Global Social Movements: Politics, Subjectivity and Human Rights

Creative Activism and Art Against Urban Renaissance and Social Exclusion – Space Sensitive Approaches to the Study of Collective Action and Belonging

“…Like space, the concept of an actors' network described here adopts a materialistic perspective and thus stresses the corporeality and creativity of human action in studies of collective action and belonging. Collective action then includes not only social actors, their behavioral aspects, and the symbolic cognitive dimension (Hamel et al : 174) but also expands communicative resources and adds an experiential and multi‐sensory dimension to collective action and belonging (Finnegan , Sheppard ). Introducing space as a social category and returning to objects as part of an actors' network show how society is held together in a collective (Latour : 13).…”

Beyond Trenches and Grassroots? Reflections on Urban Mobilization, Fragmentation, and the Anti-Wal-Mart Campaign in Chicago

“…I want to draw attention to key challenges facing early-21stcentury urban mobilization in the United States by considering exemplary instances of two kinds of fragmentation: first, a longstanding division between labor and community organizations within the urban polity öan important case of horizontal fragmentation; and, second, a persistent disconnection between locally and nationally based oppositional actors as they relate to urban mobilizationöan instance of vertical fragmentation. Research on urban movements has hardly ignored these issues, but tendencies to attribute movement fragmentation to global or post-Fordist economic and political structures (for example, Hamel et al, 2000;Mayer, 1999), while useful starting points, suggest the need for more historical reflection on the longer term forces that`sorted' such actors öwithin different sectors as well as at distinct spatial scalesöin the first place. How should we understand the sorts of fragmentation that many urban-based mobilizations now seek to surmount?…”