Meagher - Declaration of Independence

7/31/2019 Meagher - Declaration of Independence

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Rurban postcard (above). Photograph Sharon Meagher.Mine waste mountain (below). Photograph Sharon Meagher.


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CITY, VOL. 13, NO. 1, MARCH 2009

ISSN 1360-4813 print/ISSN 1470-3629 online/09/010005-21 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13604810902726376

Declarations of independenceAnti-immigration politics in

rurban America

Sharon M. MeagherTaylorandFrancis

Extending Giorgio Agambens analysis, I argue that The Declaration of Independencefounds the American state of exception. The failure of British colonial rule to recognize thefull rights of its colonists is the exception that justifies the suspension of British law for the

sake of preserving natural law. But that exception quickly becomes the rule as the nation isfounded and developed. Jeffersons agrarian ideal depends on both the city and the immi-grant in complex ways. Both are eventually incorporated into the nation as necessaryevilsas on-going threats that justify a permanent state of emergency. The sovereignauthority therefore legitimates the supposedly exceptional circumstances that require thesuspension of constitutional rights and the imposition of military operations in the civilsphere. Increasingly, the threat of the city and the immigrant Other legitimizes the USA asa permanent state of exception. A new locus of the state of exception is the rurban area.

Neither urban nor rural, it is a threatened place, a marginalized place. As such, it drawsmarginalized people, the paradigm of whom is the immigrant. In this paper I focus on the

particular case of Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Hazleton leads a US movement of rurbantowns that have passed laws targeting Latino immigrants. While this movement is intendedto usurp federal sovereign authority on the grounds that the federal government has failedin its responsibilities to control its southern border, the rhetoric and strategies that Hazletonemploys mimic the national ones from which they supposedly declare their independence.

When in the course of human events itbecomes necessary for one people to dissolve

the political bands which have connectedthem with another and to assume among thepowers of the earth, the separate and equalstation to which the Laws of Nature and ofNatures God entitle them, a decent respectto the opinions of mankind requires that theyshould declare the causes which impel themto the separation. (The Declaration ofIndependence)

Politics has suffered a lasting eclipse because

it has been contaminated by law, seeing itself,at best, as constituent power (that is, violencethat makes law), when it is not reduced tomerely the power to negotiate the law. The

only truly political action, however, is thatwhich severs the nexus between violence and

law. (Agamben, 2005, p. 88)

Introduction

In an ABC news interview, Director ofHomeland Security, Michael Chertoff,declared war: It is a new war on illegalimmigration that grows increasingly visi-ble and more intense by the day (Thomas etal., 2007). In this paper I argue that this waris hardly new; what appears new is that thewar is no longer being fought only at thelevel of the nation-state, but increasingly in


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MEAGHER: POLITICSIN RURBAN AMERICA 7

what we may call rurban areas. Hazleton,Pennsylvania, leads a US movement ofrurban towns that have passed laws target-ing Latino immigrants.

Rurban areas have been the battlegroundfor fights between natives and new immi-grants at the level of the law; by 2007 overone hundred cities and municipalities hadeither passed ordinances or were consider-ing passing ordinances regulating immigra-tion (McKanders, 2007, p. 6). Often suchbattles are fueled by taxpayers who resentthat they are burdened with the costs asso-ciated with federal immigration and tradepolicies that affect immigration patterns

and the citys demographics. Dissatisfiedwith the US war on immigrantsevensuspicious that the USA is not serious in itswar effortsHazleton and other townshave declared their independence and arenow waging their own wars.

Struggling for independence from whatthey perceive as burdens placed upon themby both immigrants and the federalgovernments failure to stop their inva-

sion, Hazletons mayor and supporters seethemselves on the frontline of the war onimmigration. While the facts do not seemto support their fear of invasion, that is, thenumbers of immigrants and their negativeimpact on rurban areas remain undocu-mented, the city of Hazleton is threatened.It is quickly becoming no placea margin-alized rurban area that both keeps anddraws marginalized peoples. Tragically,

Hazleton mistakes the immigrant as thecause of the threat and declares itself thecity-state of exceptionthe city that, dueto exceptional circumstances, is justified intaking the law into its own hands. I arguethat such a revolution is bound to fail, as itmimics the state of exception that doesviolence to the city in the first place.

In this paper I first examine the originalDeclaration of Independence and its complexrelationship to war, the law, cities, and immi-grants. Extending Agambens analysis, Iargue that The Declaration of Independencefounds the American state of exception.

Founded on Thomas Jeffersons agrarianideal, the city and new immigrants wereadmitted to the nation as necessary evils thatconstituted an on-going threat. The threattherefore legitimizes a permanent state ofexceptionthe suspension of the law inorder to maintain the law.

The threat of war is used to justify thesupposedly exceptional circumstances thatrequire the suspension of certain constitu-tional rights and the imposition of militaryoperations in the civil sphere. FollowingAgamben, I argue that these supposed excep-tions have become the rule, such that theUSA has become a state of exception that is

permanently engaged in both defined andundefined wars; new immigrants are imag-ined as one of the enemy combatant groupsand cities are imagined as one of the battle-fields. The USA takes the stand that it mustdefend itself from immanent dangerthethreat to its autonomy and exceptionalismthat both cities and immigrants pose. Thelogic of offense and defense is reversedthrough the maintenance of a rhetoric of

autonomy and moral right.The discourse of self-defense legitimizes

both the war on immigrants and US inter-ventions in Latin America. In the secondsection of this paper, I try to show how theclaim to American exceptionalism and thecolonial myth of modernity work together toproduce both marginalized persons andmarginalized places. The neo-liberaleconomic policies of recent years have only

hastened this process. Politics is reduced tobare lifeto a matter of survival and deci-sions of life and death. Agambens idea ofhomo sacerthe person who can be killedbut not sacrificedfinds his counterpart inurbs sacrathe city that can be killed but notsacrificed. The rurban condition is the condi-tion of the city that exists no longer or hasnot yet come to be.

In the third part of the paper I argue thatHazleton, Pennsylvania, is the postcard ofrurban Americaa city by legal designationonly. Feeling threatened, its citizens take theircue from the popular national discourses of


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8 CITYVOL. 13, NO. 1

American exceptionalism, independence, andwardiscourses that I briefly outline in thefollowing section.

The result is that Hazleton develops arurban politics that is an extension of thepolitics of the state of exception from whichit declares its independence.

In the penultimate section of the paper, Itell the brief and tragic history of Hazletonsfailed revolution. But I conclude the paperwith a brief exploration of two possible trulyrevolutionary political alternativesone thatrefuses the rurban condition in favor of arevolutionary rural life that is also global, andthe other that refuses the rurban condition in

favor of the city as the place of sanctuary, theplace of the global refugee.

The Declaration of Independence: foundinga state of exception

Agamben opens his brief book State of Excep-tion with a history of how what initially wasconceived to be an exception has, in fact,

become the rule, and how that rule merges twophenomena: first, the extension of the mili-tary authoritys wartime powers into the civilsphere, and second, a suspension of theconstitution (or the constitutional norms thatprotect individual liberties) (2005, p. 5). Thestate of exception has become, Agambenargues, the modern paradigm of government.Modern government is grounded on claims ofnecessity, namely, that there is a necessary

emergencya danger of immanent attack orriskthat necessitates wartime measures andthe subvention of law in the name of the law.Although Agamben does not use this term,we might understand the state of exception asthe vigilante state. Institutionalized violenceoutside the law is justified as necessary to savethe juridical order.

