PARTECIPAZIONE E CONFLITTO
type: channel
description: ISSN: 1972-7623 (print) ISSN: 2035-6609 (online) DOI Prefix: 10.1285/i20356609 PACO METRICS 2024 (SCOPUS): CiteScore; 2,4 SJR: 0,410 SNIP: 0,760 Best Quartile: Q2/65% (Google Scholar): h-index: 35 g-index: 54 h-index norm: 30 URGENT NOTICE Due to the migration to a cloud-based environment and the transition to a new and updated publishing platform, new submissions to Partecipazione e Conflitto will be temporarily suspended from 19 March to 19 April 2026. During this period, manuscripts already in progress or currently under review will be handled outside the platform. Authors may therefore contact one of the journal editors directly or, in the case of special issues, the relevant guest editors. We also encourage all collaborators to complete, where possible, any pending activities on the current platform before the migration begins. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank authors, reviewers, and collaborators for their understanding and cooperation during this transition. ------------------------------------ Partecipazione e Conflitto [Participation and Conflict] is an International Journal based in Italy specialized in social and political studies. PACO houses research and studies on the transformations of politics and its key players (political parties, interest groups, social movements, associations, unions, etc.), focusing in particular on the dynamics of participation both by individuals acting in conventional ways, and by those who prefer protest-oriented repertoires of action. Special attention is also paid to the dynamics of transformation of contemporary political systems, with an eye fixed on the processes of democratization besides on the spaces opening to the new forms of governance both at local and sub-national, and supra-national level. All are inscribed in that complex phenomenon represented by the trans-nationalization of social, political and economic processes, without neglecting the nation-state dimension. The journal emphasiz…
publisher: Coordinamento SIBA - Università del Salento
language: en-US
publication name: PARTECIPAZIONE E CONFLITTO
issn: 1972-7623
copyright: Authors who publish with PACO agree to the Creative Commons Attribution-Non commercial-Share alike 3.0 Italian License Copyrights of each article are hold by the University of Salento. PACO allows author(s) to retain publishing rights under permission of the Editorial Staff. But Authors are requested to always indicate that the first version of the article has been published in "Partecipazione e conflitto".
items: Communicative Resilience Under Conditions of Backlash and Information Disorder
items: Emerging Citizen Digital Networks in the Face of the Climate Crisis: Radiography of Solidarity Initiatives in the Valencia DANA Flooding Catastrophe (2024)
items: The Far-Right Doesn't Always Win: Public Conversations on Brazil's "Anti-Abortion Bill" in the Chamber of Deputies' Digital Platforms
items: Citizens' Media Practices in the Face of Online Hate Speech
items: Young Activists' Communicative Practices of Resilience: The Challenge of Disinformation Toward the 2024 European Elections
items: Resilience in Post-Truth and Post-Digital European Union: Youth-Led Civil Society Organisations in the 2024 European Elections
items: Communicative Resilience in Virtual Worlds: Responding to Marginalisation Through Counter-Narratives
items: 'There Are Alternatives to Square Boxes': Rivolta Architettonica's Practices of Resistance and Media Resilience
items: Migrant Activism in Contexts of Discrimination: Political Strategies and Competitiveness in the Associative Sphere
items: The Audiovisual Representation of Immigration from the Perspective of Digital Community Media in Spain: El Salto TV (2017–2024)
items: Guardians of Journalism and Free Expression: Brazil's CDJor Coalition in Democratic Flux
items: The Consequences of Social Movements' Institutionalization for Subsequent Cycles of Mobilization: an Ambivalent Legacy
items: Student Movements' Commons Practices Across Time and Space: A Historical Analysis of Hotel Squatting in Milan and Florence
items: The Production of Punishment on Social Mobilisation in the Neoliberal State. The Case of Catalan Pro-independence Movement
items: The Ones Who Put Their Chests in Front of the Bullets: A Microstructural Analysis of Colombia's Primera Línea and Their Path to Activism
items: The Making of the Transfeminist Strike in Italy: Addressing Discourses and Movement Trajectories
items: Protests, Knowledge and Agroecological Social Movements. An Approach to the Argentine Case from a Decolonial Perspective (2019-2023)
items: Cooking as Commoning: Sruggles for Commoning Public Space in Curitiba's Community Kitchens Movement
items: The Limits of Consensual Model within the Squatters' Movement: Patterns of Exclusion at ZAD NDDL
items: Remaking Public Politics? New Municipalism, participatory governance and urban welfare in Barcelona
items: de Nardis, Fabio & Galiano, Angelo (2025), Margins in Revolt. Extractive Rule and Social Struggles in Southern Italy, Bradford, UK: Ethics International Press, pp. 480.
