ABSTRACT

Struggles for social justice often begin and coalesce in cities. This chapter is concerned with the making of progressive multi-racial publics engaged in urban social justice struggles, and their attempts to create egalitarian political spaces to enact a potentially radical democratic politics. The making of multi-racial publics has multiple dimensions. First, it involves publicizing and making visible existing injustices and discrimination, and making demands on the state to rectify these. Second, it involves the creation and enactment of alternative forms of governance, and experimentation with new ways of organizing. Third, it requires a sustained commitment to learning from each other and negotiating across racial and other lines of difference, and creating spaces where such negotiations are possible and encouraged rather than foreclosed. Last, but not least, multiple spatialities, including macro- and micro-geographic contexts, the construction and configuration of physical spaces and extra-local connectivities and mobilities, shape and are shaped by the construction of multi-racial publics.