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Crisis, Right to the City movements and the question of spontaneity: Athens and Mexico City

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  • Christy (Chryssanthi) Petropoulou

Abstract

Mexico and Greece comprise typical cases of the so-called semi-periphery where neoliberal policies have been applied but also where social movements tried to resist the implementation of the policies in question. In the past, many Right to the City movements start to emerge, focused particularly on the right to the habitat. Recently, the most important RttC movements concerned the claims to public space and common goods, while at the same time opposing privatisations and big projects. Some authors called these movements spontaneous. Yet the relationship of politico-economic changes with the spontaneous is considerably complicated and related to what, by whom and why would be included in the discursive category of the 'spontaneity'. This approach I will explore below. Nothing is entirely spontaneous in the world's so-called spontaneous neighbourhoods and in the so-called spontaneous uprisings. The people participating in acts characterised as 'spontaneous' without rules enforced by any superior authorities, simply refuse to define their bodies as machines. The question is if the so-called spontaneous resistances became, or may become, under certain conditions, dangerous cracks. The right to the city is not the right to the impersonal urban space but the right to the polis . In these new movements, the right to the polis is exercised in the everyday life by many different actors and through different ways of action. The motto is: Changing values within spaces of encounters and experimentation. Let us all be rebel poets in the present.

Suggested Citation

  • Christy (Chryssanthi) Petropoulou, 2014. "Crisis, Right to the City movements and the question of spontaneity: Athens and Mexico City," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4-5), pages 563-572, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:cityxx:v:18:y:2014:i:4-5:p:563-572
    DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2014.939478
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou & Chrisa Giannopoulou & Chryssanthi Petropoulou & Ilias Pistikos, 2019. "Acts for Refugees’ Right to the City and Commoning Practices of Care-tizenship in Athens, Mytilene and Thessaloniki," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(4), pages 119-130.
    2. Athina Arampatzi, 2017. "The spatiality of counter-austerity politics in Athens, Greece: Emergent ‘urban solidarity spaces’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(9), pages 2155-2171, July.
    3. Giannis Sotiriou & Chryssanthi (Christy) Petropoulou, 2022. "Socio-Spatial Inequalities, and Local Struggles for the Right to the City and to Nature—Cases of Urban Green Parks in Athens," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-23, October.
    4. Liagouras, George, 2018. "On the Edge of the South European Model: Familism, Business and State in Greece," OSF Preprints 8eqmb, Center for Open Science.

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