Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space

This paper examines the geographies of justice movements in Rotterdam in The Netherlands and Los Angeles in the United States. In their wider national and international frameworks movements in both countries continue to contest unjust forms of urbanization characterized by neoliberal initiatives that undermine the socioeconomic status of low-income residents. These movements are constituted by relations that stretch across several geographical levels. There remain, however, significant differences in their spatial organizational form: Rotterdam is characterized by loose networks of local associations which relate to constellations of nationally based Christian churches, unions, and humanist organizations, whereas networks between associations, unions, and university activists in Los Angeles have undergone institutionalization at the urban level. We show that movement territorialization is particularly evident at the urban level in Los Angeles while embedded at the national level in the shadow of state–corporatist institutional legacies and power relations in Rotterdam. By drawing upon important insights from several economic geographers, we develop a conceptual framework for explaining the spatialities of contention and contribute to contemporary controversies over relationality, territoriality, and political action at a variety of scales. A normative implication of the paper concerns the learning capacities of contesting actors to forge alliances and achieve their ambitions within path-dependent institutional frameworks.

In this paper we draw critically upon actor network theory (ANT) in order to analyse the contours of relationality, communication, and operational logic within a global justice network—People's Global Action Asia. Drawing upon the concept of translation, we consider how connections are fostered and sustained within the network, focusing upon the work of key organisers (those we term the ‘imagineers’) and key events in producing the network. In so doing, we ground ANT in direct political engagement and introduce the concept of ‘grassrooting vectors’ to highlight the power relations at work within global justice networks, a consideration which is crucial to the formation of mutual solidarity between social movements.

This paper explores space as the object of mobilization (rather than focusing on space as resource or constraint, or on the spatial configuration of actors within the organizational structure of a movement). In the context of state-restructuring processes, it is argued that new political spaces result not only from social movement activities (as in the drive for ‘free spaces’), but also in a dynamic interaction between state and civil society actors. The author asks what it takes to create a new, effective, and significant political space. Three elements are explored empirically and theoretically: the production of allegiance and legitimacy through spatial imaginaries, the instrumentalization of spatial practices and of the political culture, and the strategic use of spatial tools. In light of the case of Toronto, where a new regional political space eased the normalization of neoliberalism, it is concluded that new political spaces create the conditions for political exchange, but do not guarantee emancipation, democracy, and justice. Overall, the author's aim is to discuss the concept of political space and the analytical advantages provided by its openness to fluidity, uncertainties, uninstitutionalized interactions, and various forms of rationalities (imaginaries, everyday practices, as well as strategic calculation) in the state-restructuring and rescaling debate.

Drawing on recent political theory that examines the relationship between inclusive deliberation and oppositional activism in processes of democratisation, we develop a case study of environmental justice mobilisation in post-apartheid South Africa. We focus on the emergence of a network of social movement organisations embedded in particular localities in the city of Durban, connected into national and transnational campaigns, and centred on grievances around industrial air pollution. We analyse how the geographies of uneven industrial and urban development in Durban combine with sedimented place-based histories of activism to make particular locations spaces of democratic contention, in which the scope and operation of formal democratic procedures are challenged and transformed. We examine the range of strategic engagements adopted by social movement organisations in pursuing their objectives, looking in particular at the dynamic interaction between inclusion in deliberative forums and more adversarial, activist strategies of legal challenge and dramaturgical protest. We identify the key organisational features of groups involved in this environmental justice network, which both enable and constrain particular patterns of democratic engagement with the state and capital. We also identify a disjuncture between the interpretative frames of different actors involved in participatory policy making. These factors help to explain the difficulties faced by social movement organisations in opening up the space for legitimate nonparliamentary opposition in a political culture shaped by norms of conciliation and consensus.

Studies of the relationship between urban-based contention and neoliberal capitalism have recognized the relatively fluid and potentially empowering ways in which networked and multiscaled mobilizations strive to overcome fragmentation. Yet this work has not focused sufficiently on national urban politics for understanding the legacies of division and circumscription that may shape the city as a terrain of conflict. Reconsidering two classic treatments of fragmentation in the work of Katznelson and Castells, I contend that the historically racialized and politically decentralized institutional patterns characteristic of US urban governance continue to hamper urban social-justice mobilizations that seek to grapple with sectoral and scalar cleavages. Drawing on recent work in urban history, labor sociology, and urban politics, my discussion acknowledges the emerging potential of certain kinds of cross-sectoral and multiscalar efforts—such as labor–community coalitions and translocally supported multilocal campaigns—while also emphasizing that these mobilizations take shape within urban political arenas that, in the United States, are notoriously divisive and ‘sticky’. The paper illustrates these points through a brief case example involving the anti-Wal-Mart movement in Chicago.

The author considers the strange absence of political parties in urban political theory. Having set out the problem, the author proceeds through a set of hypotheses concerning why parties are such elusive characters on the urban-studies stage. These involve, in turn: the characteristics of the literature on parties; the treatment of ‘change’ as a theme in human geography and urban studies; the effects of the dominance of the United States in the theoretical literature on urban politics; the characterisation of political ‘actors’ in this literature; and related issues surrounding the challenges which parties pose to research at a normative–democratic level. In the process it is cautiously suggested that parties be reinserted as forming part of an array of urban collective forms which repay attention in accounting for urban political transformation and, of course, inertia. The usefulness of parties as a space within which to think through problems of agency and democracy in the city and beyond, is also emphasised.

