AUTONOMA - Stefania Gyftopoulou, Asimina Paraskevopoulou - Towards co-production of the city: Hoax or transformation?

Towards co-production of the city;Hoax or Transformation?

Stefania GyftopoulouPhD Candidate in Geography, Harokopio [email protected]

Asimina Paraskevopoulou PhD Candidate in Development Planning, University College [email protected] | [email protected]

Towards co-production of the city; Hoax or Transformation? // AUTONOMA Conference, Onassis Cultural Center // 01.07.2016

Aim and structure

• grassroots practicing their emancipating autonomy in response to crisis and municipalities’ political agendas

• shift in space from the public realm to local governments’ policy agendas

• temporary consensus through conflictual participation (Mouffe: 2011, Sen: 1986, Levy: 2007)

Theoritical Debates

In order to critically examine the above thesis, our presentation will engage with the following theoretical debates:

A.Crisis as knowledge production.

B.Participation as transformation.

C. Co-production of knowledge through conflictual participation


Crisis as Knowledge

• crisis comes from the Greek verb krinein which means to judge, to form an opinion, to criticize.

• crisis is the act and the outcome of the critique; the mental act that leads to a response.

• crisis cannot truly exist without the act of critique.

• crisis is constructed as an object of knowledge (Roitman).

• crisis, through the act of critique, has the potential to produce a new “normalcy”

• crisis is about becoming.


“Participation is often understood as a means of becoming part of something through pro - active contribution and the occupation of a particular role. However, it seems that this role is rarely understood as a critical platform of engagement, but rather based on romantic conceptions of harmony and solidarity. In this con-text, I would like to promote an understanding of conflictual participation, one that acts as an uninvited irritant, a forced entry into fields of knowledge that could ar-guably benefit from spatial thinking. [...] Conflict refers to a state of antagonism or opposition between two or more groups of people. It can also be described as a clash of interests, aims or targets. When we look at conflict as opposed to in-nocent forms of participation, conflict is not to be understood as a form of protest or contrary provocation, but rather as a micro-political practice through which participants become active agents insisting on being actors in the forcefield they are facing. Thus, participation becomes a form of critical engagement.”

“In the absence of faith in government, faith in people - that is faith in (…) face-to-face communities, and interpersonal relations - seems like a natural alternative.”

The question indeed rises - on how new institutions devised by individual freedom and its collective application, are enhanced through participation.

Participation as transformation

Miessen, Markus (2007)

Williams, Leonard (2007:310)


Mouffe may provide the answer when she speaks of a consensus building without exclusion that can be achieved through conflictual consensus.

The emergence and existence of those moments of temporary consensus can be facilitated by the following principles:

1. Synergy that should be formed within different actors, specifically between state and society2. Collective intent that underlines a shared vision in a specific period of time and the production of shared principals, although the interpretation of those might differ3. Establishment of constitutional procedures which facilitate the transformative processes of consensus building4. Educational process that involves the actors in each case which enhance ‘public learning’ and the production of collective knowledge.

This new knowledge suggests a modification in ideologies of diverse actors so as to arrive to an equilibrium point of common understanding.

Periodic consensus: building participation through conflict


“What can happen and will happen is determined to some extend by the past. A deep embodiment and a very slow change of mentalities and cultural patterns define the frame of future possibilities. It is therefore important to look back into the past if one wants to anticipate the potentiality and the probability of future developments.”

How were political and social conditions framed, formulated and corre-spondingly what kind of forms of participatory experiments emerged?

Rules had to be invented and reinvented collectively, thus putting values of mutual respect and co-existence to the test.

source [http://www.toperiodiko.gr/embros-eleuthe-ro-theatro/#.V3WXKce2_7Y]

source [http://www.liveinspector.gr/m/images/all/2009/05/06/agora_.jpg]

source[https://www.facebook.com/cityplazaathens/photos]

Introducing Athens


Dieter Rucht, as cited by Persa Zeri (2002:29)

State Response“The Battle for the Restoration of the Centre,” Kathimerini, January 8, 2010;

“Crime is Changing Space in the Centre of Athens,” To Vima, January 8, 2010;

“Conditions Ghetto at the Centre of Athens: Booming Problems, Criminality and Immigration,” Kathimerini, August 25, 2010;

“The Centre is Suffocating Conditions Ghetto: Illegal Immigrants and Anomy: Two Large Wounds,” Ta Nea, August 25, 2010;

“Kipseli Suffers from Peculiar Ghetto Conditions,” Kathimerini, September 23, 2015;

“Can Athens Be Saved?” Kathimerini, February 1, 2014.