items: Morelli, Niccolò (2022), La convivialità urbana nei quartieri di Milano, Bologna e Roma: Un'analisi mixed-method sulle Social Street, Milano: FrancoAngeli, pp. 192.

Communicative Resilience Under Conditions of Backlash and Information Disorder
type: item
description: This introductory essay presents the special issue Communicative Resilience: Civil Society's Response to Information Disorders and argues for a shift in how resilience is understood in communication research. Rather than treating resilience as recovery or as a set of technical fixes (fact-checking, media literacy, or platform moderation), the essay frames it as a transformative, everyday process of meaning-making. In contexts marked by polarization, backlash, and attention-driven platforms, civil society actors sustain action by recombining identities, narratives, emotions, and viewpoints, while building networks of coordination and mutual support. Across the cases gathered in the issue, resilience emerges as multi-actor and relational. It relies on alliances that extend beyond institutions, develops alternative infrastructures for visibility and trust, and contests dominant frames that normalize hate or disinformation. The contributions collectively show how these communicative practices can widen participation and help publics bounce forward under pressure.
creator: Dafne Calvo
creator: Maria Iranzo Cabrera
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Emerging Citizen Digital Networks in the Face of the Climate Crisis: Radiography of Solidarity Initiatives in the Valencia DANA Flooding Catastrophe (2024)
type: item
description: This study analyses the communicative resilience in Valencian society after the catastrophe caused by the dana on October 29, 2024, which resulted in 228 victims. In the absence of institutional response, alternative citizen-driven communication channels emerged, allowing the rapid dissemination of information and the organization of aid. These initiatives represent a model of social innovation based on digital cooperation and mobilization through social networks and digital platforms. The research focuses on the analysis of 22 initiatives with the greatest social impact that structured their response in two phases: emergency and reconstruction. A mixed methodology based on a detailed survey of each initiative and Social Network Analysis (SNA) is used to study the interaction between them. The results show that citizens organized themselves collectively or individually and created faster and more effective communication networks than institutions, demonstrating the potential of digital activism during episodes of climate crisis. Moreover, this phenomenon has generated new narratives on climate change, moving away from catastrophism to focus on solidarity and community action, through community support strategies and post-emergency reconstruction assistance.
creator: J. Javier Serrano-Lara
creator: María D. Pitarch-Garrido
creator: Maria-Josep Picó-Garcés
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Far-Right Doesn't Always Win: Public Conversations on Brazil's "Anti-Abortion Bill" in the Chamber of Deputies' Digital Platforms
type: item
description: The public debate around moral and cultural issues in contemporary Brazil has often been dominated by the conservative camp. However, there are instances where far-right narratives do not prevail entirely. One such case is Bill 1904/2024, which seeks to criminalize legal abortion in Brazil after 22 weeks of pregnancy. This article analyzes empirical data drawn from public comments on Bill 1904/2024 in two online platforms hosted by the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies: the YouTube live chat during the session that approved the bill's urgency status, and the comments section of an open survey published on the Chamber's official website. Using automated content analysis techniques, the study identifies lexical patterns and the heterogeneity of responses, measured by the number of clusters (CHD) associated with each position on the bill. The findings reveal a decline in far-right dominance within these online participatory arenas. This outcome is closely tied to three main factors: (1) the mobilization of civil society, (2) the role of mainstream media, and (3) the reframing of the issue within the public debate. The coordinated actions of social movements, activists, and media outlets demonstrate the resilience of these actors, reflected in the ways they organize and communicate.
