Wed 12 April
08.30 - 10.30
11.00 - 13.00
14.00 - 16.00
16.30 - 18.30
Thu 13 April
08.30 - 10.30
11.00 - 13.00
14.00 - 16.00
16.30 - 18.30
Fri 14 April
08.30 - 10.30
11.00 - 13.00
14.00 - 16.00
16.30 - 18.30
Sat 15 April
08.30 - 10.30
11.00 - 13.00
14.00 - 16.00
All days
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Saturday 15 April 2023
08.30 - 10.30
W-13
URB03
Activism in the City
Västra Hamngatan 25 AK2 135
Networks:
Oral History
,
Urban
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Chair:
Louie Dean Valencia
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Organizers:
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Discussants:
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Guya Accornero :
Social Movements’ Democratic Practices put to the Test of Inequalities: Inclusion and Exclusion in Lisbon’s Struggle for the Right to Housing
Contentious actors have adopted a plethora of participation practices, such as participatory democracy, deliberation, or prefigurative politics. With hybrid results, these practices have been used for taking decisions, adjusting strategies, building alliances, assessing priorities, etc. While social movement scholars agree on their relevance and innovation, a critical point is to ... (Show more)Contentious actors have adopted a plethora of participation practices, such as participatory democracy, deliberation, or prefigurative politics. With hybrid results, these practices have been used for taking decisions, adjusting strategies, building alliances, assessing priorities, etc. While social movement scholars agree on their relevance and innovation, a critical point is to what extent these practices are accessible to people usually excluded from other forms of political participation. This concern is particularly important in the case of Portugal, a country historically characterized by deep socioeconomic cleavages, which are reflected in the exclusion of large sectors of society from political engagement (conventional and not).
Against this background, this paper will focus on Lisbon housing movement, which has been strengthening in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and the subsequent austerity. With the goal of protecting vulnerable people in critical housing conditions, many of the Lisbon’s housing groups are also engaged in promoting their political socialization and in turning individual problems into collective political issues. Less evident is if and how these vulnerable people are also involved in the internal dynamics of participation and decision. Another point is if their inclusion in daily democratic practices has been affected by the limitations imposed by the pandemic to face-to-face encounters. In fact, we know that social and economic exclusion reinforces the digital divide, and that the digital was the principal channel of communication for social movements in COVID 19 times.
This paper will address three main questions: 1. In the context of the long-term unequal distribution of social, cultural, economic, and political resources in Portugal, are the Lisbon housing organizations able to implement more inclusive engagement practices and to involve vulnerable people in their internal democratic processes? 2. If so, can these practices be conducive to a broader participation in other political arenas? 3. And finally, how have these groups dealt with the challenges opened by the pandemic, particularly in terms of possibilities of face-to-face discussions?
To address these questions, I will resort to data collected in the context of a 3 years team-project I have led in Lisbon, and particularly on: a) ethnography (4 months); b) semi-structured interviews (30): c) questionnaire-survey on ‘Housing and Participation’ (around 100 answers). Analytically, the paper draws on the ‘interactive dynamic of protest’ model and it will contribute to the understanding of the consequences of social movements and their potential impact in redistributing the resources for social and political engagement. (Show less)
Pål Brunnström, Matilda Svensson Chowdhury :
Writing Queer History with and about Urban Social Movements
The history of LGBTQIA+ people's lives and experiences has long been unwritten story, in Sweden and elsewhere. In recent decades, this has changed and at present, there are a number of Swedish contributions, both scientific and more popular, that focus on how LGBTQIA+ people have lived their lives. These are ... (Show more)The history of LGBTQIA+ people's lives and experiences has long been unwritten story, in Sweden and elsewhere. In recent decades, this has changed and at present, there are a number of Swedish contributions, both scientific and more popular, that focus on how LGBTQIA+ people have lived their lives. These are often focusing on urban settings and specific cities – the challenges, stigmatisation and repression they met, but also about the communities they built, the comradery and love. A strength of several contributions is to highlight the importance of the place. For example, both Stockholm (Silverstolpe & Söderström 1999) and Gothenburg's (Lindholm & Nilsson 2002; Nilsson 1998) LGBTQIA+ history has been written, however these studies differ from ours and are written with from a more traditional perspective of the academic investigation.
This paper focus on the process of writing history with and about urban social movements with the city of Malmö and LGBTIA+ people’s histories as an example. Using our book “Queer histories from Malmö” (written in Swedish) and the process of putting it together, we discuss two more general points: the first is the fruitfulness of the urban as the lens and limitation of a project involving social movements, the second is the importance of engaging in writing emancipatory LGBTQIA+ history, fully aware of the objections against such an endeavour raised by i.e. Joan W Scott (1991) of Judith Butler (1988).
References:
Butler, J. (1988). Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory. Theatre Journal, 40(4), 519–531. https://doi.org/10.2307/3207893
Lindholm, Margareta & Nilsson, Arne (2002). En annan stad: kvinnligt och manligt homoliv 1950-1980. Stockholm: Alfabeta/Anamma
Nilsson, Arne (1998). Såna & riktiga karlar. Göteborg : Anamma.
