Within the last few years, political strategies based on building popular power at the local and city level have experienced a notable rise. Examples like Barcelona en Comu and other municipalist confluences in Spain, Ciudad Futura (Rosario, Argentina), Cooperation Jackson (Jackson, Mississippi), Beirut Madinati (Lebanon), Muitas Pela Cidade Que Queremos (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), Nedavimo Beograd (Belgrade, Serbia), Ndifuna Ukwazi (Cape Town, South Africa) and of course Kurdish cities and towns in Rojava and Northern Kurdistan, among many other cases, testify to the resurgence of municipalism throughout the world. Depending on the case, they attach terms like Fearless Cities, Rebel Cities, communalism or democratic confederalism, but they all share some common values and strategies. These municipalist initiatives have either accessed institutional power through electoral processes, or have become important social and political forces in their contexts.

This working group, co-sponsored with Minim Municipalist Observatory (https://minim-municipalism.org/), would like to serve as a space for gathering activists, scholars and people interested in municipalism to explore together some of the political concepts, practico-theoretical debates and current challenges of the municipalist movement. We hope this group can help nurturing ongoing individual research by group participants, but also can become a space for generating collaborative research projects around municipalism.