While Agamben traces the genealogy ofthe state of exception through Europe andthe USA, I want to extend his genealogy toshow that the USA is founded on the excep-tional claim that is both in and outside of thelaw. As Bacevich argues, there has been a:

time-honored conviction ascribing to theUnited States a uniqueness of character andpurpose. From its founding, America hasexpressed through its behavior and itsevolution a providential purpose. Paying

homage to, and therefore renewing, thistradition of American exceptionalism has longbeen one of the presidencys primary extraconstitutional obligations. (2008, p. 18)

Although Agamben locates the state ofexception in the contradictions between thePresident and Congress regarding sovereigndecision-making in Articles 1 and 2 of theConstitution, and argues that the Civil War iswhere this dialectic takes shape historically(2005, pp. 1920), we can read The Declara-tion of Independence as laying the ground-work for a state of exception to become theparadigm of American government. TheDeclaration of Independence declares thatwhile laws are important and should behonored, the colonies grievances againstBritain necessitate revolution, that is, asuspension and refusal of British law. Thecolonies claim sovereign authority for them-

selves. The nation itself is founded on a claimto an exception that necessitates revolutionand a new rule of law.

Founded on the claim of exception toBritish rule, the new nation is immediatelyfaced with two paradoxes of sovereigntyanother important characteristic of the stateof exception.

The paradox of sovereignty consists in the

fact that the sovereign is, at the same time,outside and inside the juridical order thesovereign, having the legal power to suspendthe validity of the law, legally places himselfoutside the law. (Agamben, 1998, p. 15)

Almost immediately after its founding, ques-tions of sovereign power emerge and excep-tions to the laws on which the nationis founded and legitimized are claimed.The nation is founded on an appeal to naturallaw, specifically the law that all humans arecapable of self-governance and thus entitledto that natural right, a right the colonists


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Under conditions of war and the on-goingthreat of war, Jefferson recanted his earlierposition on cities as something to be off-shored to England and began to see Americancities as necessary evils:

I am quoted by those who wish to continueour dependence on England formanufactures. There was a time when I mighthave been so quoted with more candor, butwithin the thirty years which have sinceelapsed, how our circumstances changed!(Jefferson, 1816)

The circumstances that changed were basedprincipally upon a changed understanding

of what American independence required,and secondarily on a response to the growthof manufacturing and new commercialinventions.

The new nation-state could only realizeJeffersons agrarian ideal if the USA contin-ued to depend on European cities to manu-facture the goods it would need. But Jeffersoncame to worry about an ideal of nationalindependence that depended on Europe for

its manufactured goods. Increasingly, Jeffer-son saw independence as something that oneneeded to defend. The possibility of war, andthe need to be prepared for war, causedJefferson to shift his views on cities. Warpreparations demanded ready access to weap-ons of war, which were produced in cities.War also could interrupt the transportationof weapons between European cities and theUSA.4 The USA certainly could not depend

on European cities to manufacture its weap-ons if the USA had to engage in war withEurope.5 Jeffersons changed position oncities was based on his recognition that citieswere a necessity in times of war.

But once Jefferson admitted cities (andtheir corrupting citizens and influences) onAmerican soil, he perceived America to bealways under threat. The cause of disease hadbeen admitted into the body politic andremains a constant threat to its well-being.Jeffersons turn is arguably the turning pointwhen the USA became a permanent stateof exception. Once the corruption that is

perceived as a threat to the well-being of theconstitution is incorporated into the bodypolitic, the threat of disease is ever present,and exceptional cases that justify exceptionalresponses that remain beyond the lawbecome the rule.

In Jeffersons later writings he admits asmuch. He declares that those exceptions,those who could not claim the natural right toself-governance, have become the norm; it isthe state that must decide qualifications. In aletter to Edward Everett, Jefferson (1824,p. 341) writes: The qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. They arethe result of habit and long training. Thus the

exceptional casethe case of the person inca-pable of self-governinghas now become thenorm. The state is now necessary and mustas a matter of necessityintervene to providewhat nature does not. The principle of inde-pendence or self-governance that legitimizedthe exception, the revolution that founded theUSA, a principle supposedly grounded innature, has now been declared unnatural.

But while this inversion of nature and law

(or pronouncements that have the force of thelaw), would seem only to call for citizenshipeducation rather than military interventioninto civil matters or the suspension of the lawitself, the threat to the USA, originallyconceived as outside of the nation, has nowbecause of the fear of warbeen movedwithin its bounds. The fear of war demandedthe growth of cities and the welcoming ofurban townsmen into the USA. But rather

than stemming the fear of war, it precipitateda constant sense of threat. The enemy wasnow withincity-dwellers clamored forcitizenship and cities grew; the city hadinvaded the country!

Since the 19th-century Irish potato famine,most who have immigrated to the USA havebeen peasants rather than the townsmen thatJefferson imagined. They flooded into Amer-ican cities, and posed new challenges to citieswhich could not always absorb the newimmigrants as laborers, particularly sincemany immigrants lacked trade skills. Yetwhile both immigrants and cities have


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changed over time, both remain perceivedthreats that work to justify the sovereign ruleof the permanent state of exception.

In her book Democracy and the Foreigner,Honig argues that exceptionalist accounts ofAmerican democracy are inextricably inter-twined with the myth of immigrant America.The myth of immigrant America depicts theforeigner as a supplement to the nation (2001, p. 74). Presented as a nation of choice,where immigrants freely embrace thenations promise as well as its laws, the mythreenact[s] liberalisms fictive foundationin individual acts of uncoerced consent(Honig, 2001, p. 75). My analysis above

contributes to the unmasking of that myth, inthat we see that the narrative of immigrantAmerica covers over ways in which, shortlyafter the nations founding, immigrants andthe cities they were likely to populate wereboth viewed as necessary evils in case of war.The USA therefore began to exercise controlover who immigrated to the USA and why.

Latin America and the mythof modernity

The language of independence continues tostir strong political passions. As Bacevichargues:

Today, no less than in 1776, a passion forlife, liberty, and the pursuit of happinessremains at the center of its civic theology.

The Jeffersonian trinity summarizes ourcommon inheritance, defines our aspirations,and provides the touchstone for our influenceabroad. (2008, p. 15)

While Bacevich argues that Americansrecently have misinterpreted their providen-tial purpose of grounding a nation on princi-ples of freedom to mean that the nation hasfree license of acquisition and expansionism,I argued here that it is its very status as anexception, a status claimed in its foundingmoments, that is largely responsible for USinterventions abroad.

A freed colony, the USA was now free tobecome a colonial power itself, and quicklydid so in its westward expansion, eventuallytaking over one-third of what was Mexicanterritoryand before that, the land of indige-nous peoples. The Monroe Doctrine, built ona claim that it was necessary to protect theformer American colonies from further Euro-pean interference, soon came to justify theUSAs own expansion and intervention inLatin America (Dent, 1999, pp. 67, 257278).

What Enrique Dussel calls the myth ofmodernity is the founding myth on which themyth of immigrant American is based. Bothmyths are tied to a narrative that links moder-

nity with autonomy and independence. Themyths construct a logic that blames victimsfor their suffering. The myth of modernity isthe underside of modernitys promise ofemancipation and autonomy, rooted in thefact that modernity emerged within aEurocentric perspective that presumes Euro-pean centrality and superiority (Dussel, 1995,pp. 136137).

