ABSTRACT
This chapter raises the issue of stateless children and youth activism as political and global causes celebres. The idea of spatial poetics as a political push comes in part from Henri Lefebvre's notion that no community can gain political acumen without a 'trial by space'. The protest became known as the Pinguino Revolution because the children wore their black and white uniforms while protesting, which looked from afar like a march of penguins. Chovanec and Benitez argue that while some of the young people involved with the Pinguinos may have had no experience or little reference for revolutionary practices and political protest, there is a history of resistance from the families of the young women who participated in the movement. In addition to the complex laws underpinning restitution, and to the degree that Bucharest's historic neighborhoods are gentrifying, it is undeniable that neoliberal market processes are pushing aspects of low-income tenant dispossession.
