A film by Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler

94 min. / 2010

“We have to decide for ourselves what we want. We are the ones who know about our needs and what is happening in our community”, Omayra Peréz explains confidently. She wants to convince her community, located on the hillside of the poor districts of Caracas, to found a Consejo Comunal (community council). In more than 30.000 Consejos Comunales the Venezuelan inhabitants decide on their concerns collectively via assemblies. Omayra is supported by the activists of the nearby shantytown “Emiliano Hernández”, which has had a Consejo Comunal for three years already. The inhabitants there managed to get a doctor from the governmental program “Barrio Adentro”, who treats everyone free of charge. They also got money to renovate their houses and replaced over a dozen of sheet iron huts by new houses. All of these activities and a lot more have been organized via the Consejo Comunal. By local self-organization from below several working groups have been established on self-decided topics and decisions are made in assemblies.

(mehr …)

Il Messaggero

ROMA (21 febbraio) – Una task force di mezzo migliaio di agenti tra vigili urbani, poliziotti in assetto antisommossa e carabinieri. Accordi già presi con sei residence. E le ruspe pronte a motori accesi. Inizierà da martedì mattina l’operazione di sgombero e di bonifica dell’Idroscalo di Ostia.

L’intervento, originariamente previsto per il mese di novembre scorso, è stato pianificato dall’amministrazione comunale insieme con la Questura di Roma e la Prefettura. Mercoledì scorso sarebbe stata firmata la relativa ordinanza: il condizionale è d’obbligo perché il sindaco Gianni Alemanno smentisce. «E’ una decisione assunta a Roma riferisce invece il presidente del XIII Municipio, Giacomo Vizzani Sarebbe dovuta restare un’operazione coperta dal massimo riserbo: la fuga di notizie non fa bene alla buona soluzione della vicenda.

Leggi l’articolo: Fiumicino Idroscalo

dopo il trasloco sigilli al campo nomadi.
Chiude l’area che ospitava 600 persone:
ruspe al lavoroa mezzogiorno il sindaco Alemanno ha chiuso i cancelli

ROMA – Un silenzio irreale. Rotto soltanto dal rumore delle ruspe che entrano in azione per abbattere le ultime baracche. Al di là del cancello del «Casilino 900», il campo nomadi abusivo più grande d’Europa, lunedì mattina c’era il deserto. Non si sentivano più le voci dei bambini, delle donne intente a chiacchierare, dei ragazzi che parlavano tra loro. Gianni Alemanno è arrivato intorno alle 12.30, ha indossato un giubbetto catarifrangente come quello degli operai addetti allo sgombero, poi ha presenziato alla chiusura definitiva dei cancelli.

Poco prima, la ruspa che buttava giù la «case» – per 40 anni, fino al 14 febbraio, il campo ha ospitato rom bosniaci, montenegrini e kosovari, aveva abbattuto simbolicamente l’ultima baracca, davanti al sindaco.

Leggi l’articolo: Redazione online 15 febbraio 2010
Corriwere della Sera (ultima modifica: 17 febbraio 2010)

ZALAB e OFF!CINE presentano un film di Andrea Segre con la fotografia di Luca Bigazzi

Neda è una signora romana di 50 anni. Una „romana de Roma“. Nel senso che è cresciuta negli anni ’60 nel cuore della capitale, a due passi dal Colosseo. Oggi però Neda non vive più nel suo rione. Sta a Ponte di Nona. Nel cuore delle „nuove centralità“ alla periferia di Roma. 6 Km oltre il Grande Raccordo Anulare, lungo la Prenestina, oltre 20 km dal Colosseo.
Sara, 18 anni, a Ponte di Nona invece ci è cresciuta. Figlia di una pugliese e di un egiziano, è una delle pochissime ragazze di Ponte di Nona che ha avuto la possibilità di studiare al liceo.
More: http://magarilecosecambiano.blogspot.com/