Dussel cites Kants (1784) famous opening

line to his essay What is Enlightenment?where he defines modernity as the sheddingof our self-imposed immaturity. Thusmodernity is defined in terms of develop-ment or maturity, and as a matter of autono-mous choice. The Enlightenment is an age inwhich each individual declares his indepen-dence from the authority of King andChurch. The subject becomes his own sover-eign; each individual chooses to act maturely

by answering only to the authority ofuniversal reason. Such a claim shifts theburden of progress and development tothose who have failed to develop, for it isviewed as a self-imposed choice. But it is achoice that indicates moral failure, a lack ofwill. This Kantian view of modernity bothreflected and reinforced European under-standings of themselves as more developedand supported conceptualization of Othersas failures who chose the wrong path andmust be shown the right way (Dussel, 1996,pp. 5152). It importantly shaped US under-standings too.


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Dussel argues that modernity was foundedon this myth in the conquest of Latin America,and an analysis of some of the rhetoric of theSpanish conquistadores would seem to bearthat out. Some 200 years prior to Kant,Spanish philosopher and theologian JuanGins de Seplveda defended the Spanishconquest on similar grounds (albeit invokingthe natural law tradition) arguing that humanswere rational by nature, and that if peoplehabitually or characteristically act in ways notin accord with that end, they must be subduedand forced to live in accordance with it(White, 2005, p. 3). Seplveda took indigenouspersons alleged cannibalism to be sufficient

fact that they failed and that the Spaniardshad a moral obligation to subdue them.Conqueror Hernan Corts similarly invokedthe natives warlike behaviors and cannibalismto justify his brutality.6

The migration of the Spanish conquistado-res precipitated the literal destruction andburial of native American cities such asTenochtitln, a devastation that was rational-ized as necessary for modernity. Although

the Spaniards were the invaders, theirrhetoric enabled them to reverse the logicthey were only consuming the consumers.

Both the Spanish conquistadors and theUSA depend on the Otherthose who failto make a choiceas a founding cornerstoneof the legitimacy of their sovereign power.What makes the USA exceptional is that itscitizens can chooseand have chosentobecome part of the American experiment.

Such a view necessitates the Other whocannot choose or has not chosen. Latinoimmigrants have been singled out as beingdifferent from other immigrants who camebefore them. Huntington, for example,claims that:

Americas third wave of immigration thatbegan in the 1960s brought to Americapeople primarily from Latin America andAsia rather than Europe as the previous

waves did. The culture and values of theircountries of origin often differ substantiallyfrom those prevalent in America . (2005,p. 180)

The difference is that they are defined bythe colonial narrative as essentially incapableof choice. In such exceptional cases, the stateassumes the power to choose for them, tochoose how they live and whether they live.

Agamben provides us with an analysis ofhow the state legally justifies such power. Inhis analysis of modern politics, he identifiesthe Other as homo sacer, the one who maybe killed and yet not sacrificed (1998, p. 8).Agamben traces the term to an ancientRoman treatise On the Significance of Wordsby Pompeius Festus, who writes: The sacredman is the one whom the people have judgedon account of a crime. It is not permitted to

sacrifice this man, yet he who kills him willnot be condemned for homicide (quoted inAgamben, 1998, p. 71). Agamben argues thatwhile such a claim seems incomprehensiblefrom within the context of the ancientRoman social order, we can find its explana-tion in modern juridical documentsinparticular, in a small German pamphletexplaining the relationship of the law tosuicide and euthanasia. The pamphlets

author argues that suicide is permissiblebecause the sovereign state should not inter-vene in the sovereignty of the individual whowills to take his life. But he argues that thecounterpart is that the sovereign state isauthorized to take the life of someone who isno longer capable of willing it. In that autho-rization of euthanasia as the annihilation oflife unworthy of being lived [lebensun-werten Leben], Agamben argues that we find

its correlatethe life that does deserve to belived (or to live). Here Agamben finds thefundamental biopolitical structure of moder-nitythe decision on the value (or nonvalue)of life as such (1998, p. 137). Lifes value isdetermined by the power of the state. Thestate determines worthiness and unworthi-ness; it is not a matter of the free choice of theindividual.

Agamben recognizes the concentrationcamp as the biopolitical paradigm of themodern (1998, pp. 119180); I argue that itsearly modern precedent lies in the Spanishconquest and destruction of indigenous


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peoples and their cities. The colonialprocesses have been further magnified andexpedited in the age of neo-liberal globaliza-tion. As Diken (2005) argues, the Brazelianfavela is a zone beyond the civilized city thatmakes civilization possible. Davis (2006b)analysis of the Planet of Slums can also beread this way; the neoliberal economyexcludes those it cannot accommodate in theslum, reducing the slum dwellers to marginalfiguresshadows of themselves trying tosurvive in a shadow economy.

Agamben argues that modernity is charac-terized by a process by which the exceptioneverywhere becomes the rule and:

the realm of bare lifewhich is originallysituated at the margins of the politicalordergradually begins to coincide with thepolitical realm, and exclusion and inclusion,outside and inside, bios and zo[emacr] , right andfact, enter into a zone of irreducibleindistinction. (1998, p. 9)

Zo[emacr] , the life that is common to all livingbeings, becomes confused with bios, the

form or way of living proper to an individualor a group (Agamben, 1998, p. 1). For theancient Greeks, the proper way of life wasdefined within the political life of the city.But where, then, is the locus of the modernpolitical paradigm? While this questiondeserves far greater treatment than I can giveit here, I suggest an important locus ofmodernitythat is, a zone of irreducibleindistinctionis the rurban area, the place

that is neither urban nor rural. Perhaps thecounterpart to homo saceris urbs sacrathecity that can be killed but not sacrificed.

The death of the city gives (un)life to theslums, but also to the rurban condition. AsCatterall notes, the term rurban meansneither urban nor rural, nada (2008, p. 276).Catterall defines the rurban condition as oneof intense marginalization and disposses-siona condition more than a place.

The rurban fringe is a wide-spreadphenomenonas a rurbanised countrysideand marginalised and hollowed out urban

areas. The less affluent and the poor are beinggentrified out of cities. Those that remainfind themselves acutely marginalised and, in asense, dispossessed. (2008, p. 276)

The process of rurbanization is happeningin both the global South and the globalNorth. Quoting anthropologist MagdalenaNock regarding her study of Mexico, MikeDavis argues that displacement and theblurring of boundaries is a direct result ofneo-liberal economic policies: Globalizationhas increased the movement of people,goods, services, information, news, products,and money, and thereby the presence of

urban characteristics in rural areas andof rural traits in urban centers (Davis, 2006a,p. 11). Increasingly, new immigrants to theglobal North find themselves living in rurbanareas (Singer, 2004), living alongside thosenatives who have been left behind, whoremain in gutted places that can best bedescribed as conditions.