creator: Michele Goulart Massuchin
creator: Emerson Urizzi Cervi
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Citizens' Media Practices in the Face of Online Hate Speech
type: item
description: This article presents a novel perspective on online hate speech, framing it as a discursive weapon strategically deployed by political actors, particularly on the far right, that civil society can politically contest. It focuses on studying citizens' media practices as potential collective responses enacted by networked publics. Drawing on qualitative interviews with activists and communication and law professionals, the study pinpoints four key practices: identifying and assessing hate communications, making and sustaining personal connections, envisioning and spreading alternative narratives, and promoting changes on the media channels. Each one involves strategic decision-making—such as whether to engage in counterspeech or opt for tactical silence, use hegemonic or peripheral frames, or act publicly or behind the scenes. While counterdiscourse is essential for challenging hate, it may inadvertently reinforce hatemongers' strategies if not critically framed. In digital contexts, where far-right actors exploit audience outrage for visibility, tactical silence emerges as a deliberate alternative. Also, some behind-the-scenes actions—such as citizen-led efforts to influence advertisers to discourage the unintended funding of hatred—seem promising. The findings suggest that transitioning collective action from immediate problem-solving to aligned strategic actions sustained over time may increase communicative resilience in the face of hate speech, opening paths for future research and action on how networked citizens can increase capacity building to defend pluralism and democracy.
creator: Marta Cambronero-Garbajosa
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Young Activists' Communicative Practices of Resilience: The Challenge of Disinformation Toward the 2024 European Elections
type: item
description: This article presents findings from a qualitative study on the communicative practices of young Italian activists during the lead-up to the 2024 European elections. Specifically, the study examines the phenomenon of disinformation and its potential to disrupt the electoral campaign, highlighting the active participation of civil society in the political process and their ability to navigate disinformation can significantly influence the strength and resilience of Europe. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of youth organizations, both informal and institutionalized. The results show that highly educated and civically engaged young people use digital tools and hybrid media ecosystems to promote critical, transnational debates. Resilience emerges as a relational capacity rooted in the socio-political context, where youth activism develops alternative discursive spaces to counter democratic erosion. A key insight is the educational role assumed by these activists: in response to perceived institutional shortcomings, they act as informal educators, informing and mobilizing peers. This role contributes to reinforcing democratic values and fostering a more resilient European public sphere.
creator: Lucia D'Ambrosi
creator: Mariaeugenia Parito
creator: Fabrizia Pasciuto
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Resilience in Post-Truth and Post-Digital European Union: Youth-Led Civil Society Organisations in the 2024 European Elections
type: item
description: In an era marked by epistemic instability, algorithmic disruption and institutional disaffection, the European Union faces a deepening crisis of communicative legitimacy. This article investigates the role of youth-led civil society organizations (CSOs) as agents of communicative resilience within the evolving landscape of European public institutional communication, focusing on the 2024 European Parliament elections. Drawing on 35 qualitative interviews with CSO representatives involved in the Use Your Vote institutional communication campaign, the study examines how these actors operate simultaneously as actors of disintermediation and multipliers of EU messaging. Through localized, participatory and pedagogical practices, youth-led CSOs rearticulate abstract institutional narratives into context-sensitive forms of civic engagement, countering information disorder and reconnecting citizens—especially in peripheral territories—with the European project. The research highlights how these organizations combine digital tools with offline presence and non-formal education to foster trust, critical awareness and democratic participation. It further explores emerging tensions surrounding the use of generative AI in civic communication, calling for a reflexive and situated approach to digital innovation. Ultimately, the article contends that strengthening communicative resilience in the post-truth and post-digital public sphere requires institutional recognition of civil society's constitutive role in shaping democratic discourse.
