1st Edition
Citizenship, Activism and the City The Invisible and the Impossible
Were the occupations of 2010–11 – from Spain to Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street – a success or failure? Are they the model for urban radical politics? This book challenges common understandings and underlying assumptions of what constitutes activism and resistance. It proposes a critical urban theory of politics and citizenship that is grounded in the city as it is inhabited. For those who are marginalized, the city is a double-edged sword of oppression and emancipation.
This book argues for an intersectional approach that actively dismantles hierarchies and embraces a wider range of acts of resistance and creative transformation, one in which we recognize these acts of citizenship as a form of constitutionalism. Wood reframes the theorization of protest and of the city, 'post-political' literature and the history of protest, and Marxist and anarchist ideas about the time and space of politics. Through this, she adopts a unique approach to provide new theoretical insights and challenges to post-political thinking.
This book will be valuable reading for those interested in political, urban and social geography, in addition to political economy and progressive politics in the urban context.
Introduction: The invisibile and the impossible
1. What we talk about when we talk about Occupy: Politics and citizenship in crisis
2. Radical politics and the 'post-political' critique
3. Sad, sick and diva citizens: Resistance, refusal and urban space
4. The arc of politics
Biography
Patricia Burke Wood is Professor of Geography at York University, Toronto, Canada.
"Highlighting an anarchist approach as potentially preferable truly sets this work apart. Attempts to juggle radical feminism, anti-racist politics, activism and anarchist ideas of resistance are rarely seen in CUT, and the book’s greatest merit is its ability to see beyond the narrow confines of an expected reference list or field of vision."
-Hamish Kallin, Anarchist Studies
