EPISODE · Mar 4, 2026 · 27 MIN
S2526 / Public space and protest power / Part A - From Collapse to Collective: Student Protest in Serbia
from Urbinary · host POLI.RADIO
Public space and protest power explores how protest movements do more than express political demands; they actively reshape the city itself. Through the ongoing student protests in Serbia, the series explores how public spacebecomes a site of visibility, conflict, solidarity, and collective identity. Beginning with the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse and the institutional silence that followed, the podcast examines how grief turned intomobilization, and how student-led organizing transformed protest into a recurring urban rhythm. Across both episodes, protest is approached as an urban practice: something that reorganizes streets and squares, redefines everydayroutines, and turns ordinary infrastructure into political terrain. By connecting political experience to spatial experience, Public space and protest power shows how democracy is not only debated. It is performed, negotiated, and made visible through the urban space.From Collapse to Collective: Student Protest in Serbia begins in Novi Sad, where the sudden collapse of a recently renovated railway station canopy turns a normal morning into a moment of collective shock. As accountability fails to arrive and justice remains suspended, the tragedy becomes more than an accident - it becomes a symbol of institutional breakdown. From this rupture, a student-led protest movement emerges, expanding across universities and cities and transforming grief into organization. The episode follows how students, supported by professors and structured through direct democratic plenums, became central actors in demanding transparency, responsibility, and the ruleof law. Positioned within both Serbia’s political climate and the longer global history of student movements, the episode asks why students so often become catalysts for change, and why their protests matter not only politically, but urbanistically as well. It raises an important question: what happens when protest becomes part of the city’s fabric?
What this episode covers
Public space and protest power explores how protest movements do more than express political demands; they actively reshape the city itself. Through the ongoing student protests in Serbia, the series explores how public spacebecomes a site of visibility, conflict, solidarity, and collective identity. Beginning with the Novi Sad railway station canopy collapse and the institutional silence that followed, the podcast examines how grief turned intomobilization, and how student-led organizing transformed protest into a recurring urban rhythm. Across both episodes, protest is approached as an urban practice: something that reorganizes streets and squares, redefines everydayroutines, and turns ordinary infrastructure into political terrain. By connecting political experience to spatial experience, Public space and protest power shows how democracy is not only debated. It is performed, negotiated, and made visible through the urban space.From Collapse to Collective: Student Protest in Serbia begins in Novi Sad, where the sudden collapse of a recently renovated railway station canopy turns a normal morning into a moment of collective shock. As accountability fails to arrive and justice remains suspended, the tragedy becomes more than an accident - it becomes a symbol of institutional breakdown. From this rupture, a student-led protest movement emerges, expanding across universities and cities and transforming grief into organization. The episode follows how students, supported by professors and structured through direct democratic plenums, became central actors in demanding transparency, responsibility, and the ruleof law. Positioned within both Serbia’s political climate and the longer global history of student movements, the episode asks why students so often become catalysts for change, and why their protests matter not only politically, but urbanistically as well. It raises an important question: what happens when protest becomes part of the city’s fabric?
NOW PLAYING
S2526 / Public space and protest power / Part A - From Collapse to Collective: Student Protest in Serbia
No transcript for this episode yet
Similar Episodes
No similar episodes found.
Similar Podcasts
No similar podcasts found.