Critical Geography

Geografías del terror en Colombia.

by Iñigo Errejón Galván

(2010) Reseña del libro: "Comunidades negras y espacio en el Pacífico colombiano. Hacia un giro geográfico en el estudio de los movimientos sociales" Ulrich Oslender (2008) Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia, 355 pp.

Reanimating anarchist geographies: a new burst of colour

by Simon Springer

Springer S, Ince A, Pickerill J, Brown G, and Barker A. Forthcoming. Reanimating anarchist geographies: a new burst of colour. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography.

The late 19th century saw a burgeoning of geographical writings from influential anarchist thinkers like Peter... more The late 19th century saw a burgeoning of geographical writings from influential anarchist thinkers like Peter Kropotkin and Élisée Reclus. Yet despite the vigorous intellectual debate sparked by the works of these two individuals, following their deaths anarchist ideas within geography faded. It was not until the 1970s that anarchism was once again given serious consideration by academic geographers who, in laying the groundwork for what is today known as ‘radical geography’, attempted to reintroduce anarchism as a legitimate political philosophy. Unfortunately, quiet followed once more, and although numerous contemporary radical geographers employ a sense of theory and practice that shares many affinities with anarchism, direct engagement with anarchist ideas among academic geographers have been limited. As contemporary global challenges push anarchist theory and practice back into widespread currency, geographers need to rise to this occasion and begin (re)mapping the possibilities of what anarchist perspectives might yet contribute to the discipline.

Go play in traffic: Skating, gender and urban context

by Carolyne Ali-Khan

This paper was published in the Sage journal Qualitative Inquiry.

In this article I use rollerblading... more This paper was published in the Sage journal Qualitative Inquiry.

In this article I use rollerblading through an urban environment as a lens to examine issues surrounding the movement of the body in public space. I utilize the autobiographical vis-à-vis political cultural studies to explore gender politics, the regulation of bodies, and the reinscription of public spaces. Using the narrative of a single form traveling through a single day, she addresses notions of exclusionary gender roles and practices, play versus sport, recreation versus transportation, space versus place, and the ways in which consumption and pleasure are played out in the organic flow of time and space. I argue here for the continuing need to raise questions about the exclusionary effects of regulation of the urban body and to explore possibilities for resistance.

Pedagogies of Space: (Re)Mapping National Territories, Borders, and Identities in Post-Soviet Textbooks

by Michael Mead

Co-authored with Dr. Iveta Silova (Associate Professor, Lehigh University) and Garine Palandjian (MA, Lehigh University)

Place and Polysemy in media: How media geography and audience habitus have implications for meaning

by Ken Roth

This is a work-in-progress for eventual publication

The concept of place and its potential to confer meaning to a media text is of interest. Can authenticity or... more The concept of place and its potential to confer meaning to a media text is of interest. Can authenticity or believability or significance of a text be interpreted, reinforced, altered or opposed by where the story is physically situated when told?
To explore this question, 30 college students studying media production were shown two 15-minute video excerpts from longer programs about a social issue. The programs presented the same issue, teenage pregnancy, in geographically different settings (rural vs. urban), and media spaces (genre and locus). In a preliminary textual analysis of questionnaires completed by students, it was obvious that they reacted to these differences in both their descriptions and critiques of the programs.

The village in the city: Critical race theory, schooling and a life

by Kevin Burke

Burke, K. (2012). The village in the city: Critical race theory, schooling, and a life. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies, 8(1), 1-18.

The research is framed around stories—counternarratives in the tradition of Critical Race Theory (CRT)—of the author... more The research is framed around stories—counternarratives in the tradition of Critical Race Theory (CRT)—of the author coming to know his own historical racism as rooted in his geographical, political, racial, classed and religious upbringing in Chicago, United States. The paper specifically attends to the socioeconomic and religious aspects of race as defined and constrained by a place run through with its own racial historical leavings. As such, the work can be read as one continuous journey, or two very fractured versions of coming to know (the self and the boundaries around two fields of inquiry). The purpose is twofold: to explore the ways in which the disciplinary boundaries of two fields, CRT and Critical Geography, can inform a critical contextualisation of race and place for the author and the reader.

Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change.

The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of... more The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of landholding, which are entrenched in notions of community consensus and existing occupation. The discrepancy between such orally recognized antecedents and the written word of law have been at the heart of the recent wave of dispossessions that have swept across the country. Contra the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this paper argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law. Whereas ‘possession’ is a well-understood and accepted concept in Cambodia, a cultural basis rooted in what James C. Scott refers to as ‘orality’, coupled with a long history of subsistence agriculture, semi-nomadic lifestyles, barter economies, and–until recently–widespread land availability have all ensured that notions of ‘property’ are vague among the country’s majority rural poor. In drawing a firm distinction between possessions and property, where the former is premised upon actual use and the latter is embedded in exploitation, this article examines how proprietorship is inextricably bound to the violence of law.

Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2012. Neoliberalising violence: of the exceptional and the exemplary in coalescing moments. Area 44 (2), 136-143.

This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can... more This paper sets out to develop two related ideas. First, it seeks to identify how both violence and neoliberalism can be considered as moments. From this shared conceptualisation of process and fluidity, I argue that it becomes easier to recognise how these two phenomena actually converge. Building upon this conceived coalescence of neoliberalism and violence, the second aim is to recognise how the hegemony of neoliberalism positions it as an abuser, which facilitates the abandonment of those ‘Others’ who fall outside of neoliberal normativity. I argue that the widespread banishment of ‘Others’ under neoliberalism produces a ‘state of exception’, wherein because of its inherently dialectic nature, exceptional violence is transformed into exemplary violence. This metamorphosis occurs as aversion for alterity intensifies under neoliberalism and its associated violence against ‘Others’ comes to form the rule.

Two Continents, One Area: Eurasia

by Markus Kaiser

also in: Preston, P. and J. Gilson (2001, eds.): The European Union and East Asia: Interregional Linkages in a Changing Global System. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing House, 65-90.

Geografía ecocrítica: el giro medio-ambientalista como eje vertebrador de una nueva territorialidad

by Antonia Casellas

Casellas, A. 2008. “Geografía eco-crítica: el giro medio-ambientalista como eje vertebrador de una nueva territorialidad” en Diez años de cambios en el mundo, en la geografía y en las ciencias sociales, 1999-2008. Actas X Coloquio Internacional de Geocrítica. Barcelona, 26 - 30 de mayo de 2008. Universidad de Barcelona
http://www.ub.es/geocrit/-xcol/68.htm

Husserl, Mishima et les avions. Sens du déracinement phénoménologique à l'ère industrielle

by Dalie Giroux

Dalie Giroux, "Husserl, Mishima et les avions. Sens du déracinement phénoménologique à l'ère industrielle", Sociétés 114(4), pp. 129-139.

Réflexion sur le sens de l'habitation industrielle à partir d'une lecture de "La Terre ne se meut pas" de... more Réflexion sur le sens de l'habitation industrielle à partir d'une lecture de "La Terre ne se meut pas" de Edmund Husserl et du "Soleil et l'acier" de Yukio Mishima.

Neoliberalising adaptation to environmental change: foresight or foreclosure?

by Romain Felli

Felli Romain, Castree Noel, 2012, "Neoliberalising adaptation to environmental change: foresight or foreclosure?" Environment and Planning A, vol.44, n.1, pp. 1 – 4

A GEOGRAFIA CRÍTICA BRASILEIRA: REFLEXÕES SOBRE UM DEBATE RECENTE THE BRAZILIAN CRITICAL GEOGRAPHY: REFLECTIONS ABOUT A …

by Luis Diniz

Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Neoliberalism as discourse: between Foucauldian political economy and Marxian poststructuralism. Critical Discourse Studies.

Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies... more Contemporary theorizations of neoliberalism are framed by a false dichotomy between, on the one hand, studies influenced by Foucault in emphasizing neoliberalism as a form of governmentality, and on the other hand, inquiries influenced by Marx in foregrounding neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology. This article seeks to shine some light on this division in an effort to open up new debates and recast existing ones in such a way that might lead to more flexible understandings of neoliberalism as a discourse. A discourse approach moves theorizations forward by recognizing neoliberalism is neither a ‘top down’ nor ‘bottom up’ phenomena, but rather a circuitous process of socio-spatial transformation.

Anarchism! What geography still ought to be

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Anarchism! What geography still ought to be. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography.

This article is a manifesto for anarchist geographies, which are understood as kaleidoscopic spatialities that allow... more This article is a manifesto for anarchist geographies, which are understood as kaleidoscopic spatialities that allow for multiple, non-hierarchical, and protean connections between autonomous entities, wherein solidarities, bonds, and affinities are voluntarily assembled in opposition to and free from the presence of sovereign violence, predetermined norms, and assigned categories of belonging. In its rejection of such multivariate apparatuses of domination, this article is a proverbial call to nonviolent arms for those geographers and non-geographers alike who seek to put an end to the seemingly endless series of tragedies, misfortunes, and catastrophes that characterize the miasma and malevolence of the current neoliberal moment. But this is not simply a demand for the end of neoliberalism and its replacement with a more moderate and humane version of capitalism, nor does it merely insist upon a more egalitarian version of the state. It is instead the resurrection of a prosecution within geography that dates back to the discipline’s earliest days: anarchism!

