The refugees’ right to the centre of the city: City branding versus city commoning in Athens

Abstract

Over the years, cities have figured as exemplary places for neoliberal urban policies which tend to appropriate the right to the city through city-branding policies. However, as this article demonstrates, there are important claims of the right to the city raised by newly arrived refugees in the city of Athens. Although most refugees reside in overcrowded state-run camps on the outskirts of the city, there are many cases in which refugees enact the production of collective common spaces, occupying abandoned buildings in the urban core and claiming the right to the centre of the city. In this context and following the Lefebvrian notion of the right to the city and the spatial analysis on commons and enclosures, we explore the actions of refugees, and the way they engage in commoning practices that not only strive against the official state policies, but also often contest city-branding policies. In particular, we focus on the area of Exarcheia in Athens, which is an emblematic case of the conflicted nexus between investors’ and refugees’ right to the city.

Sustainable city branding narratives: a critical appraisal of processes and outcomes

“…Historically, the branding approach mostly embraced the neoliberal model within which it was embedded, was growth (of exchange value) focused, and adopted the managerial, top-down and instrumental processes it licensed (Harvey, 2012). Locked into a competition for residents, tourists and investors, city branding became an important tool for advancing a city’s increasingly narrow, commercial interests (Kubiszewski et al , 2013; Pasquinelli, 2014) at the expense of marginalised collectives (Belabas et al , 2020; Tsavdaroglou and Kaika, 2021). The new social objective of sustainability, requiring systems thinking, endogenizing practices and cross-sectoral integration, is challenging this neoliberal, NPM approach that demotes the value things have directly to those obtaining or experiencing them (use value) in favour of the value things have because they are exchangeable for other things via the medium of money (exchange value).…”

‘London is avocado on toast’: The urban imaginaries of the #LondonIsOpen campaign

“…City imaginaries are produced and sustained, according to C xınar and Bender (2007), through the daily travels, transactions and interactions of city dwellers that shape collective life. These daily practices provide a basis for city-branding initiatives to be contested and challenged (Tsavdaroglou and Kaika, 2022). The everyday life of city dwellers together with representations of the city in popular media and the arts can allow us to explore the means through which the city is produced.…”

Refugees’ caring and commoning practices against marginalisation under COVID‐19 in Greece

“…Many newly emerging practices of mutual care adhere to the principle of the commons and commoning (Tsavdaroglou & Kaika, 2021; Williams, 2018) because they are non‐hierarchical and based on self‐governance. Many scholars have emphasised how such open commoning practices differ significantly from state‐led or private‐led practices of care that often involve physical and social enclosures (Dellenbaugh et al, 2015; Jeffrey et al, 2012; Tsavdaroglou, 2018).…”