creator: Sara Pane
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Communicative Resilience in Virtual Worlds: Responding to Marginalisation Through Counter-Narratives
type: item
description: In contemporary society, marginalized communities are increasingly utilizing video games as decentralized spaces where counter-narratives are constructed against dominant disinformation flows. Despite of the increasing emergence of these practices, academic inquiries remain relatively limited. Given this academic deficiency, we compared the institutional framings with communicative practices of game players about the Black Lives Matter protests in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and the Civil Rights Movement in Fortnite. To enhance the effectiveness of the analysis and the depth of the interpretation, this study adopts methodological triangulation. The approach incorporates LDA thematic model analysis, NVivo-based content coding and ELAN multimodal analysis. Our findings indicate that through semantic fragmentation and affective domestication, institutional discourse reframes the public subversions. This transformation thus reduces political urgency into symbolic commemoration. Relatively, marginalized players build a counter-narrative structure by using the game affordances, spatial symbolism and collective rituals of the game mechanism. They redefine citizen participation as an evolving negotiate process that actively challenges the dominant narrative boundaries. These practices expand the theory of communication resilience proposed by Buzzanell (2010), revealing that resilience is reflected through both daily adaptive interactions and multimodal strategic interventions. Finally, this study emphasizes the potential of digital games as a space for intellectual struggles. In this context, marginalized communities use symbolic powers in a creative way, they challenge the information exclusion mechanisms and reshape citizens' memory while negotiating social and political visibility.
creator: Mengfan Zou
creator: Sara Cortés Gómez
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

'There Are Alternatives to Square Boxes': Rivolta Architettonica's Practices of Resistance and Media Resilience
type: item
description: This article investigates Rivolta Architettonica (RA), the Italian section of the transnational network Architectural Uprising (AU), showing how the movement builds aesthetic counter-narratives and forms of communicative resilience within today's hybrid-media ecology. Using Multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) on Instagram posts published in a year, the study examines the interplay among discursive choices, visual techniques and semiotic oppositions (e.g., before/after, beauty/ugliness, tradition/modernism) that sustain frames of resistance and mobilization practices. Adopting the Communicative Resilience Theory, the study treats resilience as a communicative process that through recurring practices enables collectives to reimagine "urban normality". The RA case highlights: (i) the democratization of aesthetic judgment as a lever of civic inclusion; (ii) the strategic use of visual comparison to foreground what is at stake in the city; (iii) recurring calls to action that turn followers into issue publics. We discuss contributions and limitations with respect to polarization and crises of trust in expertise and conclude with implications for the study of media-based urban movements.
creator: Federico Smania
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Migrant Activism in Contexts of Discrimination: Political Strategies and Competitiveness in the Associative Sphere
type: item
description: The political participation of migrants reveals a fundamental tension between their positioning as objects of welfare policies and their potential as active political subjects. Based on this premise, the present study examines the forms of activism promoted by Latin American migrant social organisations in Spain, within a context marked by the increasing visibility and diversification of migrant activism. A mixed-methods approach was applied, combining quantitative and discourse analysis of the official accounts of diaspora associations with semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives of these movements. The findings show that, while associations mobilise repertoires of action aligned with immigrant politics, their involvement in traditional political arenas remains limited, shaped by dependence on public funding and organisational precarity. Active mobilisation is concentrated in digital campaigns against racism and xenophobia. Moreover, the persistence of colonial logics is evident through institutional mechanisms of control that curtail the autonomy of these organisations. At the same time, the communicative practices developed by these associations can be understood as forms of communicative resilience, especially in relation to the networks of solidarity they establish and their efforts to sustain political and cultural presence despite structural constraints. The study concludes that, even when agency is exercised, migrant associations continue to face structural barriers that hinder their full recognition as political actors, thereby reproducing symbolic forms of exclusion in the host society.
creator: Raquel Tarullo
creator: Cristina Renedo Farpón
creator: María Díez-Garrido
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Audiovisual Representation of Immigration from the Perspective of Digital Community Media in Spain: El Salto TV (2017–2024)
type: item
description: This study aims to describe the audiovisual representation of immigration as portrayed by the digital community media outlet El Salto TV, and to assess whether it offers a distinctive perspective aligned with its journalistic principles, in contrast to the coverage typically provided by traditional and digital audiovisual media. A mixed-methods longitudinal research design was employed, combining a content analysis of the entire corpus of news pieces on the subject (n=103) published between 2017 and 2024 on both the outlet's website and its social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and X), with a semi-structured interview conducted with the head of the audiovisual section. The analysis focused on variables such as sources, audiovisual narrative, scope of coverage, thematic and visual framing, informational treatment, and language. The findings indicate that El Salto TV constructs a counter-narrative on immigration, characterized by granting immigrant communities a central and active role in the news discourse. Moreover, the outlet delivers coverage that reflects its community-based ethos, distinctly different from that of other audiovisual media, thereby contributing to the development of new narrative frameworks and fostering best practices in journalism.
