In The Geographies of Social Movements Ulrich Oslender proposes a critical place perspective to examine the activism of black communities in the lowland rain forest of Colombia's Pacific Coast region. Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in and around the town of Guapi, Oslender examines how the work of local community councils, which have organized around newly granted ethnic and land rights since the early 1990s, is anchored to space and place. Exploring how residents' social relationships are entangled with the region's rivers, streams, swamps, rain, and tides, Oslender argues that this "aquatic space"—his conceptualization of the mutually constitutive relationships between people and their rain forest environment—provides a local epistemology that has shaped the political process. Oslender demonstrates that social mobilization among Colombia's Pacific Coast black communities is best understood as emerging out of their place-based identity and environmental imaginaries. He argues that the critical place perspective proposed accounts more fully for the multiple, multiscalar, rooted, and networked experiences within social movements.

The Handbook presents a most updated and comprehensive exploration of social movement research. It not only maps, but also expands the field of social movement studies, taking stock of recent developments in cognate areas of studies, within and beyond sociology and political science. While structured around traditional social movement concepts, each section combines the mapping of the state of the art with attempts to broaden our knowledge of social movements beyond classic theoretical agendas, and to identify the contribution that social movement studies can give to other fields of knowledge.

As social movements have become more complex, geographers are increasingly studying the spatial dynamics of collective resistance and sociologists and political scientists increasingly analyzing the role of space, place and scale in contentious political activity. Occupying a position at the intersection of these disciplinary developments, this book brings together leading scholars to examine how social movements have employed spatial practices to respond to and shape changing social and political contexts. It is organised into three main sections: (1) Place, Space and Mobility: sites of mobilization and regulation, (2) Scale and Territory: structuring collective interests, identities, and resources, and (3) Networks: connecting actors and resources across space. It concludes by suggesting that different spatialities (place, scale, networks) interlink within one another in particular instances of collective action, playing distinctive yet complementary roles in shaping how these actions unfold in the political arena. By mapping state of the art conceptual and empirical terrain across Geography, Sociology, and Political Science, 'Spaces of Contention' provides readers with a much needed guide to innovative research on the spatial constitution of social movements and how social movements tactically and strategically approach and produce space.

Context matters, as students of social movements increasingly agree, and yet very little attention has been paid to the role geography plays in activism. Geography and Social Movements corrects this oversight, bringing a geographical perspective to the study of social movements. Byron A. Miller directly addresses the implications of space, place, and scale in social movement mobilization, and then demonstrates their significance in a detailed comparative analysis of peace movements in three municipalities around Boston. In focusing on the Boston area -- an old northeastern region, heavily industrialized with many companies working on military contracts, and also a center of education -- Miller is able to explore how campaigns aimed at curbing nuclear arms operate within the cultural, political, social, and economic confines of particular places and spaces. He shows how the decisions and actions of local peace movement organizations played a central role in the movement's successes and failures, and how local organizations had to respond to the differing class, race, and gender characteristics of different locales. Miller's empirical analysis clearly demonstrates that geographic strategies for social movement organizations have direct consequences for the successes and failures of specific campaigns.

Social movements are a key feature of the political and social landscape of Latin America. Ronaldo Munck explores their full range, emanating from different sections of Latin American society and motivated by many different concerns, including worker organizations, peasant and land reform movements, Indigenous groups, women's movements, and environmental groups. Although the mosaic of interlocking and connected issues and rights presents a complex map of social concerns and potentially a fragmented political force, these movements are likely to be at the centre of any future progressive politics in Latin America. As a result, they require careful understanding and a more nuanced theoretical approach. Drawing on insights from Latin American approaches to social movement theory, the book offers a distinctive contribution to social movement literature. The text incorporates detailed case studies and a methodological appendix for students wishing to develop their own research agendas in the field.

Popular struggles in the global south suggest the need for the development of new and politically enabling categories of analysis, and new ways of understanding contemporary social movements. This book shows how social movements in Africa, South Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East politicize development in an age of neoliberal hegemony.

Through historical and comparative research on the immigrant rights movements of the United States, France and the Netherlands, Cities and Social Movements examines how small resistances against restrictive immigration policies do – or don’t – develop into large and sustained mobilizations. Presents a comprehensive, comparative analysis of immigrant rights politics in three countries over a period of five decades, providing vivid accounts of the processes through which immigrants activists challenged or confirmed the status quo Theorizes movements from the bottom-up, presenting an urban grassroots account in order to identify how movement networks emerge or fall apart Provides a unique contribution by examining how geography is implicated in the evolution of social movements, discovering how and why the networks constituting movements grow by tracing where they develop Demonstrates how efforts to enforce national borders trigger countless resistances and shows how some environments provide the relational opportunities to nurture these small resistances into sustained mobilizations Written to appeal to a broad audience of students, scholars, policy makers, and activists, without sacrificing theoretical rigor

This book provides a round-up of the state of the sub-discipline of social geography, capture recent themes and directions, and chart new questions and challenges for theory, politics and practice.

Cities around the world are striving to be 'global'. This book tells the story of one of them, and in so doing raises questions of identity, place and political responsibility that are essential for all cities. World City focuses its account on London, one of the greatest of these global cities. London is a city of delight and of creativity. It also presides over a country increasingly divided between North and South and over a neo-liberal form of globalisation - the deregulation, financialisation and commercialisation of all aspects of life - that is resulting in an evermore unequal world. World City explores how we can understand this complex narrative and asks a question that should be asked of any city: what does this place stand for? Following the implosion within the financial sector, such issues are even more vital. In a new Preface, Doreen Massey addresses these changed times. She argues that, whatever happens, the evidence of this book is that we must not go back to 'business as usual', and she asks whether the financial crisis might open up a space for a deeper rethinking of both our economy and our society.

"A thorough and absorbing tour of the sub-discipline... An essential acquisition for any scholar or teacher interested in geographical perspectives on political process." - Sallie Marston, University of Arizona "This unique book is a true encyclopedia of political geography." - Vladimir Kolossov, Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Vice President of the IGU The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography provides a highly contextualised and systematic overview of the latest thinking and research in the field. Edited by key scholars, with international contributions from acknowledged authorities on the relevant research, the Handbook is divided into six sections: Scope and Development of Political Geography: the geography of knowledge, conceptualisations of power and scale. Geographies of the State: state theory, territory and central local relations, legal geographies, borders. Participation and representation: citizenship, electoral geography, media public space and social movements. Political Geographies of Difference: class, nationalism, gender, sexuality and culture. Geography Policy and Governance: regulation, welfare, urban space, and planning. Global Political Geographies: imperialism, post-colonialism, globalization, environmental politics, IR, war and migration. The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography is essential reading for upper level students and scholars with an interest in politics and space.