Abstract

The past decades have seen significant urban insurrections worldwide, and this volume analyzes some of them from an anthropological perspective; it argues that transformations of urban class relationships must be approached in a way that is both globally informed and deeply embedded in local and popular histories, and contends that every case of urban mobilization should be understood against its precise context in the global capitalist transformation. The book examines cases of mobilization across the globe, and employs a Marxian class framework, open to the diverse and multi-scalar dynamics of urban politics, especially struggles for spatial justice.

Massimiliano Mollona is Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He specializes in economic and political anthropology and visual art. His publications include Made in Sheffield: An Ethnography of Industrial Work and Politics (Berghahn, 2009) and Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader (Berg), with Johnathan Parry and Gert De Neve.

“This is a timely contribution to our understanding of urban protest, and the analytical framework proposed by the editors is extremely relevant and important. I believe the volume… will spark a much-needed debate about class and social transformation in the 21st century.” · Lesley Gill, Vanderbilt University

“A very important contribution to understanding popular movements in late capitalism.” · Winnie Lem, Trent University

Don Kalb is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. He is also a Senior Researcher at Utrecht University and a Visiting Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. He is the Founding Editor of Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology and of Focaalblog.