This paper examines issues of power and resistance in "divided cities". Basing my analysis on fieldwork I carried out in Skopje, Macedonia, I look at how urban space may be constructed and used by hegemonic groups as a means of asserting their power and how, in turn, the city may be a place of resistance where power is contested and public space reappropriated. Drawing on Lefebvre's perspective on the production of space, I compare the conceived city to the lived city and examine how urban inhabitants may resist the division of the city and challenge hegemonic representations. I also draw on Debord's psychogeography to define an artistic, active and participatory approach to urban space through which the inhabitants may re-conquer their right to the oeuvre and to the city. I argue that the city as a lived environment may offer narratives other than division and that there are alternatives to the divided city. Résumé: Cet article a pour objet d'analyse les questions de pouvoir et de résistance dans les "villes divisées". M'appuyant sur un travail de terrain mené à Skopje, en Macédoine, j'examine comment l'espace urbain peut être construit et utilisé par des groupes dominants à des fins de pouvoir et comment, en retour, cet espace peut devenir un lieu de résistance, de contestation et de réappropriation citoyenne. La perspective développée par Lefebvre sur la production de l'espace me permet de comparer la ville conçue à la ville vécue et d'ainsi analyser la manière dont les habitants s'opposent aux divisions urbaines et défient les représentations dominantes. Je m'appuie également sur Debord et son concept de psychogéographie pour formuler une approche artistique, active et participative de l'espace urbain, à travers laquelle les habitants peuvent reconquérir leur droit à l'oeuvre et à la ville. Je conclus en défendant l'idée que la ville, en tant qu'espace vécu, a la capacité d'offrir d'autres voix que celles des divisions et qu'il existe en conséquence des alternatives à la ville divisée.
Purpose
Literature on social movements increasingly identifies everyday life as significant to understand political practices and activism. However, scholars have retained a major bias towards movement mobilisation and collective action, often relegating the everyday at the margins of social movements. While there have been notable exceptions, with studies of prefigurative activism and everyday practices of social change, they have usually focussed on alternative community spaces such as autonomous social centres and protest camps, and paid less attention to “ordinary” practices and spaces of activism. The purpose of this paper is to address these problems by suggesting that everyday life may be central to the production of activist spaces and the action of social movements.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing upon ethnography methods, interviews with vegan activists, an on-line survey of supporters of vegan movements and an examination of on-line vegan forums, it seeks to analyse the practices of the vegan movement in France.
Findings
This paper attempts to demonstrate that prefigurative activism and seemingly banal practices may be central to strategies for social change. Drawing on an anarchist perspective on activism, it further suggests that activism and everyday life should not be studied in isolation from each other but as mutually constitutive in the creation of everyday alternative spaces – hemeratopias.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the literature on activism and social movements by offering a more complex picture of the spatial politics at work in social movements and a better understanding of individual action and mobilisation.
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