https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:26 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/reimagining-a-transnational-right-to-the-city-no-border-actions-and-commoning-practices-in-thessaloniki/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:26 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/reimagining-a-transnational-right-to-the-city-no-border-actions-and-commoning-practices-in-thessaloniki/ Continued]]> Although there is extensive literature on State migration policies and NGO activities, there are few studies on the common struggles between refugees and local activists. This article aims to fill this research gap by focusing on the impact of the transnational No Border camp that took place in Thessaloniki in 2016. The border region of northern Greece, with its capital Thessaloniki, is at the heart of the so-called refugee crisis and it is marked by a large number of solidarity initiatives. After the sealing of the “Balkan corridor”, the Greek State relocated thousands of refugees into isolated and inappropriate camps on the outskirts of Thessaloniki. Numerous local and international initiatives, with the participation of refugees from the camps, self-organized a transnational No Border camp in the city center that challenged State policies. By claiming the right to the city, activists from all over Europe, together with refugees, built direct-democratic assemblies and organized a multitude of direct actions, demonstrations, and squats that marked the city’s social body with spatial disobedience and transnational commoning practices. Here, activism emerges as an important field of research and this article aims to contribute to activists’ literature on migration studies after 2015. The article is based on militant research and inspired by the Lefebvrian right to the city, the autonomy of migration, and common space approaches. The right to the city refers to the rights to freedom, socialization, and habitation, but also to the right to reinvent and change the city. It was recently enhanced by approaches on common spaces and the way these highlight the production of spaces based on solidarity, mutual help, common care, and direct democracy. The main findings of this study point to how the struggle of migrants when crossing physical and social borders inspires local solidarity movements for global networking and opens up new possibilities to reimagine and reinvent transnational common spaces.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/communal-performativity-a-seed-for-change-the-solidarity-of-thessalonikis-social-movements-in-the-diverse-fights-against-neoliberalism/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:52 +0000 http://arc.local/items/communal-performativity-a-seed-for-change-the-solidarity-of-thessalonikis-social-movements-in-the-diverse-fights-against-neoliberalism/ Continued]]> The debate on the financial crisis is at an impasse. Neoliberal austerity discourse is often positioned as an almost insurmountable barrier, its disciplinary power affecting even the most change‐oriented citizen‐initiatives existing today. Countering this, this paper highlights the transformative capacity of social movements in Thessaloniki. Drawing from Butler, Laclau and Mouffe, and Gibson‐Graham we develop the notion of “communal performativity” both as an academic and as a practical concept to understand and build trajectories of socio‐economic change. “Communal” denotes the drive of the movements’ participants to interconnect and (re)negotiate with a multiplicity of Others, curbing identity politics to articulate internal differences and Otherness. We see some hopeful signs of bridges being built towards shared trajectories of change that can be understood as different but concrete variations on the abstract counter‐narrative of “breaking with neoliberalism”. Some of these variations challenge, others diversify neoliberal discourses and practices.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/thessaloniki-the-changing-geography-of-the-city-and-the-role-of-spatial-planning/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:48 +0000 http://arc.local/items/thessaloniki-the-changing-geography-of-the-city-and-the-role-of-spatial-planning/ Continued]]> Thessaloniki has existed for over twenty-three centuries. Today it is the second largest city in Greece after Athens. This City Profile aims to identify and present the milestones in the city’s development trajectory and give an overview of the evolution and the planning of the city. After a summary of the historical development of Thessaloniki, emphasis is given to the period after 1990s. Lately, the fiscal and refugee crises hitting the country have changed the urban geography of the city, challenging its sustainability and questioning its future development. At the same time the planning and management system of the city face the overfragmentation and semi-implementation of the plans, the chronic lack of a clear vision for the city’s development and the downgrading of the role of strategic spatial planning within the current context of recession. The adoption of a really radical resilience policy along with the reconsideration and redefinition of planning principles and content seems to be the only option for Thessaloniki to track its development trajectory.

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