The ambiguous politics of improvisation: utopia to revanchism in Belgrade

ABSTRACT

In literature in urban studies and beyond, improvisation has predominantly been used to theorize inventive, creative practices of resistance amongst marginalized communities. In this paper, I challenge this implicit designation of improvisation as an emancipatory practice, exploring its political ambiguity using two empirical case studies based on research conducted in Belgrade’s Savamala neighborhood between 2014–2016. Two different types of urban improvisation are developed – utopian and revanchist – which reveal the practice’s political ambiguity as it is used by different groups to pursue radically different visions of Belgrade’s future. The case studies are examined through a temporal lens, using research on time, waiting and hope, as well as urban political economy, to understand the city’s paradoxical temporality, viewing both forms of improvisation as a response to the delayed transition narratives that circulate in Belgrade. Time here is crucial not only in how and when improvisation is enacted, but it also becomes a resource drawn on in the performance. Situating improvisation in Belgrade, a city of the post-socialist East, demonstrates the value of theorizing from elsewhere, opening up new paths for theorizing this urban practice between the Global North and South.

KEYWORDS:

• Improvisation
• Belgrade
• temporality
• urban political economy
• urban politics

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the guest editors of the special issue ‘The Global Easts in global urbanism: views from between North and South’, and the three anonymous reviewers for their insightful and thoughtful comments on previous versions of this paper, which have greatly helped strengthen its arguments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Lex specialis is a highly charged term in Belgrade as it is commonly associated with Milošević, who used the exceptional law in 1997 to recognize the local electoral results, bowing to pressure after weeks of sustained protests in the city (see: Djindjic et al. 1997).

2. Some names have been changed to protect identities.

3. The author is now a PhD candidate based at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne.