Pub Date : 2024-06-14DOI: 10.1177/23996544241260592
G. Lenti, Bernardo López Marín
Based on participant observation, numerous informal conversations and ten semi-structured interviews, this paper explores the complexities of Latin American female migrants’ mobility towards Europe via Turkey. By analyzing ethnographic data accounting for their life stories, interactions with ‘traffickers’, experiences in Istanbul, and the difficulties to reach their destinations, it deconstructs dominant perspectives about human trafficking and sex work. Their narratives dislocate mainstream discourses that homogenize international migration under institutional categories, predetermined experiences and subjectivized ontologies. Upon arrival, unforeseen circumstances truncated previous plans, encapsulating them within Turkish borders where finding means to survive and continue moving turned challenging. Meanwhile, they must deal with internal barriers, including gender relations, gender-based violence and sociocultural, linguistic, economic, political and legislative hindrances that exacerbate precarity and risks. These journeys can become entangled with sex work, either induced or independently exercised with the intention of opposing immobilizing border regimes. Despite exposure to violence and abuse, these women continuously negotiate their own subjectivities, while dealing with unfamiliar and hostile settings, demonstrating tenacious expressions of subjective and collective agency that assist them in surviving and pursuing their life projects.
{"title":"Latin American female migrants’ negotiation of sex work, international borders and internal barriers in Istanbul","authors":"G. Lenti, Bernardo López Marín","doi":"10.1177/23996544241260592","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241260592","url":null,"abstract":"Based on participant observation, numerous informal conversations and ten semi-structured interviews, this paper explores the complexities of Latin American female migrants’ mobility towards Europe via Turkey. By analyzing ethnographic data accounting for their life stories, interactions with ‘traffickers’, experiences in Istanbul, and the difficulties to reach their destinations, it deconstructs dominant perspectives about human trafficking and sex work. Their narratives dislocate mainstream discourses that homogenize international migration under institutional categories, predetermined experiences and subjectivized ontologies. Upon arrival, unforeseen circumstances truncated previous plans, encapsulating them within Turkish borders where finding means to survive and continue moving turned challenging. Meanwhile, they must deal with internal barriers, including gender relations, gender-based violence and sociocultural, linguistic, economic, political and legislative hindrances that exacerbate precarity and risks. These journeys can become entangled with sex work, either induced or independently exercised with the intention of opposing immobilizing border regimes. Despite exposure to violence and abuse, these women continuously negotiate their own subjectivities, while dealing with unfamiliar and hostile settings, demonstrating tenacious expressions of subjective and collective agency that assist them in surviving and pursuing their life projects.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"34 21","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141344111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-13DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259576
Jacopo Anderlini
The article analyses the friction between anti-human trafficking discourse and border practices in the context of EU migration management: the narrative of protecting migrants from human traffickers, evoked by law enforcement actors, merges with a discourse criminalizing migration, discerning between the migrant as a passive victim – the asylum seeker –the “economic migrant” and the ruthless smuggler. Practices and procedures at the border aim primarily at classifying migrants within these categories, in fact identifying potentially dangerous subjects for the country of arrival. The case study is the Southern European border in Sicily, and the operations enacted by law enforcement actors and EU agencies within the hotspot facilities. Moving from the ethnographic fieldwork I conducted on this context since 2016, witnessing disembarkations and border procedures and getting access to the hotspot structures of Lampedusa and Pozzallo in 2021, the article analyses the transformation of the border apparatus and of contemporary governance of mobility. What delineates is a revival of the humanitarian border, where anti-human trafficking discourses are evoked to legitimize exclusionary border procedures and practices.
{"title":"Humanitarian border: Reprise. Anti-human trafficking discourses and security practices at the southern Italian border","authors":"Jacopo Anderlini","doi":"10.1177/23996544241259576","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241259576","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyses the friction between anti-human trafficking discourse and border practices in the context of EU migration management: the narrative of protecting migrants from human traffickers, evoked by law enforcement actors, merges with a discourse criminalizing migration, discerning between the migrant as a passive victim – the asylum seeker –the “economic migrant” and the ruthless smuggler. Practices and procedures at the border aim primarily at classifying migrants within these categories, in fact identifying potentially dangerous subjects for the country of arrival. The case study is the Southern European border in Sicily, and the operations enacted by law enforcement actors and EU agencies within the hotspot facilities. Moving from the ethnographic fieldwork I conducted on this context since 2016, witnessing disembarkations and border procedures and getting access to the hotspot structures of Lampedusa and Pozzallo in 2021, the article analyses the transformation of the border apparatus and of contemporary governance of mobility. What delineates is a revival of the humanitarian border, where anti-human trafficking discourses are evoked to legitimize exclusionary border procedures and practices.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"51 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141345395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-13DOI: 10.1177/23996544241262170
Patricia Basile, Alejandra Reyes
The appropriation of the housing sector by global finance has transformed housing policies worldwide while leading to new opportunities for capital accumulation. Financialized models have also become increasingly prevalent in the Global South, promoting mortgage and household debt and stark housing commodification impacting lower-middle-income communities and residents. Yet, despite adversity, housing social movements have worked to challenge some of these trends in struggles for housing justice and de-financialization. This study examines the organizing work of such housing struggles in Mexico and Brazil in the face of varied commodification and financialization processes through the analytical framework of bridging. Bridging as a strategy entails social movements’ dynamic relationships and practices in challenging and altering housing commodification and financialization processes in relation to changing political environments. Housing movements integrate reactive responses to immediate threats with proactive strategies for long-term structural change, emphasizing the importance of multifaceted approaches in addressing housing financialization. Bridging between invented and invited spaces of action showcases how housing movements adjust to evolving circumstances and establish new counter-hegemonic arenas to advance their objectives and ideas. Bridging scales enables further reach of demands and visibility, creating the possibility of challenging the distances inherent to financialization networks. The accomplishments, constraints, and paths of housing organizing for de-financialization provide critical lessons about the co-constitutive nature of social mobilization, housing policies, and the financial market.
{"title":"Contesting housing commodification and financialization through bridging: Experiences from Mexico and Brazil","authors":"Patricia Basile, Alejandra Reyes","doi":"10.1177/23996544241262170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241262170","url":null,"abstract":"The appropriation of the housing sector by global finance has transformed housing policies worldwide while leading to new opportunities for capital accumulation. Financialized models have also become increasingly prevalent in the Global South, promoting mortgage and household debt and stark housing commodification impacting lower-middle-income communities and residents. Yet, despite adversity, housing social movements have worked to challenge some of these trends in struggles for housing justice and de-financialization. This study examines the organizing work of such housing struggles in Mexico and Brazil in the face of varied commodification and financialization processes through the analytical framework of bridging. Bridging as a strategy entails social movements’ dynamic relationships and practices in challenging and altering housing commodification and financialization processes in relation to changing political environments. Housing movements integrate reactive responses to immediate threats with proactive strategies for long-term structural change, emphasizing the importance of multifaceted approaches in addressing housing financialization. Bridging between invented and invited spaces of action showcases how housing movements adjust to evolving circumstances and establish new counter-hegemonic arenas to advance their objectives and ideas. Bridging scales enables further reach of demands and visibility, creating the possibility of challenging the distances inherent to financialization networks. The accomplishments, constraints, and paths of housing organizing for de-financialization provide critical lessons about the co-constitutive nature of social mobilization, housing policies, and the financial market.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"54 15","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141349655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-12DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259312
Yosef Jabareen
This paper interrogates and problematizes the intimate role of architecture in the dispossession and displacement of people. It explores the case of Ayn Hawd, a dispossessed Palestinian village that was transformed into an Israeli Artists colony in 1951. It found that architecture is deeply involved in executing, facilitating, legitimizing, and aestheticizing the violent act of dispossessing people. I theorize this as architecture of dispossession, a coherent aesthetic, economic, and political regime of practices, in which a social reality is manipulated and transformed spatially to construct a new, spectacular and imaginary, reality in the dispossessed space. The architecture of dispossession involves three distinct yet interrelated logics: political, economic, and aesthetic. The logic of accumulation by dispossession involves the seizure of the dispossessed’s property as assets used for the purpose of profit. It can take place in various ways, including privatization, the commodification of cultural forms, and dispossession. The logic of the exclusion of presence focuses on both the actual exclusion of a group of persons and the subjective or “existential” effects, intended or not, on the dispossessed, experienced as a loss not just of property and belonging but of their identity, form of life, or “being” as such; a kind of existential or ontological negation. Finally, an aesthetic logic of dispossession is a use of art and architecture to describe the dispossession in ways that legitimize it by representing or dissimulating it so that it can be advertised and appreciated as something more and other than the violence it involves. There is an important role for architectural criticism in showing not only that some population has been excluded, but how this is rationalized and legitimated in the ways the new forms and uses are constructed, described, represented, or advertised.
{"title":"The architecture of dispossession: On the dark side of architecture and art in transforming original spaces and displacing people","authors":"Yosef Jabareen","doi":"10.1177/23996544241259312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241259312","url":null,"abstract":"This paper interrogates and problematizes the intimate role of architecture in the dispossession and displacement of people. It explores the case of Ayn Hawd, a dispossessed Palestinian village that was transformed into an Israeli Artists colony in 1951. It found that architecture is deeply involved in executing, facilitating, legitimizing, and aestheticizing the violent act of dispossessing people. I theorize this as architecture of dispossession, a coherent aesthetic, economic, and political regime of practices, in which a social reality is manipulated and transformed spatially to construct a new, spectacular and imaginary, reality in the dispossessed space. The architecture of dispossession involves three distinct yet interrelated logics: political, economic, and aesthetic. The logic of accumulation by dispossession involves the seizure of the dispossessed’s property as assets used for the purpose of profit. It can take place in various ways, including privatization, the commodification of cultural forms, and dispossession. The logic of the exclusion of presence focuses on both the actual exclusion of a group of persons and the subjective or “existential” effects, intended or not, on the dispossessed, experienced as a loss not just of property and belonging but of their identity, form of life, or “being” as such; a kind of existential or ontological negation. Finally, an aesthetic logic of dispossession is a use of art and architecture to describe the dispossession in ways that legitimize it by representing or dissimulating it so that it can be advertised and appreciated as something more and other than the violence it involves. There is an important role for architectural criticism in showing not only that some population has been excluded, but how this is rationalized and legitimated in the ways the new forms and uses are constructed, described, represented, or advertised.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"35 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141354089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-10DOI: 10.1177/23996544241258898
{"title":"WITHDRAWAL – Administrative Duplicate Publication: Critical political geographies of slow violence and resistance","authors":"","doi":"10.1177/23996544241258898","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241258898","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":" October","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141364667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-09DOI: 10.1177/23996544241261875
A. Matamanda, I. Chirisa, P. Mazanhi, Percy Toriro
The ideals and fundamentals of urban planning are largely to ensure habitable and liveable environments for the citizens. However, while planning is an apolitical profession that is supposed to advance human well-being and urban liveability, we argue that the planning process has been compromised by political interference that jeorpadises the realisation of the envisaged planning outcomes. Applying an exploratory qualitative research design in the context of Harare, Zimbabwe, this article interrogates the nexus between politics, ethics and urban planning, focusing on the provision of land and space. The article uses a desktop study with literature and document review as the major methods of reference to explore the nexus in land provision and ethics. The findings of the study show that land barons are exploiting the hard-earned monies of the desperate Harare residents together with the space barons who take advantage of the street vendors. Therefore, this article recommends the resuscitation of ethics and values in urban management to foster fairness and satisfy the public good.
{"title":"The interface between politics, ethics and urban planning: The case of land and space barons in Harare, Zimbabwe","authors":"A. Matamanda, I. Chirisa, P. Mazanhi, Percy Toriro","doi":"10.1177/23996544241261875","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241261875","url":null,"abstract":"The ideals and fundamentals of urban planning are largely to ensure habitable and liveable environments for the citizens. However, while planning is an apolitical profession that is supposed to advance human well-being and urban liveability, we argue that the planning process has been compromised by political interference that jeorpadises the realisation of the envisaged planning outcomes. Applying an exploratory qualitative research design in the context of Harare, Zimbabwe, this article interrogates the nexus between politics, ethics and urban planning, focusing on the provision of land and space. The article uses a desktop study with literature and document review as the major methods of reference to explore the nexus in land provision and ethics. The findings of the study show that land barons are exploiting the hard-earned monies of the desperate Harare residents together with the space barons who take advantage of the street vendors. Therefore, this article recommends the resuscitation of ethics and values in urban management to foster fairness and satisfy the public good.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":" 93","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141367457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-06DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259361
Peter Nyers
In the Winter 2020, Canada witnessed an extraordinary number of blockades and solidarity protests in support of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. The Wet’suwet’en had for years been fighting against the construction of an oil pipeline across their traditional territories. After a police raid dismantled their blockade, the traditional chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en issued a call for solidarity and support. The response was overwhelming with an enormous number of solidarity actions, including blockades of critical infrastructure, organized across Canada and internationally. This paper critically examines how settler-citizens engaged in acts of solidarity with Indigenous people, with a particular focus on how these acts of solidarity can contribute to the decolonization of Canadian citizenship. Since the Wet’suwet’en struggle involved the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty, the solidarity actions of Canadians raise important questions about the meaning of settler forms of citizenship. This paper takes a relational and decolonial perspective on solidarity blockades. Such an approach allows us to ask questions that are outside the scope of assessments concerned with the efficacy of a particular blockading action. The paper investigates the forms of solidarity found at the blockades, noting that a wide range of antagonistic, agonistic, and spatio-temporal relations were enacted at the various blockading actions. These relations allowed for a contentious production of new political subjectivities, collectivities, and citizenships.
{"title":"Decolonizing blockades: Settler-citizen solidarities with indigenous blockades","authors":"Peter Nyers","doi":"10.1177/23996544241259361","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241259361","url":null,"abstract":"In the Winter 2020, Canada witnessed an extraordinary number of blockades and solidarity protests in support of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation. The Wet’suwet’en had for years been fighting against the construction of an oil pipeline across their traditional territories. After a police raid dismantled their blockade, the traditional chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en issued a call for solidarity and support. The response was overwhelming with an enormous number of solidarity actions, including blockades of critical infrastructure, organized across Canada and internationally. This paper critically examines how settler-citizens engaged in acts of solidarity with Indigenous people, with a particular focus on how these acts of solidarity can contribute to the decolonization of Canadian citizenship. Since the Wet’suwet’en struggle involved the assertion of Indigenous sovereignty, the solidarity actions of Canadians raise important questions about the meaning of settler forms of citizenship. This paper takes a relational and decolonial perspective on solidarity blockades. Such an approach allows us to ask questions that are outside the scope of assessments concerned with the efficacy of a particular blockading action. The paper investigates the forms of solidarity found at the blockades, noting that a wide range of antagonistic, agonistic, and spatio-temporal relations were enacted at the various blockading actions. These relations allowed for a contentious production of new political subjectivities, collectivities, and citizenships.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"35 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141378157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-04DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259316
Falguni Mukherjee
Few studies have examined how Indian ULBs have responded to the government’s informationization agenda, particularly the use of geospatial technologies for urban governance. Drawing upon insights from Critical GIS, neoliberalization and governmentality studies, this article addresses this gap by examining the case of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and the evolution of their modernization efforts that have progressed from office automation practices to active use of GIS technology for urban governance. SMC’s regional and political environment have favored their modernization efforts. However, as ULBs are expected to manage a diverse urban population and shoulder responsibilities with fewer resources they must adapt. Surat Municipal Corporation has adapted by aligning local political agenda with national agenda and adopting a strategy that echoes the dominant political discourse of utilizing technology to govern from a distance and as a modality of biopolitics. Use of geospatial technologies serves as an important tool for the ULB to introduce new modes of bureaucratic governmentality.
很少有研究探讨印度的城市公共机构是如何响应政府的信息化议程的,尤其是在城市治理中使用地理空间技术。本文借鉴了批判性 GIS、新自由主义和政府性研究的观点,通过研究苏拉特市政公司(Surat Municipal Corporation,SMC)的案例及其现代化努力的演变过程(从办公自动化实践发展到在城市治理中积极使用 GIS 技术)来填补这一空白。苏拉特市政公司所处的地区和政治环境为其现代化努力提供了有利条件。然而,由于城市管理机构需要管理多样化的城市人口,并以更少的资源承担更多的责任,因此它们必须进行调整。苏拉特市政公司通过使地方政治议程与国家议程保持一致,并采取与主流政治话语相呼应的战略,即利用技术进行远距离治理,并将其作为生物政治的一种模式。地理空间技术的使用是 ULB 引入新的官僚治理模式的重要工具。
{"title":"New urban spaces under Modi’s digital India – digitization of urban governance and state-citizen relationship","authors":"Falguni Mukherjee","doi":"10.1177/23996544241259316","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241259316","url":null,"abstract":"Few studies have examined how Indian ULBs have responded to the government’s informationization agenda, particularly the use of geospatial technologies for urban governance. Drawing upon insights from Critical GIS, neoliberalization and governmentality studies, this article addresses this gap by examining the case of Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and the evolution of their modernization efforts that have progressed from office automation practices to active use of GIS technology for urban governance. SMC’s regional and political environment have favored their modernization efforts. However, as ULBs are expected to manage a diverse urban population and shoulder responsibilities with fewer resources they must adapt. Surat Municipal Corporation has adapted by aligning local political agenda with national agenda and adopting a strategy that echoes the dominant political discourse of utilizing technology to govern from a distance and as a modality of biopolitics. Use of geospatial technologies serves as an important tool for the ULB to introduce new modes of bureaucratic governmentality.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"42 S9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141387667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-04DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259571
Ekaterina Gladkova
Food production plays a crucial role for challenging the escalating environmental breakdown. It is also a fertile ground for analysing environmental (in)justice and its components of recognition and participation in environmental decision-making. Scholars of environmental justice have paid limited attention to the post-political and its implications for the ability to challenge the ecologically destructive status quo. This article innovatively combines environmental justice perspective with the literature on the post-political condition, using the case study of pig farming intensification in rural Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has been driving policy to encourage growth and intensify its meat production, resulting in a sharp rise of intensive farms. The resulting pollution have and continue generating environmental justice concerns. Using qualitative data from a 2-month fieldwork in November-December 2018, the article shows that local community’s ideas around how farming should be organised were not recognised. Their participation in environmental decision-making was also reduced to an empty ritual; formal inclusion did not translate into a genuine impact on the decision-making outcome. In the post-political landscape, environmental justice concerns become harder to address; environmental decision-making becomes a means of serving the operations of capitalism, stifling disputes around the neoliberal growth agenda, and precluding possibilities for a meaningful change of the ecologically destructive status quo.
{"title":"Environmental (in)justice and the post-political","authors":"Ekaterina Gladkova","doi":"10.1177/23996544241259571","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241259571","url":null,"abstract":"Food production plays a crucial role for challenging the escalating environmental breakdown. It is also a fertile ground for analysing environmental (in)justice and its components of recognition and participation in environmental decision-making. Scholars of environmental justice have paid limited attention to the post-political and its implications for the ability to challenge the ecologically destructive status quo. This article innovatively combines environmental justice perspective with the literature on the post-political condition, using the case study of pig farming intensification in rural Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has been driving policy to encourage growth and intensify its meat production, resulting in a sharp rise of intensive farms. The resulting pollution have and continue generating environmental justice concerns. Using qualitative data from a 2-month fieldwork in November-December 2018, the article shows that local community’s ideas around how farming should be organised were not recognised. Their participation in environmental decision-making was also reduced to an empty ritual; formal inclusion did not translate into a genuine impact on the decision-making outcome. In the post-political landscape, environmental justice concerns become harder to address; environmental decision-making becomes a means of serving the operations of capitalism, stifling disputes around the neoliberal growth agenda, and precluding possibilities for a meaningful change of the ecologically destructive status quo.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"4 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141267556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-06-03DOI: 10.1177/23996544241259313
Asieh Nikbin, Gholamreza Kazemian, M. Sharifzadegan
Space is intertwined with the exercise of power. While exertion of power in the production of space has been frequently studied in democratic political systems, little attention has been paid to non-democratic systems. This study aims to address this gap by focusing on the mega mall development process in Tehran. The study applies a four-dimensional view of power, including over, covert, latent, and disciplinary power, to investigate the exercise of power in the development of mega malls in Tehran. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach; data is collected through 48 semi-structured in-depth interviews and nine documents. The process of mega mall development in Tehran illustrates two levels of power dynamics. Firstly, powerful institutions emerge as winners while citizens lose out. This overt conflict involves monopolized decision-making and the rationalization and legitimization of ‘exceptions’, representing the covert and latent dimensions of power respectively. Secondly, the mega mall itself functions as a Panopticon by exerting disciplinary power. While power dynamics may share similarities across different systems, the distinctive aspect of mega mall development in Tehran lies in the monopolized process and pervasive perception manipulation as the key means of power exertion.
{"title":"Power and space in a rentier state: The case of mega mall boom in Tehran, Iran","authors":"Asieh Nikbin, Gholamreza Kazemian, M. Sharifzadegan","doi":"10.1177/23996544241259313","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241259313","url":null,"abstract":"Space is intertwined with the exercise of power. While exertion of power in the production of space has been frequently studied in democratic political systems, little attention has been paid to non-democratic systems. This study aims to address this gap by focusing on the mega mall development process in Tehran. The study applies a four-dimensional view of power, including over, covert, latent, and disciplinary power, to investigate the exercise of power in the development of mega malls in Tehran. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach; data is collected through 48 semi-structured in-depth interviews and nine documents. The process of mega mall development in Tehran illustrates two levels of power dynamics. Firstly, powerful institutions emerge as winners while citizens lose out. This overt conflict involves monopolized decision-making and the rationalization and legitimization of ‘exceptions’, representing the covert and latent dimensions of power respectively. Secondly, the mega mall itself functions as a Panopticon by exerting disciplinary power. While power dynamics may share similarities across different systems, the distinctive aspect of mega mall development in Tehran lies in the monopolized process and pervasive perception manipulation as the key means of power exertion.","PeriodicalId":507957,"journal":{"name":"Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space","volume":"78 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141272697","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}