Thinking against the sovereignty of the concept

Abstract

What does a notion of capitalization do to our understandings of late capitalism and the city? What can our renewed interest in materiality add to postcolonial thought and the study of colonial history? And how do we parse through the wreckage of our age of revolts? When we find the political grammar that might respond to our present, what will we make of the square and occupations, or disruption and infrastructure in our theories of political action? These are some of the questions that are taken up in this wide-ranging interview with Timothy Mitchell; an interview in which Mitchell, reflecting on past projects and elaborating current research, offers us substantive insights into the thought processes that have made his work so indispensable.

Key words:

• colonialism
• capitalization
• materialism
• the city
• politics
• revolt
• the Arab world

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nasser Abourahme

Nasser Abourahme is a writer and doctoral candidate at Columbia University.

Omar Jabary-Salamanca

Omar Jabary-Salamanca is a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow currently based at the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. Email: [email protected]