In recent decades, welfare states have transferred responsibilities for public services to citizens, spurring citizen-led initiatives that repurpose urban spaces for the common good. These projects, often developed in response to social and economic pressures, provide collaborative spaces for living, working, and socialising. This ethnographic study, focusing on cases in Amsterdam, Berlin, and Vienna, examines how and why citizen professionals (CPs) organise self-initiated projects, taking an intermediary role with public and private stakeholders to create autonomous spaces in their respective neighbourhoods. Unlike traditional urban movements, CPs seek “mutually agreed autonomy” through collaboration, promoting non-profit, shared ownership models that challenge capitalist norms and align with the concept of urban commons.
Longing for Autonomy explores the importance of autonomous urban spaces for living, working, and socialising, and the evolving role of citizens in providing these (semi) public services. It demonstrates how these concerned citizens define their quest for autonomy while collaborating with governmental actors and institutions and asks to what degree these initiatives can inspire others to assume responsibility for public resources and create similar spaces for communal use.
Keywords: governance, right to the city, squatting, vacancy, bottom-up projects, communality, citizen professional, ownership, citizenship, autonomy, neighbourhood development, common good.
Supervisors: René Boomkens & Jan Willem Duyvendak
University of Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA)