The Mozambican state is currently working to relocate 7000 people from the interior of the Limpopo National Park (LNP), itself part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP). As the process began in 2003, this stands out as one of the region's most protracted contemporary conservation-related evictions. I draw from this case to shed light on the increasingly complex spatial dynamics of land and green grabs and, more specifically, demonstrate the importance of zooming out from discrete land acquisitions to examine how their resulting displacements are increasingly shaped by spatial processes at and beyond their borders. In doing so, we begin to see that displacement from the LNP is not a simple case of eviction from a discrete protected area. Rather, it has been provoked by the opening of the international border, hence drawing transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) like the GLTP into the purview of land and green grabs. At the same time, competition over space with an adjacent grab – a sugarcane/ethanol plantation – has severely interfered with relocation, drastically prolonging it. The case, more broadly, sheds light on how conservation, agricultural extraction and climate change mitigation – all forms of land acquisitions that incite dislocation – come together to produce novel patterns of environmental displacement, placing profound pressures on rural communities and their abilities to occupy space and access resources, including labour opportunities.
{"title":"Green grabs, land grabs and the spatiality of displacement: eviction from Mozambique's Limpopo National Park","authors":"E. Lunstrum","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12121","url":null,"abstract":"The Mozambican state is currently working to relocate 7000 people from the interior of the Limpopo National Park (LNP), itself part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP). As the process began in 2003, this stands out as one of the region's most protracted contemporary conservation-related evictions. I draw from this case to shed light on the increasingly complex spatial dynamics of land and green grabs and, more specifically, demonstrate the importance of zooming out from discrete land acquisitions to examine how their resulting displacements are increasingly shaped by spatial processes at and beyond their borders. In doing so, we begin to see that displacement from the LNP is not a simple case of eviction from a discrete protected area. Rather, it has been provoked by the opening of the international border, hence drawing transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) like the GLTP into the purview of land and green grabs. At the same time, competition over space with an adjacent grab – a sugarcane/ethanol plantation – has severely interfered with relocation, drastically prolonging it. The case, more broadly, sheds light on how conservation, agricultural extraction and climate change mitigation – all forms of land acquisitions that incite dislocation – come together to produce novel patterns of environmental displacement, placing profound pressures on rural communities and their abilities to occupy space and access resources, including labour opportunities.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"99 6 1","pages":"142-152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75588146","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}
Terrestrial conservation offsets have become a leading solution to the ecological consequences of Alberta's oil sands boom. The broad-based support for terrestrial offsets in the province is representative of a larger global trend toward the rescaling of environmental governance and greater use of market-based conservation models. A well-developed critical literature now documents some of the overarching logics and material implications of these ‘neoliberal’ approaches to conservation. Much of this scholarship has drawn on Marxian notions of accumulation by dispossession to raise concern that the use of market-based approaches serves to widen dispossession through increased enclosure and privatisation of both nonhuman nature and political discourse on issues of environment. While in many instances these concerns are justified, the mechanisms through which market-based conservation channels benefits to powerful societal actors may be more complicated than often assumed. Drawing from recent empirical research on attempts to establish markets in terrestrial conservation offsets in Alberta, Canada, this paper complicates some of the dominant narratives of privatisation associated with market-based conservation initiatives. Market-based conservation may, in some instances, be employed to expand a functionally public domain as a means of lubricating private wealth generation, suggesting the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between market-based conservation, dispossession and accumulation.
