The right to the city is a concept that was first proposed by Henri Lefebvre’s book ‘Le Droit à la Ville’ in 1968 and that has been reclaimed more recently by social movements, thinkers and several progressive local authorities alike as a call to action to reclaim the city as a co-created space—a place for life detached from the growing effects that commodification and capitalism have had over social interaction and the rise of spatial inequalities in worldwide cities throughout the last two centuries. Today, the right to the city theory has inspired many social movements in the world, especially in the Middle East (e.g. Arab Spring movements and conquering the public squares of the cities by citizens, the Istanbul movement in Taksim square, the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York). Urban public space is the place where all the collective social movements and collective memory of citizens occur. However, the main question around the neoliberal city of today is how and who will create the public space and for whom will this space be created? The aim of this chapter is to discuss the triple notions of space production, collective use of space and the right to the city in the context of the neoliberal cities of the Middle East. We will use a desktop review and case study approach to explain how, in the neoliberal city of today, the occupation of collective space in favour of private profit upsets and impinges upon the general right to the city. All the while discussing the participation of citizens in the process of space production and the increase in the collective use of public space, hence extending and enlarging the citizenry’s right to the city.
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Neoliberal discourse often conceptualizes nature in relation to its market utility and economic development. This article will address the role of metaphors in shaping neoliberal discourse in business education. The aim of this article is to reveal reasoning patterns about environmental problems and economic development in students of sustainable business minor. The case study described in this article involves business students at The Hague University in The Netherlands. This case study aimed to explore a shift in student understanding of environmental problems and economic development before and after the intervention. The results suggest that critical curriculum can inform students about the alternative conceptions as well as instruct them about potential solutions to the sustainability challenges. The article culminates with the argument that without goal-oriented education for sustainability; neoliberal education may not permit transcendence from unsustainable practices. https://doi.org/10.3390/su6117496 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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The recent shift towards the interdisciplinary study of the human-environment relationship is largely driven by environmental justice debates. This article will distinguish four types of environmental justice and link them to questions of neoliberalism and altruism. First, environmental justice seeks to redress inequitable distribution of environmental burdens to vulnerable groups and economically disadvantaged populations. Second, environmental justice highlights the developed and developing countries’ unequal exposure to environmental risks and benefits. Third, temporal environmental justice refers to the issues associated with intergenerational justice or concern for future generations of humans. In all three cases, environmental justice entails equitable distribution of burdens and benefits to different nations or social groups. By contrast, ecological justice involves biospheric egalitarianism or justice between species. This article will focus on ecological justice since the rights of non-human species lags behind social justice debates and discuss the implications of including biospheric egalitarianism in environmental justice debates. https://doi.org/10.1186/2194-6434-1-8 https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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What does it mean to be precarious, and who self-identifies as part of the precariat? Is it a political position? And if so, how can precariats start to organize themselves? In this first episode of the Zero Infinite podcast we discuss precarity, anti-austerity and work through interviews with Alex Foti, Baruch Gottlieb and Henry Warwick. How did the precariat arise, and who exactly is part of the precariat? The second half of the episode is a homage to the work of the late Mark Fisher. We listen to audio clips from his talk at the INC event MyCreativity in 2014, in which he analyzed the nature of neoliberalism and its consequences for individual wellbeing. What influence does a social system have on mental health, and how can this responsibility become clear?
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Om onze kostbare wereld te redden, moeten we onze neoliberale koers laten varen. Maar het lijkt alsof we met z’n allen liever doorfeesten op de Titanic.
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From the fast-food industry to the sharing economy, precarious work has become the norm in contemporary capitalism, like the anti-globalization movement predicted it would. This book describes how the precariat came into being under neoliberalism and how it has radicalized in response to crisis and austerity. It investigates the political economy of precarity and the historical sociology of the precariat, and discusses movements of precarious youth against oligopoly and oligarchy in Europe, America, and East Asia. Foti covers the three fundamental dates of recent history: the financial crisis of 2008, the political revolutions of 2011, and the national-populist backlash of 2016, to present his class theory of the precariat and the ideology of left-populist movements. Building a theory of capitalist crisis to understand the aftermath of the Great Recession, he outlines political scenarios where the precariat can successfully fight for emancipation, and reverse inequality and environmental destruction. Written by the activist who put precarity on the map of radical thinking, this is the first work proposing a complete theory of the precariat in its actuality and potentiality.
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Key words: labour relations, HRM, social theory, neoliberalism, participation, legitimation, precariatThe aim of this paper is to sketch a social-theoretical framework that can be applied to empirical research on labour market participation, its requirements and legitimation. All projects of the Amsterdam HRM-group deal with problems of the labour market, especially the required competences of the polarized (partly precarious, partly privileged) workforce and changing labour relations. Participation asks, among other things, for a narrative of legitimation which puts individual competences and projects in a broader, meaningful context.The research question is: Which theoretical concepts are necessary to discuss participation in and legitimation of changing labour relations, including the role of HRM? The following concepts will be discussed in their mutual coherence: (1) transitional labour market, (2) precariat as a substitute concept for social class, (3) human capital, differentiated in personal, cultural social, and economic capital as sources of competences, (4) new labour relations – shaped by portfolios of projects of the workforce - in the projective city; (5) economic and societal participation; (6) new labour relations: their flexibility (entrepreneurial individuals), liquidity, contingency, and reflexivity; (7) legitimation: the neoliberal spirit of capitalism; (8) life politics: optional and fragmented versus standard biographies.
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De Nederlandse samenleving, van links tot rechts, denkt nog strikt neoliberaal. In de ogen van Martien Visser is dit funest voor de energietransitie als de markt faalt.
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