Steve Hinchcliffe wrote:
>I agree with all the points about the spaces of politics - but at least
>this demo was actively seeking to highlight the networking practices that
>co-produce environments and lives - it seemed to make wonderful sense after
>the years of limited spatial imaginations that have plagued the
>environmental movement (obsessed with bounded notions of locality and sucked
>into the rampant globalising discourses etc...)
Exactly - and I would add that the place IS important. What these demos
(remember there were around 40 of them in various cities, from Lagos to Los
Angeles) were trying to highlight was that there are still actual existing
locales where financial transactions take place, despite the virtualisation
of international finance. It was trying to target those places where
globalising power exists in tangible form, the places where the classes and
individuals who have benefitted most from neo-liberalism are to be found.
It was also trying to argue that it is these localised financial
transactions that many regard simply as neutral or a basic part of the
everyday economic life of the developed world, that form the basis of the
misery and suffering of poor people and other living beings in many other
places, and damage to local and planetary life support systems. This is why
the LIFFE was trashed, and why it was justified to do so.
David.
David Wood
PhD Student ('The Rural Peace Dividend')
Department of Agricultural Economics and Food Marketing
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU
0191 222 5305
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