Contested Cities and Urban Activism

Ngai Ming Yip is Professor at the Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong. His research focuses on housing activism as well as movement networks of homeowner activists in China and has published an edited volume entitled Neighbourhood Governance in Urban China (2014). Miguel Angel Martínez López is Professor of Housing and Urban Sociology at the IBF (Institute for Housing and Urban Research), Uppsala University, Sweden. A sociologist and political scientist, his academic work deals with urban movements, anti-neoliberal struggles, autonomous social movements, citizen participation, urban sociology and urban politics.  Xiaoyi Sun is an Assistant Professor at School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, China. Her research focuses on environmental politics, contentious politics, and urban governance in China.

• SECTION 1 – INTRODUCTION.- Introduction.- Framing Urban Movements, Contesting Global Capitalism and Liberal Democracy.- SECTION 2 - CHANGING FORMS OF URBAN ACTIVISM.- Housing Activism against the Production of Ignorance: Some Lessons from the UK.- Urban Food Activism in Athens: Recovering More Autonomous Forms of Social reproduction.- From Obedience to Resistance: Understanding Equal Rights to Education Movement as a Cultural Process.- SECTION 3 - URBAN ACTIVISM – ACTIVISTS AND THEIR NETWORKS.- Has Urban Cycling Improved in Hong Kong? A Socio-Political Analysis of Cycling Advocacy Activists' Contributions and Dilemmas.- Urban Activism in Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Deprived and Discontented Citizens Demanding a More Just City.- From the Squatters' Movement to Housing Activism in Spain: Identities, Tactics and Political Orientation.- Squatted Social Centers Activists and ‘Locally Unwanted Land Use’ Movements in Italy.- SECTION 4 - URBAN ACTIVISM - CITIZENSHIP AND RIGHT TO THE CITY.- ‘We are Quality Citizens of Bangkok Too’: Urban Activism in Bangkok during the 2011 Floods.- The Evolution of Housing Rights Activism in South Korea.- The Squatters’ and Tenants’ Movement in Buenos Aires. A Vindication of Centrality and the Self-Managed Production of Space.