Demirsu I. (2024), The Hostile City of Love and Antibodies of Hate: Urban Contestations of Identity and Belonging, Leiden: Brill.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1285/i20356609v19n3p1086-1090Keywords:
Antifascism, Collective identity, Far-Right, Movement/countermovement interaction, Urban ConflictAbstract
This book review examines The Hostile City of Love and Antibodies of Hate by Ipek Demirsu, situating the volume within contemporary debates on the rise of the far right, movement-countermovement dynamics and the spatial turn in social movement studies. Building on this turn, the book advances a socio-spatial perspective that conceptualizes space as an active constituent of collective identity and collective action. Based on a multi-method qualitative study of Verona, it compares two antagonistic sets of actors active in the city: the local alliance of far-right, populist right and ultra-Catholic groups, and the antifascist, antiracist and antisexist assemblage of actors that resists them from the Veronetta neighborhood. It shows how their competing place-based identities sustain contending forms of “city-zenship”, linking micro-level conflicts over belonging to the macro-level political forces reshaping Europe and beyond. The review highlights the book’s theoretical and methodological contributions, while also opening up a broader reflection on positionality and power dynamics in ethnographic research.
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