Cities and Social Movements

Given the hostile climate facing immigrants, it might be expected that they would try to remain hidden and under the radar. However, many immigrants have asserted their rights for equality in the countries they reside in. While the general policy evolution has been in the direction of greater restrictions, some immigrant mobilizations have successfully swum against the tide and achieved important wins including large-scale regularizations. Cities and Social Movements make sense of these remarkable mobilizations and their successes or failures. Through historical and comparative research on the immigrant rights movements of the United States, France, and the Netherlands, this book examines how small resistances against restrictive immigration policies do - or don't - develop into large and sustained mobilizations. Drawing on a range of disciplines, the book rethinks movements from the bottom-up. The authors descend to the urban grassroots to uncover the micro-mechanisms through which movement networks emerge or disband. Cities and Social Movements demonstrate how efforts to enforce national borders trigger countless resistances and shows how some environments provide the opportunities to nurture these small resistances into sustained and system-challenging mobilizations.