creator: Gloria Rosique-Cedillo
creator: Paz Crisóstomo-Flores
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Guardians of Journalism and Free Expression: Brazil's CDJor Coalition in Democratic Flux
type: item
description: This article analyzes the interplay between civic activism and communicative resilience in safeguarding freedom of expression and journalistic integrity, centering on the understudied Brazil's Coalition in Defense of Journalism (CDJor) that emerged to counteract systemic persecution of the press, and eroding public trust under Jair Bolsonaro's authoritarian regime. Using a multi-dimensional qualitative approach, the study explores two intertwined strands: the social movements dynamics, which include the coalition's lifecycle, collaborative partnerships, and governance models; and communicative resilience, which examines how CDJor has strategized to overcome challenges and achieve initial achievements despite structural barriers. It concludes that a defining feature of CDJor's communicative resilience lies in its refusal to normalize the belligerent press-state relations institutionalized by Bolsonaro. Instead, it championed democratic restoration, cultivating shared narratives about journalism's societal role and mobilizing cross-organizational communication channels for counter-repression. Following the political transition to Lula da Silva's administration, CDJor has strategically pivoted from reactive resistance to proactive adaptation, prioritizing dialogue and institutional collaboration in a more pluralistic yet still precarious democratic environment. This shift underscores its flexibility and dual imperative: ensuring vigilance against ongoing threats to freedom of expression while leveraging its political influence to enhance media integrity and restoring public trust in journalism.
creator: Rui Alexandre Novais
creator: Rogério Christofoletti
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Consequences of Social Movements' Institutionalization for Subsequent Cycles of Mobilization: an Ambivalent Legacy
type: item
description: This article explores the consequences of institutionalization for subsequent cycles of mobilization through the case of Feminist Health Centers in Italy. It examines how the new feminist wave that emerged in the 2010s engages with the process of institutionalization that led to the creation of Public Family Health Centers during the 1970s. While previous studies have examined the immediate impact of institutionalization on the actors directly involved in it, little attention has been paid to its influence on successive cycles of mobilization. Addressing this gap, the study argues that institutionalization constitutes an ambivalent legacy that both enables and constrains subsequent activism. On the one hand, it provides organizational continuity and serves a powerful symbol of past victories in the movement's collective memory. On the other, it represents a controversial legacy for new generations seeking radical organizing. The study contends that the impact of institutionalization varies according to the meanings attributed to it by earlier cycles. When institutionalization is framed as a successful achievement, it may strengthen subsequent activism by enhancing legitimacy yet simultaneously act as a burden that complicates a return to grassroots practices. Conversely, when perceived as cooptation, its weaker symbolic resonance facilitates new generations' ability to contest it and return to grassroots organizing. The article also introduces the concept of "institutionalization of repertoires" as the process by which the State or other actors adopt a repertoire developed by social movements without incorporating movement actors themselves. Drawing on 40 interviews, archival research and document analysis, the study advances the study of social movements by exploring this distinctive type of institutionalization and its consequences for new cycles of mobilization.
creator: Anastasia Barone
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Student Movements' Commons Practices Across Time and Space: A Historical Analysis of Hotel Squatting in Milan and Florence
type: item
description: The paper contributes to the understanding of the Italian student movement of the 1960s and 1970s by examining a specific practice: the occupation of abandoned, centrally located hotels. The authors focus on two case studies: the occupation of the former Hotel del Commercio in Piazza Fontana, Milan (1968-69), and the squat of abandoned hotels in Via dei Calzaioli, Florence (1977). Drawing on archival research and in-depth interviews, the study reconstructs the origins and characteristics of these two experiences. Despite notable similarities—both squats were driven by comparable material grievances and occurred in the frame of student movements —each developed along different trajectories in key aspects: the relationship between occupations and territories, the social and biographical profile of the squatters, internal organization, interaction with broader mobilizations, and relationship with institutions. We argue that these experiences can be analyzed as examples of early forms of "urban commons", with their differences shaped by changes, both within the social movement landscape and in institutional politics. The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the urban practices enacted by student movements across different waves of mobilization; and to a more nuanced conceptualization of "urban commons" in light of their historical, political, and spatial specificities.
