The Right to the City and Critical Reflections on China's Property Rights Activism

Wholesale clearance and eviction that typify China's urban development have often resulted in discontents among urban residents, giving rise to what critics refer to as property rights activism. This paper is an attempt to critically revisit the existing debates on the property rights activism in China. The paper refers to the perspective of the “right to the city” to examine whose rights count in China's urban development contexts and proposes a cross‐class alliance that engages both migrants and local citizens. The alliance itself will have substantial political implications, overcoming the limited level of rights awareness that mainly rests on distributional justice in China. The discussions are supported by an analysis of empirical data from the author's field research in Guangzhou, which examines how local and non‐local (migrant) residents view nail‐households resisting demolition and forced eviction.     

A diasporic right to the city: the production of a Moroccan diaspora space in Granada,Spain

In this paper, I bring together ideas of ‘diaspora space’ and ‘the right to the city’ and empirically demonstrate how the formation of diasporas is frequently dependent on migrants attaining certain rights to the city. These rights, I argue, are conditioned and attained by the interplay of urban structural context with the place-making strategies of migrants. Drawing on 8 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I demonstrate that Moroccan migrants in Granada, Spain, have achieved a partial right to a neighbourhood of the city, producing a multi-sensory, self-orientalised diaspora space. First, I show that certain urban conditions in Granada provided a foothold for Moroccan migrants to begin to form a diaspora and transform urban space. Second, I demonstrate that through the mobilisation of a strategically self-orientalised cultural capital, the diaspora have partly appropriated the valuable history of Al-Andalus, a key component in the city’s tourist imagery. These factors and strategies have enabled Moroccan migrants to gain a right to have a visible presence in the city, a right to produce and transform urban space and a right to spatalise diverse identities – all key rights, I argue, in the formation of a diaspora.     

Human Rights Beyond Humanitarianism: The Radical Challenge to the Right to Asylum in the Mediterranean Zone

This article argues for a new centrality of the right to asylum within the Mediterranean zone and the necessity to defend and implement this right beyond the “humanitarian regime”. The first section describes the ways in which humanitarianism's logic has weakened the right to asylum through the implementation of specific EU migration policies since 2013. The second section focuses on the distinction between such a humanitarian regime and the human rights system, assessing the possibility of and necessity for a renewed defense of human rights, starting with the right to asylum. The third section focuses on the Charter of Lampedusa, a radical, alternative normative instrument developed through a grassroots process which involved activists and migrant rights groups and which represents a concrete illustration of how the horizon of human rights might be redefined.     

Building a City For “The People”: The Politics of Alliance‐Building in the Sydney Green Ban Movement

How can we act to contest urban injustice? This article grapples with this question through an analysis of the green ban movement that emerged in Sydney in the 1970s. For a time, this unruly alliance of construction workers, resident activists, and progressive professionals powerfully enacted a radical right to the city, blocking a range of unjust and destructive “developments” worth billions of dollars and proposing alternative development plans in their place. Drawing on archival research, I demonstrate how the figure of “the people” was crucial to their action. The article examines the rights and the authority that was invested in “the people” by green ban activists, and traces the work of political subjectification through which “the people” was constructed. “The people” was not invoked as a simple majority or as a universal subject whose unity glossed over differences. Rather, in acting as/for “the people”, green ban activists produced a political subject able to challenge the claims of elected politicians, bureaucrats and developers to represent the interests of the city. The article concludes with reflections on the implications of this construction of “the people” for urban politics today.     

Engaged Universals and Community Economies: The (Human) Right to Water in Colombia

While the United Nations' sanctioning of the human right to water was widely celebrated, many debate the adequacy and political potency of the rights discourse to frame water justice. Drawing on multi‐sited, ethnographic‐based fieldwork in Colombia in 2010 and 2011, and prioritizing activists' reflexivity, the paper explores how water activists in the 2007–2011 referendum campaign engaged the universal human right while making user‐run community aqueducts more visible as place‐based, not‐for‐profit, culturally attuned, and valid alternatives to the corporate model of water supply. This case study suggests that the human right to water cannot be separated from water commons, and that communal users and activists engage the universal under their own terms. It also suggests we think of these water models as “economic communities” in Gibson‐Graham's sense: ethical spaces to make explicit our social relations with water, and to cultivate selves and practices that enact alternative socio‐natural relations through water's circulations.     

