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title = "Rijeka"
has_stories = ["ajvartoursim.md", "albanianantennas.md", "brokenlightbulbs.md", "earlesscows.md", "hotwaterbuttons.md", "keepingoldcars.md", "tokens.md", "tractorshack.md", ]
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On April 27, 2023, a first public storytelling session took place at Drugo More in Rijeka, Croatia, as part of a week long gathering which brought together a diverse group of theorists and practitioners to discuss innovative strategies of “institutional tinkering” as a response to systemic failures that impact individuals and communities marginalized by prevailing social and economic structures. Participants shared a range of real-world examples and personal experiences, reflecting on how small acts of institutional adjustment can sustain solidarity and joy in adverse contexts. 

The event was facilitated by Valeria Graziano, Marcell Mars, Tomislav Medak, Davor Misković and produced by Drugo More. 

Contributors: Mara Ferreri, Yasamin Ghalehnoie, Max Haiven, Nicholas Herzberg, Morana Miljanovic, Rodolfo Suárez Molnar, Giulia Palladini, Paul Stubbs, Cassie Thornton, Polymnia Tsinti, Valeria Verdolini.


# About the topic of institutional tinkering
Our epoch could arguably be thought of as one of “total bureaucratization” (Graeber 2015), one where most democratic institutional processes appear as hollowed out, functioning as merely ceremonial affairs (Crouch 2016) while resources and opportunities are administered via computerized “pattern discrimination” (Apprich, Chun, Cramer, Steyerl 2018). Access to social welfare, benefits and support are increasingly regulated by a stratified bureaucracy and means-testing, moving us further away from the universal provision of welfare. Despite the rapid spread of digital tools in the last decades, one that at its inception was heralded as a means for eliminating “paper work” and streamlining effectiveness, systemic demands on individuals to comply with often cumbersome and invasive procedures of reporting and verification have not decreased, but multiplied.

This phenomenon has been particularly visible in the United States, provoking a number of commentators to reflect on the issue of bureaucratic harm. Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2022) has called such harm “organized state abandonment”, following David Harvey, an expression that also echoed Elizabeth Povinelli’s reflection on the “economies of abandonment” (2020), targeting Black and poor people most violently. Dan Spade has written on “administrative violence” (2015) enforced by welfare institutions that are barely provided with the necessary resources to serve the public good. Fred Moten and Stefano Harney similarly speak of widespread “enforced negligence” on the part of public-interest institutions such as universities, which instead of supporting their constituencies and workers, weaponize “professionalization” as a process for privatizing the social individual’s capacity to care (2013). Yet other scholars also point out that, despite constant defunding, increased automatization and privatization, street-level bureaucrats and front-line welfare operators (Prottas 1979; Lipsky 1980; Brown 1981) keep bending, breaking or simply overlooking rules in order to produce positive results for citizens and mitigate the harm provoked by racist or otherwise oppressive policies.

# References

Apprich, Clemens, Florian Cramer, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Hito Steyerl. *Pattern Discrimination*. meson press, 2018.

Brown, Michael K. *Working the Street: Police Discretion and the Dilemmas of Reform.* Russell Sage Foundation, 1981.

Crouch, Colin. *The Knowledge Corrupters: Hidden Consequences of the Financial Takeover of Public Life. John Wiley & Sons, 2016.

Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. *Abolition Geography: Essays towards Liberation*. Verso Books, 2022.

Graeber, David. *![The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy](bib:b6c5174c-7d53-4c93-912d-872b921886a3). Melville House, 2015.

Graham, Janna, Valeria Graziano, and Susan Kelly. “Radical Diplomacy.” In M. Zechner, P. Rojo, A. Kanngieser (eds.) *Vocabulaboratories.* LISA 2008: 99-107.

Harney, Stefano and Fred Moten. *![The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study](bib:f51a10d8-4c71-4178-83fc-f72a070a753f)*. Minor Compositions, 2013. 

Lipsky, Michael. *![Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Service](bib:e3c6bebd-4d60-4246-bf99-004825d919cf). Russell Sage Foundation, 2010.

Povinelli, Elizabeth A. *![Economies of Abandonment: Social Belonging and Endurance in Late Liberalism](bib:19e18b84-d9e9-4b66-acef-e4e85c9a8a19). Duke University Press, 2020.

Prottas Jeffrey, *[People-Processing: The Street-Level Bureaucrat in Public Service Bureaucracies](https://archive.org/details/peopleprocessing0000prot)*. Lexington Books, 1979

Rich, Kate and Angela Piccini (eds.), *RADMIN Reader*. Feral Business Research Network, 2020.

Spade, Dean. *![Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law](bib:30ff8341-2ea2-4b75-89ce-9ef0ae1b9b73). Duke University Press, 2015.