creator: Carlotta Caciagli
creator: Herbert Reiter
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Production of Punishment on Social Mobilisation in the Neoliberal State. The Case of Catalan Pro-independence Movement
type: item
description: This manuscript takes as its starting point the punitive extension of the neoliberal state over dissent and contentious political participation, questioning how the repertoires of judicial and police agencies lead to punitive actions, with material and symbolic violence. Starting from a legislative and political-media sphere of criminalisation of pro-independence activism, a dual strategy of punitive advancement against protest is identified. The first involves a resignification of the concept of violence projected onto collective action, together with an ideological interpretation by the courts, defined as judicial militancy. The second lies in an intensification of police violence as a tool for controlling political participation in the public sphere, derived from the activation of specific factors of the police subculture, such as the warmongering conception of protest, national defence linked to the illegitimacy of demands, a weak acceptance of legality and a habitus of male domination. This is an ethnographic study, with interviews with activists prosecuted in legal proceedings, lawyers and family members, a documentary analysis of legal and journalistic material on the cases, and participatory observation in protests within the period. A contextual study is carried out with the creation of a database of protests from 2017 to 2021 to identify their main features, such as police actions and those of the participants.
creator: Ferran Giménez Azagra
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Ones Who Put Their Chests in Front of the Bullets: A Microstructural Analysis of Colombia's Primera Línea and Their Path to Activism
type: item
description: In recent years, massive mobilizations have taken place worldwide as neoliberal governments fail to ensure democratic rights and basic living conditions. In Colombia in 2021, an event unprecedented in the last decade transformed the course of national policy. Thousands mobilized in a national strike that witnessed the formation of a new political actor: the Primeras Líneas. This article represents one of the first attempts to understand the formation and dynamics of these groups. Taking the Primera Línea of Puerto Resistencia in Cali as a case study and using narrative interviews, this study analyzes the factors and mechanisms shaping members' pathways to activism (i.e., political transformation). Treating these protests as eventful (della Porta 2008, 2020) and applying Fillieule's (2023) activist career model, this paper highlights three key findings. First, previous involvement in violent networks and contexts equipped actors with resources essential for participation in this contentious episode. Second, recruitment in Social Movement Organizations can occur spontaneously, relying on actors' individual traits and resources without preexisting organizational ties. Third, emotional and contextual factors influence how actors perceive risk and make decisions about engaging in action. This research examines the cognitive, affective, and relational effects of these protests in shaping Primera Línea members' subsequent perceptions of politics and political engagement.
creator: María Camila López Ruiz
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Making of the Transfeminist Strike in Italy: Addressing Discourses and Movement Trajectories
type: item
description: This paper investigates the construction of the transfeminist strike in Italy by tracing the continuities and discontinuities between the Migrant, Social, and Gender strikes organized in the country after the 2008 economic crisis. Building on interviews and movement documents, the research explores how these strikes attempted to extend the realm of what a strike can be. To do so, they advanced competing understandings around what constitutes work and who qualifies as a worker. These efforts were organized around unexpected striking subjects – migrant and precarious workers, women, and queer people. In illuminating different trajectories of discourse construction leading to the transfeminist strike, this work identifies discursive rifts between unions and movements, and beyond. Ultimately, the article shows how movements changed the strike in times of crisis and how the strike became transfeminist.
creator: Greta Rossi
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Protests, Knowledge and Agroecological Social Movements. An Approach to the Argentine Case from a Decolonial Perspective (2019-2023)
type: item
description: This article analyzes the knowledge mobilized by agroecological social movements (ASMs) in Argentina between 2019 and 2023 to justify their opposition to agribusiness and to articulate alternative proposals for a socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable food system. Particularly, it examines the conceptual repertoires expressed in public mobilizations to understand how Argentine ASMs interpret agribusiness, sustainability, and social justice, and how these interpretations underpin political proposals advanced through protest. The study adopts a mixed-methods approach, combining a systematic count of ASMs' public protests from 2019 to 2023 with a qualitative content analysis of press releases and organizational documents. The findings show that, through demands opposing extractive practices, advocating state support for agroecological projects, and calling for access to land, Argentine ASMs mobilize key conceptual repertoires that articulate both critiques of agribusiness and alternative proposals. These repertoires underpin specific political demands and, at times, integrate broader projects grounded in diverse knowledge systems. A decolonial lens illuminates how ASMs conceptualize their opposition to modern/colonial civilizing projects and construct locally grounded alternatives to global challenges. The article contributes to scholarship on political agroecology and social movements, and to dialogue between these fields.
