Invisible urbanity: spontaneous appropriations under junkspace
contemporary cities, junkspace, homelessness, contemporary anarchism, spontaneous appropriation, urbanity
The present research seeks to understand spontaneous urbanities amidst the contemporary city: an invisible and mobile urbanity built in the interstices of the junkspace (Koolhaas, 2001), from the continuous appropriations of the street dwellers, who reveal, even in the extreme condition of precariousness, possible counterpoints to the logic of capitalist production of space. Street dwellers, living on the margins of society, establish a transitorial relationship between the boundaries of the formal city, re-signifying what is commonly treated as waste, as they make it a survival strategy. The relations between informal spontaneous appropriations in these spaces and the logic of capitalist production under the spectacularization of contemporary city will be investigated, as well as possible connections between their daily praxis and contemporary anarchist ideals, even though they do not have a theoretical elaboration established in his movement / experience of the city. Finally, focusing on the practice of street dwellers in Natal, it is
sought to reveal spontaneous urbanities in these space residues arising from the junkspace to indicate alternative ways of appropriating urban space that are not just victims of an hegemonic order.