Reclaiming the right to the city

We live in an era when ideals of human rights have moved center stage both politically and ethically. A lot of political energy is put into promoting, protecting and articulating their significance in the construction of a better world. For the most part the concepts circulating are individualistic and property- based and, as such, do nothing to fundamentally challenge hegemonic liberal and neoliberal market logics and neoliberal modes of legality and state action.

We live in a world, after all, where the rights of private property and the profit rate trump all other notions of rights one can think of, yet, how can we, as citizens and uses, claim our individual and collective right. The gap between people and places constantly increases. One of the places where the neoliberal mode is dominating is in Russia, more specifically in the post-communist metropolis of Moscow. Here we recognize how people is forced to leave their place of belonging destined to a life elsewhere. In ”flow” maybe, yet they have no places to go.

Determined to a life “on the move” these displaced people and groupings are predicted a future of constant search for places to dwell. How do they regain lost territory? Distinct from the city, their place of origin and segregated from the dominating ideological hegemony and economic elite, how will these people of middle and lower households reclaim their right to the city?

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Watch interview with David Harvey discussing "the right to the city"