‘Central London under siege’: Diaspora, ‘race’ and the right to the (global) city

Abstract

Drawing upon an ethnography of recent Congolese diasporic protests in central London, this article pays attention to the traversal histories of 'race' and the postcolonial dynamics that precede the emergence of a contemporary diasporic 'right to the city' movement. The authors critically engage with Henri Lefebvre's 'right to the city' as a way of explaining how the urban is not only the site but also, increasingly, a stake in urban protests. In doing so the authors relocate urban centrality -its meaning, symbolic power and heuristic status in protests -in a context where activists' claims are not restricted to one city or, simply, the political present. Rather, protestors talk about making geopolitical connections between local and global scales and contemporary and historical injustices. Drawing upon Simone's notion of 'black urbanism', the authors claim to enrich Lefebvre's original formulation by unpacking the complex performative dimensions of protest as they intersect with race and, more specifically, blackness and postcolonialism. It is concluded that activists' experience is fundamentally ambivalent; they are at once enchanted and disenchanted with protest in central London. 2ÔCentral London under siegeÕ: Diaspora, ÔraceÕ and the right to the (global) city

The refugees’ right to the centre of the city: City branding versus city commoning in Athens

“…Overall, we argue that refugees’ common spaces demonstrate not only the possibility for generating hindrances to city-branding policies, but also a remarkable ‘capaciousness’ (Mitchell and Heynen, 2009: 616) and ‘inventiveness’ (Garbin and Millington, 2018: 151) for a new transnational right to the city. The ‘capaciousness’ and ‘inventiveness’ become evident in the way the refugees’ right to the centre of the city is exercised, a right that is not taken for granted, nor an institutionalised right, but on the contrary is forbidden in violent ways by the authorities.…”

“…Moreover, as Mitchell and Heynen (2009: 616) argued, the concept of the right to the city has a significant ‘capaciousness’ which ‘is valuable because it allows for solidarity across political struggles … focusing attention on the most basic conditions of survivability, the possibility to inhabit, to live’. Finally, Garbin and Millington (2018: 151), focusing on Congolese migrants’ protests in central London, pointed out that claims for the right to the city include an ‘inventiveness’ in order to ‘claim rights that do not formally exist, that are not granted to them and whose possibilities remain, as yet, unbounded’. In the case of the examined neighbourhood of Exarcheia in Athens, we will show how ‘capaciousness’ and ‘inventiveness’ open up new avenues for solidarity practices between locals and newcomers, as well as between different nationalities, in transnational common spaces.…”

The Second Displacement of Refugees: Urban Regeneration Against Commoning Practices in Belgrade's Waterfront

“…According to Lefebvre (1996:173–174), the right to the city is a “superior form of rights: right to freedom, to individualization in socialization, to habitat and to inhabit … [and is] clearly distinct from the right to property”. Over the past two decades we have seen a renewed interest in the claim of the right to the city, on the part of refugees, with particular focus on practices of extending this right beyond citizenship or birth and property rights (Dikeç 2002; Garbin and Millington 2018; Harvey 2008; Tsavdaroglou and Kaika 2022). Also, over the last decade a growing number of humanitarian organisations working with refugees employed the concept of the right to the city as a response to displacement (Ward 2014).…”

Henri Lefebvre, Planning’s Friend or Implacable Critic?

“…His ideas have influenced academics in a wide swathe of disciplines. There have been significant impacts on various urban struggles and city politicians regarding Lefebvre's conceptualisation of the right to the city (Colau, 2016;Garbin & Millington, 2018). He is one of the few great 20th century European philosophers to engage directly with urban planning both in theory and in practice.…”