UCLA

This paper analyzes urban militarism, anti-imperialist movement organizing, and the contestation of space through a case study of the 2023 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and protests in San Francisco, California. Building on existing literature on transnational continuities; urban militarisms; neoliberalism, imperialism, and militarization; and urban contestation and resistance; this paper studies the APEC protests and counter-summit as a site where anti-imperialist organizers in the Filipino diaspora contested American militarism transnationally in their interventions in militarized urban space. The qualitative research methods employed are primarily ethnographic, utilizing interviews and participant observation to capture the character, events, and discourses of the protests. This research intends to bridge the gap between Filipino, urban, and militarism studies, forming an analysis of the transnational continuities of militarism, neoliberalism, and counterinsurgency as synthesized by the organizers interviewed in this study.