creator: Verónica Soto Pimentel
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Cooking as Commoning: Sruggles for Commoning Public Space in Curitiba's Community Kitchens Movement
type: item
description: This article investigates the role of communal kitchens in fostering common spaces and supporting socially vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic in Curitiba, Brazil. These kitchens, which emerged during the pandemic, operate not only as food distribution centers but also as dynamic venues for new forms of urban social activism and collective organization. The research engages with the practical and theoretical dimensions of urban commoning, and shows how these spaces challenge neoliberal urbanism through the practices of sharing and solidarity. The paper documents the interactions within these kitchens and their actions on public space, and highlights the transformative potential embedded in communal food-making activities. The analysis of community kitchens in Curitiba illustrates how urban spaces can be reimagined and reconfigured to foster communal life and resist the commodification pressures of contemporary capitalist societies. The paper argues that communal kitchens exemplify a practical manifestation of Lefebvre's "moments," acting as pivotal spaces where the ordinary is transformed into platforms for collective action and social emancipation.
creator: Kauan Arthur Fonseca Lunardon
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

The Limits of Consensual Model within the Squatters' Movement: Patterns of Exclusion at ZAD NDDL
type: item
description: This study focuses on the decision-making processes within a social movement against an airport known as ZAD NDDL, at the end of the cycle of mobilisation. The movement in decline, with a squatted area still formally governed by the principles of horizontal prefiguration, is reaching its limits in terms of conflict resolution using the available organizational tools. Analysing patterns of exclusion within the squatters' movement is a way of understanding the inner dynamics of non-hierarchical decision-making processes where there seems to be no possibility of achieving consensus. This research is based on long-term participant observation and open-ended interviews. An analysis of the redistribution of power in relation to the tools available in non-hierarchical methods of governance shows how attempting to govern a territory horizontally can lead to excluding a group whose ideas differ from those that have become hegemonic in the given area.
creator: Lukas Kotyk
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Remaking Public Politics? New Municipalism, participatory governance and urban welfare in Barcelona
type: item
description: Municipalist movements have sought to respond to multiple crises under conditions of aus-terity. The best-known example is the movement party Barcelona en Comú, which for eight years turned the Catalan capital into a flagship of new urban politics. A novel alliance between the municipalist government and civil society aimed to challenge the dominance of private economic interests and the austerity policies of the national government. In doing so, it sought not only to address widespread social precarity but also to transform the very practice of politics. Although social rights and precarity were central concerns of the protest movements that brought Barcelona en Comú to power, comprehensive analyses of municipalist social policy remain scarce, with the partial exception of housing. By focusing on social policy under municipalist governance in Barcelona, this article thus highlights an understudied policy field. Adopting a multi-sited approach across four domains—basic social protection, dental care, energy rights, and home care services—the article examines how politics have been reshaped in these areas, paying particular attention to civic participation and to the relations between the municipality, the central state, and the private sector.
creator: Silke van Dyk
creator: Luzie Sophia Gerstenhöfer
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

de Nardis, Fabio & Galiano, Angelo (2025), Margins in Revolt. Extractive Rule and Social Struggles in Southern Italy, Bradford, UK: Ethics International Press, pp. 480.
type: item
description: For Book Reviews abstract is not required
creator: Irene Strazzeri
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19

Morelli, Niccolò (2022), La convivialità urbana nei quartieri di Milano, Bologna e Roma: Un'analisi mixed-method sulle Social Street, Milano: FrancoAngeli, pp. 192.
type: item
creator: Arianna Lovera
date: 2026-03-17
publication date: 2026-03-17
volume: 19