Back to Vocabulary

Direct Action

Area: Community participation

“Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid [their] plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with [them], without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist.”

(De Cleyre, 2009, p. 2)

Overview

Direct action is a term encompassing a variety of grassroots and bottom-up initiatives within the urban landscape. It is described as “a mode of disruptive activism” (Smith, 2018, p. 13) with an inherently political intention that may not necessarily be pacifist or legal -therefore likely to “be met with hostility” (Graeber, 2009, p. 359)- and is often associated with anti-capitalist, leftist and anarchist ideologies. Examples of direct action(s) include squatting, occupations, blockades and general strikes, among others (Smith, 2018; Sparrow, 1997). While definitions across activist and academic circles may vary, there is a convergence of opinions that emphasise two primary aspects: (1) direct action always describes a person or group’s own activity to “directly change perceived political, social or environmental injustices” (Doherty et al., 2003, p. 670) without third-party involvement; activities that employ representational and/or mediatory means (eg. lobbying) do not fall under the direct action umbrella (De Cleyre, 2009; Franks, 2003; Pouget, 2009; Smith, 2018; Sparrow, 1997). (2) Direct action is a prefigurative and synecdochic form of action; the action contains a tangible glimpse of the desired future in its end goal, in the methods used to achieve it, and in the identities of those involved in carrying it out (Franks, 2003; Pouget, 2009; Sparrow, 1997). Contrary to symbolic actions which are often contained in showcasing injustices, direct action can take the shape of a practical response and herald the larger vision it foreshadows.

Direct action in housing

Any direct action that tackles the housing question, operates on the premise that housing is a human right (UN Habitat, 2009), and aims at collectively producing “anti-capitalist housing alternative[s]” (Cattaneo et al., 2014, p. 50), against a backdrop of capitalist/neoliberal enclosures. Housing in this sense is understood as a “commons”, meaning that it is not only a resource that is (re)produced for the benefit of those (re)producing it, but also a “commitment to the creation of collective subjects [and the] fostering of common interests[…]” (Caffentzis & Federici, 2014, p. 103). The process and tactics that support direct actions in housing, could therefore be considered commoning. Hodkinson (2012) recognises 3 interdependent aspects of housing commoning: (1) prefigurative (living-in-common), (2) strategic (housing-as-commons), and (3) counter-hegemonic (circulating the housing commons) commoning.

Prefigurative commoning emphasises the desired way of living. It is essentially “try[ing] to meet our housing needs and desires through the creation of non-hierarchical, small-scale, directly democratic, egalitarian and collective forms of housing” (Hodkinson, 2012, p. 438). Strategic commoning refers to the “tactical interventions required to resist enclosure by both defending and creating housing commons as forms of protection against the market” (ibid.). Squatting falls under both of these definitions; it envisions a way of living that exists at the margins of the economic system, while at the same time it resists enclosure by reclaiming the right of equitable access to housing through the appropriation of vacant buildings, albeit in a standalone way. Lastly, counter-hegemonic commoning seeks to develop alliances between different housing movements and mobilisations, so that new forms of housing and living can be negotiated. Housing cooperatives fall under this type of commoning; while they do not directly challenge dominant housing systems, and therefore are not as inherently prefigurative as housing squats, they offer solid “dweller-control” alternatives that function as shields to speculation, financialisation, and market-driven agendas.  

Potential and pitfalls

Direct actionists bring the shortcomings of neoliberal political agendas into stark relief, both by highlighting injustices, and by providing immediate, practical, albeit often small-scale and precarious responses. Nevertheless, the (commoning) process of planning, executing, and sustaining a direct action, much like any kind of activist endeavour, is a potentially unalienating activity that allows bonds of solidarity to flourish (Graeber, 2009), which, in turn, has the capacity to transform the consciousness of those involved (Sparrow, 1997). The oscillations between legality and illegality, along with the aforementioned transformative potential, may enable the decoupling from what Benjamin Franks calls “prescribed references” (2003, p. 19), i.e. any type of limitation or constraint legally and/or socio-culturally imposed by dominant elites. Finding or creating alternative “references”, may in turn be conceived as “an immediate practical alteration in power relations” (Franks, 2003, p. 32).

Criticism towards some aspects of direct action, however, often questions whether it can constitute a justifiable practice. Direct actions which employ violent, coercive or intimidating tactics may clash with the general public’s conception of the rights and obligations of citizens in a democratic society (Smith, 2018). Consequently, direct actions largely fall outside of the “normalised” activist practices spectrum, and often result in creating (in)tangible enclosures, which may fail to generate substantial impact. Conversely, normalising direct action in all its range of tactics and approaches would result in a paradox, since prescribing to externally conceived references would diminish its prefigurative potential.

