Potentiality and Impotentiality in J. K. Gibson-Graham

Abstract

Throughout their research, and most explicitly with their work on the concept of affect, J. K. Gibson-Graham think about our capacities and potentialities—the “visceral intensities” that accompany politics—without falling into a moralistic or purist critique of limiting powers. They refuse to dismiss as trivial or marginal those everyday economic ventures that cannot be measured against the yardstick of capitalism but that nonetheless extend capacities in unpredictable ways. Through interviews conducted with both Katherine Gibson and Julie Graham, this paper examines the immanence of potentiality in Gibson-Graham's theoretical arguments and research practices. It also examines a less recognized, though crucial, dimension of their work: the place of impotentiality in thinking and practice. Impotentiality is poorly understood as a merely negative incapacity. An analysis of both thinkers' reflections on their own research practices demonstrates that our impotentiality enables us to live and think in ways that are more than reactive.

Key Words:

• Affect
• Giorgio Agamben
• J. K. Gibson-Graham
• Potentiality
• Virtual

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the careful reading and insightful comments provided by Maria Hynes and the two anonymous reviewers. Thanks also to Esra Erdem for inviting this submission and to both Esra and Katherine Gibson for their encouragement of this paper.

Notes

1. On the subject of such misunderstandings, Gibson-Graham (2006, 2) write, “With popular and academic audiences, in reviews and written rebuttals, in conversations with colleagues and friends, we confronted the same challenges over and over again.”

2. These interviews were conducted for my PhD dissertation, “A Geography of the Fold,” which examines the research practices of academics working at the interface of political economy and a very broadly conceived new cultural geography. I have identified Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson after each of the transcripts on the suggestion made by the editors that this would add clarity. While on balance I think this is sage advice in that it does add clarity, part of me feels uncomfortable prising open the authorial subject, J. K. Gibson-Graham, which they put so much thought and effort into creating.

3. Many of the projects of participants in the Community Economies Collective have a localized feel since it is precisely these types of activities that become marginalized or trivialized in discourses of globalization. For the flavor of these projects, see http://www.communityeconomies.org/Home/Research-Projects.

4. Those familiar with Julie Graham will know that this was a reasonably common refrain. I heard it, for example, after the work had been done for A Post-Capitalist Politics, but I believe it occurred several times during her career.