Introduction
Federico Venturini, Emet Degirmenci, and Ines Morales
“We have seen the future—and it doesn’t work”
—Jerome Ross, ROAR Magazine
“We don’t want to manage the inferno, we want to disassemble it and build something new”
—Raquel Gutierrez Aguilar, Pikara Magazine
“The ecological principle of unity in diversity grades into a richly mediated social principle; hence my use of the term social ecology”
—Murray Bookchin, The Modern Crisis
About this Book
This volume arose from proceedings of the conference The Right to the City and Social Ecology—Towards Ecological and Democratic... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
PART 1: Discovering Social Ecology
The Legacy of Murray Bookchin
Brian Morris
Introduction
Although Murray Bookchin has been described as one of the most provocative, exciting, and original political thinkers of the twentieth century, it is worth noting that he is singularly ignored by many academic scholars writing on green philosophy or the history of the ecology movement (e.g. Scruton 2012; Radkau 2014), while he is invariably caricatured or reduced to a negative stereotype by anarcho-primitivists and spiritual ecologists (e.g. Black 1997; Curry 2011: 64; cf. Price 2012).
In this essay I aim, therefore, to outline and re-affirm Bookchin’s enduring legacy as an important scholar, both in terms of his philo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
PART 2: Engaging with the Right to the City
Is the Right to the City a Right or a Revolution?
Magali Fricaudet
From a catastrophist point of view, we could probably say that the unprecedented rate of urbanization that the world is currently experiencing is a realization of the more destructive tendencies of capitalism, where life is at serious stake. Indeed, urbanization seems to have no end, as the ideology of growth predominates. In 1920, urban centers represented just 30 per cent of the world population; the proportion of urban dwellers over rural ones will be inverted around 2030—rising to 66 per cent according to the UN Human Settlement Program, UN-Habitat.[3] In that context, since the late 1990s, Henri Lefebvre... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
PART 3: The Kurdish Answer: Democratic Confederlism
The Evolution of the Kurdish Paradigm
Havin Guneser with Eleanor Finley
What sets us apart as humans—especially those who struggle for freedom and reject injustice, inequality, oppression, and exploitation—is our imagination. We can refuse to accept that which is simply handed over to us as truth. Let us begin here in our exploration of the journey of the Kurdish people in their quest for freedom over the last 45 years. Where are Kurds coming from? How can we holistically understand what has happened to the PKK and the strategic thinker Abdullah Öcalan and why? Let me briefly lead you all through this journey.
So where are we coming from? This is wh... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
PART 4: Transforming Social Theory
Do We Need a New Theory of the State?
Metin Guven
The struggle for the right to the city is growing in different contexts all over the world. For example, tens of thousands of people rebelled to protect Gezi Park in Istanbul in 2013, yet their actual driving motivation was resisting the authoritarian government that is trying to control every aspect of citizens’ lives and to suppress every movement that raises concerns. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to understand how that context is changing in a dynamic world that is transitioning into a new world order. Old powers are losing their ground and new powers are rising. The neoliberal policies of globalization are adve... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
PART 5: Walking with the Right to the City
Squatting as Claiming the Right to the City
Diana Bogado, Noel Manzano and Marta Solanas Introduction
The phenomena of squatting and occupying currently constitute global methods of resisting the “neoliberal” dynamic of the global metropolis. We use the term occupy to refer to housing occupations that seek to guarantee shelter for populations without resources, and the term squat to allude to occupation processes that try to generate spaces for public meetings and political discussions. In Brazil and Spain, both kind of spaces push towards claiming social rights. Some essential similarities and differences between them will be described in this article.
The neoli... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
[1] We use the term “activism” for convenience and for reasons of space. However, we believe that we should go beyond the divide between activists and the rest of the world, building a unifying/plural society working towards social change.
[2] More information about The City Repair Project available from
http://www.cityrepair.org/
[3] UN-Habitat is based in Nairobi and addresses the impacts of human settlement. The agency executes the UN General Assembly agenda on human settlement and habitat adopted at the Habitat international conference. The first conference, Habitat I, took place in Vancouver in 1976 and the most recent, Habitat III, led to the adoption of the New Urban Agenda, in Quito in October 2016.
[4] A... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