Geografía urbana del reciclaje patrimonial y la metáfora del desecho al rehecho

by Laura Rodriguez

Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Violent accumulation: a postanarchist critique of property, dispossession, and the state of exception in neoliberalizing Cambodia. Annals of the Association of American Geographers.

Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign... more Employing a poststructuralist-meets-anarchist stance that advances conceptual insight into the nature of sovereign power, this article examines the dialectics of capitalism/primitive accumulation, civilization/savagery, and law/violence, which are argued to exist in a mutually reinforcing 'trilateral of logics'. In deciphering this triadic system, this article offers a radical (re)appraisal of capitalism, its legal process, and its civilizing effects, which together serve to mask the originary and ongoing violences of primitive accumulation and the property system. Such obfuscation suggests that wherever the trilateral of logics is enacted, so too is the state of exception called into being, exposing us all as potential homo sacer (life that does not count). Proceeding as a diagnostic assessment of sovereign power, where although signposted by Cambodia's contemporary experiences of violent land conflict, this article is not intended as a fine-grained empirical analysis. Instead, it forwards a theoretical dialogue where Cambodia's neoliberalizing processes offer a window on how sovereign power configures itself around the three discursive-institutional constellations (i.e., capitalism, civilization, and law) that form the trilateral of logics. Rather than formulating prescriptive solutions, the intention here is critique, where in particular it is argued that the preoccupation with strengthening Cambodia's legal system should not be read as a panacea for contemporary social ills, but as an imposition that serves to legitimize the violences of property.

La proyección urbana de un creador: Víctor Jara y la canción “Las casitas del barrio alto” Laura Y. Rodríguez1 Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile. Email: lrodrigueztitulo@gmail.com

by Laura Rodriguez

Resumen: Los fenómenos urbanos son objeto de complejos modelos cuantitativos que persiguen explicar la emergencia de... more Resumen: Los fenómenos urbanos son objeto de complejos modelos cuantitativos que persiguen explicar la emergencia de futuras tendencias. De similar manera, la intuición opera en algunos visionarios, cuya propiedad de percibir lo que esta por venir, los acerca a la realidad de un modo distinto. Este es el caso de Víctor Jara, cuya canción “Las Casitas del Barrio Alto” es objeto de estudio a través de un análisis crítico del discurso. En el trabajo se aprecia que Víctor Jara tiene la capacidad de anticipar el futuro con esta canción, enunciando las características de lo que seria el porvenir urbano de Chile post dictatorial. 
Palabras clave: Dinámica urbana, Víctor Jara, metrópolis, Santiago

Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies. Political Geography. 30 (2), 90-98.

Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that... more Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that violence is 'irrational' marks particular cultures as ‘other’. Neoliberalism exploits such imaginative geographies in constructing itself as the sole providence of nonviolence and the lone bearer of reason. Proceeding as a ‘civilizing’ project, neoliberalism positions the market as salvationary to putatively ‘irrational’ and ‘violent’ peoples. This theology of neoliberalism produces a discourse that binds violence in place. But while violence sits in places in terms of the way in which we perceive its manifestation as a localized and embodied experience, this very idea is challenged when place is reconsidered as a relational assemblage. What this re-theorization does is open up the supposed fixity, separation, and immutability of place to instead recognize it as always co-constituted by, mediated through, and integrated within the wider experiences of space. Such a radical rethinking of place fundamentally transforms the way we understand violence. No longer confined to its material expression as an isolated and localized event, violence can more appropriately be understood as an unfolding process, derived from the broader geographical phenomena and temporal patterns of the social world.

Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Public Space as emancipation: meditations on anarchism, radical democracy, neoliberalism and violence. Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. 43 (2), 525-562.

In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article... more In establishing an anarchic framework for understanding public space as a vision for radical democracy, this article proceeds as a theoretical inquiry into how an agonistic public space might become the basis of emancipation. Public space is presented as an opportunity to move beyond the technocratic elitism that often characterizes both civil societies and the neoliberal approach to development, and is further recognized as the battlefield on which the conflicting interests of the world's rich and poor are set. Contributing to the growing recognition that geographies of resistance are relational, where the “global” and the “local” are understood as co-constitutive, a radical democratic ideal grounded in material public space is presented as paramount to repealing archic power in general, and neoliberalism’s exclusionary logic in particular.