with Mabrouka M'Barek (Tunisia/USA); Mary Ann Manahan (Philippines); Maria Khristine Alvarez; Asume Osuoka (Nigeria / Canada); Aseem Mishra (India); Sandeep Virmani (India); Bryce Detroit (USA); Juliana Goes Morais (Brazil); Miriam Lang (Ecuador)

Global urbanization maintains mutual constituent relationships with the main patterns of domination in our societies, shaping their development. However, cities are sites of intense political disputes as urban populations have organized to meet the challenges of everyday life, resist dispossession, and defend their rights. What conditions and strategies enable radical transformation in urban contexts? What kind of economic and political processes can sustain radical urban transformations? In this book presentation and dialogue session, we will deal with these questions and more as well as explore the tremendous transformative potential of cities through concrete cases from around the world.

There will be simultaneous interpretation to Spanish

Download: [ Video ] (1023Mb) | [ Audio ] (96Mb)

• Miriam Lang, Ecuador: moderator
• Mary Ann Manahan, Philippines, Maria Khristine Alvarez: Urban transformations around the world
• Asume Osuoka, Nigeria, Canada: Solidarity, struggles and visions of social change in the slums of Lagos
• Aseem Mishra, Sandeep Virmani, India: Building democracy from the bottom up in the City of Bhuj
• Bryce Detroit, USA: The role of art in the struggle of black communities against gentrification
• Juliana Goes Morais, Brazil: Commentator (with emphasis on the Latin American cases)

• Global Working Group Beyond Development
• Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Brussels Office
• Global TapestryThe weaving of networks of Alternatives of AlternativesAre activities and initiatives, concepts, worldviews, or action proposals by collectives, groups, organizations, communities, or social movements challenging and replacing the dominant system that perpetuates inequality, exploitation, and unsustainabiity. In the GTA we focus primarily on what we call "radical or transformative alternatives", which we define as initiatives that are attempting to break with the dominant system and take paths towards direct and radical forms of political and economic democracy, localised self-reliance, social justice and equity, cultural and knowledge diversity, and ecological resilience. Their locus is neither the State nor the capitalist economy. They are advancing in the process of dismantling most forms of hierarchies, assuming the principles of sufficiency, autonomy, non-violence, justice and equality, solidarity, and the caring of life and the Earth. They do this in an integral way, not limited to a single aspect of life. Although such initiatives may have some kind of link with capitalist markets and the State, they prioritize their autonomy to avoid significant dependency on them and tend to reduce, as much as possible, any relationship with them.

Recommended reading materials and sources:

• "Cities of Dignity" (book in PDF format)