Nicholls Walter, Uitermark Justus. Cities and Social Movements: Immigrant Rights Activism in the US, France, and the Netherlands

Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016. — 280 p. — ISBN10: 1118750667; ISBN13: 978-1118750667Given 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.Sparks of Resistance
Rethinking Movements from the Bottom UpThe Birth of Immigrant Rights ActivismMaking Space for Immigrant Rights Activism in Los Angeles
Radical Entanglements in Paris
Placing Protest in AmsterdamUrban Landscapes of Control and ContentionThe Laissez-Faire State: Re‐politicizing Immigrants in Los Angeles
The Uneven Reach of the State: The Partial Pacification of Paris
The Cooptative State: The Pacification of Contentious Immigrant Politics in AmsterdamNew Geographies of Immigrant Rights MovementsLos Angeles as a Center of the National Immigrant Rights Movement
Paris as Head of Splintering Resistances
Divergent Geographies of Immigrant Rights Contention in the NetherlandsConclusion: Sparks into Wildfires