Silverstolpe, Fredrik & Söderström, Göran (Eds.) (1999). Sympatiens hemlighetsfulla makt: Stockholms homosexuella 1860-1960. Stockholm: Stockholmia
Scott, J. W. (1991). The Evidence of Experience. Critical Inquiry, 17(4), 773–797. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343743
Svensson Chowdhury, M., & Brunnström, P. (Eds.). (2021). Queera historier från Malmö. https://doi.org/10.24834/isbn.9789178771905 (Show less)
Asuncion Diaz Zamorano, Francisco Contreras Pérez :
Approach to Urban Corruption in Spain under Francoism (1939-1975). Cultural Roots, Responses and Actors
Framed in the R&D&i entitled “Practices, scenarios and representations of public corruption. Spain and Latin America, XIX and XX centuries” (PID2020-119433RB-I00. Ministry of Science and Innovation), this proposal aims to investigate the genesis and evolution of urban corruption in contemporary Spain, whose emergence coincides with the institutionalization of urban planning ... (Show more)Framed in the R&D&i entitled “Practices, scenarios and representations of public corruption. Spain and Latin America, XIX and XX centuries” (PID2020-119433RB-I00. Ministry of Science and Innovation), this proposal aims to investigate the genesis and evolution of urban corruption in contemporary Spain, whose emergence coincides with the institutionalization of urban planning as a discipline and the beginnings of urban regulations, both arising in response to the problems deriving from the industrialization of our cities. To this end, we will focus the study on the Francoist period (1939-1975), a time when this area of administrative corruption reached its fullest expression and widespread extension - from the growing phenomenon of property speculation in the mid-1950s. - and that largely explains the current situation around this pressing problem. With a methodology of Cultural History, the comparative perspective and the use of unpublished and novel sources (press, publicity, literature, visual images...), a first approach to the subject under study in the indicated period will be carried out, revealing novel aspects and new readings that shed an illuminating light on the current understanding of the phenomenon. So beyond the mere description of corrupt practices, in some cases already known -such as those linked to the figure of a fundamental agent, the municipal architect-, we are interested in delving into the cultural roots and intellectual foundations of said dynamics, as well as as well as in the perception of the phenomenon and the cultural responses that it generated among the political actors of the moment and the general public, based on the current moral values and the cultural elaboration of the concept of corruption. It will also be of great interest to reflect on the role that urban corruption has played in the configuration of the Spanish urban model and the construction processes of our cities, as well as the establishment of comparative analyzes with other countries in the European environment, such as France and Italy, so far best studied. (Show less)
Brandon Perdomo :
Sheddingsomethingshedding
PROPOSED PAPER
sheddingsomethingshedding – methodological statement
ABOUT THE WORK
SHEDDINGSOMETHINGSHEDDING is space where practice meets testimony, as independent artists share their stories of becoming in a reimagining of a salon-style gathering in a digital space.
CONTENT AND CONSIDERATIONS
This community-driven work was conceived in New York City as the COVID-19 pandemic had both arrived ... (Show more)PROPOSED PAPER
sheddingsomethingshedding – methodological statement
ABOUT THE WORK
SHEDDINGSOMETHINGSHEDDING is space where practice meets testimony, as independent artists share their stories of becoming in a reimagining of a salon-style gathering in a digital space.
CONTENT AND CONSIDERATIONS
This community-driven work was conceived in New York City as the COVID-19 pandemic had both arrived and driven the city to its closure in March, 2020. Now, at the time of the first anniversary, independent artists rally and organize to share their truths, advocate & uplift one another, and share visions for a sustainable, equitable balance in the cultural sector, all while global social solidarity movements call for land-back, fights for social, professional, economic equity. Exploring both creative process and the embodied experiences that informs their practices, this multicultural and intergenerational project aims to encourage curiosity & wonder, and reclamation of narrative power to communities often both unheard and negotiated as other.
Themes explored in this work include ancestry, prejudice & discrimination, sex, LGBTQ+, anger, violence, trauma, community organizing and advocacy, prejudice & racism, fear, longing, love, solidarity, experience of being in a body, art & creation.
Creative process for the purpose of this work concerns makers of performance, visual, and social practice works, including community advocacy, building, and organizing. (Show less)
Lucas Poy, Hannes Rolf :
Toward a Global History of Rent Strikes
In this paper, we present the first results of an ongoing project on the transnational history of tenant strikes, that will take the form of a book with the working title of Rent Strikes. A Global History. The goal of the project is to offer an overview of tenants’ struggles ... (Show more)In this paper, we present the first results of an ongoing project on the transnational history of tenant strikes, that will take the form of a book with the working title of Rent Strikes. A Global History. The goal of the project is to offer an overview of tenants’ struggles in different geographies and time periods, in order to identify both common trends and peculiarities over time and throughout the world. Aimed at both an academic and an activist audience, our project is not limited to studies about rent ‘strikes,’ but intends to examine different episodes of resistance, organization, and direct action in which tenants protested and showed their initiative to fight for their rights. Even though most research on the subject deal with housing in urban environments in the 20th and 21st centuries, the project aims to include studies of rural geographies, as well as contributions about periods before 1900. (Show less)
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