Final Report Summary - NEOLIBERAL_CITI (NEOLIBERAL_CITI: Re-framing urban neoliberalism and neo-liberal citizenship – Enactments of resistance and practices of protest)
NEOLIBERAL_CITI - [PERG08-GA2010-277115] - is a project that brings together interdisciplinary approaches within critical urban research, citizenship studies and research about counter-hegemonic urban movements in order to provide a theoretically-inspired analysis of how contemporary city politics are imagined and negotiated among political leaders, government officials and mainstream media on one hand, and contested by activist citizens, alternative media and online social networks on the other. It provides analytical insights into the shifting geographies of the enactment of citizenship through urban movements that critically engage in an often conflictive dialogue with the mainstream society. The project evaluates the situated practice and socially shared discourses in specific conflicts such as contemporary housing struggles, the occupation of abandoned buildings as well as the appropriation of public space as key for the understanding of counter-hegemonic ‘acts of citizenship’. Such purpose includes a critical reconstruction of these ‘acts of citizenship’ in specific, locally embedded conflicts, which have become evident after the outbreak of the economic crisis that has shaped the European Union and other World Regions during the last seven years. By carrying out empirical research that amongst others is based upon the application of visual methodologies, NEOLIBERAL_CITI responds to four key research questions, namely:
- How do subaltern social movements imagine and perceive the transformations in the ‘neoliberal city’ after the Great Recession?
- How do they enact the resistance to the mainstream debate in urban politics?
- Which alternative imaginations, appropriations and constructions of common spaces do they propose?
- Until which degree can the extensive neoliberalisation of the public sphere be stopped or reverted by establishing new and substantially different discourses about urban space and politics?
In the course of this challenging project, empirical research about urban policies and the counter-hegemonic struggles of urban movements was undertaken in different places across Europe and Latin America. Focusing primarily on the city region of Madrid, additional and complementary research was carried out in cities that recently have experienced major restructuring processes as well as been the sites of important urban protest movements, such as Athens (Greece), Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires (Argentina). Research results were published in important academic journals, and additionally, efforts have been undertaken to disseminate and exchange results with a broader audience and those who are involved in contemporary urban struggles.
Beyond the scientific advances that were carried out, NEOLIBERAL_CITI played also a key role to determinate the independence and to improve the chances of the scientist in charge, Michael Janoschka, to establish a continuous research career at the forefront of critical urban studies. He holds currently a ‘Ramón y Cajal’ research professorship at the department of Political Science and International Relations of the Autonomous University of Madrid, a five-year contract with a possible tenure track, subject to positive results in an external evaluation process that will take place during the winter term 2014/15. During the course of the project, Dr Janoschka set up the interdisciplinary research group on “Urban Studies and Social Theory”. The group consists currently of seven researchers, and it was formally recognised by his host institution, the Autonomous University of Madrid, during January 2014. Since 2011, Dr Janoschka acquired research projects and contracts valued at 1.20 million Euros. Since October 2012, he became the coordinator of CONTESTED_CITIES, a 4-year and 793,800.-€ collaborative exchange and research network between two European and six Latin American universities that targets critical urban studies, housing struggles as well as audio-visual methodologies, and thus gives continuity to the research initiated by NEOLIBERAL_CITI.
- How do subaltern social movements imagine and perceive the transformations in the ‘neoliberal city’ after the Great Recession?
- How do they enact the resistance to the mainstream debate in urban politics?
- Which alternative imaginations, appropriations and constructions of common spaces do they propose?
- Until which degree can the extensive neoliberalisation of the public sphere be stopped or reverted by establishing new and substantially different discourses about urban space and politics?
In the course of this challenging project, empirical research about urban policies and the counter-hegemonic struggles of urban movements was undertaken in different places across Europe and Latin America. Focusing primarily on the city region of Madrid, additional and complementary research was carried out in cities that recently have experienced major restructuring processes as well as been the sites of important urban protest movements, such as Athens (Greece), Santiago de Chile and Buenos Aires (Argentina). Research results were published in important academic journals, and additionally, efforts have been undertaken to disseminate and exchange results with a broader audience and those who are involved in contemporary urban struggles.
Beyond the scientific advances that were carried out, NEOLIBERAL_CITI played also a key role to determinate the independence and to improve the chances of the scientist in charge, Michael Janoschka, to establish a continuous research career at the forefront of critical urban studies. He holds currently a ‘Ramón y Cajal’ research professorship at the department of Political Science and International Relations of the Autonomous University of Madrid, a five-year contract with a possible tenure track, subject to positive results in an external evaluation process that will take place during the winter term 2014/15. During the course of the project, Dr Janoschka set up the interdisciplinary research group on “Urban Studies and Social Theory”. The group consists currently of seven researchers, and it was formally recognised by his host institution, the Autonomous University of Madrid, during January 2014. Since 2011, Dr Janoschka acquired research projects and contracts valued at 1.20 million Euros. Since October 2012, he became the coordinator of CONTESTED_CITIES, a 4-year and 793,800.-€ collaborative exchange and research network between two European and six Latin American universities that targets critical urban studies, housing struggles as well as audio-visual methodologies, and thus gives continuity to the research initiated by NEOLIBERAL_CITI.