Many of the new immigrants are personswhose lives and homes have been deemed

expendable in the pursuit of neo-liberaleconomic policies (see, e.g., Graham, 2004;Davis, 2006a; Mendieta, 2007; Schwartz,2007). It is little wonder, then, that the immi-grant has been identified as the contempo-rary homo sacer. The norm of the politicalexists through the exclusion of the depoliti-cized life form. In the case of the person whois forced to migrate as a matter of pure lifesurvival, that displaced person gives citizens

their place (Kumar and Grundy-Warr, 2004).And thus we return to Honigs argumentwith which we ended our discussion in theprevious section.Homo saceris the necessaryground of the modern sovereign authority ofdemocracy. We need the foreigner, whichmeans that we need the person who isperpetually displaced.

The foreigner affirms the exceptionality ofthe USA, as a nation unique in the freedoms itguarantees, but also as a nation that offersrefuge to those who can choose its way of life.Western politics first constitutes itselfthrough an exclusion (which is simultaneously

e

e


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an inclusion) of bare life (Agamben, 1998,p. 7). Furthermore, our nations economydepends on the immigrantincluding theillegal one. Undocumented immigrants areat once welcome and unwelcome: they arewoven into the economic fabric of the nation,but as labor that is cheap and disposable(Ngai, 2004, p. 2).

In my analysis of Jefferson, I argue that forJefferson, it was not just the immigrant, butalso the city that was both included andexcluded. The negative impacts of US inter-ventions in Latin America are becomingincreasingly visible as Latino immigrants areforced to flee their homes in order to eke out

an existence. No longer confined to eitherremote rural areas or Latin American urbanslums, Latinos seem to be turning up every-where and nowhere. Rurban America is theplace where homo sacer, the excluded who isat the same time included, is becoming visiblein the USA.

As major American metropolitan areasbecome too expensive for new immigrants,and as rurban America becomes the favored

place of informal economic sector jobs inagriculture, food processing, and truckingand warehousing, Latino immigrants areforced over the US border into major cities,pushed out of major cities because of highliving costs, and finally pulled into rurbanareas like Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

Hazleton, PA: rurban America

Hazleton is a small northeastern Pennsylvaniatown located high on a hilltop in the middleof one of the worlds largest anthracite coalregions. Although Hazletons population isless than 30,000 people, it retains its legalstatus as a citya status it gained during theheyday of the booming anthracite industryof the late 19th century. Even at its peak,Hazleton was a second-class city in compari-son to its neighbors Wilkes-Barre and Scran-ton. Home more to coal miners than to theindustrial barons who settled those cities,Hazleton was settled primarily by Italian,

Irish, and Eastern European immigrants seek-ing work to survive. While its small popula-tion numbers might make it difficult for mostof us today to recognize Hazleton as a city, itwas not just a city as a matter of law but as asocial and economic unit (Figures 1 and 2).

But Hazleton has since suffered manylosses. Hazletons economy collapsed whencoal mining became uneconomical and wasdiscontinued in the 1960s; younger peopleleft the city, seeking livelihoods elsewhere.Hazletons population fell nearly in halffrom nearly 40,000 at its peak in 1940 tonearly 20,000 in 2000 (http://www.hazleton-city.org/public/life/history.html). A declin-

ing population and tax base has left the townin financial difficulty that was further exacer-bated by the loss of most of its few manufac-turing jobs to Mexico. The medianhousehold income in Hazleton according tothe 2000 US census was US$35,069; bycomparison, the median for the nation wasUS$52,433 (http://www.muninetguide.com/states/pennsylvania/municipality/Hazleton.php). Increasing numbers of Hazletons

natives have been forced into situations ofunderemployment or moved into the infor-mal work sector. Furthermore, Hazletonssmall size yet legal status as a city places it inconsiderable limbo financially and politi-cally. It fails to qualify for many federalfunds for which either big cities or ruralcommunities are eligible, yet is oftenexpected to provide the same services as dolarger cities.

The city of Hazleton was killed off,7

or atthe very least, became invisible. It becamea dim shadow of its formal self, the epitomeof the rurban condition. Hazletons officialcity website (http://www.hazletoncity.org/public/life/life-in-hazleton.html) touts itsproximity to other places rather than anystrengths of the place itself. In recent years,Hazletons location near both metropolitanNew York and Philadelphia, its scenicPocono mountain views, its incredibly lowhousing prices, and its low crime statisticsbegan to draw a new generation of immi-grants to the city. Its population has grown


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Figure 1 Broad Street (Hazletons main street): Remember When...? Photograph Sharon Meagher.

Figure 2 Immigrant Service: Hair of the Dog. Photograph Sharon Meagher.


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from approximately 20,000 to 30,000peoplea 33% increase in the past 10 yearsthat has been difficult to absorb, given itsgutted tax base and community services.While some of the new immigrants hail fromEastern Europe, most come from Mexico,Central and South America.

Initially, Hazletons Mayor Lou Barlettawelcomed the new settlers and was well-regarded by the Latino community. Barlettacould see the promise of newcomers to thetown. The largely abandoned businessdistrict began to open new Latino-ownedand focused services. The age demographicsbegan to shift. But many of the towns life-

long residents blamed the new immigrantsfor the towns economic woes, even thoughthey clearly began well before their arrival.The oversimplifiedyet convenientway tolook at the situation was that the Latinosstole their jobs. Yet the crime that shiftedthe political will in Hazleton was a murderthat involved an undocumented immigrant.

The reaction was reminiscent of the reac-tion shared by the upstate New York

community where the term rurban wasoriginally coined:

Its kind of hard to describe thiscommunity, Mr. Koopmans continued. Itsnot the sort of community where you godown to the post office and meet neighbors.Its not really urban. Its not really suburban.Its rurban. We always say it wont happenhere. (Edward A. Gargan, Man held inslaying of 2 girls upstate, The New York

Times, 27 September 1984, quoted inCatterall, 2008, p. 275)

At this juncture I repeat the questions BobCatterall raised in his discussion of the rurban:What is the crime that is being so confus-ingly identified? What are its settings? Andhow might it be more justly appropriated and/or reappropriated (Catterall, 2008, p. 267)? Asa place where violent crimes are not supposedto happen, it became convenient to blame allof Hazletons newcomersparticularly in thecontext of a national discourse on immigrationthat cast undocumented immigrants as

criminals who pose a deep threat to the sover-eignty and independence of the USA. In thatdiscourse, Latino immigrants are constructedas the perpetrators rather than the victims ofneo-liberal economics. While the Americanway of life, particularly in terms of its higheconomic standard of living, depends onOthers who work for substandard wages orare forced outside the economy all together,the discourse of independence continues tomask that dependence.

Anti-immigration discourse in America

US official discourse both reflects its citi-zens sense of threat and shapes it. Thepopular media and US rhetoric mutuallyreinforce one another. War has become thenorm, although the language of operationhas become the euphemism for those warsin which the US military is most publicly,visibly, and directly engaged. The War inIraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom, was pref-aced by Operation Liberty Shield, a

domestic security operation that targetedillegal aliens on the USAs southern border(Siskinds Immigration Bulletin, 2003). TheUSA reserves the language of war for thosefights that are waged everywhere andnowhere against unclearly defined enemies,for example: The War on Terror and TheWar on Drugs. Operation Iraqi Freedomand Operation Liberty Shield both werejustified as operations in these two larger

wars, as well as the new warthe war onillegal immigration.In contemporary anti-immigration dis-

course, we see the official US doctrinerepeated. In contemporary anti-immigrationdiscourse, taking exceptional measures againstOthers is justified as a necessary condition ofwar. Dozens of books take anti-immigrationstances and invoke the language of threat andthe war on immigration as a war of self-defense. For example, Chuck Norris bookBlack Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken

America advertises itself on its book jacket asfollows:


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It seems like wherever you turn these days,the news is bad. Illegal aliens are swarmingover our borders. Our nation and Americanfamilies are crippled by debt but remainvulnerable to Islamist terrorist attacks .