text by Vladan Jeremic and Rena Rädle

Antiziganism and Class Racism in Europe by Vladan Jeremic and Rena Rädle, April 2009 The Roma have a long history of migrations that repeatedly brought repression to their people over the centuries. European countries began introducing laws against migrating peoples (i.e. nomads, travelers) in the mid-Fifteenth century (1). Migrants were perceived as an unsettling factor, even as a threatening and invading group, one that jeopardized the safety of the majority population. Without a registered identity, many Roma remain completely isolated as citizens in the societies on whose territories they live. Being constantly relocated and repopulated, many have been migrants over the centuries; even within the boundaries of the countries whose citizenship they hold. Apart from accusations, disappointments and misunderstandings in their relations with the majority population, we are still facing deep discrimination of Roma, which doesn’t have its roots only in ethnic and cultural racism or anti-Roma sentiment. Poverty and nomadism are threatening factors for all of those who live in social systems based on the system of ownership, accumulation of goods and territorialism. Western policies have tried for centuries to include the poor in the system of social protection, or to get rid of them: to banish or eliminate them. Roma are, for the most part, an ethnic class characterized by extreme poverty that can present an obstacle to national or European integrations. It appears that the relation between Roma and non-Roma is, first and foremost, defined by the borderline between wealth and extreme poverty. The situation of Roma in EU member countries is precarious and in countries populated to a greater extent by Roma, such as Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and in the former Yugoslav republics (especially in Macedonia and Serbia) – the situation is alarming. The situation in which most European Roma find themselves is similar to that of a holocaust. One of the basic problems facing a Roma man or a woman is the issue of belonging to a marginalized social class that is exposed to drastic pauperization, in addition to the problem of the national identity itself – the fact of being Roma.

(mehr …)

produced by Biro Beograd
Short documentary about the protests due to the demolishing of the Roma settlement at Block 67 in New Belgrade, Serbia, in April 2009.
http://www.archive.org/details/BELLEVILLE

By Abraham Cruzvillegas, 2009

Through his interest in autoconstrucción („self-construction“), Abraham Cruzvillegas explores economies of the makeshift, the handmade and the recycled. His recent work gravitates toward an examination of his childhood home and the neighborhood of Ajusco, a district in the south of Mexico City founded by migrants who, like his parents, squatted and settled in what was deemed uninhabitable land in the 1960s. To this day, Ajusco’s landscape of volcanic rock remains a work in process. Structures are in a constant state of transformation, as additions are made when materials become available and necessity dictates.

In contrast to cities developed with central planning or strict building codes, the architecture of each building in Ajusco is heterogeneous and manifests the particular vision of those who built it, often referencing a hybrid of styles and sensibilities indicative of an individuals‘ ideals and often informed by other people, places and times. The sense of ingenuity and improvisation that characterizes the landscape here reflects the vibrant, self-reliant and politically active community (who fought for the rights to property ownership) and becomes the impetus for the artist’s own exploration of the roots of his practice. (mehr …)

AFTER THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE „POST-CAPITALIST CITY“ IN PULA

International conference under the title „Post-capitalist City“ was held from 14. to 16. August in Pula. Fourteen European groups presented their work in the context of political reading of the city and new forms of production emerging in different spaces.

More: http://postcapitalistcity.blog.hr/
Fotostreaming of Conference: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pulskagrupa/show/

Reguarding:

Conference on Post-capitalist City,  Pula – Croatia, 14.-16.8.2009
Before the splitting of the Self Made City working group we were invited as co- founder of the Self Made City project.
This is the reason because at this conference we are still announced as Self Made City.

At the conference we will present as urbanXchange our new and still unnamed project. We will speak about the workshop „Imparare da Borghesiana“ which took place in Rome in July 2009.

More informations: http://smu-research.net/projects/imparare-da-borghesiana

About urbanXchange

http://postcapitalistcity.blog.hr/

The city is the space where the reproduction of social, political and economic forms of life takes
place and where these forms of life confront instrumental political power or political diagonal. This
reproduction of forms of life represents the central site of exploitation as well as of resistance.
Resistance is manifested through production of common values and through cooperation. This
complex environment can be the key force behind the making of democracy, justice, common
values and free space. Cities can become places of post-capitalism. (mehr …)