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In a recent essay Michael Hardt gives voice to a widespread discontent with the left-academic project of critique, stemming from its failure to deliver on its emancipatory promises. Scholarship, in geography and many other social science disciplines is dominated by a pre-occupation with charting the intricate connections between neoliberal governance and an expansive capitalism. As Hardt and many others have observed, the process of critical exposure fails to incite a political response from broader publics. As an alternative to the failed politics of critique, Hardt — inspired by Foucault's engagement with the cynics—argues for a practice of militant biopolitics—an autonomous mode of reflecting, thinking and acting together that eschews expert knowledge. In this paper I argue that the pioneering work of Gibson-Graham and scholars inspired by their work can be seen as a form of militant biopolitics. Collaborative and participatory forms of research and working with others, become the basis for engaging with and transforming economies and human interactions with ecologies. Beyond generating critical awareness, this scholarship aims at producing a post-capitalist politics.Keywords: Gibson-Graham, diverse economies, biopolitics, critique, post-capitalism

In a recent essay Michael Hardt gives voice to a widespread discontent with the left-academic project of critique, stemming from its failure to deliver on its emancipatory promises. Scholarship, in geography and many other social science disciplines is dominated by a pre-occupation with charting the intricate connections between neoliberal governance and an expansive capitalism. As Hardt and many others have observed, the process of critical exposure fails to incite a political response from broader publics. As an alternative to the failed politics of critique, Hardt — inspired by Foucault's engagement with the cynics—argues for a practice of militant biopolitics—an autonomous mode of reflecting, thinking and acting together that eschews expert knowledge. In this paper I argue that the pioneering work of Gibson-Graham and scholars inspired by their work can be seen as a form of militant biopolitics. Collaborative and participatory forms of research and working with others, become the basis for engaging with and transforming economies and human interactions with ecologies. Beyond generating critical awareness, this scholarship aims at producing a post-capitalist politics.Keywords: Gibson-Graham, diverse economies, biopolitics, critique, post-capitalism

This article identifies a form of affective bio-politics more intimate, engrained and corporeally enacted than that identified in recent work emphasising the affective qualities of activism and labour. While these latter reinforce and bolster existing analyses through the identification of further affective concerns, affective bio-politics suggests that neoliberalism supports and sustains itself quite fundamentally through, what have generally been, unrecognised affective means. While such affective regulation can only ever be partial and imprecise its unrecognised, and thus implicitly concealed, character lends it a particular cogency. Illuminating the mechanisms through which such affective regulatory modulation is achieved thus has a powerful potential to clarify further opportunities to disrupt and counter neoliberalism. This account juxtaposes an analysis of affective bio-politics with existing analyses of the affective, and performative, dimensions to activist politics, in order to facilitate the identification of specific opportunities for further affective contestationary strategies.

This article identifies a form of affective bio-politics more intimate, engrained and corporeally enacted than that identified in recent work emphasising the affective qualities of activism and labour. While these latter reinforce and bolster existing analyses through the identification of further affective concerns, affective bio-politics suggests that neoliberalism supports and sustains itself quite fundamentally through, what have generally been, unrecognised affective means. While such affective regulation can only ever be partial and imprecise its unrecognised, and thus implicitly concealed, character lends it a particular cogency. Illuminating the mechanisms through which such affective regulatory modulation is achieved thus has a powerful potential to clarify further opportunities to disrupt and counter neoliberalism. This account juxtaposes an analysis of affective bio-politics with existing analyses of the affective, and performative, dimensions to activist politics, in order to facilitate the identification of specific opportunities for further affective contestationary strategies.