ABSTRACT
This chapter expresses that the uprising at the squares was more than just protest against austerity; it also constituted a break with "traditional" modes of political mobilization and urban resistance that had characterized contentious politics in Greece over the past four decades. It was the moment when urban resistance moved beyond a critique of everyday life under austerity and into the political; engaging with the socially and spatially embedded institution of practices for reclaiming the commons and staging equality. The chapter presents a brief account of the rich urban resistance history associated with Athens' Syntagma Square. It explores the novel practices of resistance introduced in 2011 at Syntagma, focusing particularly on how these practices challenged the dominant ordering of urban public spaces and experimented with producing new spaces in-common. The chapter highlights the legacies that the resistance in the squares left behind in instituting democratic spaces.
