Worldwide Mobilizations

Viewing the significant urban insurrections of past decades with an anthropological eye, Worldwide Mobilizations argues that transformations of urban class relationships must be approached in a way that is both globally and locally informed, and contends that every case of urban mobilization should be understood against its precise context in the global capitalist transformation.

Don Kalb is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. He is also a Senior Researcher at Utrecht University and a Visiting Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. He is the Founding Editor of Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology and of Focaalblog.

Massimiliano Mollona is Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London. He specializes in economic and political anthropology and visual art. His publications include Made in Sheffield: An Ethnography of Industrial Work and Politics (Berghahn, 2009) and Industrial Work and Life: An Anthropological Reader (Berg), with Johnathan Parry and Gert De Neve.

Don Kalb is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. He is also a Senior Researcher at Utrecht University and a Visiting Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale. He is the Founding Editor of Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology and of Focaalblog.

“Overall, this volume constitutes a timely and innovative contribution to the understanding of urban mobilisation in the aftermath of 2011 from a class perspective, especially as it explores new attempts to rearticulate class brought about by neoliberal capitalism, challenging old parameters of class difference. For this reason, the book is extremely relevant and important for scholars interested in particular in the anthropological study of political economy, contemporary urban movements, contentious politics in the urban space, and urban and social transformations.” • Comparative Southeast European Studies

“The extremely variegated geographical and political contexts taken into consideration highlight the ambitious project of this book, which applies a sound common methodological framework to multiple subjects for anthropological reflection…The volume constitutes a fundamental reading to avoid generalizing accounts of what the editors deem the increasingly contested but still dominant neoliberalism as well as commonsensical clues about its local political manifestations.” • ANUAC

“Each of the chapters is a careful and nuanced analysis of a contemporary populist movement for reclaiming urban space and for a transformation of the moral order. Thus, the new trend, as this book amply illustrates, is not just confined to the economy but also for more abstract values such as corruption and the environment; morality and aesthetics have entered into what is termed as ‘post-political’.” • Anthropological Notebooks

“This is a timely contribution to our understanding of urban protest, and the analytical framework proposed by the editors is extremely relevant and important. I believe the volume… will spark a much-needed debate about class and social transformation in the 21st century.” • Lesley Gill, Vanderbilt University

“A very important contribution to understanding popular movements in late capitalism.” • Winnie Lem, Trent University