ReCitYu · Reclaiming the Cities in the post-Yugoslav space
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-09-01 → 2021-01-01
- EU contribution
- €166,157
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Reclaiming the Cities in the post-Yugoslav space
The project ReCitYu explored instances of urban activism in the post-Yugoslav space, specifically in Croatia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, by examining the diverse ways in which grassroots groups have responded to projects of urban restructuring and to the privatization of public space and services. The comparative research provided new theoretical insights for the understanding of how movements in post-socialist countries resist the neoliberal restructuring of their cities. Moreover, it illuminated the extent to which urban grassroots initiatives are shaped by both the struggle for the right to the public space at the European level and the opportunities and/or constraints offered by the EU enlargement process. This project is important for society as it explores the different articulations of citizen participation in the decision-making process concerning the future of urban space in countries that are at different stages of EU integration. Furthermore, it investigates the extent to which the mobilization for urban space could represent a unifying factor in a divided society (like in BiH), and/or can develop into political experiments such as electoral platforms, showing thus the trajectories that lead right to the city groups and urban social movements to enter into the institutional arena. ReCitYu aimed to– Contribute to theory development to understand the emergence, growth and operation of grassroots groups opposing urban restructuring in a post-socialist environment, and in particular – Analyse why urban movements chose different frames, tactical strategies and organisational models and how they conceive their activism in relation to the dimension and notion of citizenship, – Compare the different impact of the European integration process in supporting/hampering citizen engagement in practices of urban restructuring, and in relation to their inclusion in the EU, and to illuminate the extent to which the embeddedness of RTC groups in European activist networks shape their dynamics.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Over the last decade citizens of the Western Balkans region, an area interested by the enlargement of the European Union (EU), have increasingly been advocating for inclusion in decision-making affecting the restructuring of their urban habitat. This emerging activism addresses the so-called “Right to the City” (RTC), defined as the collective right to intervene to reshape the urbanisation process. A variety of citizen initiatives emerged, brought about by grassroots groups reclaiming, through different tactics, the citizens’ right to participate in decisions related to urban planning and the use of public space. These bottom-up demands have been echoed by both the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda (2016) and the European Union’s Pact of Amsterdam (2016), which called for a global commitment to sustainable urban development to be accomplished in cooperation with local communities and civil society actors. By bridging Critical Citizenship Studies with Social Movement Studies and Europeanization theories, this comparative research explores the dynamics of urban activism in the post-Yugoslav space. It examines the diverse ways in which RTC groups have responded to projects of urban restructuring of their cities and to the on-going privatisation of the public space resulting from the transition of former Yugoslav republics from socialist to market economies. By employing qualitative methods for collecting and analysing empirical data, specifically in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and participant observation as well as analysis of primary and secondary sources, this project aims at providing new theoretical insights useful in understanding how citizens in post-socialist countries enact their citizenship today. Moreover, the research illuminates the extent to which urban grassroots initiatives are shaped both by their embeddedness in European social movement networks and by the opportunities and constraints offered by the EU enlargement process.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAET GRAZ · GrazCoordinatorAustria
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/792782
- https://chiaramilan.net/reclaiming-the-cities-in-the-post-yugoslav-space-recityu/
Data: CORDIS, © European Union