The core message of the Declaration ofIndependencethat everyone has a God-given right of life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappinessis under threat from liberals whodeny the right to life (or even the idea ofGod-given rights)(Norris, 2008)

In just a few short sentences, Norris managesto connect immigrants to terrorists and thethreat of both to the Declaration of Indepen-dence. And the threat justifies the denial of

God-given rights to anyone deemed athreatincluding perhaps, those liberalmedia-types who live in large US cities.

CNN commentator Lou Dobbs hasbecome the self-anointed anti-immigrationexpert in the popular media, and he hasidentified Hazleton as the key battlegroundin the war on immigrationa case of a smalltown battling against both hordes of illegalimmigrants and media and government elites

in major US cities. Ignoring his own consid-erable media influence and platform, Dobbsargues:

The national media almost withoutexception refuses to acknowledge that theeconomic benefits of illegal immigrationaccrue to those who employ illegalimmigrants, not to the nation, and that thisflawed system results in an actual cost to oureconomy. (2007, p. 155)

Dobbs featured Hazleton on his televisionshow (even broadcasting live from Hazletonon a few occasions). He also features thetown prominently in his book, IndependentsDay: Awakening the American Spirit (2007),condemning the federal judge (Munley) whoruled against Hazleton. He argues that thefederal government needs to do an economicimpact study on immigration before itcontinues to prosecute small towns likeHazleton or enact immigration reforms.And yet Dobbs makes it clear that healready knows the results of such studies,

claiming that the cost is just too great toallow immigrants in.

Despite the apparent certainty of Dobbsanalysis, his argument muddles terrorism,media, and big government and immigrationas if they are all one and the sameall threatsto American independence and the Americanway of life. Citing Woodrow Wilson, Dobbsmakes it clear that he knows who the trueAmericans are:

You cannot dedicate yourself to Americaunless you become in every respect and withevery purpose of will thorough Americans. A man who thinks of himself as belongingto a particular national group in America hasnot yet become an American. (2007, p. 137)

Note that Dobbs makes an extra-juridicalclaim regarding citizenshipit is not the lawthat determines the citizen, but whether theperson is thoroughly American. He can saythis without any trace of irony, even thoughhis hero and proud Italian-American MayorLou Barletta stood before an Italian flag inhis Hazleton mayoral office during his

televised interview on 60 Minutes (CBSNews, 2006a).

In a national context of multiple unnamedwars, declaring oneself the exception to therule is not only right, but necessary. Thediscourse of popular conservative politicalpundits and well-financed nonprofits,academics like Samuel Huntington, andconservative politicians such as TomTancredo reinforce the sense that we are in a

permanent state of crisis or war that requiresself-defense. Huntington claims, for example,that in the last decade Americas commonculture and the principles of equality andindividualism central to the American Creed[have been] under attack by many individ-uals and groups in American society (2005,p. 11). The claim to moral lawto a God-given rightjustifies the suspension of, orchallenge to, the federal law and necessitatesthat some are excluded from the exceptionalwe who are Americans.

Furthermore, the city increasinglybecomes identified as the battlefield in this


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war. While self-appointed patriots patrol thenations southern borders and have erectedweb-based surveillance systems such as Tech-nopatriots.com so that anyone can become afreedom fighter, recent comments on theirwebsite suggest that the war is not only to befought at the rural southern border, but in citystreets. Kev, for example, posts: Nice jobguys! Keep up the good work. Lets [sic] ridthis country of those who invade this country.America is under attack from criminal aliensand its [sic] about time that we fight back. Tothe streets! (18 April 2008). In response tothose who posted critical concerns about thetechnopatriot operation, Uncle Sam writes:

It is your lackadaisical [sic] attitude thatenemies of this state will eventually use tosneak in our southern border and nuke somemajor SW metropolis, or poison their [sic]water, or whatever (18 April 2008).

I hope that I have shown in the previoussections that the connections these webcommentators make is not random, butrather has deep historical roots that extendback to the first imaginings of the USA in the

Declaration of Independence as well as to themyth of modernity. But these are not merelyrhetorical or conceptual connections; smallcities such as Hazleton have declared war.Using the only political means available tothem, they made their own law.

Hazletons declaration of independence:a brief history of a failed revolution

On 13 July 2006, the small city of Hazleton,Pennsylvania, declared its independence,arguing that it had to defend its town on a hillfrom both illegal aliens and the federalgovernments failure to provide it withadequate protection. The city council passedan ordinance called the Illegal ImmigrationRelief Act (IIRA) that contains three provi-sions: (1) it prohibits business owners fromhiring or otherwise doing business withillegal aliens, (2) it forbids landlords fromrenting to illegal aliens, and (3) it establishesEnglish as the official city language.

While Barletta and his allies claim that theirtarget is exclusively focused on illegal aliens,the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)successfully challenged the law on thegrounds that it places all persons of Latinoheritage or who appear in any way to beforeign in the awkward position of havingto repeatedly prove their legal status (Lozanov. Hazleton, 2007). Since the ordinancewould penalize any business persons orprivate landlords who did business with thepersons later discovered to be undocu-mented, the ordinance would in essencedeputize business persons and landlords tocheck immigration status so as to avoid legal

problems themselves. Furthermore, theACLU argued that the ordinances provisionthat demands all business be conducted inEnglish and that all immigrants (regardless ofstatus) learn English places an extra-legaldemand on immigrants, since language profi-ciency is not tied to legal status or citizenship.

Cities across the USA are declaring theirindependence from federal immigrationpolicy, taking the law into their own hands in

the name of self-defense. While the U.S.Federal District Courts judgment in Lozanov. Hazleton has temporarily stemmed thetide of this movement, Hazleton has filed anappeal. It is noteworthy that almost all ofthose local political bodies that have passedsome form of immigration or English-onlylaws share demographic and economic char-acteristics that might be called rurban.Either they are small towns whose rural char-

acteristics feel under threat (e.g., Taneytown,Maryland), or they are caught in the growingcreep of metropolitanism like CherokeeCounty, Georgia (now indecipherable fromAtlanta) or Pahrump, Nevada, located onehour outside of galloping Las Vegas. In allcases, at least 86% of their residents arenative-born English speakers (Stigers, 2006,pp. 45).

Proponents of these local ordinances andlaws frequently invoke metaphors ofinvasion, burial, and self-defense in theirsupport of it. Barletta justified his stance in anationally aired CBS 60 Minutes interview by


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saying: Our city has been overrun by illegalaliens, leading to increased crime (CBSNews, 2006a). Indeed, the website created asa national forum and fundraising site for thepurposes of fighting the ACLU law suit (nowthe appeal) is called The Hazleton DefenseFund (its web address is http://www.small-towndefenders.com). On the legal defensedonation page, the text reads: After sufferingthrough several high-profile crimes involvingillegal aliens, weve sent a clear message thatweve had enough. Hazleton is working totake back our streets, our neighborhood, andour community (http://www.smalltownde-fenders.com). Mayor Barletta has positioned

himself as the leader of a national movementof small cities and towns. He writes in thewelcome letter on the website: I hope thesteps were taking in Hazleton to defendourselves will inspire others to become smalltown defenders (http://www.smalltownde-fenders.com). Barletta and his supporters arepoised as fighters defending themselves ontwo fronts: on the one hand, they are fightingagainst illegal immigration, and on the other,

they are fighting those who disagree withthem.