{"title":"‘Shell games’, displacement and the reordering of boreal landscapes in Alberta, Canada","authors":"R. Hackett","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12158","url":null,"abstract":"Terrestrial conservation offsets have become a leading solution to the ecological consequences of Alberta's oil sands boom. The broad-based support for terrestrial offsets in the province is representative of a larger global trend toward the rescaling of environmental governance and greater use of market-based conservation models. A well-developed critical literature now documents some of the overarching logics and material implications of these ‘neoliberal’ approaches to conservation. Much of this scholarship has drawn on Marxian notions of accumulation by dispossession to raise concern that the use of market-based approaches serves to widen dispossession through increased enclosure and privatisation of both nonhuman nature and political discourse on issues of environment. While in many instances these concerns are justified, the mechanisms through which market-based conservation channels benefits to powerful societal actors may be more complicated than often assumed. Drawing from recent empirical research on attempts to establish markets in terrestrial conservation offsets in Alberta, Canada, this paper complicates some of the dominant narratives of privatisation associated with market-based conservation initiatives. Market-based conservation may, in some instances, be employed to expand a functionally public domain as a means of lubricating private wealth generation, suggesting the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between market-based conservation, dispossession and accumulation.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"44 1","pages":"153-160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82545964","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}
Recent oil and gas sector reforms in Mexico transform protections on petroleum resources and labour that were implemented as a result of the 1938 nationalisation of the country's oil industry. This paper examines the Etileno XXI project, a private petrochemical plant led by a Brazilian firm and supported by Mexican and transnational capital, which manifests the role of early 21st-century global commodity markets in restructuring Mexico's energy sector. Etileno XXI is described as a major step toward privatising petrochemical processing in the country and as a significant creator of jobs, albeit low wage, at the site of production. Yet the project and corresponding oil-sector reforms will have impacts on the surrounding area that compromise pre-existing livelihoods both ecologically and via erosion of earlier protections on labour secured through the national oil workers union. The article thus argues for a conceptualisation of displacement induced by extractive industry that incorporates into its analysis the effects of industrial restructuring and expansion on extant production relations, in both the short and longer term.
{"title":"Displacement and denationalisation: the Mexican Gulf 75 years after the expropriation","authors":"Michelle A. Arroyo, A. Zalik","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12183","url":null,"abstract":"Recent oil and gas sector reforms in Mexico transform protections on petroleum resources and labour that were implemented as a result of the 1938 nationalisation of the country's oil industry. This paper examines the Etileno XXI project, a private petrochemical plant led by a Brazilian firm and supported by Mexican and transnational capital, which manifests the role of early 21st-century global commodity markets in restructuring Mexico's energy sector. Etileno XXI is described as a major step toward privatising petrochemical processing in the country and as a significant creator of jobs, albeit low wage, at the site of production. Yet the project and corresponding oil-sector reforms will have impacts on the surrounding area that compromise pre-existing livelihoods both ecologically and via erosion of earlier protections on labour secured through the national oil workers union. The article thus argues for a conceptualisation of displacement induced by extractive industry that incorporates into its analysis the effects of industrial restructuring and expansion on extant production relations, in both the short and longer term.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"43 1","pages":"134-141"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81430776","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}
The past decade has witnessed significant growth across the globe of domestic and international initiatives designed to ameliorate both existing and potential impacts of climate change. The threat of altered environments and possibility of mass migrations of people have spurred intensive planning as well as the commitment of considerable resources to addressing such threats. Indeed, the primacy of climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts and planning has become so pronounced that one might argue that this is a new and pre-eminent form of development in the international arena. As with previous developmental preoccupations such as progress, modernity, gender, microcredit, participation and good governance, climate change adaptation and mitigation is today a central part of the development mantra. In this paper I examine the ‘climate change turn’ in development work by focusing on the case of Bangladesh, a country often discussed in both scholarly literature and popular discourse as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the possible effects of climate change. Images of rising waters, flooded fields and displaced farmers in the region have become an iconic symbol deployed during debates on climate change both locally and globally. As a result Bangladesh has emerged as a laboratory of sorts in which a series of national-level strategic plans, projects, programmes, trust funds and financing schemes are being designed and tested in partnership with international donors and development agencies, all built around the idea of climate change and resilience. Looking specifically at some of the most marginalised communities in Bangladesh – such as char dwellers and slum populations – I question in this paper what impact these efforts to combat climate change may have, in particular the possibility of being displaced not by climate change but rather by development processes meant to ameliorate its effects.
{"title":"Vulnerabilities and displacements: adaptation and mitigation to climate change as a new development mantra","authors":"P. Bose","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12178","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12178","url":null,"abstract":"The past decade has witnessed significant growth across the globe of domestic and international initiatives designed to ameliorate both existing and potential impacts of climate change. The threat of altered environments and possibility of mass migrations of people have spurred intensive planning as well as the commitment of considerable resources to addressing such threats. Indeed, the primacy of climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts and planning has become so pronounced that one might argue that this is a new and pre-eminent form of development in the international arena. As with previous developmental preoccupations such as progress, modernity, gender, microcredit, participation and good governance, climate change adaptation and mitigation is today a central part of the development mantra. In this paper I examine the ‘climate change turn’ in development work by focusing on the case of Bangladesh, a country often discussed in both scholarly literature and popular discourse as one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the possible effects of climate change. Images of rising waters, flooded fields and displaced farmers in the region have become an iconic symbol deployed during debates on climate change both locally and globally. As a result Bangladesh has emerged as a laboratory of sorts in which a series of national-level strategic plans, projects, programmes, trust funds and financing schemes are being designed and tested in partnership with international donors and development agencies, all built around the idea of climate change and resilience. Looking specifically at some of the most marginalised communities in Bangladesh – such as char dwellers and slum populations – I question in this paper what impact these efforts to combat climate change may have, in particular the possibility of being displaced not by climate change but rather by development processes meant to ameliorate its effects.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"8 1","pages":"168-175"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75969217","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}
In this introduction to a special section on environmental displacement, we introduce the concept and ground it in seemingly distinct processes of climate change, extraction, and conservation. We understand environmental displacement as a process by which communities find the land they occupy irrevocably altered in ways that foreclose or otherwise impede possibilities for habitation or else disrupt access to resources within these spaces of life, work and socio-cultural reproduction. Such dislocation amounts to environmental displacement on the grounds that it is justified by environmental or ecological rationales, motivated by desires to access natural resources, or else provoked by human-induced environmental change and attempts to address it. Building from here, we make the case for why climate change and efforts to mitigate and adapt to it, extractive industries, and conservation initiatives should be analysed together as displacement inducing phenomena, as they are empirically connected in consequential ways and materialise from similar logics. We additionally lay out the contributions of the individual articles of the special issue and draw connections across them to help provide a preliminary framework for thinking through environmental displacement, including its causes, logics, and consequences, especially for vulnerable populations.
{"title":"Environmental displacement: the common ground of climate change, extraction and conservation","authors":"E. Lunstrum, P. Bose, A. Zalik","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12193","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12193","url":null,"abstract":"In this introduction to a special section on environmental displacement, we introduce the concept and ground it in seemingly distinct processes of climate change, extraction, and conservation. We understand environmental displacement as a process by which communities find the land they occupy irrevocably altered in ways that foreclose or otherwise impede possibilities for habitation or else disrupt access to resources within these spaces of life, work and socio-cultural reproduction. Such dislocation amounts to environmental displacement on the grounds that it is justified by environmental or ecological rationales, motivated by desires to access natural resources, or else provoked by human-induced environmental change and attempts to address it. Building from here, we make the case for why climate change and efforts to mitigate and adapt to it, extractive industries, and conservation initiatives should be analysed together as displacement inducing phenomena, as they are empirically connected in consequential ways and materialise from similar logics. We additionally lay out the contributions of the individual articles of the special issue and draw connections across them to help provide a preliminary framework for thinking through environmental displacement, including its causes, logics, and consequences, especially for vulnerable populations.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"1 1","pages":"130-133"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89540584","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}
Around the world, we increasingly see the often-deemed incongruent activities of ecotourism, associated environmental conservation and natural resource or fossil fuel extraction happening in the same spaces, often supported by the same institutions. Rather than being incongruent, however, these seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows are transforming spaces, livelihoods and social, political and environmental geographies in tandem through what we call the 'ecotourism-extraction nexus'. Drawing on case studies from around the world, we show that physical, symbolic and historical aspects of environmentally induced displacements are an integral part of these transformations, though often in less than straightforward ways. The paper concludes that environmentally induced displacements are a key mechanism to understand why these seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows in empirical reality and within a broader context of capitalist modernity go together surprisingly well.
{"title":"Environmentally induced displacements in the ecotourism–extraction nexus","authors":"B. Büscher, Veronica Davidov","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12153","url":null,"abstract":"Around the world, we increasingly see the often-deemed incongruent activities of ecotourism, associated environmental conservation and natural resource or fossil fuel extraction happening in the same spaces, often supported by the same institutions. Rather than being incongruent, however, these seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows are transforming spaces, livelihoods and social, political and environmental geographies in tandem through what we call the 'ecotourism-extraction nexus'. Drawing on case studies from around the world, we show that physical, symbolic and historical aspects of environmentally induced displacements are an integral part of these transformations, though often in less than straightforward ways. The paper concludes that environmentally induced displacements are a key mechanism to understand why these seemingly uncomfortable bedfellows in empirical reality and within a broader context of capitalist modernity go together surprisingly well.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"254 1","pages":"161-167"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76618216","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}
Unbalanced sex ratio in rural areas is currently an endemic problem in most western countries that needs to be addressed if socially sustainable rural development is to be achieved. Higher percentages of females migrating from rural areas to the cities have given rise to an unequal spatial distribution of the sex ratio along the urban–rural gradient. In this paper it is proposed that temporal changes in rural–urban sex ratio differences in the young professional age group who are mostly independent and living outside the parental home should be included as a relevant factor in the framework of multi-criteria monitoring of rural development policies. As a case in point, an analysis is carried out in continental Spain between 2000 and 2010 using the 30–39-year-old age group to focus on young people who for the most part have left the parental home. The overall results show that the sex ratio gap between rural and urban areas decreased during the decade in rural municipalities, independently of their size, which are contiguous to or at an intermediate distance from urban areas, as it did also in more remote medium-sized and large rural municipalities. The gap did not vary significantly in the case of smaller and more remote rural municipalities, though there were specific regional tendencies upward or downward. The method can be applied to other study areas at different spatial and temporal scales.
