Urban Protest Movements Research Articles

Counter-Mapping through Digital Tools as an Approach to Urban History: Investigating the Spatial Condition of Activism

Cultural heritage has a central role in sustainable development, and it has the potential to re-imagine more democratic cities. Yet, critical theory has framed cultural heritage not only as the material remains of the past, but also as a dynamic interaction of humans with their past that encompasses tangible and intangible entities. Thus, it is necessary to research these dynamics to understand the role of cultural heritage as a resource for sustainable development. In this context, the main research question of this article is: “How does heritage is shaped and managed by the ‘present’? Can we understand this process through the opportunities of digital humanities?”. To confront this question, the research adapts the counter-mapping methodology with the digital humanities perspective focusing on the urban protest movements that took place in the historic areas of Istanbul throughout the 1960s. It is seen that the spatial pattern of these movements was the result of the urban operations of the 1950s. In the 1950s, an autocratic government shaped the urban space and redefined the urban heritage to concentrate more power. However, in the 1960s, workers and students used the very same spaces and again redefined the urban heritage by exercising their social rights. Based on these results, the main conclusion is that for revealing the full potential of cultural heritage in sustainable development, it is necessary to deepen our knowledge on how heritage operates in a society, considering that heritage changes meaning depending on the socio-political context of the period.

Communities of struggle: the making of a protest movement around housing, migration and racism beyond identity politics in Berlin

ABSTRACT After the initial moments of political protest have passed, urban protest movements and neighbourhood initiatives often face the challenge of establishing a sustainable organizing structure in their neighbourhoods and of creating long-lasting collaborations, including maintaining relations among various participants and heterogeneous political actors in the city. This paper analyses the political practice of Kotti & Co, an urban neighbourhood initiative that has been active in political struggles pertaining to social housing and displacement and working against racism and neoliberal urban politics in the super-diverse city of Berlin. In the larger context of urban protest movements since 2011, the initiative managed to overcome a series of political challenges and to build a long-lasting organizing practice. The authors identify Kotti & Co as a ‘community of struggle’ that was able to foster a lasting movement through three elements of sustainability. The protest first managed to build bridges across and beyond its members’ differences (class, migration background, sexual orientation) by finding a common set of political demands and social practices as well as by establishing collective place-based subjectivities. These place-based subjectivities have contributed to overcoming conventional identity politics by forming a new kind of political identity through the struggle itself.

Collective action as narrativity and praxis: Theory and application to Hong Kong’s urban protest movements

Policy scholars need to better describe the diversity of actors and interests that forge collective political action through nonformal social networks. The authors find extant theories of collective action to only partially explain such heterogeneity, which is exemplified by the urban protest movements in Hong Kong. A new concept, that of the narrative-network, appears better able to describe movements chiefly characterized by heterogeneity. Instead of simple commonalities among members, a relevant property is the plurivocity of narratives told by members of the coalition. Analyzing ethnographic interviews of members of the movement, the authors illustrate the utility of narrative-network analysis in explaining the complex and multiple motivations behind participation. Narrativity and the shared act of narration, within an inclusive and democratic community, are part of what sustains the movement. The research further develops the theory of the narrative-network, which helps explain the rise of street protest in Hong Kong as an emergent, alternative form of civic engagement.

Trees and umbrellas: a parallel reading of the Istanbul Gezi Park Movement and the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement

ABSTRACTThis paper makes a parallel reading of two recent urban protest movements: the 2013 Istanbul Gezi Park Movement (GPM) and the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement (UM). As regional centers at both ends of Asia, Istanbul and Hong Kong might at fırst sight appear to be incongruent cities for comparison. Istanbul’s recent past has been defined by contrasting opinions about the city’s post-imperial identity, while Hong Kong’s recent past has been shaped by competing visions around the city’s post-colonial status. Directing attention to the striking parallels between the GPM and UM in terms of the nature of the events themselves, the profile of the participants and opponents, the government response that they received, and the cultural sensitivities concerning the questions of belonging and identity that they rekindled, the paper argues that comparative studies of the new urban protest movements would provide significant insights for discerning the dynamics of emerging illiberal democracies across the world.

‘Rise Like Lions After Slumber’: Dissent, Protest and (Post-)Politics in Manchester

This article aims to improve our understanding of post-politicization by examining the role of ‘ordinary’ urban protest movements, using the example of a protest in Alexandra Park, an inner city park in Manchester, UK. The critical literature on postpolitics has improved our understanding of exceptional, large-scale protests, but we know much less about how smaller scale protests emerge and in time wind down. Our research is revealing of the post-politicizing tactics of the city authorities in containing protest and of how the protesters lost momentum, focusing on contesting techno-managerial processes for consultation and undertaking scientific surveys. Whilst universalizing claims were made about democratic enfranchisement, the authorities were able to counter and diffuse these.