While the latter enemy is clear, that is,there are known groups (like the ACLU) andindividuals who are working to permanentlydefeat the implementation of the Hazletonordinance, the first enemythe illegalimmigrantsare both everywhere andnowhere. While Barletta and his defendersregularly cite the rise of criminal incidents as

the major motivation for the law, Barlettaseems untroubled by the fact that he has nodata to support either a general claim aboutan influx of undocumented persons to hiscity or a rise in crime.8 Asked what percent-age he thinks are illegal immigrants, Barlettasays: Nobody knows that. Nobody knowsthat anywhere in the United States howmany illegals are here (CBS News, 2006a).9

When questioned in federal court by theACLU attorney about why Hazleton passeda law without empirical evidence that illegalimmigration is a problem or a study thatwould help minimize negative impacts,

Hazleton City Council President JosephYanuzzi replied angrily:

Every law we make, somebodys going to gethurt. There is no 100 percent (certainty), and

to have studies done I pass the pooper-scooper law, what am I going to do, studythat? We cant have consultants come hereevery two seconds.

The ACLU attorney quickly responded: Soremoving these people [illegal immigrants]from town who are working, living,employed is just the same thing as removingsomething off the sidewalk? To which Mr.Yanuzzi replied: Youre talking about aperson that is, first off, illegal (Lozano v.Hazleton). In other words, the law displacesa person who is not a person, given that thelaw has the power to decide such.

Hazleton City Council members andMayor Barletta invoke federal immigrationlaw in their determination of the status ofpersons to legitimate their own attempt tousurp federal law. Their declaration of inde-pendence depends on the Declaration of

Independence and the sovereignty of the stateof exception. Barletta invokes the Americanexceptionalism in his defense of Hazleton inhis welcome letter on the Hazleton DefenseFund website:

I believe the United States of America is thegreatest nation on Earth. People who are inthis country have an incredible amount ofopportunities and blessings.

But some people have taken advantage ofAmericas openness and tolerance. Somecome to this country and refuse to learnEnglish, creating a language barrier for cityemployees. Others enter the country illegallyand use government services by not payingtaxes or by committing crime on our streets,further draining resources here in Hazleton.(http://www.smalltowndefenders.com)

Barletta has won national attention and somepersonal political rewards for his work; theRepublican national party heavily financedhis campaign for a US congressional seat


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(which he narrowly lost to a Democratincumbent riding the coattails of BarackObama). Despite this loss, it is clear thatBarletta has many admirers beyond his friendLou Dobbs. A national supporter wrote onCBS web comment site: Mayor Barletta hasthe right to protect his town and its citizensfrom the illegal invasion and the crimes andsystem burdens due to the invasion (CBSNews, 2006b). Hundreds of letters ofsupport in both the national and local mediahave been made.

When Barletta was challenged publicly byother Pennsylvania city mayors attending aconference in the area, he said: Im not talk-

ing about immigrants, Im talking aboutillegal aliens (Brown, 2007). He furtherargued that illegal immigration should havebeen on the mayors discussion agenda:

It would have been nice to have this dialoguebecause if people think Im doing this forpublicity, then they should talk to the womanwhose little daughter was raped by an illegalalien and talk to the mother whose son wasshot and killed by an illegal alien, who had

eight previous arrests. (Brown, 2007).

Barletta turns accusations that he is theexploiter around, and presents himself as, ifnot a victim himself, the defender of the truevictims.

The rhetoric of invasioneven vigilantediscourseis used by both Barletta and hisfollowers. And it has been effective in twoimportant ways. First, the claim to indepen-

dence has worked to catapult the invisiblerurbania of Hazleton into the national lime-light. In claiming Hazletons independenceand autonomy, Barletta and his followershave been somewhat successful in reassertingHazletons identity as a city; indeed it isinterpolated as a city in the case Lozano v.the City of Hazleton. The ordinance sharp-ens Hazletons blurred boundaries andidentity; the ordinance only would have animpact within the city lines. In this sense,Hazleton emerges as the very sort of forcethat Jefferson fearedthe city that would actautonomously and threaten to undermine

the sovereignty of the state. But second, andparadoxically, the declaration of indepen-dence also works to invoke the discursivememory of a Jeffersonian agrarian idealanideal that propelled the American Revolutionin the first place.

It is the doubleness of its rurban status thatallows the city of Hazleton both to reassertitself as city and to reject immigration andbig-city ways as contrary to our nationalideals of citizenship. Following Jefferson,Hazleton can claim that it is no place forimmigrants; immigrants in cities only spreadthe disease within the body politic. We seethis double-take in quotes such as, Illegal

aliens in our City create an economic burdenthat threatens our quality of life (http://www.smalltowndefenders.com). The smalltown quality of life in the City has beenmade impossible by the immigrants. But it isrurban life itselfthe failed promise of urbanautonomy and agrarian ideals when neitherremains in the offingthat actually createsthe burden.

We might well agree that a crime has been

committed in Hazleton; it is a city that hasbeen marginalized for the greater good of aneo-liberal economic agenda that producesboth a surplus of people and cities. But themayor and citizens focus on the more imme-diate crime of a murder that happened eventhough things like that dont happen here.Their only explanation is that Latino immi-grants are to blame for all such unimaginableacts. And they respond as vigilantesin

much the same way as in the American West.The Western vigilante classically claims theright to act because the state is either absent,in the hands of criminals, or in default of itsfundamental obligation (Davis, 2006b, p. 19).Barletta and the Hazleton City Councildefend their actions as necessary because thefederal government failed to do its job. Butjust as Davis convincingly shows that vigilan-tes in California history have always servedthe law of the state, even while acting outsideof it, we can argue that the same is true forHazleton. Historically immigrants haveserved as scapegoats when the American


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dream seems to be disintegrating. Hazletonssupposedly revolutionary tactics are, in fact,an imitation of both the rhetoric and the poli-cies of the nation-state of exception. As such,they could only fail.

Caught up in the discourse of indepen-dencea discourse that appears to tempo-rarily succeed to make the rurban urbanagain, to make the invisible visibleBarlettaand his followers remain blind to what thedeclaration of independence masks. They donot understand that declarations of indepen-dence are based on a fiction of autonomythat covers up the dependence on the Other(the city, the immigrant).

The repeated declarations of independenceon the part of anti-immigration speakersprovide a linguistic cloak that neverthelessfails to protect them from accusations ofbigotry and racism (see Dobo, 2007); at thesame time, that cloak blocks from view thecultural meanings associated with theirclaims. It further blinds the speakers fromtheir own dependence on language andculture in spite of their futile attempts to

proclaim their independence from meaningsthat they do not intend.

