The current research studies demonstrations held in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 2020 and 2023 in the wake of the 2018 ‘parallel society agreement’ (a.k.a. ‘ghetto-laws’). The stated aim of this legislation was to facilitate the integration of ethnic minorities into mainstream society by drawing middle-class Danish residents into public housing areas defined by high levels of ethnic minority populations. We draw on dialogical and socio-cultural psychology to view demonstrations as communicative settings in which speakers locate problems, imagine futures and suggest pathways for action. Speakers’ problematizations and engagements with scenarios of collective action were formulated around three thematic domains: (1) intentions and motives of ‘institutional others’; (2) dystopia-utopia and; (3) expanding a constrictive future. As the legislation was increasingly implemented throughout the 3-year period, this was reflected in dialogical dynamics between different temporalities; and as a lawsuit initiated by a group of residents seemed to gain ground, this sustained a horizon of hope and volition. On a more general level, we stress the significance of the legal domain for engaging with the possible – particularly for urban social movements fighting for the ‘right to the city’. We similarly discuss the implications of our results for addressing urban marginalization.
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