Territorialising social movements

Abstract

Following the mass mobilisations and occupations of urban squares since 2011 that came as responses to the global financial crisis, the spatial practices of social movements have undergone crucial transformations. This paper addresses these through the case of Athens and contends that the territorialisation of movements in urban space occurred through the centralisation of counter-austerity struggle in the occupied Syntagma Square and, following this, through the dispersal of spatial practices that emerged out of the squares across the city. In the first instance, solidarity, mutual aid and collective self-organisation practices articulated in the occupied square introduced new collective action repertoires; while, in the aftermath of Syntagma, these were transposed in local groups, solidarity initiatives and networks that produced new territorialised forms of struggle and solidarity in Athenian neighbourhoods. Through these, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on contestation ‘from below’ emerging in urban contexts of austerity as constitutive of contemporary contentious politics. The arguments raised here on the transformations of movements occurring during and due to austerity span the period between 2011 and 2014 and empirically draw on participatory ethnographic research conducted in Athens, Greece between October 2012 and May 2013.