Cities of Dignity: Urban Transformations Around the World, Including

BRUSSELS OFFICE CITIES OF URBAN DIGNITY TRANSFORMATIONS AROUND THE WORLD GLOBAL WORKING GROUP BEYOND DEVELOPMENT MABROUKA M’BAREK, GIORGOS VELEGRAKIS, RAPHAEL HOETMER AND ANA RODRÍGUEZ (EDS) TABLE OF CONTENTS BUILDING RADICAL URBAN TERRITORIES 4 Giorgos Velegrakis, Mabrouka M’Barek, Raphael Hoetmer 1 URBAN COMMONS: FROM COLLECTIVE GOVERNANCE TO THE RIGHT TO THE CITY 21 Mauro Castro, Marc Martí-Costa 2 AN ATLAS OF PRAXES AND POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES: RADICAL COLLECTIVE ACTION AND URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS 49 Mary Ann Manahan, Maria Khristine Alvarez AMERICAS 3 BRAZIL – THE URBAN RESISTANCE FRONT: EXPERIENCES OF RADICAL URBAN TRANSFORMATION WITH A VIEW TO ACHIEVING SUSTAINABLE AND DEPATRIARCHALISED CITIES 80 Isabella Miranda Goncalves 4 ECUADOR – SEARCHING FOR ALTERNATIVES TO OLIGOPOLISTIC MODERNISATION: FOOD PROVISIONING, SOCIAL ORGANISATION AND INTERCULTURALITY IN QUITO’SURBAN MARKETS 113 Ana Rodríguez, Patric Hollenstein 5 USA – FROM SELF-DETERMINATION TO COMMUNITY-DETERMINATION: BLACK-LED COMMONS IN THE UNITED STATES 132 Mabrouka M’Barek, Elandria Williams AFRICA 6 NIGERIA – WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH MAKOKO? SOLIDARITY, STRUGGLES AND VISIONS OF SOCIAL CHANGE IN THE SLUMS OF LAGOS 181 Isaac ‘Asume’ Osuoka, Abiodun Aremu 7 KENYA – COMMUNITY CURRENCIES FOR THE LOCAL ECONOMY: A CASE STUDY ON KENYA’S SARAFU-CREDIT VOUCHER SYSTEMS 210 Marion Cauvet, Ruth Mwangi ASIA 8 SYRIA – SELF ORGANISATION AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IN WAR-TORN SYRIA: THE 15TH GARDEN NETWORK 239 Ansar Jasim 9 INDIA – AN EMERGING DEMOCRACY FROM THE BOTTOM UP: THE CASE OF BHUJ 276 Aseem Mishra, Sandeep Virmani COLLECTIVE REFLECTIONS: TOWARDS COMMUNITY-DRIVEN RADICAL URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS 319 Global Working Group Beyond Development AUTHOR’S BIOGRAPHIES 352 INTRODUCTION BUILDING RADICAL URBAN TERRITORIES By Giorgos Velegrakis, Mabrouka M’Barek and Raphael Hoetmer The Editors are indebted to Claus-Dieter König who has generously given his time to help the team organise the editorial work in the early process; to Ashish Kothari for his insightful guiding questions in chapter 9; to Miriam Lang for her continuous guidance, to Axel Ruppert and Alexandra Spaeth for their invaluable feedback on the introduction; and to Vinod Koshti for his assistance during the last minute checking process. ~ 4 ~ INTRODUCTION This book is the third publication of the Global Working Group Beyond Development. This is a group that seeks to analyse and critique the global political economy and its social, political and environmental impact, taking as its premise the diagnostic that the world is facing a civilizational crisis – a crisis caused by the notions of unlimited growth guiding our societies and the resulting dispossession at the margins, prin- cipally affecting the Global South. In this context, the Working Group constitutes a space for learning, ‘unlearning’ and interaction involving more than 30 activist organ- isers and activist researchers (and the many combinations of these identities) from various parts of the world regarding the possible introduction of radical emancipatory transformations in opposition to the capitalist/colonial/racist/patriarchal status quo responsible for the ongoing social and ecological destruction of our planet. The Working Group’s publications hope to help those whose conversations shudder to a halt when they come to the ubiquitous defeating question “but then what is the alternative?” We do not believe that radical transformations have to be assigned to a single specific framework implemented in its purest form, but we do share the belief that the multitude of transformative emancipatory practices can provide answers to today’s civilizational crisis. In fact, the Working Group’s very raison d’être is to highlight existing and piloted practices and give rise to strategic thinking to multiply, expand, connect and consolidate these. We do not claim to be seeking one particular alternative way forward but rather to put forward a series of case studies demon- strating that there are indeed many local transformative initiatives happening right now. We try to describe these practices without romanticising them, presenting them along with their challenges and contradictions and their individual context. In this sense, we conceive of radical practices and the social and environmental movements producing them as being “phenomena in constant motion” (Walker 1994: 671). We also hope that the Working Group’s publications are of use to people, organisations and movements already involved in organising transformative practices, enabling them to derive inspiration and insights from other processes already taking place, as well as giving them a chance to forge connections and