Every city needs a Klinika: The struggle for autonomy in the post-political city

Abstract

The article uses the struggle for an autonomous social centre in Prague to examine the concept of post-politicization in the post-socialist city. Using the case of the squatted social centre Klinika, it discusses different kinds of prefiguration and argues that the struggle for this space has the ability to re-politicize the post-political city. The case of Klinika demonstrates that post-politics is not a one-way process–but re-politicization is not either. These processes may therefore be understood as something akin to a ping-pong interaction between the post-political forces of order and the re-politicizing action of radical opponents of the status quo.