scholarly journals Urban Arrival Infrastructures between Political and Humanitarian Support: The ‘Refugee Welcome’ Mo(ve)ment Revisited

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-77
Author(s):  
Rivka Saltiel
Keyword(s):  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Refugee Camp ◽  
Specific Group ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Reception System ◽  
Existential Needs ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Reception Area

<p>Maximilian Park in Brussels was the site of a makeshift refugee camp for three months in 2015 when the institutional reception system was unable to provide shelter for newly arriving asylum seekers. Local volunteers stepped in, formed a civic initiative and organized a reception area under the banner ‘Refugees Welcome!’ The civic platform which emerged claimed and asserted (existing) rights for one specific group, asylum seekers, exclusively, and thus did not challenge the exclusive migration regime nor demand transformation. While such a humanitarian approach risks reproducing the exclusive border regime and the inequalities it engenders, political<em> </em>support is a disturbing rupture in the name of equality that resists normative classifications and inaugurates transformation. This article maps out the complex dialectical interrelation between political and humanitarian support and argues that political implications can only be understood through longer-term research, emphasizing processes of transformation that have resulted from these moments of disruption. Therefore, the article revisits Maximilian Park two and four years after the camp and reveals how the humanitarian approach chosen in the camp sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees were dealt with and represented. Concluding, the article suggests the notion of ‘solidary humanitarianism’ that providing supplies, meeting acute existential needs and simultaneously articulating political claims that demand structural transformation: the right to shelter, basic supply, presence, and movement for all in the city.</p>

scholarly journals Improvising “Nonexistent Rights”: Immigrants, Ethnic Restaurants, and Corporeal Citizenship in Suburban California

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 79-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles T. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Right To The City ◽  
Spatial Politics ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
City Life ◽  
Urban Citizenship ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Right ◽  
Neoliberal Restructuring ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
The City

Building on Henri Lefebvre’s radical concept of “right to the city,” contemporary literatures on urban citizenship critically shift the locus of citizenship from its juridical-political foundation in the sovereign state to the spatial politics of the urban inhabitants. However, while the political discourse of right to the city presents a vital vision for urban democracy in the shadow of neoliberal restructuring, its exclusive focus on democratic agency and practices can become disconnected from the everyday experiences of city life on the ground. In fact, in cities that lack longstanding/viable urban citizenship mechanisms that can deliver meaningful political participation, excluded subjects may bypass formal democratic channels to improvise their own inclusion, belonging, and rights in an informal space that the sovereign power does not recognize. Drawing on my fieldwork in the Asian restaurant industry in several multiethnic suburbs in Southern California, this article investigates how immigrant restaurant entrepreneurs, workers, and consumers engender a set of “nonexistent rights” through their everyday production and consumption of ethnic food. I name this improvisational political ensemble corporeal citizenship to describe the material, affective, and bodily dimensions of inclusion, belonging, and “rights” that immigrants actualize through their everyday participation in this suburban ethnic culinary commerce. For many immigrants operating in the global circuits of neoliberal capitalism, citizenship no longer just means what Hannah Arendt (1951) once suggested as “the right to have rights,” or what Engin Isin and Peter Nyers (2014) reformulate as “the right to claim rights,” but also the right to reinvent ways of claiming rights. I suggest such improvisation of nonexistent rights has surprising political implications for unorthodox ways of advancing democratic transformation.

scholarly journals Civilising the Citizens: Political Slogans and the Right to the City

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio Marinelli
Keyword(s):  
Olympic Games ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Text And Image ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This paper focuses on the artwork of Chinese artist Zhang Dali entitled ‘The Slogan Series.’ Zhang uses a particular technique of text and image juxtaposition to engage with the civic political slogans that were plastered on the streets of Beijing on the eve of the 2008 Olympic Games. His ‘Slogan Series’ consists of large paintings: each of them reproduces the human face of a common person, either in red and white or in black and white, which is literally covered by repeated civic political slogans. The paper investigates the origin of Zhang’s artwork, shedding light on the aesthetics and socio–political implications of a double juxtaposition: in the government’s ‘new citizenship’ campaign, the slogans are juxtaposed with the cityscape, while in Zhang Dali’s work the slogans are imposed on the common people’s faces.