Apart from questions on justifiability and normalisation, there is significant ambiguity regarding the types of methods and tactics employed in direct action, as well as their level of transferability. Since direct action is by definition counter-hegemonic, transferability in this case relates greatly to how power relations operate. Deleuze & Guattari argue that hegemonies operate in inherent situatedness, as they are shaped, sustained and perpetuated through connection and heterogeneity (2005). For direct action tactics to be successfully applied in diverse contexts, a nuanced understanding of contextual differences is vital.

Finally, while Voltairine de Cleyre’s definition may seem vague and all-encompassing, it highlights perhaps the most crucial aspect of direct action; the emancipatory potential of unmediated action on one’s own behalf.

References

Caffentzis, G., & Federici, S. (2014). Commons against and beyond capitalism. Community Development Journal, 49(SUPPL.1). https://doi.org/10.1093/cdj/bsu006

Cattaneo, C., Martínez, M. A., & Squatting Europe Kollective (Eds.). (2014). The squatters’ movement in Europe: Commons and autonomy as alternatives to capitalism. Pluto Press.

De Cleyre, V. (2009). Direct Action. https://theanarchistlibrary.org

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (2005). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.

Doherty, B., Plows, A., & Wall, D. (2003). ‘The Preferred Way of Doing Things’: The British Direct Action Movement. Parliamentary Affairs, 56(4), 669–686. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsg109

Franks, B. (2003). Direct action ethic. Anarchist Studies, 11(1), 13–41.

Graeber, D. (2009). Direct Action: An ethnography. AK Press. www.akpress.org.

Hodkinson, S. (2012). The return of the housing question. Ephemera, 12(4), 423–444.

Pouget, É. (2009). Direct Action. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/

Smith, W. (2018). Disruptive democracy: The ethics of direct action. Raisons Politiques, 69(1), 13–27. https://doi.org/10.3917/rai.069.0013

Sparrow, R. (1997). Anarchist Politics & Direct Action. https://theanarchistlibrary.org

UN Habitat. (2009). The Right to Adequate Housing. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004502758_044

Created on 18-06-2024 | Update on 23-10-2024

Related definitions

Urban Commons

Author: A.Pappa (ESR13)

Area: Community participation

Urban commons are shared resources in the city that are managed by their users in a collaborative and non-profit-oriented way. The concept is based on the idea that urban resources and services that represent fundamental rights in the city should be accessible to and governed by the urban dwellers, to support the social capital and the sustainability of the urban communities. Hence, their value lies mostly in the social benefit produced during their use and they are therefore different from commodities that follow traditional market principles of profit maximisation and private ownership (Dellenbaugh-Losse et al., 2015). The concept of urban commons is an extrapolation in the urban context of the notion of commons which historically refers to natural resources available to all and not owned by any individual, such as air, water and land. The commons discourse became significantly popular thanks to the fundamental contribution of Elinor Ostrom (1990) and particularly after she was awarded the Nobel in Economics in 2009. Ostrom presented cases and design principals for the collective management of common resources by those that use and benefit from them, challenging the predominant negative connotations that had peaked with Garret Hardin’s (1968) Tragedy of the Commons where he analysed the impossible sustainability of common pool resources due to individual benefits. During the last fifteen years, a vast body of academic literature on urban commons has been produced, linking the notion to other urban theories, such as the right to the city (Harvey, 2008; Lefebvre, 1996), biopolitics (Angelis & Stavrides, 2009; Hardt & Negri, 2009; Linebaugh, 2008; Parr, 2015; Stavrides, 2015, 2016), peer-to-peer urbanism and sharing economy (Dellenbaugh-Losse et al., 2015; Iaione, 2015; Iaione et al., 2019; McLaren & Agyeman, 2015; Shareable, 2018). The notion of the urban commons encompasses resources, people and social practices (Dellenbaugh-Losse et al., 2015): Commons resources are urban assets of various types, characteristics and scales (Dellenbaugh-Losse et al., 2015). Examples of commons resources include physical spaces, such as community gardens, street furniture and playgrounds; intangible elements such as culture and public art; services such as safety; digital spaces, such as internet access. Urban commons literature and practices have attempted to determine several typological categorisations of the urban commons resources, the most notable being that of Hess (2008), who classified them as cultural, knowledge, markets, global, traditional, infrastructure, neighbourhood, medical and health commons. The commoners are the group that uses and manages the urban commons resources. It is a self-defined and organically formed group of individuals whose role is to collectively negotiate the boundaries and the rules of the management of the commons resources (Dellenbaugh-Losse et al., 2015). In a neighbourhood setting, for example, the commoners may be individual residents, or community groups, cooperatives, NGOs and local authorities. De Angelis and Stavrides (2010) points out that commoners might include diverse groups or communities that are not necessarily homogenous. Commoning refers to the collaborative participatory process of accessing, negotiating and governing the commons resources. The term was introduced by Peter Linebaugh (2008) and refers to the “social process that creates and reproduces the commons” (Angelis & Stavrides, 2010). Commoning is a form of public involvement for the public good (Lohmann, 2016). Commoning implies a commitment to solidarity and cooperation, to the creation of added value to the community, to democracy and inclusiveness and is connected to a hacking culture(Dellenbaugh-Losse et al., 2015). Hence, commoning practices can include various activities such as co-creation, capacity building and placemaking, support through learning, innovation, performing art, protest, urban gardening and commuting. In contemporary societies in crisis, the urban commons theory is often used as a counter-movement to the commodification of urban life and as a response to complex issues, proving essential for the well-being of marginalised communities and for the provision of affordable and sustainable housing. Urban commons management conveys the re-appropriation of urban values (Borch & Kornberger, 2015) breaking silos of expertise and knowledge by adopting a collaborative approach to defining and solving the problems at stake. The practice of urban commons helps to build values of openness, experimentation, creativity, trust, solidarity and commitment within stakeholder groups.

