Changing Landscapes of Urban Citizenship

Book excerpt: Since the 2008 financial crisis, politics of austerity in Europe have engendered far-reaching socioeconomic and political transformations. The recent refugee ‘crisis’ has also deeply affected the sociopolitical terrain. Contrary to past arguments about the reduced significance of the nation state, Europe is experiencing a resurgence of nationalisms. Simultaneously, often as a counter-response, several European cities are experiencing an emergence of social practices that claim urban politics as a dynamic field of action and contestation potentially transcending national boundaries. In the past, such practices tended to focus mainly on claims for the 'right to the city'. Currently, however, we observe a greater range of argumentations that re-signify the arena of urban citizenship. Through the entanglement of different scales and actors, emerging practices of solidarity and needs-based claims, and alliances between differently entitled subjects, involving both natives and foreigners, challenge and reshape institutions of governance and reactivate the field of urban politics against austerity and securitisation. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue in Citizenship Studies.