Citizenship, Activism and the City ― The Invisible and the Impossible

The activist politics that emerged in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 have challenged scholarly and community expectations. Urban social movements mobilized slowly; new movements formed in unpredictable ways and from unpredictable sources; and communities responded in highly individualized ways on a variety of scales that did not fit the schedules defined by theoretical scholarship.

This book examines post-crisis protest as a global yet intensely local movement. It reframes the theorization of both protest and of the city, in local and global contexts. It bridges four key ideas: human rights discourse and citizenship practice; political economy and social geography approaches to understandings of the city; "post-political" literature and the history of politics and protest; and Marxist and anarchist ideas about the time and space of politics. This book adopts a unique approach to provide new theoretical insights and challenges to post political thinking.

Patricia Burke Wood, Professor of Geography and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, York University, Canada.