The Existential Threat of Urban Social Extractivism: Urban Revival and the Extinction Crisis in the European South

Abstract

This article applies the notion of existential threat to urban societies endangered by the unrestrained expansion of urbanised extractivist capitalism. It does so for purposes of urban activism and action-oriented research, because of the sense of urgency this notion conveys. Conceptually drawing on Hardt and Negri’s theorisation of the anthropogenic foundations of extractivist capitalism, the article exposes how variegated processes of economic-value extraction lead to de-urbanising dynamics, particularly in urban areas located at the margin of global capitalism that are more exposed to its predatory mechanisms, such as Belgrade and Naples in the European South. In the empirical part, drawing inspiration from Georges Didi-Huberman, the article looks at “last dwellers” as allegories of residualised urban societies facing an extinction crisis. “Last dwellers” are highly vulnerable city inhabitants being displaced from overexploited urban areas, but at the same time capable of giving rise to an embryonic politics of survival.