Just because there has been a crisis does not necessarily mean there is going to be a change. And yet why, exactly, did nothing change in the face of global resistances and movements which followed the financial meltdown of 2007/8? Based on ethnographic research with the Occupy movement in London - as a case study of one post-crash attempt to bring alternatives about - this book argues that change was ultimately foreclosed by widespread 'common sense' limitations of what was considered possible after the crash. Offering a critically constructive analysis of the Occupy movement in London and incorporating both activist praise and self-criticism of their movement, Occupying London discusses both the political potential suggested by the occupation of space and the slogan 'we are the 99%', as well as the problematic extension of post-crash normativity into the movement through issues of organisation, repetitions of wider norms, and an inadvertent acceptance of wider distributions of possibility. Such positives and negatives are shown to have played out in a wide-range of arenas: from the occupation of space itself, through attempts to organise collective appearance and voice, as well as 'authentic' constructions of resistance and 'cynical' framings of power. The author's intention is to provoke thought on behalf of any 'half-fascinated, half-devastated witnesses' of the financial crash and the political disappointments which followed. It is argued that such movements possess the potential to bring about progressive change, but only if they intervene into wider distributions of 'common sense' by embracing collective symbolic efficiency and avoiding binary framings of 'authentic' resistance vs. 'hidden' power.

Just because there has been a crisis does not necessarily mean there is going to be a change. And yet why, exactly, did nothing change in the face of global resistances and movements which followed the financial meltdown of 2007/8? Based on ethnographic research with the Occupy movement in London - as a case study of one post-crash attempt to bring alternatives about - this book argues that change was ultimately foreclosed by widespread 'common sense' limitations of what was considered possible after the crash. Offering a critically constructive analysis of the Occupy movement in London and incorporating both activist praise and self-criticism of their movement, Occupying London discusses both the political potential suggested by the occupation of space and the slogan 'we are the 99%', as well as the problematic extension of post-crash normativity into the movement through issues of organisation, repetitions of wider norms, and an inadvertent acceptance of wider distributions of possibility. Such positives and negatives are shown to have played out in a wide-range of arenas: from the occupation of space itself, through attempts to organise collective appearance and voice, as well as 'authentic' constructions of resistance and 'cynical' framings of power. The author's intention is to provoke thought on behalf of any 'half-fascinated, half-devastated witnesses' of the financial crash and the political disappointments which followed. It is argued that such movements possess the potential to bring about progressive change, but only if they intervene into wider distributions of 'common sense' by embracing collective symbolic efficiency and avoiding binary framings of 'authentic' resistance vs. 'hidden' power.

We are, all of us, intimately familiar with inequalities. Whether finding somewhere to live, walking in the street, following the news, negotiating international travel, or in our working and personal lives, subtle and crude hierarchies shape our lived experience. How the other half lives contributes detailed, multidisciplinary, and qualitative explorations of the everyday social and spatial realities of inequality, drawing new lines from Manchester to Milan, from Brighton to Bologna. Uniquely structured as a series of oppositions between peaks and troughs, with each chapter focusing on a specific subject, including: housing, urban design, place-making, the state, cultures of inequality, and transnational mobility. This book is a resource to navigate an unequal world, oriented around three key understandings of inequality as contingent, intersectional, and interrelated. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10, Reduced inequalities -- .

We are, all of us, intimately familiar with inequalities. Whether finding somewhere to live, walking in the street, following the news, negotiating international travel, or in our working and personal lives, subtle and crude hierarchies shape our lived experience. How the other half lives contributes detailed, multidisciplinary, and qualitative explorations of the everyday social and spatial realities of inequality, drawing new lines from Manchester to Milan, from Brighton to Bologna. Uniquely structured as a series of oppositions between peaks and troughs, with each chapter focusing on a specific subject, including: housing, urban design, place-making, the state, cultures of inequality, and transnational mobility. This book is a resource to navigate an unequal world, oriented around three key understandings of inequality as contingent, intersectional, and interrelated. This book is relevant to United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10, Reduced inequalities -- .