IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v59y2022i6p1130-1147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Charalampos Tsavdaroglou

    (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

  • Maria Kaika

    (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Charalampos Tsavdaroglou & Maria Kaika, 2022. "The refugees’ right to the centre of the city: City branding versus city commoning in Athens," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(6), pages 1130-1147, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:6:p:1130-1147
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098021997009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098021997009
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098021997009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ayham Dalal & Amer Darweesh & Philipp Misselwitz & Anna Steigemann, 2018. "Planning the Ideal Refugee Camp? A Critical Interrogation of Recent Planning Innovations in Jordan and Germany," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(4), pages 64-78.
    2. Jake Watson, 2019. "Welcoming Refugees and the Cultural Wealth of Cities: Intersections of Urban Development and Refugee Humanitarianism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(5), pages 983-999, September.
    3. Warda Belabas & Jasper Eshuis & Peter Scholten, 2020. "Re-imagining the city: branding migration-related diversity," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(7), pages 1315-1332, July.
    4. Andy Merrifield, 2011. "The right to the city and beyond," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(3-4), pages 473-481, August.
    5. Panos Hatziprokopiou & Yannis Frangopoulos & Nicola Montagna, 2016. "Migration and the city," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(1), pages 52-60, February.
    6. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, 2020. "The Refugees’ Right to the Center of the City and Spatial Justice: Gentrification vs Commoning Practices in Tarlabaşı-Istanbul," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 230-240.
    7. Marianne Maeckelbergh, 2012. "Mobilizing to Stay Put: Housing Struggles in New York City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(4), pages 655-673, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, 2019. "Reimagining a Transnational Right to the City: No Border Actions and Commoning Practices in Thessaloniki," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(2), pages 219-229.
    2. Justus Uitermark & Walter Nicholls & Maarten Loopmans, 2012. "Cities and Social Movements: Theorizing beyond the Right to the City," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(11), pages 2546-2554, November.
    3. Sören Becker & James Angel & Matthias Naumann, 2020. "Energy democracy as the right to the city: Urban energy struggles in Berlin and London," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(6), pages 1093-1111, September.
    4. Antonis Vradis, 2013. "Alternatives Introduction," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 399-399, June.
    5. Samuel Nocito & Alessandra Venturini, 2022. "Does Cooperation among Institutions Foster Migrants Inclusion? Evidence from a Case-Study on Financial Literacy in Italy," Working Papers 10/22, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    6. Ben Gerlofs, 2020. "Dreaming dialectically: The death and life of the Mexico City charter for the right to the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(10), pages 2064-2079, August.
    7. Frank Eckardt, 2018. "European Cities Planning for Asylum," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(4), pages 61-63.
    8. Jennie Middleton, 2018. "The socialities of everyday urban walking and the ‘right to the city’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(2), pages 296-315, February.
    9. Trenessa L. Williams & Charles R. Needham, 2016. "Transformation of a City," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(4), pages 21582440166, October.
    10. Charalampos Tsavdaroglou, 2020. "The Refugees’ Right to the Center of the City and Spatial Justice: Gentrification vs Commoning Practices in Tarlabaşı-Istanbul," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 230-240.
    11. Shannon Walsh, 2013. "We won't move," City, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 400-408, June.
    12. Paulo Reis Mourao, 2021. "Footsteps in the sand: studying refugee paths since 2005 through a network analysis of 205 territories," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 563-600, April.
    13. Neil Brenner & Christian Schmid, 2014. "The ‘Urban Age’ in Question," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 731-755, May.
    14. Agatino Rizzo, 2020. "Megaprojects and the limits of ‘green resilience’ in the global South: Two cases from Malaysia and Qatar," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(7), pages 1520-1535, May.
    15. Christopher Yap, 2019. "Self-Organisation in Urban Community Gardens: Autogestion, Motivations, and the Role of Communication," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-21, May.
    16. Dogan, Eyup & Madaleno, Mara & Inglesi-Lotz, Roula & Taskin, Dilvin, 2022. "Race and energy poverty: Evidence from African-American households," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    17. Swarnabh Ghosh & Ayan Meer, 2021. "Extended urbanisation and the agrarian question: Convergences, divergences and openings," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(6), pages 1097-1119, May.
    18. Michael Janoschka & Jorge Sequera & Luis Salinas, 2014. "Gentrification in Spain and Latin America — a Critical Dialogue," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1234-1265, July.
    19. Chung-Shing Chan, 2023. "From the perspective of local brand equity, how do citizens perceive green, creative and smart brand potential of future Hong Kong?," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 19(4), pages 500-513, December.
    20. Versey, H. Shellae, 2018. "A tale of two Harlems: Gentrification, social capital, and implications for aging in place," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 1-11.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:59:y:2022:i:6:p:1130-1147. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.