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

Bibliographic Data

ID4904286
AuthorsWilliam Sites (0009-0001-4936-8784, University of Chicago, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume39
Issue11
Pages2632-2651
Publication date2007-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1068/a38339
OpenAlexW2048833326
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited70

Studies of the relationship between urban-based contention and neoliberal capitalism have recognized the relatively fluid and potentially empowering ways in which networked and multiscaled mobilizations strive to overcome fragmentation. Yet this work has not focused sufficiently on national urban politics for understanding the legacies of division and circumscription that may shape the city as a terrain of conflict. Reconsidering two classic treatments of fragmentation in the work of Katznelson and Castells, I contend that the historically racialized and politically decentralized institutional patterns characteristic of US urban governance continue to hamper urban social-justice mobilizations that seek to grapple with sectoral and scalar cleavages. Drawing on recent work in urban history, labor sociology, and urban politics, my discussion acknowledges the emerging potential of certain kinds of cross-sectoral and multiscalar efforts-such as labor-community coalitions and translocally supported multilocal campaigns-while also emphasizing that these mobilizations take shape within urban political arenas that, in the United States, are notoriously divisive and 'sticky'. The paper illustrates these points through a brief case example involving the anti-Wal-Mart movement in Chicago

Capitalism · Community organizing · Corporate governance · Economic growth · Economics · Gentrification · Grassroots · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Urban politics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Public Administration · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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Unique citing works23
Citations per year1,21
Citation span2007 - 2022 (16)
Citation velocityhistorical
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 22

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