Full Description
In many countries, particularly in the Global North, established forms of solidarity within communities are said to be challenged by the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of the population. Against the backdrop of renewed geopolitical tensions - which inflate and exploit ethno-cultural, rather than political-economic cleavages - concerns are raised that ethnic and cultural diversity challenge both the formal mechanisms of redistribution and informal acts of charity, reciprocity and support which underpin common notions of community.
This book focuses on the innovative forms of solidarity that develop around the joint appropriation and the envisaged common future of specific places. Drawing on examples from schools, streets, community centres, workplaces, churches, housing projects and sporting projects, it provides an alternative research agenda from the 'loss of community' narrative. It reflects on the different spatiotemporal frames in which solidarities are nurtured, the connections forged between solidarity and citizenship, and the role of interventions by professionals to nurture solidarity in diversity.
This timely and original work will be essential reading for those working in human geography, sociology, ethnic studies, social work, urban studies, political studies and cultural studies.
Contents
1. Beyond social capital: place, diversity and solidarity 2. Mundane mutualities: solidarity and strangership in everyday urban life 3. Learning to cope with superdiversity: place-based solidarities at a (pre-)primary Catholic school in Leuven, Belgium 4. Building coalitions: solidarities, friendships and tackling inequality 5. Self-building in northern Italy: housing and place-based solidarities among strangers 6. Challenging the figure of the 'migrant entrepreneur: place-based solidarities in the Romanian arrival infrastructure in Brussels 7. The spatial solidarity of intentional neighbouring 8. Football for solidarity: bridging gaps between the Baka and the Bantu in East Cameroon 9. Domesticating, festivalizing and contesting space: spatial acts of citizenship in a super-diverse neighbourhood in Amsterdam 10. Afterword: solidarities, conjunctures, encounters
