Book Review: Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State

Abstract

political spectrum it managed to mobilise). However, ethnic divides seldom surface in the analysis and social class is not investigated in-depth either, beyond discussions on gentrification.Chapter 4 is also a strong empirical chapter that deals with the Möllevången neighbourhood in Malmö, which was at an earlier stage of gentrification compared to Södermalm in Stockholm and Haga in Göteborg at the time of Creasap's fieldwork. She suggests that some of the creative activities launched by the autonomous scene might have contributed to the ongoing gentrification process, despite their contrary intentions. However, no overt criticism is articulated by the author. Nonetheless, Creasap highlights that 'by calling on inhabitants of the neighborhood to act, they issue a call to demand the right to the city. They do not call for gentrification to stop ' (p. 106, 113).Chapter 5 pays further attention to the 'spatiality' of social movements by examining the cases of Stockholm and Göteborg. The key content of the analysis is summarised as follows:In Stockholm there was a fragile scene consisting of a loosely knit network of activists and a network of places that was geographically dispersed, in the suburbs, and primarily formed around temporary spaces and single events. In Göteborg, there was a fledgling scene consisting of a tight-knit network of autonomous activists that formed around a social center, temporary spaces and actions that were difficult to find and socially 'closed' (p. 110).The chapter reveals autonomist spaces related to their displacement from already gentrified areas to more peripheral ones. Remarkably, there is an exception to this trendthe stronghold or 'radical institution' of Kafé 44 still remaining in Södermalm, Stockholm. It is also telling the quote from an activist involved in the Underjorden Social Center, in peripheral Göteborg, who acknowledged that 'we've been noisy and there have been some clashes with the neighbors' (p. 124), which shows that even the displacement from the city centre was not easy. The chapter includes interesting reflections on friendship, reach, and trust as some of the social features of autonomist urban activism that were destroyed by gentrification-led processes and geographical dispersal across the city. In addition to the hitherto focus on the scenes' three featurescentrality, concentration, and visibilitythis chapter adds other dimensions such as 'resilience' and 'place making', which, unfortunately, had not been critically theorised earlier.The conclusions are packed into Chapter 6. In addition to summarising the findings, Creasap adds that certain notions of timeamong them, valuing the past and future projectionsare crucial to understand how space shapes radical activism. I expected deeper reflections where the author would engage key academic debates, which are, unfortunately, overlooked in this book. Two final notes. I found that activists' quotations are often just paraphrased in the author's analysis instead of being supplemented with sociological context, data...