Changing landscapes of urban citizenship: Southern Europe in times of crisis

Abstract

Since the 2008 financial crisis, politics of austerity in Europe have engendered far-reaching socioeconomic and political transformations. The recent refugee ‘crisis’ has also deeply affected the sociopolitical terrain. Contrary to past arguments about the reduced significance of the nation state, Europe is experiencing a resurgence of nationalisms. Simultaneously, often as a counter-response, several European cities are experiencing an emergence of social practices that claim urban politics as a dynamic field of action and contestation potentially transcending national boundaries. Such practices tended to adopt a ‘right to the city’ approach. Currently, we observe a greater range of argumentations that re-signify the arena of ‘urban citizenship.’ In this paper, we discuss how crises and the urban intersect and affect citizenship rights and practices in different cities in Southern Europe. From a ‘meta-analysis’ of urban claims and practices, we argue that, starting at the municipal level, urban citizenship reconfigures the political. Through the entanglement of different scales and actors, emerging practices of solidarity and needs-based claims, and alliances between differently entitled subjects, involving both natives and foreigners, challenge and reshape institutions of governance and reactivate the field of urban politics against austerity and securitization.