Inclusive Placemaking: Localizing Human Rights in Response to Global Urban Crises and Right-Wing Populism

Human rights are under increased threats as the world faces continued challenges of economic insecurity, financial volatility, climate change, and the rise of right-wing populist movements. At a time when global interdependence demands more intensive cooperation among national governments to address economic and environmental crises, nationalist tendencies are polarizing politics within and between countries. Although news headlines have focused on the rise of exclusionary and racist movements, there is evidence of significant popular mobilization around more inclusive, human rights claims. Because these movements challenge basic elements of the capitalist system, they get less traction in electoral contests and remain marginal to mainstream media and scholarly discourses. This paper explores the emergence of translocal networks of human rights advocates articulating place-based human rights claims in communities around the world. Amid new threats to human rights from far-right advances such as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, there are rising demands for “the right to the city,” as people seek to reconcile the tensions between global and local politics and between economic globalization and community survival. I provide illustrations from this emergent right to the city movement, and consider its implications for our understandings of the evolution of global human rights