Introduction

This introductory chapter illustrates the theoretical and practical need for examining everyday spaces as a locus of protest. It argues that the role of everyday spaces is often overlooked, although they are essential to how the protest unwraps. Furthermore, it evaluates the symbolic legacy of architecture and urban form, and how these facilitate, inhibit, and steer protest strategy. Everyday spaces such as courtyards, neighborhoods, and residential streets play both a supporting role by facilitating logistics and planning and become the forum for effective dissent. This book examines protests at varying scale, through the materiality of ordinary spaces, the slow-built intimate knowledge of the city, and also through climactic protest actions that take place in and outside of ordinary spaces. The Introduction provides an overview of the book’s case studies, which are diverse in their geographies and methodological scope. It concludes by arguing that ordinary spaces, not just grand plazas, are essential to building a just society and promoting democratic ownership of the city.