While Barletta appears to be denouncingthe nation-state in favor of the autonomy ofthe city, both his rhetoric and his politicalactions imitate and reinforce the sovereigntyof the nation-state. Ultimately, he is a small-town defender, a defender of the Jeffersonianideal. Both the rhetoric and strategies inwhich Hazleton engages mimic the national

rhetoric and political strategies from whichthey supposedly declare their independence.Hazleton argues that they face an exceptionalsituation that requires unusual wartimestrategies. But the strategy that they haveemployed does not break from the state ofexception; it extends and reinforces it. Suchstrategies are dangerous, if not deadly, forboth the city and the immigrants. Hazletonsmanufacturing jobs will not return. Many ofits newest immigrants have had to find yetanother new place where they can try to ekeout a living. Hazletons future is complicat-edly tied to the fate of those in the global

South. No words or laws can untie thosebinds.

Hazletons current situation is consider-ably bleaker than it was before the mayor andcity council formed a posse. The city is inconsiderable debt because of legal fees. ManyLatino residents seemingly packed up and leftovernight. While Barletta saw this as confir-mation that the new immigrants were indeedcriminals (interview, Lou Dobbs Tonight,2007), it seems more likely that they left outof a sense of fear. Many have resettled toScranton, which has provided de facto sanctu-ary. As a result, Scranton is beginning to pros-per while Hazletons economy goes nowhere.

Scrantons Southside, which just a few yearsago had dozens of empty storefronts, is beingresettled by Latino immigrants. In contrast,Hazletons Broad Street, its main businesscenter, is dotted by empty storefronts andtemporary labor agenciesinterrupted onlyby a few remaining Latino businesses (manyof which still advertise in Spanish), someempty banks, a bingo parlor, and an antiquesstore called Remember When.

The fact that in Hazletons case the USfederal court ruled against them is not a signthat Hazleton was truly doing somethingrevolutionary. Had the ACLU not filed suiton behalf of some of Hazletons Latino resi-dents, it is highly unlikely that the US govern-ment would have intervened in Hazletonslegal actions. In fact, US law since 1996 hasmandated that cities and states aid the federalgovernment in its enforcement of law when

the federal government so dictates. But whenit is called to their attention that cities areacting autonomously and with disregard forfederal law, the US government must and willput cities in their place. Cities cannot act like(city-) states of exceptionexcept when thestate determines that they can.

Promising revolutions

In response to the modern political paradigmof the state of exception, Agamben calls for acompletely new politicsthat is, a politics no


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longer founded on the exceptio of bare life.But he notes that such politics remainslargely uninvented (1998, p. 11). The mythof modernity makes it difficult to discern justwhat freedom is if it is not an issue of radicalself-determination or sovereign autonomy.And, as Enns argues so well, dreams of free-dom are indeed necessary to the fight againstthe oppression of colonial and post-colonialforces (2007, pp. 125150). In the short spacethat remains I cannot hope to invent a newpolitics, but I think that my extension ofAgambens analysis to the city and its deathin rurbania suggests some possible direc-tionsor locationsfor a revolutionary

politics.One possibility is to reassert the rural not

as a place of definite boundaries, but as a placethat can provide some promise of freedom.Enns reading of the Zapatista movementprovides helpful possibilities here. She arguesfor an emancipatory desire that renewsdemands for justice and a political commit-ment that begins anew, everyday, every-where (Enns, 2007, p. 21). Ramor Ryans

documentation of the work of the Zapatistamovement in rural Mexico further concret-izes this idea. Ryan argues that the Zapatistashave cultivated international solidarity byasking others to believe in the Zapatistamovementwherever they are (2008, p. 118);at the same time, the Zapististas have achievedsome independence, some autonomy, and theability to self-legislate in rural Mexico.Zapatismo embraces the utopian notions of a

nowhere that is a refuge and a place of solace(Ryan, 2008, p. 120).Both rural communities and cities can serve

as places of refuge, and this suggests anotherpossible direction for revolution. Agambencalls for a new politics that severs the nexusbetween violence and the law (2005, p. 88).The sanctuary city movement works to severthat connection. In contrast to the vigilantecity created by Hazletons mayor and citycouncil, where they challenged the lawbecause they wanted to re-enforce it, andwhere their words of law gave rise, andcontinue to give rise, to violence,10 sanctuary

cities break the law and its cycle of violence.The sanctuary city movement in the USAshows promise of the kind of new politics forwhich Agamben hopes.

In its simplest form, the sanctuary citymovement merely takes a dont ask, dont tellapproach to immigration, and such couldhardly be understood as a new politics. Butsome cities are highly networked and politi-cally engaged both with other US sanctuarycities and with supporters globally. In contrastto the illegal tactic undertaken by Hazleton,sanctuary cities refuse laws that authorize thekilling of those deemed to have unworthylives. The sanctuary movement taps into a civic

tradition that extends as far back in history asto ancient Rome, but that also shaped thefounding of the USAas a sanctuary fromreligious and political persecution as well aspoverty in Europe. Sanctuary became a partof the accepted understanding everywhere inthe world of what it meant to be American(Golden and McConnell, 1986, p. 15).

The sanctuary movement began in theUSA in the 1980s, when American interven-

tions in Central America caused a tide ofrefugees to the USA. But the USA rejected itsown moral commitment to take in refugeesby claiming that they were not refugees butcombatants. Cities that offered sanctuaryrefused assistance to US immigrationenforcement agencies. In an effort to punishthose cities providing sanctuary, the federalIllegal Immigration Reform & ImmigrationResponsibility Act was passed in 1996.

Built on the recognition that we are allrefugees, many US cities have decided torefuse to recognize the law and have contin-ued to organize politically as sanctuary cities.The sanctuary movement refuses the lawrather than attempting to legislate its own. Itrefuses the power of the state of exception todetermine who is a person and who isworthy of living. Such a movement stands instark contrast to Hazletons rurban politics.While Hazleton defied the law in order toenforce it, thus siding with the sovereignpower of the state, sanctuary cities try tobreak with the law and do so through the


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recognition of global interdependence. Inthis sense, the cities provide refuge to immi-grants, particularly those who are mostvulnerable, those who are poorest and leastlikely to be documented, and therefore thosemost likely to come into contact with localpolice or social service agencies.

Some Americans have begun to blamesanctuary cities as well as the immigrantsthey harbor for their woes. Powerless andfrustrated, they continue to call for thefederal government to make ever new lawsagainst them. The Ohio political actioncommittee Ohio Jobs & Justice opposessanctuary cities on the grounds that sanctu-

ary policies, official or otherwise, result insafe havens for illegal aliens and potentialterrorists (Salvi, 2008). Their website listsdozens of US cities who offer some type ofsanctuary policy and urge their readers tourge their US congressmen and women totake punitive action against them. But it isdifficult for a law to stop a movement thatrefuses to accept its power. The sanctuarycity movement continues to grow. At the

same time, many municipalities that followedHazletons lead in taking punitive actionshave begun to repeal their laws.

While the sanctuary city movement mightpresent more the promise than the reality of anew politics, it does suggest a new directionthat we might continue to pursue, a directionthat claims a right to the city that is not basedon the power of the law of the state of excep-tion. At the very least, it is a strategy that

exposes the paradoxes of the modern nation-state as the state of exception that depends onthe permanent exclusion of the Other.

We must de-link the concept of freedomfrom both the sovereign subject and thesovereign nation-stateor even sovereigncityand reassert, in the place of the nada ofthe rurban, rural and urban political possibil-ities that are both locally and globally situ-ated, not as a matter of default but as a matterof political activity.

