Michaela Pixová

• Charles University in Prague

Degrowth and food sovereignty movements share commitments to social-ecological transformation, democracy and the flourishing of human and non-human life. Encounters between the two movements have been relatively limited, however. This contribution is based on a literature review and a workshop held at the 9th International Degrowth Conference in Za...

Food is becoming an increasingly important issue in the urban context. Urban food policies are a new phenomenon in Czechia, where urban food alternatives to the current food regime are promoted by food movements or take the form of traditional self-provisioning. This paper examines how urban food governance in Prague and Brno is constituted based o...

In our chapter we are trying to investigate a particularly under-researched topic, the Romanian popular musical genre manele (sg. manea) and its connections with a specific social reality—that of the marginalized and underprivileged—as well as with the relatively new political appropriation process of the manele initiated by a group of left-win...

The analytical part discusses how urban grassroots movements in Czech cities deal with the undemocratic nature of Czech urban processes and their frequent abuse by non-transparent interests. It presents typical ways in which different types of activists frame urban problems and their possible solutions, and the demands and strategies which they use...

This chapter provides a conceptual, theoretical, and contextual introduction of the research this book is based on. It contextualizes the role of urban grassroots movements in cities undergoing neoliberal restructuring and outlines the advantages of the political process theory in researching the Czech situation. The following sections provide the...

This chapter presents empirical data from four case studies. The first case is concerned with a citizens’ struggle against unsustainable planning and development in Jablonec nad Nisou. The second study deals with a citizens’ struggle against a controversial flood protection project in České Budějovice. The efforts of citizens in Prostějov to preven...

The aim of this book is to outline characteristic features of Czech urban conflicts and of the movements participating in them. It finds these movements often emerge as a response to the negative policy outcomes of post-socialist governing structures and processes ensuing from the coexistence of neoliberalism and weakly consolidated democracy. Such...

This book focuses on urban grassroots movements in post-socialist Czechia and their struggle against unprofessional and nondemocratic urban processes in their cities. It shows that in the context of neoliberal urban restructuring, weakly consolidated democracy, and corporate capture of the local state, urban activists often resort to entering elect...

Since the late 2000s, activists involved in conflicts over urban space and municipal budgets in a number of Czech cities have had an increasing tendency to enter the formal political realm in order to disrupt non-transparent ties between politicians and private business, and to narrow the gap between public administration and citizens. According to...

Cultural plurality distinguishes democratic societies from totalitarian regimes. Cultures that generate low profit are nonetheless constrained by a capitalist economy, which drives them out of spaces available on the market. Some alternative cultures therefore search for spaces that transcend the socio-spatial standards and norms of mainstream soci...

Cities in socialist Czechoslovakia were meant to constitute the setting for an ideal socialist society. The dogmatic embracement of this objective by the ruling Communist Party eventuated in complete intolerance towards any manifestation of free-thinking or alleged opposition to socialism. Starting in the 1960s, part of the Czechoslovak youth were...

This study investigates geographical aspects of subcultures in Prague, specifically two typical examples of so-called youth subcultures - punks and non-racist skinheads. It elicits some of the ways subcultural identity may influence one's spatial behaviour, perception, decision-making and choice of localities. The research was accomplished by means...