The Neofascist Network and Madrid, 1945–1953: From City of Refuge to Transnational Hub and Centre of Operations

The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of the neofascist networks from the vantage point, between 1945 and 1953, of Madrid, a city where a myriad of extreme right activists gathered to discuss and promote their cause at a transnational level. Exploring the local socio-political context in which these (neo)-fascists moved, and the networks that they formed, the study delves into the creation of ratlines crucial for fascists to escape from the Allied prosecution once the Second World War was over, the consolidation of the city as a central meeting point for fascists from all over the world (from Degrelle to Skorzeny, passing by Horia Sima or Filippo Anfuso), discussions around the possible creation of paramilitary organisations, and the everyday lives of (neo)-fascists operating in Madrid. On the basis of police reports, secret service intelligences and other primary sources, this paper foregrounds the role of the fascist diaspora and the subsequent interactions as driving forces enabling entanglements, and cooperation among (neo)-fascist movements and the Francoist regime, at various formal or informal political levels.

Border Struggles, Political Unity, and the Transformative Power of the Local: US Sanctuary Cities and Spain’s Cities of Refuge

This article draws on theoretical insights about bordering and citizenship as strategies for socially constructing difference and the scholarship on scalar challenges underlying contemporary bordering to analyze sanctuary cities in the United States and cities of refuge in Spain. We argue that these initiatives challenge and resist restrictive national migration policies from below, at the local level, with attention to their implications at the global scale. Such policies have the potential to create meaningful social change by 1) amplifying and producing political unity across socially constructed differences and 2) “scaling down” migration politics from the national to the local level and, simultaneously, “jumping scale” via reliance on human rights framings. We conclude that sanctuary city and city-of-refuge designations are not merely symbolic; instead, these designations can be conceived of as locally based, global repertoires of action that make positive contributions in pursuit of social justice.

Marseille, city of refuge: international solidarity, American humanitarianism, and Vichy France (1940-1942)

Anchored in the port of Marseille, this article studies encounters between international solidarity, American humanitarianism, and Vichy France’s nationalism in times of war and exile. Being the main free harbour in France after the country’s defeat against Germany in the spring of 1940, Marseille saw hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking refuge and exile on its shores. This massive flux gave rise to a local internationalism of humanitarian and solidarity networks bonded by an anti-fascist ideology. American humanitarians, diplomats, and radical leftist militants shaped this eclectic internationalism by providing crucial support for European refugees escaping the Nazi-backed state repression in France. Using the local archives of the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, this paper analyses how these actors and their ideologies met in Marseille and interacted with or against Vichy France’s nationalism. In the end, the extended historiography on refugees, American humanitarianism, solidarity networks, and French nationalism will be used to analyse global ideologies in a local context during the Second World War.

Negotiation in the Contact Zone: Reading Joseph and Aseneth from a Postcolonial Perspective

In Joseph and Aseneth, religious difference is the decisive boundary that separates Aseneth (gentile) and Joseph (Jew). Therefore, Aseneth’s conversion is essential to cross over this boundary in the narrative. In this respect, one may see Joseph and Aseneth as a colonizing text that seems to romanticize Aseneth’s conversion. However, colonial realities never result one-sidedly from the intention of the powerful; they are full of ambiguity, ambivalence, and hybridity. Utilizing the postcolonial concept of contact zone, this article deals with which negotiations between the disparate groups occur in the contact zone, and consequently what unexpected changes happen after the encounter. The union of the two groups in Joseph and Aseneth is characterized as an ambiguous relation rather than as a unilateral assimilation. Aseneth becomes a shelter for anyone who is in danger beyond the religious boundary by redefining the identity given by the angel, City of Refuge.

Municipal Responses to ‘Illegality’: Urban Sanctuary across National Contexts

Cities often seek to mitigate the highly precarious situation of Illegalized (or undocumented) migrants. In this context, “sanctuary cites” are an innovative urban response to exclusionary national policies. In this article, we expand the geographical scope of sanctuary policies and practices beyond Canada, the USA, and the UK, where the policies and practices are well-known. In particular, we explore corresponding urban initiatives in Chile, Germany, and Spain. We find that varying kinds of urban-sanctuary policies and practices permit illegalized migrants to cope with their situations in particular national contexts. However, different labels, such as “city of refuge,” “commune of reception,” or “solidarity city” are used to describe such initiatives. While national, historical, and geopolitical contexts distinctly shape local efforts to accommodate illegalized migrants, recognizing similarities across national contexts is important to develop globally-coordinated and internationally-inspired responses at the urban scale.

Municipal Responses to ‘Illegality’: Urban Sanctuary across National Contexts

Cities often seek to mitigate the highly precarious situation of Illegalized (or undocumented) migrants. In this context, “sanctuary cites” are an innovative urban response to exclusionary national policies. In this article, we expand the geographical scope of sanctuary policies and practices beyond Canada, the USA, and the UK, where the policies and practices are well-known. In particular, we explore corresponding urban initiatives in Chile, Germany, and Spain. We find that varying kinds of urban-sanctuary policies and practices permit illegalized migrants to cope with their situations in particular national contexts. However, different labels, such as “city of refuge,” “commune of reception,” or “solidarity city” are used to describe such initiatives. While national, historical, and geopolitical contexts distinctly shape local efforts to accommodate illegalized migrants, recognizing similarities across national contexts is important to develop globally-coordinated and internationally-inspired responses at the urban scale.

Introduction

Dimapur has a limited public history, rarely features in popular culture, and has failed to capture the information of scholars. This chapter addresses the question ‘why Dimapur’ and offers six answers that serve as the book’s argument. First, Dimapur is the largest city in a tribal majority state. Second, Dimapur gives us the opportunity to frame frontier urbanism as a research agenda in India/South Asia. Third, more than just a city, Dimapur is a spatial experiment, a zone between the hills and plains, between tribal and non-tribal space. Fourth, Dimapur is a city governed under extraordinary laws with a substantial military presence and two camps of surrendered militants on its outskirts. Fifth, Dimapur has been both a city of conflict and a city of refuge. Finally, Dimapur allows the opportunity to begin an account of the Northeast, and Nagaland in particular, with urban modernity.

Alterlivability

This article responds to two diverging notions of “livability”: the normative New Urbanist imaginary of livable cities, where the urban good life manifests in neoliberal consumer cultures, green gentrification, and inaccessible infrastructures, and the feminist and disability concept of livable worlds, such as those in which nonnormate life thrives. Whereas the former ought to broaden its notion of “lives worth living,” the latter would benefit from a more specific theory of design—the making and remaking of more livable worlds. In response, this article offers the concept of “alterlivability,” a design philosophy grounded in permaculture ethics. Drawing on two novels by ecofeminist writer Starhawk—The Fifth Sacred Thing (1994) and City of Refuge (2016)—the article explores the genre of speculative design fiction for its insights into prototyping more livable futures in the Anthropocene. Starhawk’s novels illustrate alterlivability as a set of political commitments, design methodologies, and spatial forms that place disabled, racialized, and poor people at the center of alterlivable worlds.