Counter-Hegemonic Strategy from the Global South: A Pluri-scalar War of Position

Abstract

Within the context of the crisis of capitalist world order (Gills 2020), a resurgent interest in the historical question of strategy in/for progressive transformation against the accumulated power of global capital spans the social sciences and activist camps. Except for human geographers (e.g. Castree, Featherstone and Herod 2008; Sparke 2008), however, neglected in these discussions is the role of socio-spatial theory in engendering structural transformation within the constraints of the prevailing historical structure. To this end, this article integrates neo-Gramscian with human geography theory and method in elaborating the notion of “pluri-scalar war of position”, incipiently defined as “multidimensional struggle over minds and strategic places at and across different interlocking scales simultaneously in the construction of a historic bloc” (Muhr 2013a: 7). The concept evolved from research into the emergent spatiality of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP)/Petrocaribe between 2005 and 2012. Starting from a place-based community in Venezuela and extending into distinct though increasingly interconnecting places in other countries (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Brazil), I argued that a pluri-scalar war of position was mobilised as a propositive, or pro-active, state-led socio-spatial strategy during Hugo Chávez’s hemispheric leadership, driving the production of a global