“They Push Us Towards Civil War,” To Vima, October 10, 2010;

“The Case of Athens: Crime is Increasingly Becoming Brutal, Violent and Organized,” Athens Voice, April 24, 2012.

source [https://www.theguardian.com/busi-ness/2015/jun/28/greece-crisis-disaster-ath-ens-collosal-failure-eu]


From public open spaces to invited spaces of participation

Since urban space could no longer accommodate grassroots’ actions, it is argued that a shift of the action space had occurred from reacting in public open space to places of more private, cultural and academic character.

source [http://crisis-scape.net/conference].

source [https://encounterathens.wordpress.com/].

source [https://urbanrise.net/workshop-athens-2013/].


The case of Kypseli:Transformation or Hoax

Figures from the population Census 2001 show that Kypseli was housing people from

Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Moldova, the Russian Federation, Georgia, Yugoslavia, Armenia, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Egypt, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Pa-kistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

source [http://www.runnatasharun.com/writing/articles/kypseli_agora_not_sold_out.html].

source [http://www.runnatasharun.com/writing/articles/kypseli_agora_not_sold_out.html].

“[...] the relatively high level of education (particularly immigrants from Eastern Euro-pean countries) and the high percentage of the economically active population, both in the formal and the informal sector”.

source [http://dimotikiagora.blogspot.gr/].

Vaiou Ntina, Lafazani Olga (2015)

We understand the role of this space as a re-sponse to the shortfall of official integration policies.

Co-existence certainly does not guarantee the acceptance of the ‘other’. Nonetheless, it works as a means of breaking a homo-geneous group of people and giving them name, nationality, sex, age, history, cultural, social characteristics and voice, which be-comes a key step in combating stereotypes and learning how to coexist.


The eviction of Kypseli Agora

Kaminis, current Mayor of Athens, stated:

“it is unthinkable for a democratically elect-ed authority not to manage a public space

within the city”.

“occupying public buildings and public open spaces is not acceptable (...)

nonetheless, the intermediate space can be used for cultural activities, where resi-dents can have classes as they did in the past. I am open to all suggestions, but let-ting others to manage the Municipal Agora

of Kypseli is out of question.”

The local government seemed to have its own plans and the agora was forcefully closed.

Chronis Akritides, Athens Deputy Mayor (2007), confirms:

“The municipality doesn’t approve of the occupation, for safety reasons in par-ticular and also because everyone can’t just do whatever they want”. source [Kaminis Giorgos. 2012. “I am against occupations” http://www.tanea.gr/opinions/all-opinions/article/4749489/?iid=2 ].


“Come to the Agora”

On May 9, 2015 and under the title ‘Come to the Agora’, the Municipality opens a public debate and invites residents to collectively decide the Markets uses.

According to SynAthina platform:“the residents will have the opportunity to participate in planning and shaping the new identity of the Kypseli Municipal Market, through an original and interactive game”.

Census data provide an estimate population of 50000 residents in the neighborhood of Kypseli. The number of participants to ‘Come to the Agora’ event was limited to 200.

source [http://www.synathina.gr/ela-stin-agora/] & [Dina Vaiou, The urban landscape of multinational Kypseli]


“Come to the Agora” - a critical approach

• potential economic viability of the proposal (30%)• feasible implementation of the proposal (20%)• capacity and experience of the potential op-erator on complex programmes management (20%)• creation of synergies with the local commu-nity through beneficiaries to the neighborhood (15%)• originality in including new creative groups of the city in the proposed programme (10%)• versatility of public open activities and integration in these of multiple and diverse social groups (5%)

source [Open Call accessible at: http://www.cityofathens.gr/node/28435].


