Introduction:

Urban resistance movements have gone through the long history. In the past time, the urban resistance movements had caused the great influences on the society and the life of the ordinary people. Indeed, there are some different kinds of evaluations for the urban resistance movements. Some people think the movements are the terrible things in the development of the city, while more and more people believe that the urban resistance movements are the sympathy of the right to the city. There are also some experts who try to do the all-sided researches for the urban resistance movements.

Henri Lefebvre is a famous person in this area. He concluded the significance of the space and the right relationships which are stayed in the process of space development. He once claimed that the urban resistance movement is the right to the city. This paper aims to analyze to what extent the urban resistance movement today could be considered to be an expression of the right to the city. This paper will show the development and the characters of urban resistance movements. There is also a specific of Henri Lefebvre’s point of views about the space of city.

The development and the characters of urban resistance movements

In 1848 Alexis left his friend’s house in a street of the Paris, and visited a colleague on the street. As he passed through the silent streets, he was surprised to notice that the trees on both sides of the sidewalk were being cut down by a tree. The citizens gathered in groups, quietly gathering wood and debris, and setting up barricades on the roadway, without a word. People have a clear division of labor, skilled as they are in the technical field. “This time it’s not a riot, it’s a revolution!” the historian can’t help but blurt out. In fact, the earlier urban resistance movements are very drastic. With the development of the society, the current urban resistance movements are more dormant.

Entering the 20th century, the golden age of barricade began to pass. In Warsaw in 1944 and Paris in 1968, and in Tokyo in 1968 and 1969, the barricades were the last flag of resistance — mainly the flag of defeat (Zeller, 2012). Remote control blasting device, flame thrower, siege mortar and helicopter gunships the advent of defenders of the fort vulnerable they need shade, defenders and its volunteer subversion in expanding the power of the gap between the existing order.

This contrast has wide to such an extent that the barricade was weakened became merely the surface “symbol” : building the barricade person no longer want to be a “death or victory” decisive battle, they just built this symbol, with the aid of the developed modern media convey began “resistance” signal, then looking forward to good luck enough, can from the defenders of the order (the government) picked up something.

Examples of like the “orange revolution” is not the victory of the barricade, part of its power from the existing order vindicator attempt to change, and weaken the barricade was the best example is from Thailand: the spring of 2010 when new legitimacy over the full, there isn’t expect to its fully into legitimacy.

The new image of resistance has become a “grey man” – a professional guerrilla who is hidden in the jungles, deserts and dilapidated cities, with no uniform and no uniform. They inherited from the barricade defenders of formal and informal coordination – take from Internet, pickup trucks, mobile phone to remote control the explosives, everything from the elements of a normal life as a weapon, at the same time don’t abide by the “regular” the law of war (Burgess, 2008). A high degree of mobility from the barricade defenders surrounded by segmentation, the exhausted situation, and the further growth of irregularity means become guerrillas even in form the regular more simplified, under certain conditions, which means that the source of unlimited men.

More importantly, the guerrillas don’t have to rely on existing social organizations to build its means of struggle, they have a unique political, the political is almost absolutely exclusive reliance on technology tools, and reminded people medieval knight back to the forest and the land.

Even unscrupulous way of struggle to make it with the “criminals” reputation, the goal of most of the guerrillas at least initially is clear and the negative: in 1979-1989 is against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, in Iraq is expelled American since 2003, the enemy is revealed and specific. It can be said that it is the specific enemy that gives such resistance to meaning and character.

Henri Lefebvre’s theory

Lefebvre is the first scholar to systematically expound the concept of space. Leffefer is one of the founders of space theory, whose main contribution is the space interpretation of marxism and the concept of space. First of all, he thinks that space is not a static “container” or a platform of social relations, but a product of social relations, which is produced in a purposeful social practice. The political organizations of space and space represent various social relations, but in turn affect these relations (Lefebvre, 1991). Secondly, he constructs the typology of social space, which is the transformation of different space types to realize social evolution: the transformation from the difference space to the abstract space. So-called absolute space is made in some base fragments of nature, the base is was selected because of its inherent characteristics, and it is the product of consanguinity, land and language of the bond, the corresponding is the former capitalist society.

Abstract space corresponds to the capitalist society, and space is an important part of reproduction and infinite expansion (Lefebvre, 1996). However, saved capitalism expansion of space, because it is not as what Marx reached the end of the road, on the contrary, capitalism through occupies space and space is integrated into the logical structure of capitalism and maintained and extended. Therefore occupies space and produce a kind of space is one of the main means of capitalism success, as a whole the system of capitalism gain the structure to maintain its own rules, thereby extended the life of their own, the reproduction of the space on quite a number of internal contradictions of capitalism (Lefebvre, 2003).

Space is no longer a passive geographical environment, but an important tool of capitalism. Finally, he tries to put forward a general social theory about space and the space structure is divided into spatial practices), representation of space and representational space three elements, namely dimensional reality (lived), idea (conceived) and cognitive (perceived) three levels.

In “the production of space”, lefeffer analyzes three kinds of space: material, spiritual and social. About three kinds of spatial relations, the production of space begins said. Not long ago, “space” the meaning of a word or strictly limited in geometry, refers to the pure is a open area.

