Urban resistance in a new light
Contemporary urban politics contains a dissonance between political leaders and officials on one side, and activist citizens and alternative media on the other. This is especially evident in recent years with the economic crisis that has impacted the EU and other areas of the world. The EU-funded NEOLIBERAL_CITI project used an interdisciplinary approach to examine the socially shared discourse within acts of citizenship such as housing struggles and the occupation of abandoned buildings. This was useful in order to arrive at a critical reconstruction of the opposition to neoliberal urban development and citizenship. Partners explored key questions pertaining to the way social movements relate to cities after the recession, how they transfer more resistance to the mainstream debate, and the point at which neoliberalism can be halted or turned back by creating new discourses. Empirical research about urban policies and the struggle of urban movements opposing the dominant ruling class was conducted in Europe and Latin America. The primary focus was on cities in Argentina, Greece and Spain. The results of the research were published in significant academic journals. Beyond that, dissemination efforts were undertaken to communicate results to a wider audience to include those who play a role in today's urban struggles.
Keywords
Urban resistance, neoliberal, urban politics, citizenship, urban development
