ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on two sets of struggles targeted at ensuring fairer, more equitable and more ecologically just urban environments in which the state appears as a somewhat ambiguous 'actor'. It also focuses on the provision of energy within Berlin and the practices involved in accessing water in Durban. The chapter looks at how struggles for energy democracy and struggles for the right to water develop in, against and beyond the state, as well as in, against and beyond the city. It explores the urban political ecology and describes the way in which the state figures within the call for the right to participate in democratizing the urban commons. The struggles in both Berlin and Durban can be read as working in-against-and-beyond the state, albeit in historically and geographically specific ways. The chapter attempts to develop this reading with a view to the implications for the right to the city and the democratization of urban natures.