Challenging the spatial politics of the European crisis: nationed narratives and trans-local solidarities in the post-crisis conjuncture

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the potential for the formation of political solidarities across the spatial divisions being intensified by dominant responses to the European crisis. In doing so, it takes inspiration from Doreen Massey’s thinking around the contested terms on which space and politics are articulated and her engagement with the 2008 crisis through projects such as the Kilburn manifesto. We argue that her book World city powerfully articulates a way of thinking about the spatial politics of a particular conjuncture. The paper traces the ways in which various political interventions in post-crisis politics have been shaped by distinctive ‘nationed’ geographical imaginaries. In particular, we explore how left-wing nationed narratives impact on the discursive horizon and unpack their implications for the articulation of solidarities and emancipatory politics in the context of the ‘European Crisis’. Building on this, we reflect on how trans-local solidarities and alliances might be articulated across socio-spatial divisions and contest the decidedly uneven, racialized, gendered and classed impacts of dominant European politics. We argue that such solidarities and alliances can form a crucial intervention in challenging the dominant spatial politics of crisis and articulating left political strategies on different terms.

KEYWORDS:

• Space
• politics
• conjuncture
• solidarity
• populism
• nationed narratives

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to the editors and referees of Cultural Studies and to Ozan Karaman for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. We would also like to thank the participants in the 'Forging politicised solidarities in, against and beyond the European crisis' session at the 2016 RGS-IBG Annual Conference in London and the 'Doreen Massey and the Ecology of the Left' RGS-IBG event in October 2016 for their constructive feedback. Thanks are also due to Athina Arampatzi, Giovanni Bettini, Ross Beveridge, Andy Cumbers, Sotirios Dimitriadis and Mo Hume for discussion etc.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

David Featherstone is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Glasgow and is a member of the editorial collective of Soundings. He studied for a PhD with Doreen Massey at the Open University and is the author of Resistance, Space and Political Identities and Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of Internationalism and coeditor of Spatial Politics: Essays for Doreen Massey and of Stuart Hall: The Great Moving Right Show and Other Essays, Selected Political Writings.

Lazaros Karaliotas is a Lecturer in Urban Geography at the University of Glasgow. He holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Manchester and has been a post-doctoral research fellow at the Universities of Glasgow and Manchester. He is the incoming Book Reviews Editor at the Urban Studies journal and a member of the editorial advisory board of Soundings.

Notes

1. We use the term ‘nationed’ to refer to discourses and imaginaries articulated around the signifier of the nation either to explain the ‘European Crisis’ and the spatial politics around it or to articulate alternatives to the post-crisis conjuncture.

2. While populism is used in a normative and pejorative way in mainstream discourses, our use of the term here draws from Ernesto Laclau’s (2005) understanding of populism as a discourse articulated through a key reference to ‘the people’ constructing an antagonistic division of society into ‘the establishment’ and ‘the people’.

3. http://twinningagainstausterity.net/#content.

4. http://euromedworkerseconomy.net/gathering/.