Column aspects.lefebvre believes that all of these describe the space efforts, is to show the today’s society and its mode of production in a clear, even is the dominant trend, that is knowledge labor and physical labor, labor division increasingly close up. Since the practice of space is in every aspect of social life, it is inevitable to construct a kind of “space science” (Sharpe, 2013). For this column aspects.lefebvre display about this “space science” three basic proposition: first of all, it represents the knowledge of political (on the meaning of the west, “new capitalism.”) (Zeller, 2012). Remember that under the system of knowledge, is more or less “direct” integrated into a variety of productivity, and through the “mediation”, integrated into the production of social relations. Secondly, it means to invent an ideology to control the use of that purpose, and also to refer to the inherent spear in the utilitarian use of knowledge, although the superficial knowledge is non-utilitarian.

This ideology is unmarked, and for those who accept it, it is an integral part of the puzzle of knowledge. In the end, it is a kind of technical utopia, which is similar to the real world, that is, in the framework of existing modes of production, using computers to simulate the future or the possible world. The starting point here is the knowledge that it is integrated into, and driven by, the means of production. Technological utopia here is not only the common features of many science fiction, but also the common features of all planning in space, both architectural space, the space of city life, or social planning space.

The urban resistance movements and the right to the city

Firstly, Henri Lefebvre believe the exchange networks that make up space and the flow of raw materials and energy are themselves determined by space. Production data itself is also a product, cannot be separated from productivity, technology and knowledge; Cannot separate from the international division of labor in social work; Cannot be separated from the state and other superstructure. Using space is like using a machine.

The urban resistance movements have the great connection with the social division of labor (Abellán, 2012). With the expanding of the city, the urban conflicts among the materials and the labors will be more obvious. When the conflicts of the city appear, there will be more problems in the public. To some extent, the urban resistance movements on behalf of people’s desire for improving the city. For this reason, such kind of urban resistance movements can meet the demand of the human and the demand of the development of the city.

Secondly, Space is a consumer object: as a factory or factory machine, raw material and labor force, as a whole space is consumed in production. When we go to the mountains or the seaside, we spend space. When the inhabitants of industrial Europe went south to become the Mediterranean region of their leisure space, they were transferred to the consumption of space by space of production.

Third, Space is a political tool: space has become the country’s most important political tool. The state USES space to ensure local control, strict hierarchy, general consistency, and division of parts. Therefore, a practical administrative control, even by the police control space. The hierarchy of space and the social class correspond to each other, and if each class has its own gathering area, the people belonging to the working class are undoubtedly more isolated than others.

At last, Class struggle interferes with the production of space: only class conflict can stop abstract space from spreading globally, killing all spatial differences. Only class action can make difference, and resistance is the strategy, logic and system of positive growth. Therefore, in the current mode of production, social space is classified as productive and productive information, as a social relation of production, and especially part of its reproduction. History unfolds at a global level and creates a space at this level.

The traditional city is the work of the citizen, not the product, which is organized and adjusted by the citizens’ demands, ethics and aesthetics. It also reflects the social contradictions of different groups, but exchange and exchange values do not destroy their use patterns. The establishment of the industry will be the vitality of traditional urban destruction, in addition to resources, land and is also an indispensable part of the daily life space into buying and selling, exchange, and exchange value into commodity production (Kingsnorth, 2012). The cities expanded in the process of industrialization, a widespread social disintegration, and the wealth and power centers closely related to the ownership of ownership were gradually formed.

The concentration of modern capitalist political and financial commercial activities in urban centers changed people’s way of life and forced residents to migrate to urban fringe areas (Mitchell, 2003). Workers housing is assigned to the city, the root cause is a kind of rule space become tools, let a space obey the power, through the space and technology to manage the society, which make the capitalist production relations. He thinks, for the urban problems in the past (marxist), focusing on the space of material production, rather than the production of space itself, not to rise to the space itself as the direct object and product production. So in his view, the city is now a product. The concept of the city is put forward by reefer, which is different from the classical social logic on the study of urban life, and also different from the traditional marxist method. City is different from the Chicago school, he see the city as a social process of chemical containers, also differs from the more orthodox marxists think that city is irrelevant to the theory of the development of capitalism.

City is the daily behaviors of people living in it and the work of a work created by or product, the power of city represents the living rights, the right to life, and residents the right not to be stripped from the original life, as well as outside the city and its residents shall have the right to refuse the power (such as country, capitalist economy drive) of unilateral control, refuse from the location (city center) of life moved isolation in marginal areas into the “commuter – work – rest” circulation mode (Alvarez, 1992). The right of the city is the right of residents to control the social production of space, and it is a possibility for residents to participate in the use and manufacture of urban space. This possibility extends to all urban residents to explore two core rights: the right to participate and the right to possess. Participation means the decision to allow urban residents to approach and influence the production of urban space, including proximity, occupation and use of space, creating new space to meet people’s needs.

The right of a city encompasses not just a single right, but a series of rights. It is not only the right to occupy land, public participation in urban design and public space use, but also a social and economic right, including the use of housing, transportation and natural resources. Under such openness, it may be found that some rights conflict and are difficult to reconcile. For example, we call on the housing can be a sustained development under the condition of affordable living right, if only to build houses in order to improve the home-ownership rate, it and the sustainable development of urban land conflict (Purcell, 2002). It is equally difficult to answer the question of who owns the rights of the city, first of all those who live in the city and experience the urban space; It also includes urban policies that are unfair to people: homeless people, disabled people, new immigrants, etc. It should also belong to those who have been deprived of their living rights and those who have been deprived of their rights.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the future of urban development is facilitated by the “expert practice” of government, developers and relevant professionals. These practices are key to achieving problem formulation and programme resolution, and by creating visual and technical language, the possibility of public discussion, consultation and participation can be increased. In reality, the right of the city contains a series of meaning. The urban resistance movement is one kind of expression of the right of the city.