical framework of new social movements and it shows some distinctive features of local activism in the region of Central Europe. On the basis of interviews with young activists it demonstrates the development of new civic activism that is crucial for strengthening democracy in the region.