Art, Idleness and Food: The Ethics of War Communism and the Origins of Production Art, 1918–1919

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 273-287
Keyword(s):  
Theory And Practice ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Early Production ◽  
Policy Measures ◽  
Soviet Ideology ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Theory Of Production

The article examines the impact of the discourses concerning idleness and food on the formation of “production art” in the socio-political context of revolutionary Petrograd. The author argues that the development of the theory and practice of this early productionism was closely related to the larger political, social and ideological processes in the city. The Futurists, who were in the epicenter of Petrograd politics during the Civil War (1918–1921), were well acquainted with both of the discourses mentioned, and they contrasted the idleness of the old art with the dedicated labor of the “artist-proletarians” whom they valued as highly as people in the “traditional” working professions. And the search for the “right to exist” became the most important goal in a starving city dominated by the ideology of radical communism. The author departs from the prevailing approach in the literature, which links the artistic thought of the Futurists to Soviet ideology in its abstract, generalized form, and instead elucidates ideological influences in order to consider the early production texts in their immediate social and political contexts. The article shows that the basic concepts of production art (“artist-proletarian,” “creative labor,” etc.) were part of the mainstream trends in the politics of “red Petrograd.” The Futurists borrowed the popular notion of the “commune” for the title of their main newspaper but also worked with the Committees of the Rural Poor and with the state institutions for procurement and distribution. They took an active part in the Fine Art Department of Narkompros (People’s Commissariat of Education). The theory of production art was created under these conditions. The individualistic protest and “aesthetic terror” of pre-revolutionary Futurism had to be reconsidered, and new state policy measures were based on them. The harsh socio-economic context of war communism prompted artists to rethink their own role in the “impending commune.” Further development of these ideas led to the Constructivist movement and strongly influenced the extremely diverse trends within the “left art” of the 1920s.

A utopia do direito à cidade: Possibilidades de superação da dicotomia favela-bairro no Rio de Janeiro

GEOgraphia ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (14) ◽  
Author(s):  
Márcio Piñon de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
The Other ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

A utopia do direito à cidade,  no  caso específico do Rio de Janeiro, começa, obrigatoriamente, pela  superação da visão dicotômica favela-cidade. Para isso, é preciso que os moradores da favela possam sentir-se tão cidadãos quanto os que têm moradias fora das favelas. A utopia do direito à cidade tem de levar a favela a própria utopia da cidade. Uma cidade que não se fragmente em oposições asfalto-favela, norte-sul, praia-subúrbio e onde todos tenham direito ao(s) seu(s) centro(s). Oposições que expressam muito mais do que diferenças de  localização e que  se apresentam recheadas de  segregação, estereótipos e  ideologias. Por outro  lado, o direito a cidade, como possibilidade histórica, não pode ser pensado exclusivamente a partir da  favela. Mas as populações  que aí habitam guardam uma contribuição inestimável para  a  construção prática  desse direito. Isso porque,  das  experiências vividas, emergem aprendizados e frutificam esperanças e soluções. Para que a favela seja pólo de um desejo que impulsione a busca do direito a cidade, é necessário que ela  se  pense como  parte da história da própria cidade  e sua transformação  em metrópole.Abstract The right  to the city's  utopy  specifically  in Rio de Janeiro, begins by surpassing  the dichotomy approach between favela and the city. For this purpose, it is necessary, for the favela dwellers, the feeling of citizens as well as those with home outside the favelas. The right to the city's utopy must bring to the favela  the utopy to the city in itself- a non-fragmented city in terms of oppositions like "asphalt"-favela, north-south, beach-suburb and where everybody has right to their center(s). These oppositions express much more the differences of location and present  themselves full of segregation, stereotypes and ideologies. On  the other  hand, the right to  the city, as historical possibility, can not be thought  just from the favela. People that live there have a contribution for a practical construction of this right. 