{"title":"Changes in rural–urban sex ratio differences in the young professional age group as an indicator of social sustainability in rural areas: a case study of continental Spain, 2000–2010","authors":"M. Gurrutxaga","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12024","url":null,"abstract":"Unbalanced sex ratio in rural areas is currently an endemic problem in most western countries that needs to be addressed if socially sustainable rural development is to be achieved. Higher percentages of females migrating from rural areas to the cities have given rise to an unequal spatial distribution of the sex ratio along the urban–rural gradient. In this paper it is proposed that temporal changes in rural–urban sex ratio differences in the young professional age group who are mostly independent and living outside the parental home should be included as a relevant factor in the framework of multi-criteria monitoring of rural development policies. As a case in point, an analysis is carried out in continental Spain between 2000 and 2010 using the 30–39-year-old age group to focus on young people who for the most part have left the parental home. The overall results show that the sex ratio gap between rural and urban areas decreased during the decade in rural municipalities, independently of their size, which are contiguous to or at an intermediate distance from urban areas, as it did also in more remote medium-sized and large rural municipalities. The gap did not vary significantly in the case of smaller and more remote rural municipalities, though there were specific regional tendencies upward or downward. The method can be applied to other study areas at different spatial and temporal scales.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"14 1","pages":"337-347"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79108631","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}
This paper seeks to discuss the use of a participatory documentary process (PDP) in human geography as a method of constructing critical visual information on territorial histories of dispossession. The process was also used to enhance social change both in conjunction with local communities and within the communities themselves. The project involved 14 local young participants and four professionals who collectively produced a documentary on the rural context of violence in La Toma District, Colombia. By enabling the reflections and intentions of young participants in the research process, PDP gave special value to their social and political commitment to supporting community social organisation, and provided fresh research insights into comprehending territorial conflict. The paper concludes that this method amplifies participatory and action research approaches in geography by producing knowledge that is academically and socially relevant. Such collective, emancipatory and anti-hegemonic visual representations and actions for social change in PDP are especially pertinent in spaces of conflict and violence.
{"title":"Reflections on a participatory documentary process: constructing territorial histories of dispossession among Afro-descendant youth in Colombia","authors":"Irene Vélez‐Torres","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12032","url":null,"abstract":"This paper seeks to discuss the use of a participatory documentary process (PDP) in human geography as a method of constructing critical visual information on territorial histories of dispossession. The process was also used to enhance social change both in conjunction with local communities and within the communities themselves. The project involved 14 local young participants and four professionals who collectively produced a documentary on the rural context of violence in La Toma District, Colombia. By enabling the reflections and intentions of young participants in the research process, PDP gave special value to their social and political commitment to supporting community social organisation, and provided fresh research insights into comprehending territorial conflict. The paper concludes that this method amplifies participatory and action research approaches in geography by producing knowledge that is academically and socially relevant. Such collective, emancipatory and anti-hegemonic visual representations and actions for social change in PDP are especially pertinent in spaces of conflict and violence.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"37 3 1","pages":"299-306"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78055341","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}
Policing literature has shown how the police deal with protests on the street. This paper aims to add another dimension to this work by focusing on the use of radio-cell analysis and codes in police tactics to identify and single out protesters. Combining the literature on policing with work on codes and software sorting, the paper shows how an algorithm structures and narrows down large datasets on thousands of protesters into a manageable number of suspects whom officers can investigate using the means they have. The case study involves large-scale anti-fascist direct actions and blockades in Dresden, Germany, in 2011 that disabled one of Europe's largest fascist demonstrations. Using this example the paper makes two points. First, the police used the radio-cell grid to create digital kettles to isolate groups of protesters. Radio cells that overlay spaces in which riots or blockades occur become the boundaries of these digital kettles. Every mobile phone user within one of these spaces is automatically subject to further investigation by the algorithm. Second, the algorithm analyses all phone users within a digital kettle according to movement and call patterns. This way, the code identifies a manageable number of individuals out of hundreds of thousands of connectivity data. As opposed to using officers in riot gear, a radio-cell analysis and the use of codes enable the ‘kettling’ of far larger numbers of protesters, making this tactic an efficient way of dealing with protests and civil disobedience. Empirically, the paper is based on an analysis of minor interpellations dealing with radio-cell analysis and semi-structured interviews with key informants.
