Second CFP for RGS 2014
Title: Contesting modalities of postpoliticising closure: radical democracy and alternative futures
Session organisers:
- Sophie Bond (Te Ihowhenua/Geography Department, University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand),
- Gradon Diprose (Open Polytechnic, Aotearoa New Zealand)
- Amanda Thomas (School of Geography, Environment and Earth Science, Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand).
Sponsored by the Participatory Geographies Research Group.
Democratic values of equality and justice appear to be increasingly supplanted by economic and technical rationalities. As a result the spaces to contest these rationalities and envision alternatives are becoming increasingly narrowed. For example in Aotearoa New Zealand, the current conservative government has systematically expanded its developmentalist agenda through working with the private sector to close down spaces of dissent through legislation (limiting protest at sea against deep sea oil drilling; intervening in local government in order to progress an agenda of ‘more water’ for dairy expansion) and various other discursive technologies. Recent work by geographers suggest that Aotearoa New Zealand is not alone in experiencing such postpoliticising closure (e.g. Darling, 2013; Deas 2013; Gill, Johnstone, and Williams 2012; McLeod 2013; Swyngedouw 2011). Yet, spaces of dissent are prised open in a myriad of ways and with a range of different effects. As The Free Association (2010) suggests social movements and democratic contestation emerge in ‘cramped spaces’. It is the very nature of being cramped that often makes them generative of new possibilities.
Recent theorising has become considerably more specific in its consideration of both postpoliticisation and the call for a vibrant contestatory politics to challenge it (see Chatterton et al, 2012; Darling 2013; Featherstone 2013; McCarthy 2013). These critiques argue for a more nuanced theorisation of both the modalities of closure and the spaces of contestation that challenge them. The key questions for this session are two-fold:
i. how can we expose the work/labour involved in this closure? And
ii. how are spaces of democratic dissent prised open in the face of such closure?
We welcome theoretically informed contributions that address any of the following or similar questions:
• What is the labour or work undertaken to depoliticise, delegitimise and/or close down dissent?
• How can agency be both theoretically and empirically conceived of within a postpolitical lens?
• What is the relationship between postpolitics and new forms of authoritarian neoliberalisations (see e.g. Bruff 2013)?
• How can spaces of dissent be cleaved open in the face of processes of closure?
• How can the totalising binary between postpolitics and an authentic politics (see Rancière, Žižek) be reframed to provide a more nuanced and situated framework for radical geographic inquiry?
• Given the Anglocentric tradition of the concepts of postpoliticisation and/or various theorisations of radical democracy, how well do they travel beyond the over-developed world?
Please send an abstract no longer than 300 words to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> or [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> or [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> by 12th February 2014.
References cited:
Bruff, I. (2013) The rise of authoritarian neoliberalism, Rethinking Marxism: A journal of economics, culture and society (Published online DOI:10.1080/08935696.2013.843250)
Chatterton, P., Featherstone, D., Routledge, P. (2012) Articulating climate justice in Copenhagen: Antagonism, the Commons and Solidarity, Antipode, 45(3) pp 602-620
Darling, J. (2013) Asylum and the post-political: Domopolitics, depoliticsation and acts of citizenship, Antipode (published online DOI:10.1111/anti.12026)
Deas, I. (2013) The search for territorial fixes in subnational governance: City-regions and the disputed emergence of post-political consensus in Manchester, England, Urban Studies, (published online 15th November 2013 DOI: 10.1177/0042098013510956)
Featherstone, D. and Korf, B. (2012) Introduction: Space, contestation and the political, Geoforum, 43 pp663-668
Gill, N., Johnstone, P., Williams, A. (2012) Towards a geography of tolerance: post-politics and political forms of tolerance, Political Geography, 31, pp509-518
Imrie, R. (2013) Shared space and the post-politics of environmental change, Urban Studies 50(16)3446-3462
McCarthy, J. (2013) We have never been ‘post-political’, Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, 24(1) 19-25
McLeod, G. (2013) New urbanism/smart growth in the Scottish Highlands: Mobile policies and post-politics in local development planning, Urban Studies 50(11): 2196-2221
Swyngedouw, E. (2011) Interrogating post-democratisation: reclaiming egalitarian political spaces, Political Geography, 30, pp 370-380.
The Free Association (2010) Antagonism, Neoliberalism and Movements: Six impossible things to do before breakfast, Antipode, 42(4) 1019-1033
SOPHIE BOND • GEOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT | TE IHOWHENUA
UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO • PO BOX 56, DUNEDIN 9054, NEW ZEALAND
T: 03 479 3068| W: www.otago.ac.nz<http://www.otago.ac.nz> | E: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
Te Whare Wānanga o Otāgo
P Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
CAUTION: This e-mail and any attachment(s) contain information that is both confidential and possibly legally privileged. Any opinion, advice or information contained in this e-mail and any attachment(s) is to be treated only for the purpose of the intended recipient.
