Urban challengers weaving their networks: between the ‘right to housing’ and the ‘right to the city’

Abstract

The article applies a field theory approach to further the analysis of grassroots movements in an urban context. By employing the theoretical framework of Strategic Action Fields merged with the concept of norm entrepreneurs and combined with an idea of networks of challengers, two parallel but different social movement networks in Poland are analyzed. In this comparison the authors discuss differences in strategy and political – discursive – opportunities mobilized within respective fields between the more established housing movement and an emerging Polish urban renewal movement in the light of on-going change in the urban realm. By comparing the networks of challengers in both fields and simultaneously trying to identify the dominant institutional logics within each, we test the usefulness of the Strategic Action Field approach.

Keywords:

• Strategic Action Field
• urban policy
• challengers networks

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 To supplement the data on urban activism gathered within 2018/30/E/HS6/00379 project funded by Polish National Science Centre, we used data on housing initiatives and local housing policies collected in the framework of FP7 project WILCO ‘Welfare innovation at the local level in favour of cohesion’ (2010–2014), including 10 individual interviews and 2 focus group interviews with local housing authorities and activists.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Polish National Science Centre under Grant no. 2018/30/E/HS6/00379.