Public discussion on the experience of Barcelona En Comú, municipal movements and the possibilities of rebel cities as cities of welcome for refugees and migrants. With Laura Roth (International Commission Barcelona En Comú), Pablo Sanchez (Director, Department of International Relations, Council of Barcelona) and other guests
27 September 2016, 19h
Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte
Greifswalder Straße 4
10405 Berlin
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Rebel cities, cities of refuge The experience of Barcelona
Since May 2015 the citizen platform Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona in Common) is governing the City of Barcelona in minority. The citizen plat- form with its roots in the protest movements against austerity is not only a remarkably successful experiment in bringing democracy from below and hope for social change back into local electoral politics, but might also represent a possible strategic perspective for the European movements against austerity and precarity. Can cities be a space of possibility for the building of another Europe, and what role can a network of rebel cities play? Can cities be protagonists in a wider process of rebellion against the regulation and governance of the European political space?
In current times, migration is clearly amongst the most pressing issues for social movements. Hence the issue of refugees and their social and polit- ical rights has prominently been on the agenda of Barcelona en Comú and other municipal movements. Can the practices of welcoming, within and beyond the institutional level, be the starting point for a production of rights and urban citizenship?
The experimentations and tensions faced by the attempts of the city coun- cil of Barcelona to open a space of welcoming provide an important insight into both the practices and imaginations, the difficulties and possibilities of radical welcoming in Europe today.
27 September 2016, 19h
Haus der Demokratie und Menschenrechte
Greifswalder Straße 4
10405 Berlin