Third ISA Forum of Sociology (July 10-14, 2016)

105

Crafting Insurgent Urbanism and Democratic Spaces:Transforming Citizenship and Governance Systems in Cities

RC09 Social Transformations and Sociology of Development (host committee)

Language: English

Poor, migrant households and groups have always claimed and recreated spaces in vacant private/public lands in cities of the global south, making it their homes and communities as well as sites of their struggles/assertions before local governments, central state agencies, landowners (private sector) and the larger society. But evictions, vagrancy and anti-squatting laws, to name a few, that are embedded in urban development plans/programs, continue to thwart these claims. Meanwhile, marginalized groups have also crafted strategies, including mobilization of local-national government institutions and civil society to counteract these forces, giving rise to selective spaces of empowerment as well as disenfranchisement in the metropolis. 
Over time, mobilizations of urban poor communities to negotiate for effective participation and eventually better allocation for resources including their right to space/home in the city, have transformed the social-spatial fabric of these communities and local-national institutions of governance and of the city as a whole. Some advocates of democratized and decentralized governance have argued that overall these strategies have allowed the poor to claim their rightful place in the city. 
This session calls for papers that address the debates and issues surrounding the crafting of democratic spaces/structures in cities amidst challenges brought about by capitalist incursions through large development projects, mediated by the state but heavily challenged by civil society groups. Posters: