Globalizing the city and the grassroots: Political geographies of urban movements and linguistic diversity

Political Sociology Seminar Series with Virginie Mamadouh

Lecture

The linguistic diversity of Europe is often seen as the main barrier to the development of a pan-European public sphere in the European Union. This is true for collective action, as much as for parliamentary politics and the media. Virginie Mamadouh's lecture highlights the challenge of multilingualism for urban movements in a globalizaling world.

Summary

The linguistic diversity of Europe is often seen as the main barrier to the development of a pan-European public sphere in the European Union. This is true for  collective action, as much as for parliamentary politics and the media.
This lecture highlights the challenge of multilingualism for urban movements in a globalizaling world. It shows how linguistic issues interact with the geographies of grassroots mobilizations and their multiscalar struggles, both in terms of grievances, resources, political opportunities, and ideologies. It then turns to the way urban movements have dealt with linguistic diversity both locally in the city and in translocal networks of activists. More attention will be paid to mobilizations in a recent period, since globalization, Europeanization and digitalization have greatly enhanced the linguistic diversity to be found in any given place.
Different strategies will be considered, discussing the opportunities and limitations of the new media to perform networked spatialized linguistic identities, with the example of the alternative media of the global movement against the neoliberal globalization in the 1990s (Indymedia) and the performance of language diversity in street demonstrations, with the example of demonstrations against the austerity policies adopted to respond to the 2008 financial crisis (Occupy, Indignados).
In other words: the 1% speaks English, but how do the 99% deal with linguistic diversity, and does it matter for their ability to advance their claims to the city?

About the lecturer

Virginie Mamadouh is an associate professor at the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies at the Universiteit van Amsterdam. She is a member of the programme group Geographies of Globalizations
Her personal webpage

Published by  AISSR