Al-Dalal’a, J. and Petrescu, D. orcid.org/0000-0002-3794-3219 (2024) The grassroots and citymaking in the Middle East: the agency of tactical participation in Amman, Jordan. Journal of Urban Affairs. ISSN 0735-2166
Abstract
In Middle Eastern contexts, like Jordan, the public participation spaces referred to as “invited spaces” for state-led participation are heavily controlled by the state and its representatives. This paper explores the various ways in which grassroots and civic organizations navigate and sometimes manipulate the state apparatus’ planning rules and grids to create alternative modes of meaningful participation in the production of the city. Following the Arab Spring in 2011, local grassroots organizations started adopting “new languages and taktikat” (تَكتِيكَات,’ tactics in English, words used by the grassroots to describe their practices) that allowed them to move beyond direct confrontation with the state in the so-called “invented” spaces of participation led by civil society. Building on de Certeau’s notion of “tactics,” this paper looks at these approaches as tactics used by grassroots to negotiate power and participation within neoliberal top-down authorities. Ultimately, it argues against viewing grassroots initiatives solely in terms of a binary lens of legality/informality or “invited”/“invented” dichotomies, as they neither function as insurgents nor remain passive.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent. |
Keywords: | Middle East; tactics; invited participation; invented participation; agency |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Architecture and Landscape |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Nov 2024 10:55 |
Last Modified: | 18 Nov 2024 10:55 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2024.2399088 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Informa UK Limited |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/07352166.2024.2399088 |
Related URLs: | |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:219736 |
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Licence: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0