Dimitris Loupetis on urban struggles of Exarcheia Square, Athens

The presentation attempts to highlight how through the territorial conflicts over Exarcheia square in the centre of Athens, we can trace both the constructing elements of a dominant model of reshaping urban space according to the neoliberal logic and extractivist ethos, further deepening the infiltra-tion of market values in all aspects of everyday urban life. At the same time, we will trace instances of collective insurrectionary inhabitation practices, that stimulate social imagination and reclaim the city as a space of potentiality, providing the necessary material substrate for the realization of alter-native urban worlds and forms of urban life. Through this example, we will try to explore gentrification and touristification as complex sets of practices that aim in the production of a new “familiar space”, an emerging sense of locality that acquires different meanings and solidifies different social relations and collective experiences, de-pending on its performativity. By comparing representations, discourses and practices of inhabiting public space between the Municipality of Athens, the tourism industry and local urban movements, we will attempt to highlight a perspective of inhabiting the local as a predominantly political stake.