'Supra is not for women' : hospitality practices as a lens on gender and social change in Georgia

Peer reviewe

Precarious alliances between subaltern resistances and urban civil society

In this brief article I try to reintroduce suspiciously forgotten topic of class and more broadly social difference when discussing resistance. I develop three brief arguments drawing on an over a decade long research on various urban and rural resistances to neoliberal marketisation and accompanying authoritarian politics in a small Caucasian state of Georgia. First, I argue that different classes pursue or afford to pursue different forms of resistances. Second, I argue that inquiring into class difference opens empirically and conceptually significant questions about alliances and solidarities across various resistances. Finally, I argue that inquiring into complicated alliances between urban middle-class based resistances and subaltern resistances in and beyond cities, recasts a different light, or perhaps even reveals a darker side of the role of cities in serving as strongholds against authoritarianism

Moving in informal circles in the global North: An inquiry into the navettes in Brussels

The concept of informality has been largely dismissed in discussions about urban mobility in the global North. To address this, we explore the case of the navettes, informal vans that operate in the unlikely and unfriendly formal transport landscape of Brussels. Relying on qualitative fieldwork, we examine their economic model, low profitability, labour conditions, and the conflicts and legal struggles over their regulatory endorsement. By approaching the navettes as informal urban mobility practice in the global North, we attempt to bridge geographical and conceptual divides between research into urban informality and critical perspectives on urban transport and mobilities. We thereby deconstruct the dominant framing of informality as a "Third World" problem by showing that a range of supposed "negative externalities" of flexible transport are not necessarily addressed by the State’s regulatory and administrative capacity. Drawing on informality literature from global South and East, we argue that in Northern cities such as Brussels, where precarious transport workers like the navettes drivers are ignored and criminalised, while corporate "digitalised", "shared" and "circular" mobility solutions are endorsed, (in)formality is a site of conflicts over what is considered (un)fair, (un)just and (il)legitimate. As as result, we demonstrate how diverse experiences and theorisations of informal mobility in the global South and East can inform inquiries into transport practices in the global North

საქართველოს დემოკრატიული განვითარების გზა: საერთაშორისო შეფასებები

2003 წლის ვარდების რევოლუციამ საქართველოში თავისუფლების, დემოკრატიის და სოციალურ-ეკონომიკური განვითარების იმედი გააღვიძა. საერთაშორისო დამკვირვებლები მხარდაჭერას უცხადებდნენ დემოკრატიის მორიგი ტალღის დასაწყისს პოსტ-საბჭოთა სივრცეში, ხოლო საქართველოს მოსახლეობა ახალი ხელისუფლებისგან ხალხის სამსახურში ჩადგომას მოელოდა