Neighborhoods and Social Movements

Summary

This article examines the role of neighborhoods in shaping collective civic and political action. It explores how neighborhoods function both as bases for mobilization and as stakes in urban contestation, highlighting their embeddedness in broader economic, political, and cultural transformations. While analytically distinguishing between structural and cultural approaches to neighborhood activism, the article argues for an integrated perspective in empirical research. It addresses core questions about who participates in neighborhood mobilizations, under what conditions they emerge, and what outcomes they can achieve. Drawing on concepts such as social capital, civic infrastructure, territorial stigma, belonging, and future imaginaries, it analyzes mechanisms that enable or constrain neighborhood-based activism. The article pays particular attention to how class, ethnicity, tenure, gender, and the built environment shape political engagement at the neighborhood level. By considering the spatial, emotional, and symbolic dimensions of collective action, it underscores the neighborhood as a key arena where everyday life intersects with structures of power and inequality. It concludes that neighborhood-based activism is not only a response to local grievances but also a space of political imagination and transformative potential.