[-empyre-] "Urban resilience"

Mon Mar 5 01:32:22 EST 2012

I see the point following Ethel's proposal and discussing the differences
between resilience and resistance. I remember attending a meeting in Prag,
where we met the president Vaclav Haverl (my good friend Alicia Migdal was
also there, I hope she remembers the discussion too). Havel stressed the
Charta 22 and all the other movements in East Europe were movements of
resistance, they had developed quite sophisticated strategies of uproar and
rebellion, but they had not developed a culture itself, with own premisses
and conditions.
The conditions were imposed by the "other", it means there Sovjet. But they
had not yet created a culture of it's own.
I thought about it often seeing the pictures and the videos of Acampada
Sol, Tahir Square and other big demonstrations. How can we go further to
the deeper level of creating alternatives to the corrupted democracy we
abhorr?

Ana

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 3:02 PM, <lgm at theorbiolchem.org> wrote:

> How about discussing Urban resistance?
>
>
>
>
>
> Quoting Ethel Baraona Pohl <ethel.baraona at gmail.com>:
>
>  I'm really glad to fin some good friends on this discussion!
>>
>> @Aristide Antonas: I find quite interesting the difference you remark
>> between "resilience" and "resistance" and the opposition between positive
>> and negative connotations. But is not adaptability a kind of "passive
>> resistance"? In case we understand "resilience" as *?the capacity of a
>>
>> system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as
>> to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and
>> feedbacks?*, maybe we can find common links with the movements like the
>>
>> #15M in Spain, where resistance doesn't include any kind of implicit or
>> physical violence.
>>
>> @Kamen I'm aware about your reservation of the proliferation of the term
>> "resilience". Just as every concept that starts reaching its
>> *tipping-point,
>>
>> * it is under the risk to becoming "trendy" and loose its real importance,
>> as has happened before with terms like "sustainability" or
>> "participation".
>> But this fact only reinforces the interest to discuss here the importance
>> of urban resilience going further and far away of becoming "the new
>> black<http://en.wikipedia.org/**wiki/The_new_black<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_new_black>
>> >".
>>
>> I completely agree with you that the movements we're witnessing nowadays
>> are truly networked phenomenon and maybe is in the uses of these new
>> technologies that we can find the new basis of resilience.
>>
>> If we go back to the referenced text of François Roche and his idea that
>> resilience lies in the recognition of nonlinear systems in nature as a
>> potential for emergence, we can go on talking about this phenomenon (#15M,
>> #occupyingwallstreet) as examples of
>> swarm intelligence (or the organic relations mentioned by Ana) and
>> emergence, in the way that DeLanda focus on the term
>> "emergence"<http://books.**google.es/books?id=**F5wvXkJwFwkC&lpg=PP1&dq=*
>> *inauthor%3A%22Manuel%20De%**20Landa%22&hl=es&pg=PP1#v=**
>> onepage&q&f=false<http://books.google.es/books?id=F5wvXkJwFwkC&lpg=PP1&dq=inauthor%3A%22Manuel%20De%20Landa%22&hl=es&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false>
>> >:
>> *"**the emergent properties of a whole can now be explained as an effect
>> of
>> the causal interactions between its component parts." *According to this,
>> the interactions between *citizens [net]working together* are creating a
>>
>> new resilient model in the urban context.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>> Ethel
>> ---
>> Ethel Baraona Pohl | dpr-barcelona <http://www.dpr-barcelona.com/**>
>> twitter @ethel_baraona <https://twitter.com/ethel_**baraona<https://twitter.com/ethel_baraona>
>> 46> |
>> about.me<http://about.me/**ethel_baraona <http://about.me/ethel_baraona>>
>>
>> ethel.baraona at gmail.com
>> (+34) 626 048 684
>>
>> *Before you print think about the environment*
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 9:53 AM, Kamen Nedev <kamennedev at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>  Hola, Ethel,
>>>
>>> I'd turn your question upside-down: "Is resilience the new resistance?"
>>>
>>> By now, you must have gathered I have some serious reservation about
>>> the proliferation of the term "resilience". But I think there is a
>>> good reason for this phenomenon. We're all struggling to grasp the
>>> real implications of current social movements and their acts of
>>> resistance. The many, and diverse "occupy" movements appear to be
>>> beyond the reach of the tools and concepts we have been handling
>>> hitherto.
>>>
>>> Thus, the attempts to relate the so-called "Arab Spring" to the
>>> Spanish "#15M" movement to the recent upheavals in London tend to fall
>>> short on the ground.
>>>
>>> In my opinion, what we are dealing with here is a truly networked
>>> phenomenon: these movements and spaces are first constructed online,