From urban social movements to urban movements: a review and introduction to a symposium on urban movements

Reviews the development of writing on urban protest movements and introduces a review syposium

Cultural Hegemony as an Impediment to Urban Protest Movements: Grassroots Activism and Downtown Development in Washington, Dc

ABSTRACT:This article explores the role of political culture in either reinforcing or undermining entrenched patterns of limited policy making in American cities. In a departure from recent research on the impetus for cultural/political change, this study shifts the focal point away from sweeping societal forces and toward the deliberate efforts of individuals engaging in collective action. Building on Gramscian theory, this ethnographic analysis of the politics of downtown development in Washington, DC, demonstrates how even activists passionately committed to reforming public policy may unwittingly reaffirm a local political cultural that legitimizes existing power relations. The implication is that alternative forms of grasroots activism are capable of engendering cultural/political change.

Political Culture as a Catalyst for Political Change in American Cities

Urban scholars generally agree that structural constraints limit the capacity of public officials to govern their cities efficiently and equitably. This paper considers how a transformation in the local political culture may expand policy options. Ronald Inglehart's theory of postmaterial cultural change and Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony/counterhegemony are evaluated in the context of one of the more successful urban protest movements during the past two decades — the San Francisco growth-control movement. The Gramscian framework may provide the more promising approach to understanding enduring cultural/political change in American cities.

Courtyards, markets, city streets: urban women in Africa

Introduction * Urban Women in Africa: Courtyards, Markets, City Streets, Kathleen Sheldon. Migration and Urbanization * South African Women and Migration in Umtata, Transkei, 1880-1935, Sean Redding * Transitions in Kenyan Patriarchy: Attempts to Control Nairobi Area Traders, 1920-1963, Claire C. Robertson * Three Generations of Hausa Women in Kaduna, Nigeria, 1925-1985, Catherine M. Coles Courtyards: Marriage, Family, And Housing * Washing Dirty Laundry in Public: Local Courts, Custom, and Gender Relations in Postcolonial Lusaka, Karen Tranberg Hansen * Can Polygyny Be Avoided in Dakar?, Philippe Antoine and Jeanne Nanitelamio * Health, Gender Relations, and Poverty in the AIDS Era, Brooke Grundfest Schoepf * Moving and Coping: Women Tenants in Gweru, Zimbabwe, Miriam Grant Markets: Work and Survival * Women in Business: Class and Nairobi's Small and Medium-Sized Producers, Dorothy McCormick * Beyond Simple Survival: Women Microentrepreneurs in Harare and Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Mary Johnson Osirim * Prostitution: A Petit-mtier During Economic Crisis: A Road to Women's Liberation? The Case of Cameroon, Paulette Beat Songue City Streets: Politics and Community * I Am With You as Never Before'': Women in Urban Protest Movements, Alexandra Township, South Africa, 1912-1945, John Nauright * Urban Women's Movements and Political Liberalization in East Africa, Aili Mari Tripp

Rural and urban protest in Tokugawa Japan

These three works represent the first in-depth appraisals in English of Japanese peasant and urban protest movements since Hugh Borton's Peasant Uprisings in Japan of the Tokugawa Period, which, as...

The Language of Resistance: Rhetorical Tactics and Symbols of Popular Protest in Germany

Popular protests in postwar germany are sparked by a wide range of environmental concerns, which have become known collectively as "green" issues. While the overt focus of these protests is directed against urban and technological expansion, the symbolic discourse of the "green" movement constitutes a form of resistance, a way of reacting rhetorically to an increasing bureaucratization of expressive culture. My research reveals that the diverse metaphors of protest draw on both romantic and nationalist perceptions of the city. [Germany, urban protest movements, political language, symbolic discourse, nationalism]

Religion or Opposition? Urban Protest Movements in Egypt

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence throughout the Muslim world of movements calling for radical social reforms and for changes in the form of government. These movements are characterised by a strong religious component. Their calls for reform are couched in the Muslim idiom — that is, in demands for social justice (adala) and the satisfaction of man's basic necessities, and are accompanied by demands for a return to an Islamic form of government, one that is ruled by the sharia. The supporters of such movements frequently are dressed differentlyfrom the rest of their compatriots, an outward manifestation of their allegiance to a Muslim-guided and a Muslim-oriented goal. It has become customary in the West to refer to such movements as Muslim fundamentalists, but the Arab world refers to them more correctly as Muslim organizations, or jamaat islamivya. This nomenclature covers a multitude of organizations with different principles and slogans, but all have one common denominator — their reformist appeals derive from religious belief and are asserted to be founded in Muslim principles.