The shadow citizenry is a territorial reserve army of foot soldiers, who want in but are forced out; often defiant yet somehow disunited, disgruntled and raging in a global civil war of austerity and high frequency piracy.
As Cities in Conflict goes on hiatus, I take a look back at the past fourteen months of publishing articles, film, photo-essays, mappings and infographics on the series, and comment on where urbanism is today: stuck between logics of saviourism and withdrawal.
While media coverage of Brazil's urban protests continues to focus on Molotov cocktails and smashed windows, the fight against police violence, repression and institutional racism continues.
As the traditional role of the commons is lost to proprietary, securitised technology and authoritarian control, could designed conflict territories provide a radically different social platform where agonistic conflict could play out?
For more than six months, a small group of young, homeless mothers have been battling for decent and secure social housing for everyone. The mothers highlight an emerging problem facing thousands across the country: it's getting very hard to find a place to live. Today the women will hand in their
On 6th February, Rio's military police clashed with thousands of protestors calling for free movement in the city. What caused the fare-hike and why is the state so violently defending it?
Film: Struggling for the right to decent housing and against the criminalisation of poverty, South African shack dwellers movement Abahlali baseMjondolo face severe police repression. Here S'bu Zikode outlines the lethal consequences of police militarisation and the ANC's political capture of the
For over four years, the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) have responded to a national housing crisis through grassroots organising and direct action. To this day the movement has prevented over 800 evictions across the country. Here Carlos Delclós interviews PAH activist Elvi Mármol.
Cities have emerged as a key site of popular struggle in post-apartheid South Africa. But with the ANC responding to independent organisation in an increasingly violent and repressive manner the future of these struggles is deeply uncertain.
While the recent protests in São Paulo are made up of a cross-section of Paulite society 'waking up' to social injustice, it is young people from the urban periphery, those which have 'never slept' who dominate the demonstrations, demanding access, freedom and a new kind of urban living.
In Belo Horizonte, under the slogan "Copa pra quem?" (Whose Cup?) thousands have taken to the streets, occupied and set-up neighbourhood assemblies to reclaim their city from World Cup forces.
