Critical Mapping for Municipalist Mobilization. Housing struggles in Belgrade, Berlin, Barcelona

CMMM is a project that accompanied and was oriented by the priorities of municipalist activists in Belgrade, Berlin, and Barcelona. Spanning over 3.5 years from 2019 to 2023, it captured and supported the efforts of the Ministry of Space collective, AKS Gemeinwohl, Häuser Bewegen GIMA eG., Kollektiv Raumstation, and Observatori DESC to change the political paradigms shaping the contemporary housing emergency in the three cities. Coordinated by K LAB (TU Berlin) and supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the CMMM team employed various formats of critical mapping to display the legislations, policies, events, hierarchies, as well as the main actors and factors that are shaping the housing crisis. Next to selected examples of how critical mapping has been applied by peers and artists in the three cities, this book scripts the process through which our team created three interactive maps “How (un)affordable is housing in Belgrade?”, “Who buys Berlin?”, and “Stop Evictions!” for Barcelona, which can be explored on the project’s website: cmmm.eu. CMMM‘s outputs intend to support existing and future municipalist activists and collectives pushing to create policy alternatives that integrate the “housing as a right” principle. We hope that our work inspires activists and engaged professionals to employ critical mapping in their endeavors to inform and nudge public opinion, towards advancing demands for justice in the urban and beyond.