In June 2016, the Open Call for the Utilization of the Kypseli Municipal Market was issued publicly by the Athens Municipality. The call

“invites legal institutions and bodies with purely beneficiary character to submit ideas and proposals for the overall management of the Kypseli Municipal Market that will specify the outcomes of last year’s open consultation.”

Wining criteria:

Towards the future of participation in Athens

Then, what do all the above suggest on the institutionaliza-tion of participatory processes in the specific case?

Which citizens were involved in this process?

Did it serve as a means to address social inequality and social exclusion?

Was there any new knowledge produced regarding the ways our cities are governed?


Co-production of Knowledge;Towards a scalar compression

“The ‘distribution of the sensible’, sets the limits between what is visible and invisible, told and untold. It indicates both concepts of inclusion and exclusion. In this sense, the social order is considered anti-democratic if it tries to maintain the existing pattern of inclusion and exclusion.

Political struggle occurs when the excluded seek to establish their identity, by speaking for themselves and striving to get their voices recognised as legitimate and heard. Politics is thus a struggle between the established social order and its excluded ‘part which has no part’.

Politics essentially involves opposition to the police order, a challenge to established order by the excluded, ‘the part which has no part’, in the name of equality and the attempt to bring about a reconfigeration of the distribu-tion of the sensible. The social order is thus defined as an anti-political ‘po-lice’ order, and politics is conceived as essentially oppositional.”

Ranciere as cited by Sayers (2005)


Bibliography Janet Roitman, “Crisis” in Political Concepts: A Critical Lexicon, Political concepts (2011: para 6), accessed 24 July 2014, [http://www.politicalconcepts.org/issue1/crisis/].

Chantal Mouffe, as cited by Markus Missen, “The nightmare of participation” (Sternberg Press: 2011), 134

Amartya Sen as cited by Caren Levy, “Defining Collective Strategic Action led by Civil Society Organisations: The case of CLIFF, India” (paper presented at 8th N-AERUS Conference, DPU-UCL, London UK, 6-8 September 2007)

Miessen, Markus, The violence of participation: Spatial practices beyond models of consensus, Eurozine (2007: 1), [http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-08-01-miessen-en.html]

Markus Missen, The nightmare of participation (Sternberg Press, 2011), 105-160.

Caren Levy, “Defining Collective Strategic Action led by Civil Society Organisations: The case of CLIFF, India” (pa-per presented at 8th N-AERUS Conference, DPU-UCL, London UK, 6-8 September 2007).

Peter Evans, “Government Action, Social Capital and Development: Reviewing the Evidence on Synergy”, World Development 24 (1996), 1119–1132.

Persa Zeri, “The Riots of December: A spontaneous Social Phenomenon or a Social Movement?”, in The Return of Street Politics? Essays on the December Riots in Greece, edited by Economides, S. and Monastiriotis, V., (London: The Hellenic Observatory, LSE, 2009), 69-73.

Stavros Stavrides. “The December 2008 Youth Uprising in Athens: Spatial Justice in an Emergent ‘City Of Thresh-olds” in Spatial Justice 2, (2010: 8), accessed 11 July 2014, [http://www.jssj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/JSSJ2-10en1.pdf]

Nikos Anastasopoulos, “The Crisis And The Emergence Of Communal Experiments In Greece”, in Communal Path-ways To Sustainable Living (Findhorn: Findhorn Foundation, 2013: 350), [https://www.academia.edu/4275349/The_Cri-sis_and_the_Emergence_of_Communal_Experiments_in_Greece]

Sayers Sean. 2005. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, Review. Culture Machine (2005) para 5. Accessed May 10, 2016. http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/rt/printerFriendly/190/171

Asimina Paraskevopoulou PhD Candidate in Development Planning, University College [email protected] | [email protected]

Thank you for your attention!

Stefania GyftopoulouPhD Candidate in Geography, Harokopio [email protected]

Presentations & Public Speaking

AUTONOMA - Stefania Gyftopoulou, Asimina Paraskevopoulou - Towards co-production of the city: Hoax or transformation?