University of Helsinki, 5–6 June 2025
The anti-fascist urban experience is traditionally depicted through the lens of symbolic spatial politics and confrontational tactics: marches, demonstrations, street battles, anarchist-inspired movements, and anti-fascist block tactics. These are aimed at challenging fascist territorial claims in cities, often resulting in the creation of “temporary autonomous zones” and the denial of the possibility for fascists to engage with the broader public, epitomised by the slogan “They shall not pass”. However, this depiction captures only a fragment of the anti-fascist urban experience.
This conference invites contributions that challenge and expand the traditional understanding of the anti-fascist urban experience, approaching the city itself as a multilayered space of resistance, solidarity, and community-building that evolves along the constant interplay of past struggles, present actions, and a collective projection of an imagined anti-fascist urban future. It asks: How have anti-fascists envisioned and practiced the liberation of urban communities from fascism, racism, sexism, patriarchal values, and structural oppression in both the global North and the global South during the past century (1919–today)? How have they sustained solidarity across diverse and intersecting struggles while grappling with the challenges posed by gentrification, social atomisation, neoliberal urban planning, and intensified policing?
Also of interest are contributions on anti-fascist resistance to eco-fascism in the urban setting, particularly from decolonial, Indigenous, and environmental perspectives. How have anti[1]fascists understood their relationship with and responsibility to the non-human life forms that also exist in the urban space? How has the dichotomy between “rural” and “urban” reinforced colonial understandings of civilisation? How do we understand the anti-fascist city in the context of sustaining life?
We encourage submissions that explore any geographical area, but are not limited to, the following themes:
• The spatial dynamics of anti-fascist protest activity
• The anti-fascist city as a layered memory space
• Class and race in the anti-fascist city
• Anti-fascism in the post-colonial city
• Intersectional perspectives on anti-fascist urban spaces
• Anti-fascist geographies of internationalism
• The emotions and experiences of the anti-fascist city
• Imaginaries, visions and myths of the anti-fascist city (past, present and future)
• The materiality of anti-fascist urbanism
• The gendering of anti-fascist city spaces
• Desire and sexuality in the anti-fascist city
• Cultural expressions of the anti-fascist city: street theatre, urban spectacle, music, art, murals, etc.
• Anti-fascism in literary urban studies
• Interplay between global and local anti-fascism
Keynote Speaker: David Featherstone, Professor of Political Geography, University of Glasgow.
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Paper proposals must include:
• Name of author(s)
• Paper Title + Abstract (300 words)
• Short academic bio (150 words)
• Statement on the need for financial assistance
• Please submit your proposal to < lgp.helsinki@gmail.com >
Important deadlines and dates
• Submission deadline: 1 February 2025
• Notification of acceptance: 15 February 2025
• Paper submission: 22 May 2025
• Conference dates: 5–6 June 2025
Location / Venue
University of Helsinki, Finland
Funding
We encourage researchers to seek funding through their respective institutions. We are currently applying for funds to offer partial financial support for travel costs.
Paper publication
Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication in a peer reviewed journal special issue on the anti-fascist city. Further details regarding the publication process will be announced later.
Conference Organizing Committee
Kasper Braskén, Moshumee T. Dewoo, Shane Little
This conference is organised by the research project “Locating Global Protest against the Extreme Right: Anti-Fascism, Anti-Racism and Internationalism in Multiethnic Metropoles” (LGP), funded by the Research Council of Finland (project No. 355478), University of Helsinki, Finland: https://www.helsinki.fi/en/projects/anti-fascism-anti-racism-and-internationalism-multiethnic-metropoles
Subject Fields / Keywords
Urban history, left-wing politics, anti-fascism, political geography, solidarity, resistance