Hostile City of Love and Antibodies of Hate

Ipek Demirsu is a research fellow at the University of Milan, Department of Social and Political Sciences. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science (Sabanci University, 2015) and a second Ph.D. in Sociology (University of Padua, 2022). Among her various publications in international journals such as the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Global Networks, she is also the author of the monograph Counter-terrorism and the Prospects of Human Rights: Securitizing Difference and Dissent (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

• PrefaceList of Figures and TablesAbbreviationsIntroduction: Cartographies of Belonging in a Mid-sized Italian City1 Social Space, Belonging, and Mobilization: The Role of Spatial Identities in Social Movements1 Space, Territory, and Place-Based Identities2 The Configuration of the City and Belonging in Cityspace2.1 Public Space, Contending Identities, and Everyday Struggles of City-zenship3 Social Movements in Social Space: Identity of Place and Place-Based Identities in Collective Action3.1 Collective Identity and Identity Politics3.2 Social Movements, Spatialized Belongings, and Urban Mobilization3.3 Progressive Movements and Transformative Placemaking: Expansive Place-Based Identities3.4 Sovereignist Identitarianism and Far-Right Movements: The Defense of Territory, Tradition, and the ‘Native’ Identity4 Conclusion2 One City, Two Movements, and Contending Constructions of City-zenship: A Multimethod Qualitative Research1 Extended Case Method and the City of Verona1.1 The Extended Case Method1.2 The Case of Verona and the Comparative Analysis of Competing Movements2 Doing Ethnographic Research, Offline3 Doing Ethnographic Research, Online4 Qualitative Interviews5 Documents and Archival Data6 Visual Methods7 Data Analysis8 A Final Note on Reflexivity and Limitations of the Research Design3 ‘Veronesi Tuti Mati’: A Historical Analysis of Social Processes Shaping Identity of Place and Place-Based Identities1 A Brief Historical Account of Verona and the Making of Veronesità2 A Different Neighborhood, a Different Spatial Identity: The Evolution of Veronetta3 The Legacy of Fascism and Antifascist Resistance in Verona3.1 The Imprints of Nazi-fascism on Urban Space3.2 Local Resistance and the Legacy of Anti-fascism4 ‘We Hate Everyone’: Exclusionary Territorial Identity in the Making of a Laboratory of Intolerance1 The Vestiges of Fascism and the Birth of Far-Right Movements in Verona1.1 Post-war Fascism in Italy and the Years of Lead in Verona1.2 Proliferation of Far-Right Groups in the Veronese Urban Space1.3 Competition to Territorialize the City: Extreme Right Groups Today2 Territorial Belongings and Right-Wing Populism of Lega Nord3 City Administration and the Institutionalization of Far-Right Movements since the 1990s4 A ‘Holy Alliance’: Catholic Fundamentalism (Integralismo) and the Far-Right5 Hellas Fandom and the Stadium as a School of Hate6 Identitarianism Is the New Black: The Identitarian Label and Territorial Belongings5 The Antibodies of Hate in Verona: Spreading Expansive Place-Based Identity in an Outward-Looking Space1 The Roots: A Historical Background of Secular Dissidence2 The Constitutive Elements of the Antibodies of Hate2.1 La Sobilla and the Heritage of Collective Memory2.2 The Evolution of a Social Center ‘Alla Veronese’: La Chimica Before and After2.3 Circolo Pink and the Protracted Struggle for City-zenship of Sexual Minorities2.4 Paratodos: Workshop of the Multitude in the Movement Scene of Verona2.5 Non Una di Meno Verona: Introducing Transfeminism in the City2.6 Veronetta 129: Making Cultures Cross Paths in Verona2.7 AfroVeronesi: Challenging Latent Claims of Whiteness in Belonging3 Collective Identity and Collective Action in Urban Space: Core Values, Issue-Based Formations, and Tactical Alliances of the Antibodies4 The Neighborhood as Movement Space and Everyday Hubs of Counterculture4.1 Giardino Ex-Nani: From ‘Casa del Fascio’ to Social Street4.2 The Red Triangle: Osteria ai Preti, Circolo Arci Cañara, and Malacarne Barassociazione4.3 Archival Space of the Collective Struggle: Info-Spazio 161 and the Legacy of Giorgio Bertani4.4 Antifascist Bookstore: Libre!6 Movement-Countermovement Dynamics in and through the City: Practices of Territorialization and Competing Inscriptions of Belonging1 One City, Two Territories, and Two Identities of Place: Veronetta and the Historical Center2 Acts of Territorialization between Adjacent Social Spaces of Verona2.1 Guarding the Borders of the Historical Center2.2 Deterritorializing Practices in the Historical Center2.3 Revanchist Reterritorialization and ‘Ethnic Resistance’ in Veronetta2.4 Everyday Rituals of Placemaking as Resistance to Reterritorialization2.5 Naming as Territorialization2.6 Urbs Picta: Rewriting Belonging on Urban Space through Street Art3 Gentrification, the Far-Right, and Future Projections4 Struggle over the Representation of the City: Verona, the City of …4.1 Verona Vandea of Europe4.2 Verona, the Transfeminist Open CityConclusion: (Re)spatializing Collective Action between Identity of Place and Place-Based IdentitiesBibliographyIndex