An Informational Right to the City? Code,Content, Control,and the Urbanization of Information

Henri Lefebvre talked of the “right to the city” alongside a right to information. As the urban environment becomes increasingly layered by abstract digital representation, Lefebvre's broader theory warrants application to the digital age. Through considering what is entailed by the urbanization of information, this paper examines the problems and implications of any “informational right to the city”. In directing Tony Benn's five questions of power towards Google, arguably the world's most powerful mediator of information, this paper exposes processes that occur when geographic information is mediated by powerful digital monopolies. We argue that Google currently occupies a dominant share of any informational right to the city. In the spirit of Benn's final question—“How do we get rid of you?”—the paper seeks to apply post‐political theory in exploring a path to the possibility of more just information geographies.     

Widows' lives and rights over family property in the Tang and Song dynasties

By investigating the Tang-Song examples of widows remaining chastity or inviting a jiejiaofu (second husband) into the deceased husbands’ families, this article analyzes widows’ lives and their right to inherit their deceased husbands’ family properties. The conclusion is that widows had only “rights of management,” but not the “possessive right,” over their deceased husbands’ properties. Moreover, the qualities of widows’ lives in their in-law’s families depended on their relationships with the deceased husbands’ brothers. When being treated unfairly, widows often resorted to “the power of the maternal uncle” in order to defend their benefits.     

Sites of Social Centrality and Segregation: Lefebvre in Belfast,a “Divided City”

Abstract: This paper applies Henri Lefebvre's ideas on participatory democracy and spatial politics to the context of “divided cities”, a milieu often overlooked by scholars of Lefebvre. It considers, via Lefebvre, how the heterogeneous and contradictory statist methods to deal with ethno‐national violence in Belfast have in effect increased segregated space. State‐led approaches to public space as part of conflict transformation strategies appear contradictory, including attempts to “normalize” the city through inward capital investment and cultural regeneration, encouraging cosmopolitan notions of inclusive “civic identity”, and reinforcing segregation to contain violence. These processes have done little to challenge sectarianism. However, as Lefebvre suggests that dominant representations of space cannot be imposed without resistance, this paper considers the alternative strategies of a disparate range of groups in Belfast. These groups have formed cross‐cleavage networks to develop ritualized street performances which challenge the programming of public space for segregation.     

Possibilities of Urban Belonging

Many migrants who inhabit cities are illegalized, excluded from formal membership in urban communities, and denied full participation in urban life. In this article, I examine the possibilities of all inhabitants to belong to the city. Drawing on Ernst Bloch, David Harvey, Henry Lefebvre, and others, I theorize different “layers” of possibility and review the literature to explore how these layers apply to urban belonging. Furthermore, I investigate how urban protests and activist practices can materially transform the city to be more accommodating to illegalized migrants, while evoking the different layers of possibility. I conclude with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of contemplating the possibilities of urban belonging.     

Trafficked Enough? Missing Bodies,Migrant Labour Exploitation,and the Classification of Trafficking Victims in Singapore

Critical geographical research has recently drawn attention to representations of vulnerable or exploited groups that articulate racist or neo‐colonial imaginations, including where these geographical imaginations are implicated in the classification and characterisation of groups for legal purposes. In the case of vulnerable groups of migrants such practices can be invoked to create distinctions that justify the socio‐spatial exclusion or containment, thus oftentimes having profound implications for real people who must manoeuvre the consequences of classification. The paper builds on this strand of inquiry by exploring the imaginaries surrounding trafficking victimhood and the implications of classification for temporary labour migrants in Singapore into “trafficked” and “non‐trafficked” categories. I argue that in the Singaporean context government interest in maintaining the current labour/migration regime is equally as significant as racist and neo‐colonial imaginations and intersect with the latter in productive ways to sort vulnerable migrants into categories of trafficked and non‐trafficked.     