perhaps even estab- lish opportunities for transnational solidarity allowing them to consolidate their own movement and its processes. Bringing together the efforts of grassroots, bottom- up initiatives and organisations voicing the concerns of local people with those of researchers studying their interrelatedness with wider global political and ecological processes is a key factor in building a movement – or a network of interrelated movements – for socio-ecological transformation. ~ 5 ~ INTRODUCTION What we try to convene to the readers of this work is that our civilisation’s fate does not hinge on waiting for political and technical experts to come up with a package of reforms covering a panoply of policy areas, along the lines of the Green New Deal, and providing a miracle cure for the problems facing us. While such packages, which should address all patterns of domination, may be necessary and deserve our effort and support, we ought to acknowledge and recognise that there are many radical emancipatory practices already being tried out or that have always been anchored in indigenous practices on a local or community level and sometimes worldwide. It is only by acknowledging/understanding/connecting and expanding these transformations that a bottom-up reform package, covering a range of policies, or a global eco-socialist movement can take root. With this book we would like to reinvigorate these local processes not because they will necessarily be successful but because their proliferation and the purpose behind them create a world of possibilities capable of enabling dignity and creating the necessary conditions for life to flourish by forming a buttress against the ongoing immiseration of living beings and ecological destruction. Similarly, we believe that transformative emancipatory experiences need to be discussed collectively among people fighting various struggles and coming from different perspectives to work out the broad thrust of a response to the pressing crisis of civilization we are currently experiencing. This fully reflects the Working Group’s approach, which is based on collectively debating, exchanging and discussing case studies presented at annual meetings, where participants can interact directly. The choice of venue for these meetings is related to the chosen topic, and we usually take the opportunity provided by these meetings to meet those involved in transformations going beyond development to gain new insights and have more in-depth conversations. Our publications like this one, which are produced following our annual meetings, offer a platform to the many voices in the field who are establishing strategies and practices. Moreover, we are committed to exploring, discussing and developing an idea of what new fields of theory/research and new forms of action can be created through this ‘common space’ providing a forum for dialogue, co-creation and transformation. The last chapter is collectively written by the Working Group participants and covers various ongoing debates and discussions. As such, this chapter does not reflect a consensus between the Working Group’s participants, as finding a compromise is not the idea behind our activities. Compromises and the obsessive search for a conclu- sion or a universal solution are extreme ways of silencing voices. Instead, the Global Working Group values the search for and identification of debates and questions, which is why it encompasses a wide range of perspectives. ~ 6 ~ INTRODUCTION WHY URBAN TERRITORIES? In its first publication, Alternatives in a World of Crisis, the Working Group sought to describe transformations that have – despite their many challenges – represented meaningful changes while addressing one or more forms of domination: colonisation, imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, casteism and the predatory relationship with nature. Discussions and debates surrounding the six case studies presented in Quito in 2017 (Nigeria, Ecuador, Venezuela, India, Spain and Greece) provided insights that the Group summarised in the last chapter which was then published in an extended stand-alone publication entitled Stopping the Machines of Social and Ecological Destruction. Realising that many of the Working Group’s conversations tended to revolve around rural areas, participants started thinking about transformations in urban spaces. How might they be different and how do they relate to rural spaces? Urban radical transformations, although mentioned in the Quito discussions, seemed more complex and challenging. Discussing rural experiences may have been regarded as more straightforward because rural territories are geographically further removed from centres of capitalist power. In particular, participants considered that the transformation of the countryside might produce a number of strong political concepts

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