Re-thinking Contemporary Activism: From Community to Emplaced Sociality

This article explores the relationship between activism, sociality and place. It analyses a case-study of selected social relations produced through activities related to an urban social movement – the UK network of the international Cittàslow (Slow City) movement. It specifically examines how social relationships contribute to the human agency that Cittàslow activism involves. In a recent Cultural Studies analysis of the Cittàslow movement, Wendy Parkins and Geoffrey Craig (2006) have suggested that Cittàslow ‘communities’ drive processes of change. Here, following social anthropologists (Creed 2006; Amit in Amit & Rapport 2002) who call for an interrogation of the concept of ‘community’ in its local and academic uses, I propose a different analytical route. I suggest that Cittàslow activism is better understood by analysing how agency is produced through actual local embodied social relationships.