Making a Scene : Urban Landscapes, Gentrification, and Social Movements in Sweden

In the three largest cities in Sweden, social movement "scenes"--networks of social movement actors and the places they inhabit--challenge threats such as gentrification. The geography of the built environment influences their ability to lay claim to urban space and to local political processes. In Making a Scene, Kimberly Creasap emphasizes that it is the centrality, concentration, and visibility of these scenes that make them most effective. Whereas some scenes become embedded as part of everyday life--as in Malmö--in contrast, scenes in Göteborg and Stockholm often fail to become part of the fabric of urban neighborhoods. Creasap investigates key spaces for scenes, from abandoned industrial areas and punk clubs to street festivals, bookstores, and social centers, to show how activists create sites and develop structures of resistance that are anti-capitalist, anti-fascist, anti-gentrification, queer, and feminist. She also charts the relationship between scenes and city spaces to show these autonomous social movements create their own cultural landscapes. Making a Scene encourages critical thinking about spatiality and place in the sociology of social movements and the role of social movements as important actors in urban development. Contents 8 Acknowledgments 10 1. Introduction 14 2. Uniquely Swedish: From Social Democracy to Autonomy 41 3. Social Centers: Where Past, Present, and Future Meet 60 4. City Solidarity: The Right to the City in Malmö 94 5. Where Is the Movement? The Spatiality of Social Movement Scenes 122 6. The Future of Place-Based Movements 161 Appendix: Methods and Access 170 Bibliography 176 Index 192 "This book compares the landscapes of three Swedish cities to show how urban geography affects the place-making efforts of local activists looking to push back against encroaching gentrification. The centrality, concentration, and visibility of a movement scene impacts the movement's ability to effectively claim a space"-- Provided by publisher. Reveals how activism to reclaim gentrifying urban spaces, even in a supposedly equitable welfare state, is dramatically impacted by the physical and social geography of the movement's context.