The Catholic Hierarchy in the Nicaraguan Revolution

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 341-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Structural Transformation ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
The Other ◽  
Viable Alternative ◽  
The Political ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Nicaraguan Revolution ◽  
Clear Majority

The involvement of Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution is a clear manifestation of the profound changes taking place within the Nicaraguan Church as a whole. While a clear majority of the clergy took a stand against the injustices of the Somoza regime, a smaller group of priests and religious demonstrated a more profound commitment to radical structural transformation of society. Although their efforts to organize andconcientizar1rural and urban poor had serious political implications – in fact, many joined the guerrilla as a result of the ‘radicalization of their faith’ – to these priests and religious the political solutions available to counter growing social injustices and government abuses were few: either fight or capitulate. The bishops, on the other hand, were cautious about the pace of change and rejected the violent option, choosing instead an intermediate path. Unfortunately, such an option proved futile in the case of Nicaragua, and finally the bishops justified armed revolution as a viable alternative to systematic repression.

scholarly journals Report of magnetic experiments tried on board an iron steam-vessel, by order of the Right Hon. the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty

1837 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 378-380
Keyword(s):  
Malleable Iron ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City ◽  
Magnetic Needle

This report commences with a description of the iron steam-vessel, the “Garryowen,” belonging to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, and built by the Messrs. Laird, of Liverpool. She is constructed of malleable iron, is 281 tons burthen, and draws only 5 1/4 feet water, although the weight of iron in the hull, machinery, &c. is 180 tons. This vessel was placed under the directions of the author, in Tarbert Bay, on the Shannon, on the 19th of October, 1835, for the purpose of investigating its local attractions on the compass. The methods which were adopted with that view are given ; together with tables of the results of the several experiments, and plans of the various parts of the Garryowen. The horizontal deflections of the magnetic needle at different situations in the vessel were observed, for the purpose of ascertaining the most advantageous place for a steering compass, and also for the application of Professor Barlow’s correcting plate : and the dip and intensity in these situations were, at the same time, noted.

scholarly journals Governing Nonconformity: Gender Presentation, Public Space, and the City in New Order Indonesia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hegarty
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Gender Nonconformity ◽  
The Body ◽  
New Order ◽  
Sexual Morality ◽  
National Belonging ◽  
Femininity And Masculinity ◽  
Gender Presentation ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

The regulation of public space is generative of new approaches to gender nonconformity. In 1968 in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, a group of people who identified as wadam—a new term made by combining parts of Indonesian words denoting “femininity” and “masculinity”—made a claim to the city's governor that they had the right to appear in public space. This article illustrates the paradoxical achievement of obtaining recognition on terms constituted through public nuisance regulations governing access to and movement through space. The origins and diffuse effects of recognition achieved by those who identified as wadam and, a decade later, waria facilitated the partial recognition of a status that was legal but nonconforming. This possibility emerged out of city-level innovations and historical conceptualizations of the body in Indonesia. Attending to the way that gender nonconformity was folded into existing methods of codifying space at the scale of the city reflects a broader anxiety over who can enter public space and on what basis. Considering a concern for struggles to contend with nonconformity on spatial grounds at the level of the city encourages an alternative perspective on the emergence of gender and sexual morality as a definitive feature of national belonging in Indonesia and elsewhere.

scholarly journals New Mobility Paradigm and Indigenous Construction of Places: Physical and Symbolic Mobility of Aymara Groups in the Urbanization Process, Chile

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4382
Author(s):  
Gonzalo Salazar ◽  
Paloma González
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Urban Mobility ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Physical Movement ◽  
Rural Municipality ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Geographical Elements ◽  
Construction Of Place ◽  
The City

In the current global scenario, in which mobility has been strongly impacted, it is relevant to highlight certain mobility experiences of Indigenous Latin American peoples, in which new cultural and geographical elements justify revisiting this phenomenon. In this context, the mobility of the Aymara ethnic group offers an opportunity for such a second look. Although the subject has been approached from the perspectives of internal migration processes and physical movement, as in other Latin American cases, studies have omitted some important aspects for its analysis, such as the practices, meanings, and political implications associated with mobility. Based on the new mobility paradigm, this article seeks to strengthen the perspective on mobility by researching rural-urban mobility practices and their meaning regarding the experiences of Aymara people who migrated from the rural municipality of Putre to settle in the city of Arica from the 1950s. At the same time, it is shown that these Aymara mobility practices imply spatiotemporal dynamics that are key for the construction of place, and allow for a widening of base elements that should be considered in the new mobility paradigm. This research is based on five years of ethnography, including mobile accompaniment and semi-structured interviews. This methodological approach has allowed researchers to explore how elements related to physical and symbolic mobility have constantly constructed relational spaces within the Arica and Parinacota region over time. This shows that mobility does not only refer to physical movement, but to politics, emotions, culture, and memory as well. From these results, the article examines and discusses key elements related to physical and symbolic mobility, and their implications in political and intercultural terms.

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