In the beginning of a new century that findsus plunged into multiple sites of global

struggles we must maintain therestlessness of the negotiation betweenfreedom and freedoms, or betweenphilosophy and politics, thought and action.We must speak of freedom then, but a

freedom that to repeat Levinas consists inknowing that freedom is in peril. (Enns,2007, p. 156)

In other words, we must expose the myth ofmodernity as a mytha myth that insists onthe fixity of the developed, free, and indepen-dent agent and the undeveloped Other whois condemned for his dependency on thedeveloped. We must ferret out the myth in itscontemporary reformulations such as that ofthe US anti-immigration movement. And wemust understand that declarations of inde-pendence or freedom are always already alsodeclarations ofinterdependence.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the editors andreviewers of City as well as Antonio

Calcagno and Gail McGrew for their helpfulcomments and suggestions for revision on anearlier draft of this paper, and thanks theUniversity of Scranton Offices of theProvost and the CAS Dean for makingresearch release time available for thecompletion of this article.

Notes

1 1 Jefferson makes such claims in multiple writings. Inhis Notes on Virginia, for example, Jefferson ismemorably quoted as follows: The mobs of thegreat cities add just so much to the support of puregovernment as sores do to the strength of thehuman body. It is the manners and spirit of apeople which preserve a republic in vigor. Adegeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats tothe heart of its laws and constitution (1782, ME2:230; cf. Jefferson, 1814).

2 2 While we have land to labor, let us never wish to

see our citizens occupied at a workbench ortwirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, arewanting in husbandry; but for the generaloperations of manufacture, let our workshops


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remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisionsand materials to workmen there than bring them tothe provision and materials and with them theirmanners and principles (Jefferson, 1782).

3 3 A first question is, whether it is desirable for us toreceive at present the dissolute and demoralizedhandicraftsmen of the old cities of Europe? Asecond and more difficult one is, when even goodhandicraftsmen arrive here, is it better for them toset up their trade, or go to the culture of the earth?Whether their labor in their trade is worth morethan their labor on the soil, increased by thecreative energies of the earth? (Jefferson, 1805).

4 4 experience has shown that continued peacedepends not merely on our own justice andprudence but on that of others also; that whenforced into war, the interception of exchangeswhich must be made across a wide ocean becomes

a powerful weapon in the hands of an enemydomineering over that element (Jefferson, 1815).

5 5 For further discussion on Jeffersons views oncitiesone that greatly influenced my owninterpretationsee White and White (1962,pp. 1831).

6 6 In a certain part of this province, where they killedthe ten or twelve Spaniards, the natives havealways been very warlike and rebellious. I madecertain of them slaves of which I have a fifth part toYour Majestys officers, for, in addition to theirhaving killed the aforementioned Spaniards and

rebelled against your Highness service, they areall cannibals, of which I send Your Majesty noevidence because it is so infamous (Corts 1986,p. 146).

7 7 Of course, it is important to keep this claim inperspective. Hazleton has neither suffered theurbicide of Middle East cities wracked by war northe devastation of Kinshasa (Davis, 2006b,pp. 191198).

8 8 In fact, a recent study by Robert J. Sampson et al.hypothesizes that the lackof new immigrants mightin fact be the cause of the recent surge in thehomicide rate of US cities (Bennett, 2006), and afull literature review of the relationship betweencrime and immigration reveals that crime rates arelower within urban immigrant neighborhoods thanamong natives (see Martinez and Lee, 2000).

9 9 Such bravado has not been limited to widelypublicized media forums. In federal courttestimony, Hazleton Police Chief Robert Ferdinandreplied to the ACLU attorneys data that showedrelatively few crimes involving illegal immigrants inthe past six years sarcastically: I think you make avalid point I think we might be one (crime) shortof the magic number where it becomes a problem

(Scranton Times-Tribune, 21 March 2007, A4).1010 While the relocation of immigrants and the further

gutting of a city is in itself a kind of violence, one of

the most tragic outcomes of the Hazleton case wasthe brutal murder of a Latino man by high school

youths in a neighboring townyouths who feltempowered to take the law into their own hands(Krawczeniuk, 2008).

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Sharon M. Meagher is Professor of Philoso-phy and Chair of LA/W/S: The Departmentof Latin American Studies and WomensStudies, University of Scranton, Scranton,Pennsylvania, 18510, USA. Email:

[email protected]


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CITY

analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 1 MARCH 2009EDITORIAL 1

DECLARATIONSOFINDEPENDENCE: ANTI-IMMIGRATIONPOLITICSIN RURBAN AMERICASharon M. Meagher 5

SOCIALMOVEMENTSINTHEFACEOFCRIMINALPOWER: THESOCIO-POLITICALFRAGMENTATIONOFSPACEAND MICRO-LEVELWARLORDS ASCHALLENGESFOREMANCIPATIVEURBANSTRUGGLESMarcelo Lopes de Souza 26

Capital Cities and their Contested Roles in the Life of NationsINTRODUCTIONGran Therborn and K. C. Ho 53

RUNAWAYCHICKENS AND MYANMARIDENTITY: RELOCATING BURMASCAPITALDonald M. Seekins 63

POST-COLONIALPROJECTSOFANATIONALCULTURE: KUALA LUMPURAND PUTRAJAYABeng-Lan Goh and David Liauw 71

BANGKOK: GLOBALACTORINAMISALIGNEDNATIONALGOVERNANCEFRAMEWORKDouglas Webster and Chuthatip Maneepong 80

HANOI, VIETNAM: REPRESENTINGPOWERINANDOFTHENATIONWilliam S. Logan 87

VIENTIANE: AFAILURETOEXERTPOWER?John Walsh and Nittana Southiseng 95

CONTESTING TAIPEIASAWORLDCITYJenn-hwan Wang and Shuwei Huang 103

SHIFTINGSPACESOFPOWERIN METRO MANILAEmma Porio 110

JAKARTA: THERISEANDCHALLENGEOFACAPITALWilmar Salim and Benedictus Kombaitan 120

DHAKAANDTHECONTESTATIONOVERTHEPUBLICSPACEHabibul Haque Khondker 129

Alternatives: Pragues Days of Unrest and Greeces December eventsINTRODUCTIONPaul Chatterton 137


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CULTURALWORKERSOFTHEWORLDUNITE, YOUVENOTHINGTOLOSEBUTYOURTHEATRES:DNY NEKLIDU (DAYSOF UNREST) ANDTHEINITIATIVEFORACULTURAL PRAGUERobert Hollands 139

GREECESWINTEROFDISCONTENT

Antonis Vradis 146

ReviewsWHERETHERIVERMEETSTHECITY: TRACING LOS ANGELES SOCIALANDENVIRONMENTALMOVEMENTSReinventing Los Angeles: nature and community in the global city,by Robert GottliebReviewed by Beth Rose Middleton 150

WHITEOUT? GENTRIFICATIONANDCOLONIALISMININNER-CITY SYDNEY

Cities of whiteness, by Wendy S. ShawReviewed by Kari Forbes-Boyte 153

TAKINGSMALLTHINGSALLTHEWAYTOTHE BANKInvested interests: capital, culture, and the World Bank, by Bret BenjaminReviewed by Trevor J. Barnes 156

EndpieceISITALLCOMINGTOGETHER? THOUGHTSONURBANSTUDIESANDTHEPRESENTCRISIS:(15) ELITESQUADS: BRAZIL, PRAGUE, GAZAANDBEYOND.Bob Catterall 159

Meagher - Declaration of Independence

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