Whose City? Claiming, Refusing, Redefining and Managing Participation at the Local Level

Abstract

Urban space has long represented the materialization of society’s most fundamental struggles. Many contemporary urban movements, however, face a neoliberal state seeking to appropriate movement repertoires, identities and the notions of democratic legitimation and transformation urban movements provide. What do current urban struggles, participation and democracy at the local level tell us about politics today? And what can we learn from the urban realm about the transformatory potential of movements in contemporary democracies?