>>> and only then move on to the "bricks-and-mortar" urban space. But this
>>> doesn't mean that this phenomenon is new and unknown.
>>>
>>> @Ana Valdés: you should locate and talk to Olaf Westphalen from the
>>> Fine Arts Faculty in Stockholm. He has been researching the notion of
>>> resilience as applied to current social resistance movements quite a
>>> lot, and has some interesting ideas on the subject.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Kamen
>>>
>>> On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 5:58 AM, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> > Hi Ethel and I am so happy you introduced yourself in such a flamboyant
>>> way
>>> > :)
>>> > I am not familiar with the Occupy Movement (the two cities I live
>>> between,
>>> > Stockholm and Montevideo, are very lawful cities :) nobody occupies :)
>>> > But I know a bit of the Arab Spring, I have been in the Middle East ten
>>> or
>>> > twelve times and I am familiar with Amman, Nablus, Ramallah and
>>> Jerusalem,
>>> > Damascus and Tel Aviv. Have friends who are living in Cairo as well.
>>> > My reflection is: the cities on the Middle East (Tel Aviv is the
>>> exception)
>>> > are among the oldest cities in the world, they have been populated for
>>> > several thousand years. The population have an organic relation to
>>> their
>>> > city, very similar to the cities in the European Middle Age Henri
>>> Pirenne
>>> > described.
>>> > In the centers of the cities people still cook, mend, repair, forge,
>>> all
>>> the
>>> > professions are there on the streets, in small shops, near the souks.
>>> It
>>> was
>>> > not necessary Twitter or any high technological skill to convocate the
>>> > people to Tahir Square. The same happens in Homs.
>>> > People swarm to the squares to yell their discontent and their rage.
>>> > And swarms are still non explained by any rational means, it's good, we
>>> need
>>> > some mysteries left :)
>>> >
>>> > Ana
>>> >
>>> > On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 8:56 PM, Ethel Baraona Pohl <
>>> ethel.baraona at gmail.com>
>>> > wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Hello everybody at empyre,
>>> >> I'm Ethel Baraona Pohl, architect, researcher and publisher living in
>>> >> Spain, where the current sociopolitical and economic situation is
>>> driving
>>> >> architects to focus again in concepts like "resilience", as Ana
>>> pointed
>>> two
>>> >> days ago when she introduced the topic of March. I want to go further
>>> and
>>> >> use a quote by François Roche to discuss the urban relationship
>>> between
>>> the
>>> >> terms "resilience" and "resistance":
>>> >>
>>> >>> "The stuttering between Resilience (recognition of vitalism as a
>>> force
>>> of
>>> >>> life and innovation) and Resistance ("Creating is resisting") will be
>>> the
>>> >>> goal . . . 1+1=?"
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> Is resistance a new way of resilience? If we understand the city as
>>> the
>>> >> scenario for resistance, movements like the Arab Spring and Occupying
>>> Wall
>>> >> Street can be understood as the urban capacity to respond to
>>> perturbation.
>>> >> Going deeper, I want to discuss here which are the similarities and
>>> >> differences between this two concepts.
>>> >>
>>> >> Looking forward to hear your thoughts and comments!
>>> >> ---
>>> >> Ethel Baraona Pohl | dpr-barcelona
>>> >> twitter @ethel_baraona46 | about.me
>>> >>
>>> >> ethel.baraona at gmail.com
>>> >> (+34) 626 048 684
>>> >>
>>> >> Before you print think about the environment
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > http://www.twitter.com/**caravia15858<http://www.twitter.com/caravia15858>
>>> > http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-**activism/<http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/>
>>> > http://www.scoop.it/t/food-**history-and-trivia<http://www.scoop.it/t/food-history-and-trivia>
>>> > http://www.scoop.it/t/gender-**issues/<http://www.scoop.it/t/gender-issues/>
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>>> > http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-**and-ethics/<http://www.scoop.it/t/museums-and-ethics/>
>>> > http://www.scoop.it/t/**urbanism-3-0<http://www.scoop.it/t/urbanism-3-0>
>>> > http://www.scoop.it/t/**postcolonial-mind/<http://www.scoop.it/t/postcolonial-mind/>
>>> >
>>> > mobil/cell +4670-3213370
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
>>> your
>>> > eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always
>>> long
>>> > to return.
>>> > ? Leonardo da Vinci
>>> >
>>> > ______________________________**_________________
>>> > empyre forum
>>> > empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> > http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://www.waitingforcargo.net
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>

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"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with
your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always
long to return.
— Leonardo da Vinci
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