Dear all,
I hope this call for papers for the RGS-IBG is of interest to some on the list. Please get in touch if you've any questions.
Best,
Diarmaid
Call for Papers: RGS-IBG Conference, London 1-4 September 2020
Infrastructures of Solidarity: The spatial politics of political organising
Lazaros Karaliotas and Diarmaid Kelliher (University of Glasgow)
Over the last decade, the material, imaginary and social dimensions of infrastructure configurations have gained prominence across the social sciences (eg. Cowen, 2014; Easterling, 2014; Larkin, 2013). Geographical work has foregrounded the spatial politics of infrastructure, focusing mostly on how infrastructure configurations become arenas for control and contestation (Mcfarlane and Rutherford, 2008; Young and Keil, 2010). In the wake of urban uprisings since 2011, austerity urbanism (Peck, 2012) and its violent implications for social infrastructures (Shaw 2019), as well as the long summer of migration in Europe (Mezzadra, 2018), the emancipatory potentialities of infrastructures are gaining increasing attention too (Vasudevan, 2015; Minuchin, 2016). For, as Judith Butler argues, living and material infrastructures “not only condition the action, but take part in the making of the space of politics” (2015:127). Indeed, from black bookshops, feminist and LGBTQ+ centres, to labour and trade union clubs, emancipatory politics has a long tradition of developing material spaces as a key element in articulating political practices.
This session provides an opportunity to explore infrastructural forms of political organising that develop within, alongside and/or against the state. We are particularly interested in the practices of the left, broadly and diversely conceived, and of anarchist and anti-authoritarian movements. Á range of work on solidarity economies, urban gardening, autonomous welfare provision, squatting and so on, has pointed to the organisational and prefigurative potentialities of alternative infrastructure spaces. This session aims to explore the geographies of infrastructures of solidarity:
• How has the production and maintenance of material spaces been used to root politics in localities?
• What kinds of everyday solidarities are embodied in and through such spatialities?
• How have material infrastructures been used to develop geographically more expansive forms of solidarity?
• How can a spatial politics of infrastructure move beyond protest and resistance?
• What are the limitations of a politics built in the ‘cracks’ of capitalism and the difficulties of sustaining long-term autonomous projects?
We welcome both theoretical and more empirical interventions, and historical as well as contemporary studies. Areas of interest could include but are not limited to:
• Centres and squats: workers’, migrants’, women’s, LGBTQ+ and others
• The infrastructure of solidarity economies
• Alterative welfare provision
• Autonomous education
• Community gardening
• Alternative infrastructures and their relationship to the state
• The 2008 crisis and infrastructure
Please send abstracts of approximately 250 words for 15-20 minute papers to Lazaros Karaliotas ([log in to unmask]) and Diarmaid Kelliher ([log in to unmask]) by the 1 February 2020.
References
Butler, J. (2015) Notes toward a performative theory of assembly. Boston: Harvard University Press.
Cowen, D. (2014) The deadly life of logistics: Mapping violence in global trade. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.
Easterling, K. (2014). Extrastatecraft: The power of infrastructure space. London: Verso Books.
Larkin, B. (2013) The politics and poetics of infrastructure. Annual review of anthropology, 42:327-343.
McFarlane, C. and Rutherford, J. (2008) Political infrastructures: Governing and experiencing the fabric of the city. International journal of urban and regional research, 32(2): 363-374.
Mezzadra, S. (2018) In the Wake of the Greek Spring and the Summer of Migration. South Atlantic Quarterly, 117(4): 925-933.
Minuchin, L. (2016) The politics of construction: Towards a theory of material articulations. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34(5): 895-913.
Peck, J. (2012) Austerity urbanism: American cities under extreme economy. City, 16(6): 626-655.
Shaw, I.G. (2019) Worlding austerity: The spatial violence of poverty. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, doi: 0263775819857102
Vasudevan, A., (2015) The autonomous city: Towards a critical geography of occupation. Progress in Human Geography, 39(3): 316-337
Young, D. and Keil, R. (2010) Reconnecting the disconnected: The politics of infrastructure in the in-between city. Cities, 27(2): 87-95.
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