(Re-) Appropriation
The current neoliberal reorganisation of cities in the global North and South is characterised by privatisations, for example of water or energy supply. At the same time, there is a restriction of social rights, like the right to have free access to adequate health service.
In the cities there is often quite a resistance against these processes; people squat in houses, call for public decisions and carry them out, and they run campaigns. These struggles, however, often only avert privatisations; a broad anti-neoliberal movement seldom spreads from them.
That is why we want to discuss these struggles from a perspective which combines autonomy, alternatives and possibilities as well as conditions for concrete action. For the moment we propose to define ”(re-)appropriation” as a political practice of people who act collectively and take what they need to live, be it theatre visits or food, and, simultaneously, not asking for a legal permission to do so. Using such a practice of (re-)appropriation, the claim for social, political and economic rights for all is made public. (Re-)appropriation also means to create the freedom to think differently and to analyse the present conditions in order to change them. The term (re-)appropriation is ambivalent and multilayered. We are conscious of that, and that ist why we want to put it up for discussion again and again here and during the project. Using examples, this discussion is to happen while investigating the three areas public goods, public space and state power or police power, the latter being a prevention of (re-)appropriation.