The paper examines Australian Indymedia collectives as a means to improve understanding of the practices of alter-globalisation movements. Two key issues are explored. The first concerns the politics of the alter-globalisation movements—what they demand and how they practise their aims. The second concerns the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to provide a space within which to build a radical politics. Several dilemmas facing Indymedia and alter-globalisation movements emerge from this analysis. First, there remain many limitations of using ICTs as a space for the constitution of a radical politics. Second, Indymedia collectives have had success in aligning their aims to their practices; however, informal hierarchies did form around editorial decisions and technical skills. Third, there is continued potential for these movements to appear exclusive. In this respect, simply being ‘open’ is not enough to widen these spaces of resistance. Fourth, there is the continued importance of structure to strengthen the ability of groups to operate non-hierarchically Despite these dilemmas, many of the alter-globalisation movements' practices are proving workable. It is the ability of participants to acknowledge these dilemmas and to continue to be reflexive about their practices that is one of the greatest strengths of these emerging movements.

This paper offers a reflexive ethnography of a set of queer autonomous spaces created in London over the last five years. It traces the political genealogies of a recent strand of radical queer activism that is broadly aligned with the anarchist and anticapitalist wings of the global justice movement. In line with the usage of the term ‘queer’ by these activists themselves, to refer to a variety of states of being that challenge both homonormativity and heteronormativity, this paper utilises a definition of ‘queer’ that moves beyond the ways in which it has been mobilised by many sexual geographers. The ethnography poses questions about the ‘queer’ in ‘queer geography’ and what it means to be an ‘activist’. This work considers the importance (as well as the limits) of these autonomous queer spaces. It suggests that the process of collective experimentation to build autonomous queer spaces is ultimately more transformative and empowering than the resulting structures.

The arsenic crisis that affects at least thirty million water consumers in Bangladesh has been called the world's greatest ever environmental health disaster. Although the problem and the potential solutions have been presented confidently in the media, the argument of this paper is that, ironically, very little of the science or the technology is certain. From the spatial and depth variabilities of contamination, through safety thresholds, to the accuracy of field testing kits, we find indeterminacy. We argue that rather than shying away from such uncertainty, however, mitigation policies must acknowledge and embrace it if any real progress is to be made.

This paper is in respectful challenge to two streams in urban social geography and planning literatures: the question of how gendered geographies of fear help constitute identities spatially, and the related question of how gendered urban space can be made and remade to be more egalitarian. I argue that the first of these bodies of literature is often trapped in an unhelpful public–private divide, which reflects the inability of mainstream crime prevention to include violence committed within families and households as a central focus of concern. I further argue that the question of how urban space can become more egalitarian needs to be concerned with violence and fear in the private realm as well as the public realm. Although the paper is primarily a review of recent academic and policy-oriented literature, my arguments are illustrated by a research project on how grassroots organizations serving new-arrival women in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and Toronto, as well as their funders, are redefining violence and safer space.

From recent debates on governance and governmentality, two key analytical imperatives arise: the need to engage simultaneously with the structures and processes of governing, and the need to recognise the plurality and multiplicity of governing sites and activities. In seeking to address these imperatives, we develop an analytical approach, the modes of governing approach, which engages with the rationalities, agencies, institutional relations, and technologies of governing that coalesce around particular objectives and entities to be governed. Drawing on the example of municipal waste management, we illustrate how this framework can illuminate the dynamic and multiple nature of governing, and outline the key modes of governing which currently shape the policy and practice of municipal waste.

While many studies have been conducted about the allocation of household duties within households, little is known about the impact of land use and accessibility on the distribution of out-of-home household tasks between spouses and about men's participation in such activities. This paper addresses this impact, while controlling for the impact of household structure, life cycle, employment status and hours, access to transport systems, and interactions among activities in persons' activity schedules. Path models for male–female couples in the Amsterdam–Utrecht corridor, the Netherlands, show that land use and accessibility influence between-partner interactions in maintenance activity participation, although their role appears to be smaller than that of sociodemographics and access to transport systems. While women perform the bulk of out-of-home household tasks, men are responsible for a larger share of out-of-home household duties in neighbourhoods characterised by a higher population density and/or more diversity of land uses than they are in lower density and/or less diverse neighbourhoods. However, women's responsibilities are not reduced to the same extent, because spouses' joint participation is also somewhat larger in higher density, more diverse neighbourhoods and because part of men's participation in these neighbourhoods reflects household activities not undertaken elsewhere.

Government frequently adopts an area-based approach to the targeting of urban policy initiatives as an indirect way of reaching the individuals that the initiatives are intended to help. The paper develops a method for assessing the success of this spatial targeting. It uses a geodemographic classification system to produce a generalised socioeconomic profile for a particular initiative. This profile can be used to examine the targeting of the initiative in different localities, in order to assess whether targeting has been inefficient (the targeted areas have been defined so that many of the people they contain are in fact not those for whom the initiative is intended) or incomplete (deserving cases have been missed because the initiative's boundaries have been drawn too tightly). The utility of the method is demonstrated by employing the P² People and Places geodemographic system to assess the targeting of the Sure Start initiative in eight large provincial cities in England.