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. 摘要 本文引入生存威胁的概念, 以研究那些因为采掘资本主义模式主导下的城市无序扩张而受到威胁的城市社会。该概念服务城市行动主义以及行动导向性的研究，传递了一种行动为导向的紧迫感。本文借鉴哈特 (Hardt) 和奈格里 (Negri) 关于采掘资本主义下人类行为本质的理论，揭示多样化的经济价值提取过程如何引致去城市化。这种经济掠夺机制的影响在位于全球资本主义边缘的城市地区，例如被归入’欧洲南部’的贝尔格莱德和那不勒斯，尤为显著。在实证方面，本文受乔治·迪迪胡伯曼 (Georges Didi‐Huberman) 启发，借用 ‘最后的居民’作为濒临灭亡的残余城市社会群体的一个缩影。 ‘最后的居民’由高度脆弱的城市居民构成，他们在城市过度开发中被驱散，并且在寻找新家园的过程中孕育另一种生存政治。