{"title":"Coded police territories: ‘detective software’ investigates","authors":"Till F. Paasche","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12033","url":null,"abstract":"Policing literature has shown how the police deal with protests on the street. This paper aims to add another dimension to this work by focusing on the use of radio-cell analysis and codes in police tactics to identify and single out protesters. Combining the literature on policing with work on codes and software sorting, the paper shows how an algorithm structures and narrows down large datasets on thousands of protesters into a manageable number of suspects whom officers can investigate using the means they have. The case study involves large-scale anti-fascist direct actions and blockades in Dresden, Germany, in 2011 that disabled one of Europe's largest fascist demonstrations. Using this example the paper makes two points. First, the police used the radio-cell grid to create digital kettles to isolate groups of protesters. Radio cells that overlay spaces in which riots or blockades occur become the boundaries of these digital kettles. Every mobile phone user within one of these spaces is automatically subject to further investigation by the algorithm. Second, the algorithm analyses all phone users within a digital kettle according to movement and call patterns. This way, the code identifies a manageable number of individuals out of hundreds of thousands of connectivity data. As opposed to using officers in riot gear, a radio-cell analysis and the use of codes enable the ‘kettling’ of far larger numbers of protesters, making this tactic an efficient way of dealing with protests and civil disobedience. Empirically, the paper is based on an analysis of minor interpellations dealing with radio-cell analysis and semi-structured interviews with key informants.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"7 6 1","pages":"314-320"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83482466","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}
The paper focuses on one central point of the ‘performative’ approach to homelessness that is still inadequately explored by the current literature: the conceptualisation of the relational entanglements between homeless people and the city. The argument is that only through a critical attention to these fluid and more-than-human details will we be able to re-imagine a different politics of homelessness. The paper, engaging with the work of Deleuze and Guattari as well as with critical assemblages thinking, proposes two concepts that are considered to be fundamental in this sense. First, assemblage, as a concept able to render the hybrid constituency of the individual within the city; and second, abstract machines, as a way to take into account the fluidity of power in affecting one's own experience of homelessness. The approach proposed in the paper is illustrated through the presentations of original ethnographic material derived from ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turin, Italy. The paper concludes by suggesting that the abstract machine of homelessness can be tackled in at least two ways. First, re-working the institutional assemblages of care that produce stigmatising discourses and deep emotional effects. Second, liberating homeless people's capacities and resources, which are currently poorly accounted by canonical literature and policies.
{"title":"Homeless people and the city of abstract machines: Assemblage thinking and the performative approach to homelessness","authors":"Michele Lancione","doi":"10.1111/AREA.12045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/AREA.12045","url":null,"abstract":"The paper focuses on one central point of the ‘performative’ approach to homelessness that is still inadequately explored by the current literature: the conceptualisation of the relational entanglements between homeless people and the city. The argument is that only through a critical attention to these fluid and more-than-human details will we be able to re-imagine a different politics of homelessness. The paper, engaging with the work of Deleuze and Guattari as well as with critical assemblages thinking, proposes two concepts that are considered to be fundamental in this sense. First, assemblage, as a concept able to render the hybrid constituency of the individual within the city; and second, abstract machines, as a way to take into account the fluidity of power in affecting one's own experience of homelessness. The approach proposed in the paper is illustrated through the presentations of original ethnographic material derived from ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in Turin, Italy. The paper concludes by suggesting that the abstract machine of homelessness can be tackled in at least two ways. First, re-working the institutional assemblages of care that produce stigmatising discourses and deep emotional effects. Second, liberating homeless people's capacities and resources, which are currently poorly accounted by canonical literature and policies.","PeriodicalId":72297,"journal":{"name":"Area (Oxford, England)","volume":"100 1","pages":"358-364"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85785465","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}
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