A CONSOLIDATED MODEL OF MONOCENTRIC CITIES AND AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF URBAN SCALES AND LAND PRICES IN CHINESE CITIES*

ABSTRACT Motivated by the newly established Chinese urban land markets, we develop a theoretical model that unifies the “closed” and “open” features of the classical monocentric city model. The model features interactions between permanent urban residents and migrants and exhibits a distinctive equilibrium pattern. The theoretical model is tested empirically, using recent Chinese city‐level data. The empirical findings indicate that market forces now play an important role in urban expansion and land price formation, while various forms of government planning are still influential. Our results show that migrants exert a less pronounced impact than the classical “open” city model has suggested.     

Enemies of liberty? Nationalism,immigration, and the framing of terrorism in the agenda of the Front National

This paper systematises the framing of the terrorism issue in the programmatic agenda of the Front national (FN) by focusing on nationalism. We argue that the FN's position on terrorism constitutes part of its strategy to justify its anti‐immigrant agenda by offering ideological rather than biological rationalisations for national belonging. To test our argument empirically, we operationalise four categories of nationalism, including ethno‐racial, cultural, political‐civic, and economic, and code official FN materials published in reaction to seven terrorist attacks on French soil during the period 1986–2015. We find that whilst older documents draw on all four categories, Marine Le Pen documents draw almost exclusively on the cultural and political‐civic categories, confirming our argument. Building on the “normalisation” or “de‐demonisation” approach, our nationalism framework presents a distinct theoretical advantage by allowing us to conceptualise the shift in the party's programmatic agenda.     

State Responses and Migrant Experiences with Human Smuggling: A Reality Check

Using Bigo's (2002) notion of “the governmentality of unease” this article reveals a shift in popular discourse around human smuggling in Western Europe and Canada since the 1990s towards increasing criminalization. To analyze this process of criminalization we have identified three recurring elements: boat arrivals; high fees and “bogus” asylum seekers; and the involvement of organized crime. The finding that smugglers today are generally perceived as “evil criminals” who undermine states' ability to manage migration and who need to be punished is contrasted with data derived from interviews with smuggled migrants in the Netherlands and Canada that offer an alternative, more socially embedded understanding of human smuggling. We posit that this reality check and a more nuanced understanding of human smuggling are needed for the protection of international migrants.     

Return and Onward Interprovincial Migration through Economic Boom and Bust in Canada,from 1976–81 to 1981–86

This paper applies a three-level nested logit model to the micro data of the 1981 and 1986 Canadian census to study the effects of personal factors and provincial attributes on the interprovincial migration patterns of the non-native young adults (aged 20–44) through the economic boom of 1976–81 and the economic bust of 1981–86. We found strong evidence that through both boom and bust periods, both return and onward migrations were in the “right” direction, in that they responded to economic variables in a rational way. However, the large proportion of migrants choosing to make a return migration indicates the importance of the province of birth in the mental map of the potential migrants. We also found that the selectivities in the migration behaviors with respect to certain personal factors (especially education) remained basically the same through both boom and bust periods.     

THE DETERMINANTS OF THE RECENT INTERREGIONAL MIGRATION FLOWS IN ITALY: A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS*

ABSTRACT This study investigates the determinants of interregional migration flows in Italy in the light of the upsurge occurred in 1996, after two decades of decreasing internal migration rates. The fixed‐effect vector decomposition estimator (FEVD) is applied to a gravity model using bilateral migration flows for the period 1996–2005. It is shown that the FEVD improves the estimates with respect to the traditional panel data estimators. The GDP per capita and the unemployment rate appear to be the key determinants whose changes push migrants out from their regions and direct them to “better off” destinations. Migrants leaving the regions in the Center‐North respond differently to the push and pull forces compared to southern migrants. The dynamic model provides evidence for the presence of social networks, which in this analysis take place for each pair of regions.     

