The struggle to belong Dealing with diversity in 21st century urban settings. Amsterdam, 7-9 July 2011 Political Moments with Long-term Consequences Debbie Becher Department of Sociology Barnard College, Columbia University 3009 Broadway New York, NY 10026 USA
[email protected] Paper presented at the International RC21 conference 2011 Session 13.2 Strategies in Context Political Moments with Longterm Consequencesi By Debbie Becher Department of Sociology, Barnard College, Columbia University Abstract This paper is about one way that poor, urban residents claim their rights to cities. I call this specific type of organizing “political moments” to refer to intentionally temporary, grassroots organizing around small-scale, specific claims. The very characteristics that distinguish political moments as organizing – that they are small-scale and temporary – suggest that their impacts will be the same: limited and short-term. I argue that, on the contrary, through political moments, poor urban residents create enduring control over their parts of the city in ways that other forms of politics may not allow. The kind of organizing I call political moments is especially likely to mobilize people accustomed to being disengaged from politics. In this paper, I first detail the conditions that create opportunities for political moments and then the kind of organizing that comprises them. I explain how these kinds of opportunities and organizing combine powerfully to mobilize poor communities and secure short- and long-term gains. I then illustrate these arguments through the specific conflict that made me recognize them: a redevelopment plan for a poor Philadelphia neighborhood at the turn of the millennium.