Created on 14-10-2022 | Update on 23-10-2024

Read more ->
Spatial Agency

Author: E.Roussou (ESR9)

Area: Community participation

 “Spatial agency”, a term popularised by Jeremy Till, Tatjana Schneider, and Nishat Awan (Awan et al., 2011; Schneider & Till, 2009) emerged from two growing demands: firstly, the need to decentralise the normative practice and role of architecture within spatial production, and secondly to expand the profession, by elevating diverse human and non-human actors, and various practices that move beyond the confines of what is typically understood as architecture (Lorne, 2017). Ignited by Cedric Price’s call for disrupting the idea that a building is the direct and solely available solution to spatial matters (Matthews, 2006), and drawing upon Lefebvre’s notion of “right to the city” (Lorne, 2017; Purcell, 2014), spatial agency aims to challenge the hegemonic status quo in spatial production by shifting the focus from the urban environment as a collection of tangible objects, to a dynamic socio-political process, and an entanglement of actors and practices that shape it and are shaped in return. Spatial agency Space, according to Lefebvre is a social product (1991, p. 360). This acknowledgment primarily highlights three facts: (1) there is no neutrality when it comes to the production of space. Space is the result of an agonistic relation between the components of the conceptual triad of space[1], resulting from the various conflicts and clashes between social groups with different interests, values, and backgrounds (Awan et al., 2011; Lefebvre, 1991). (2) There is a clear distinction and yet a “contradictory unity” between the exchange value, i.e. the usefulness of a commodity in terms of its capacity to generate economic revenue within the market, and the use value, i.e. the usefulness of a commodity in terms of its effective response to an actual need (Pitts, 2021, p. 36). Within the current economic system, more often than not, the exchange value overpowers the use value (Purcell, 2014). (3) To ensure that the use value of a given space is guaranteed, spatial production should not be the sole domain of experts and those who hold power, but rather citizens and stakeholders should engage in “real and active participation” (Lefebvre, 1991, p. 145; Purcell, 2014). Spatial agency All of the above attempt to answer the question on who should have agency over spatial production, beyond the mandates of the current economic system. Anthony Giddens defined “agency” as a notion in a perpetuate dialectic relation with “structure” (1987, p. 220). While agency is the capacity of an individual to decide and act freely, structure outlines the framework of rules, constraints and limitations that shape a society, and both function as interrelated notions (i.e. none may exist without the other). Awan, Till & Schneider follow Giddens’ take on agency, which dictates that no one -and nothing- is either “completely free […] or completely entrapped by structure” (2011, p. 32), but rather somewhere in between.  This means that space neither entirely shapes society, nor is it entirely defined by society, and “spatial agents” neither act in full freedom nor are they fully restrained by structure. This creates a contextual dependency (different contexts bear different “restraints”) that emphasises the situatedness of any practice within the scope of spatial agency. Spatial agency Spatial agency refers to the capacity of individuals or groups to actively shape and transform their built environment. It is a term that transcends and expands architecture, re-emphasises the need for a critical and politically conscious approach in spatial production and seeks to illustrate both an education and practice of synergies that puts “spatial judgement, mutual knowledge and critical awareness” at the forefront (Awan et al., 2011, p. 34; Lorne, 2017). Through spatial agency, one may embrace the uncertainties that emerge within the highly agonistic and dynamic nature of spatial production.       [1] The conceptual spatial triad, as iterated by Henri Lefebvre: space is not a monolith of tangible, physical elements, but rather it exists on different planes of understanding. Those planes are the perceived space (spatial practice), i.e. what one can see and feel around them, the lived space (representational space), which reflects the everydayness, the activities and the social life, and the conceived space (representations of space), i.e. the projections, plans and ideas on how a space could be used. 

