Metropolitan rebellions and the politics of commoning the city. (March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Holston, James
• Other Names: Postero Nancy guest-editor.; Elinoff Eli guest-editor.; Fabricant Nicole guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: Anthropological theory. Volume 19:Number 1(2019)
• Page Start: 120
• Page End: 142
• Publication Date: 2019-03
• Subjects: cities -- citizenship -- commons -- direct democracy -- politics -- rebellion -- rights -- social media -- Brazil -- Turkey; Anthropology -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Anthropology -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Philosophy -- Periodicals; Sociology -- Periodicals; 301.01
• DOI: 10.1177/1463499618812324
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1463-4996

Abstract

This article analyzes the remarkable wave of metropolitan rebellions that inaugurated the 21st century around the world (2000–2016). It argues that they fuel an emergent politics of city-making in which residents consider the city as a collective social and material product that they produce; in effect, a commons. It investigates this politics at the intersection of processes of city-making, city-occupying, and rights-claiming that generate movements for insurgent urban citizenships. It develops a critique of the so-called post-political in anthropological theory, analyzes recent urban uprisings in Brazil and Turkey, distinguishes between protest and insurgent movements, evaluates digital communication technologies as a new means to common the city, and suggests what urban citizenship brings to politics that the national does not.