The ‘Right to the City’ on Various Scales

Abstract

The introduction to this volume pursues two aims. On the one hand, it refers to the problem of distinguishing between ‘right to the city’ initiatives and ‘urban city movements’ as phenomena embedded in different structural moments of society. On the other hand, it attempts to propose a supplement to the discussion about the aforementioned phenomena. This supplement addresses the need to take into account different scales by which the phenomena of self-organisation in the city are analysed. The article offers an example of such analysis referring to the Central European and the Polish perspectives, treating the two stories as separate to a certain extent. As it turns out, each of them offers a slightly different reasoning and different contexts for understanding the evolution of phenomena as well as separate decisive factors shaping the empowerment processes. The reader finds here references to research analysis in sociology, urban and economic history, supplementing the existing knowledge. The proposed interpretation is intended to lead to a discussion on the need to comprehend local and regional specifics in universalising studies.

Introduction to the Handbook on Urban Social Movements

“…In recent years there has been a resurgence of interdisciplinary interest in urban conflicts. Researchers often point out that while their main characteristics are defined by a local focus, in some regions urban movements become actors of wider social change (Jacobsson 2016;Kowalewski 2016;Dolenec et al 2017;Domaradzka 2018;Jezierska and Polanska 2018;Pixová 2018;Kubicki 2020;Nowak 2020). In empirical studies, given the specific milieu within which the action takes place, but also the underlying theoretical perspective adopted by the researchers, different definitions of urban social movements are put forward with an emphasis on distinctive characteristics and effects.…”

Involvement and Trust in Poland and Bulgaria in Comparison with Other European Societies

“…The understanding of the slogan "right to the city" (crucial for the articulation of the movement at the global level, Lefebvre 1996) was far from its folk or proletarian origins, which can be attributed to the cultural specificity of the activists themselves (Nowak, 2020). One can write about a specific selectivity of postulates, inscribed in the mentality of the metropolitan 'new middle class', looking for analogies with phenomena observed in the 1980s and 1990s in Canada (Ley, 1994) and other countries of the developed West.…”

“…A significant proportion of urban activists (which is related to the elitist nature of participation, typical of Polish society, Nowak, 2020) became involved in the political-party protest, contributing to the marginalisation of local issues. At the next stage, the problems of minority groups (including the discussion on the legal status of LGBT+ communities) and forms of contestation of subsequent government policies gained importance.…”

'Meeting of Waters'? The Complex Landscape of the Polish Right to the City Activism

“…The post-socialist countries, on the other hand, moved from central planning to a haphazard and chaotic urban development following a permissive laissez faire during the first 15 years of economic transformation'(Jacobsson 2016: 11). The specificity of urban struggles against neoliberalisation, their significance for the birth of a new urban question and the structural conditions for the birth of urban movements in a certain, Polish context, are discussed in this issue in more detail byMarek Nowak (2020).…”