Created on 30-01-2024 | Update on 23-10-2024

Read more ->
Design Activism

Author: E.Roussou (ESR9)

Area: Community participation

Activism as a term illustrating the urban phenomena of citizen mobilisation and direct action(s) towards political, social and environmental change that emerged during the early 20th century (Hornby, 1995). Seen also as a “means of overcoming alienation” (Graeber, 2009, p. 231), numerous forms of activism were significantly influenced by the Situationist International, which advocated the creation of spontaneous, subversive “situations” as a response to the increasing commodification and individualisation of everyday life (Debord, 1992). In this sense, activism can be seen as a means to repoliticise and breathe meaning into an everydayness[1] characterised by passive bystanding and to create instances where people are able to redefine their agency as urban dwellers and political subjects[2] (Graeber, 2009). Design activism has been defined as any practice that “draws attention to change in the context of design through positive experimentation and action, introducing a designerly way of intervening into people’s lives” (Mallo et al., 2020, p. 102). According to Markussen (2013), it reflects the role and potential of various design fields in (1) promoting social change, (2) express values and beliefs in a tangible way and (3) question the systemic constraints that impact people’s daily lives. Due to the rising levels of precarity, caused by the increasing neoliberalisation of politics, policies and everyday life on a global scale (Brown, 2015), design activism in architecture and urban planning (often associated with DIY urbanism) has been gaining traction over the past decades among scholars and practitioners, as a transformative means of renegotiating the role of architecture and planning within the mechanisms of spatial production, as well as reasserting citizens’ agency over their urban environment (Markussen, 2023). Design activism in architecture may operate both symbolically, in order to illustrate and highlight socio-spatial injustice (e.g. Santiago Cirugeda’s[3] insect house) and pragmatically, through the creation (disruptive) of spatial configurations “across a number of people and artefacts” (Mallo et al., 2020, p. 102), in a direct-action manner, with the aim of improving people’s livelihoods. Direct action can be “any collective undertaking that is both political in intent and carried out in the knowledge that it might be met with hostility […]” (Graeber, 2009, p. 359). The element of direct action emphasises both the immersiveness, the astute responsiveness to actual circumstances and the moving away from a general, pre-defined, vague and ultimately co-opted “social good” (Fuad-Luke, 2017), towards a more situated understanding of urban space and people’s needs. Collaborative, “unalienating” acts of urban creativity, connect (architectural) design activism to practices such as participatory design, co-creation and concepts like spatial agency, all of which employ different means to reassert urban dwellers’ position as crucial and indispensable parts in decision-making processes. Scholarly criticisms towards design activism focus on its temporal and experimental nature, which renders quantifying and crystallising the long-term effect on urban landscapes and dwellers difficult (Mallo et al., 2020). Arguably, its situatedness may also pose an obstacle towards the creation of any universal toolkit, strategy or course of action that could be transferable to different contexts and employed to tackle varying circumstances. It remains, however, a vital phenomenon towards fostering agency and a shared sense of citizenship and camaraderie, repoliticising architecture and planning practices, as well as nurturing a culture of working (ant)agonistically towards incremental change in the cities, one intervention at a time.          [1] Georg Simmel described and everydayness where bystanding and lack of concern are primary “symptoms of what he called “blasé attitude”. This term emerged so as to illustrate the overstimulating everydayness of the sprawling capitalist metropolises of the late 19th - early 20th century that renders individuals idle (“The metropolis and mental life”, first published in 1903). Contrary to Simmel, Michel de Certeau posits that individuals operating under imposed regulations and conditions, may find ways to interpret them differently, even subvert them, often by unconsciously utilising systems of socio-cultural references that may deviate from the dominant one(s) (De Certeau, 1984). [2] “A subject develops an understanding of itself as a political subject only by executing decisive political actions” (Calcagno, 2008) [3] More information on this project can be found here: https://unprojects.org.au/article/architecture-on-the-fringes-of-legality-santiago-cirugeda-kyohei-sakaguchi/ & here: https://www.cca.qc.ca/actions/fr/node/82

Created on 13-02-2024 | Update on 23-10-2024

Read more ->

Related cases

Related publications

Pappa, A., Tzika, Z., Roussou, E., & Panagidis, A. (2023, December). Informality as evidence: ethnographic insights from Southern European contexts. In KAEBUP 2023 Conference, Nicosia, Cyprus.

Posted on 06-12-2024

Conference

Read more ->

Roussou, E., & Ricchiardi, A. (2024, May). Enclaves of commoning across the divide: Self-organised spaces against divisions. In AESOP Symposium: Constructing Peace through Public Space: What publics? Whose commons?. Nicosia, Cyprus

Posted on 06-12-2024

Conference

Read more ->

Relational graph

icon case study Case Study
icon case study Concept
icon case study Publication
icon case study Blogposts