ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the potential of public space as catalytic of extreme and controversial manifestations of the right to the city: the right of resistance to oppression. It analyzes the right to the city by examining the right of resistance to oppression and what this means in an era of nonviolent insurgencies that use public space to highlight political struggle and democratic assembly. The 1DMX is key to understanding how cycles of repression operated in the ongoing criminalization of protest in public space and how, or if, this tendency can be reversed by civil society. The chapter also explores the notion of destituent power as an alternative to transcend the legitimacy-legality tension. It provides a brief description of how protest and repression operate in the Mexican political system, and make a detailed account of the events of presidential inauguration in Mexico City to illustrate different forms of tension between the right to the city and the rule of law.