Now and Then1

Abstract: Antipode was launched into the firmament of the 1970s. We might reflect upon how well the journal and its contributors fully appreciated the historical gravity and weight of what was surrounding the project to create “a radical journal of geography”. What sort of radicalism was on offer? The language was “social relevance” from “a radical (Left) political viewpoint”. In writing to celebrate Antipode's birthday, this time in another, and similar, firmament there is still the need to confront the challenge of radicalism and its meanings. Whether we agree with Perry Anderson that the last vestiges of the 1960s have been finally swept away, that the “fluent vision” of the Right has no equivalent on the Left and that embedded liberalism is now as remote as “Arian bishops”, where do radical alternatives stand in relation to the fractured hegemony of neoliberalism? At the very least the need for alternatives is more pressing than ever. David Harvey has proposed rethinking the idea of “the right to the city”. But what other rights might we rethink? I reflect upon this question by returning to the 1960s and 1970s and Marxist debates over the law, and by thinking about the possibilities offered by this Polanyian moment.     

“From One Shore to the Other”: Other Revolutions in the Interstices of the Revolution

This interview with Imed Soltani and Federica Sossi focuses on the campaign of the families of the missing Tunisian migrants, “From One Shore to the Other: Lives that Matter”. The campaign started in 2011 to demand that Italian and Tunisian institutions be held accountable for the disappearance of young Tunisian migrants who crossed the Mediterranean to Italy. The campaign brought together the families of Tunisian migrants and the Italian feminist collective “Le Venticinqueundici” as part of a migration struggle that involves the entire region but is rarely taken up as a cross‐shore militant campaign. The conversation between Soltani and Sossi illustrates the strengths of the campaign and the difficulties that arose in running it across shores, and offers a theoretical reflection on the notion of political recognition in an effort to decolonise the gaze on what counts as political subjectivity and political struggle.     

1931—1937年东北关内移民的特点及性质

1931—1937年,关内向东北移民具有以下基本特点移民的数量少、波动大,移民运动一度中断;移民的流向和地域分布,以南满的城市和工业区为主;移民的居住年限下降,流动性增强。从移民的性别、年龄、职业及迁移过程等方面可以看出,1931年后关内与东北间人口的迁移与流动发生了根本变化,即进入东北地区的关内人口,不再是自由流入谋生,而是被作为“苦力”招骗而来,带有明显的强制性。     

John Locke on Native Right,Colonial Possession,and the Concept of Vacuum domicilium

The early paragraphs of John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government (1690) describe a poetic idyll of property acquisition widely supposed by contemporary theorists and historians to have cast the template for imperial possessions in the New World. This reading ignores the surprises lurking in Locke’s later chapters on conquest, usurpation, and tyranny, where he affirms that native rights to lands and possessions survive to succeeding generations. Locke warned his readers that this “will seem a strange doctrine, it being quite contrary to the practice of the world.” His doctrine of native right is equally strange to recent scholars who see in Lockean theory the ideological prototype for England’s colonial expropriation in the “vacant lands” of North America. This interpretation, dignified by the elusive principle of vacuum domicilium, is considerably weakened when Locke’s arguments are placed in the historical context of the sixteenth and early seventeenth-century English colonial experience. Locke’s Second Treatise, with its literary flourish of a vast and idyllic state of nature, was written in the full appreciation of Amerindian agriculture, its established populations, the acknowledgement of native property rights, and the policy and practice of purchasing land from the native inhabitants.     

Beyond the Right to the City: Territorial Autogestion and the Take over the City Movement in 1970s Italy

The cry and demand for the Right to the City (RttC) risks becoming a cliché, merely signifying urban rebellion rather than proving its practical content on the ground. I explore the limits of the thesis via its fraught entanglement with private property rights and the state‐form; and through Lefebvre's radical critique of the state, political economy and rights elsewhere. Rights claims, I contend, unintentionally reify the uneven power relations they aim to overcome, while routinely cauterising the hard‐fought collective social force that forces social gains. As a counter to the RttC thesis, I explore the autonomous Take over the City (TotC) movements of 1970s Italy, arguing that these largely neglected eminently immanent forms of territorial community activism, brought here into dialogue with Lefebvre's conception of territorial autogestion, surpassed the RttC thesis in praxis. The experience of “Laboratory Italy” thus provides highly suggestive lessons for a contemporary politics of urban space.