In this part, four contributions explore how grassroots and social movements perform insurgency in their daily practices. These practices reveal how citizen planners, with the aid of experts, can influence the outcomes of public policy through organized action. Rejecting the notion that change can be driven only by formal institutions, insurgent planning emphasizes the agency of ordinary individuals, marginalized communities and grassroots organizations in the process of redefining political priorities and citizenship rights.

The section opens with a case of a professional practice in Antwerp, Belgium, that finds itself involved in the redevelopment of a site in one of the city's neighbourhoods. Inhabitants of the neighbourhood, fearing being left out from decision-making by the city authorities, call upon three young architects and urban planners, who swiftly rise to the challenge of representing the citizen's interests, showcasing how professional practice can be an important ally in articulating the claims of citizens. This requires the group to develop new understandings of what democratic politics entail.

Chapter 3 features a movement in Taipei, Taiwan, that advocates for children's parks in the city. This chapter showcases how citizens who are “eager to follow the rules” are still able to claim for new spaces of citizenship through organized political action that reshapes the “invited spaces” of citizenship in Taiwan, displaying how productive agonistic relationships between citizens and the authorities result in new ways of interaction and, eventually, newly shaped invited spaces of participation.

Chapter 4 explores how three young architects working with forcibly evicted communities in Jakarta, Indonesia, were able to shape policy and effect real change on the ground, paying close attention to how historical conditions determine the trajectories of the protagonists and the outcomes and permanence of their actions. The chapter concludes that, although organizations may disappear, the expert-activist networks that support them are resilient and may remain.

The section concludes with an account of how a grassroots organization was able to negotiate the reopening of an important green public space in Beirut, Lebanon, in the context of a state where excessive sectarianism has led to a permanent state of exception, opening the gates to a peculiar form of neoliberal governance. The chapter details the workings of a young NGO that has been successful in securing the reopening of Beirut's historic Pine Forest, but warns about the dangers of placing too much hope in one-off successes that do not address the root causes of injustice.