An Atlas of Praxes and Political Possibilities: Radical Collective Action and Urban Transformations

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An Atlas of Praxes and Political Possibilities: Radical Collective Action and Urban Transformations

Manahan, MA; Alvarez, MK; (2020) An Atlas of Praxes and Political Possibilities: Radical Collective Action and Urban Transformations. In: M'Barek, M and Velegrakis, G and Hoetmer, R and Rodríguez, A, (eds.) Cities of Dignity: Urban Transformations Around the World. (pp. 49-78). Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung: Brussels. Green open access

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Abstract

Cities are now front and centre of many community-led radical urban transition and transformation initiatives. They are breeding grounds for multidimensional societal problems spanning environmental degradation, massive greenhouse gas emissions, dispossession and exclusion. As nests of development and crises, they function as arenas of contestation over neoliberal policies that commodify and privatise space and life which in turn reproduce marginality and injustice. Yet at the same time, cities invite a radical openness to transformation (see Yiftachel 2015). This chapter offers a survey of existing transnational initiatives promoting urban trans- formation. Drawing mostly from the Transformative Cities Atlas of Utopias (henceforth TC Atlas) and Fearless Cities, we present cases of community action across the world and consider different praxes that emerge from local movements. In what follows, we highlight that these growing transnational initiatives and trans-solidarity platforms are deeply rooted in local and national movements, and share a fundamental desire to envisage and create people-centred places. Hence, we regard the ‘urban commons’ and transformative cities as praxes of radical urban transformation. But rather than underlining the prospects of replicability and upscaling, we choose instead to unravel parallels between and draw lessons from these praxes. We anchor our analysis of radical urban transformations and alternatives in a critique of capitalism, patriarchy and growth-centred economy.

Type:	Book chapter
Title:	An Atlas of Praxes and Political Possibilities: Radical Collective Action and Urban Transformations
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Publisher version:	https://beyonddevelopment.net/wp-content/uploads/2...
Language:	English
Additional information:	This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
UCL classification:	UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Development Planning Unit
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10108082