Contesting Neoliberalism: Urban Frontiers

Frontiers, in one interpretation, represent the edge of civilized life, to be pushed back to incorporate the “uncivilized”. In a similar manner, neoliberalism has continuously extended the frontiers of the market for embracing the urban realm. However, this struggle depends on the capacity of neoliberalism to confront (and adapt to) the numerous singular forms of contestation that emerge everywhere, especially in cities. Both neoliberalism (as ideology) and contestations shape what has come to be called “actually existing neoliberalism”.

However, is neoliberalism a series of structural transformations dependent on the dominant global regime of accumulation, or is it micro modes of regulation where capitalist class hegemony rests on relentless ideological campaigns and the national state institutions? The answer is not clear. Even though it might be the most successful ideology in human history, neoliberalism certainly cannot be reduced to purely structural conceptions.

Following this premise, this book emphasizes the “epistemological” need to de-centre neoliberalism as macrostructure, adopting instead the task of conceptualizing it dialectically from the multiple contesting imaginaries existent in the world (i.e. discourses, ideals, ethics, norms, etc.) Several cases can be observed from this point of view: from the struggle by early Thatcherism in Britain to popularize the free-market ideology via think tanks and the media, to Mexico’s neoliberal policies set by an authoritarian state whose repressive practices trigger regional movements (i.e. Zapatistas), to New Zealand’s singular processes of partnership between government and social “strategic brokers” in Maori rural communities.

South Africa provides another two examples in the post-apartheid era. The radicalization of community-based local practices in the territory and an experience of de-commodification of the electricity sector in grassroots quarters of Johannesburg have become emblems for more recent emancipatory movements in the country. Cancun and Seattle redirected the global neoliberal political agenda when social mobilizations literally came to the front doors of the economic summits. In the former socialist Europe, urban neoliberalization substantially depends on everyday social practices (developed after decades of socialism) to fill the vacuums left by the increasingly commodified urban space and social life. Other crucial cases from Canada, USA and Germany provide more arguments in favour of the thesis that the current development of neoliberalism is fragmentary.