Suchergebnisse

The financial malaise that has affected the Eurozone countries of southern Europe - Spain, Portugal, Italy and, in its most extreme case, Greece - has been analysed using mainly macroeconomic and financial explanations. This book shifts the emphasis from macroeconomics to the relationship between uneven geographical development, financialization and politics. It deconstructs the myth that debt, both public and private, in Southern Europe is the sole outcome of the spendthrift ways of Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, offering a fresh perspective on the material, social and ideological parameters of the economic crisis and the spaces where it unfolded. Featuring a range of case examples that complement and expand the main discussion, Crisis Spaces will appeal to students and scholars of human geography, economics, regional development, political science, cultural studies and social movements studies.

This research project has focused on the possible interactions between political and economic factors determining whether a more self-reliant regionally based space can offer protection from world market forces. The importance of regional integration (NAFTA, APEC, ASEAN, and MERCOSUR) has been inspired by the European example, which is the most institutionalized. Do these constructions conform to the logic of globalization or do they represent defensive counter-movements of regional economies to the unfettered mechanisms of worldwide competition? As of yet, the European Union does not seem to

This research project has focused on the possible interactions between political and economic factors determining whether a more self-reliant regionally based space can offer protection from world market forces. The importance of regional integration (NAFTA, APEC, ASEAN, and MERCOSUR) has been inspired by the European example, which is the most institutionalized. Do these constructions conform to the logic of globalization or do they represent defensive counter-movements of regional economies to the unfettered mechanisms of worldwide competition? As of yet, the European Union does not seem to.

Conferencia a cargo del Doctor Costis Hadjimichalis. 18 de octubre de 2018: Jornadas Platenses de Geografía y XX Jornadas de Investigación y Enseñanza en Geografía. Edificio Sergio Karakachoff. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Traducción a cargo de Nicolás Trivi.

ResumenLas luchas y los movimientos sociales urbanos, desde el periodo de entreguerras, durante las dictaduras y guerras civiles y particularmente después de la década de 1970 y el auge de la especulación urbana en todos los países, se han generalizado en las ciudades del sureste europeo. La crisis económica surgida entre 2008 y 2009 cambió drásticamente el contexto sociopolítico más amplio y ahora la especulación sobre el suelo y las propiedades inmobiliarias ha venido a ser parte fundamental de la crisis actual. Las calles y plazas se han convertidode nuevo en un elemento político central pero con nuevas demandas y estrategias. Lo que diferencia la tradición griega, y particularmente la ateniense, en luchas urbanas del uso convencional de calles y plazas en política —un caso con más diferencias que similitudes respecto a España, Portugal e Italia— es la mayorcomprensión del uso político de lo urbano, y particularmente del centro de la ciudad como el principal ámbitopara la lucha desde el comienzo del s. XXI. Este artículo explora estos desarrollos a través del análisis de tres de los principales eventos urbanos acontecidos en Atenas, el aumento de la política radical de izquierdas y la aparición de una serie de redes sociales de solidaridad y emancipación en los principales centros urbanos de Grecia.Palabras clave: Movimientos sociales urbanos, Atenas, redes de solidaridadAbstractUrban struggles and urban social movements are widespread in Southern European cities since the interwar period, during dictatorships and civil wars and particularly after the 1970s and the rise of urban speculation in all countries. The economic crisis since 2008-9 changed dramatically the wider socio-political context and now speculation around land and real estate has been an integral part of the current crisis. Streets and squares became again part of central politics but with new demands and tactics. What differentiates the Greek, and particularly the Athenian, tradition of urban struggles from conventional use of streets and squares in politics —a case which has more dissimilarities than similarities with Spain, Portugal and Italy— is the more comprehensive political use of the urban and particularly the city center as a major fi eld of struggle from the early 21st century onwards. The paper explores these developments trough the analysis of three major urban events in Athens, the rise of radical political left and a series of emancipatory solidarity social networks in all major Greek urban centers.Keywords: Urban social movements, crisis, Athens, solidarity networks

AbstractIn the current debate on local and regional development and after several 'turns', dominant critical models have found some security in institutional, cultural and evolutionary approaches. Interest today centres on success and competitiveness and how they are reproduced in a few paradigmatic regions. A distinctive feature of these regions and places is the embeddedness of certain non‐economic factors such as social capital, trust and reciprocity based on familiarity, face‐to‐face exchange, cooperation, embedded routines, habits and norms, local conventions of communication and interaction, all of which contribute to a region's particular success. Although these approaches may not deny the forces of the capitalist space economy, they do not explicitly acknowledge them or take them on board and so they tend to discuss non‐economic factors and institutions as autonomous forces shaping development. This essay provides a critique of these concepts based on their (1) inadequate theorization, (2) depoliticized view of politics and de‐economized use of economics and (3) reduction of space to territory. The essay concludes that we need a far more penetrating renewal of radical critique of the current space economy of capitalism. Old concepts such as uneven development, the social and spatial division of labour, the geographical transfer of value, accumulation and imperialism must be combined with cultural and institutional issues, with those non‐economic factors mentioned above.

AbstractThe networking literature has burgeoned in recent years within a complex cross‐disciplinary field and particularly in economic geography and regional planning. Networks have been analysed both as organizational expressions of globalization, linked to claims about the rise of the network society, and as territorial and cultural systems of exchange. Concepts of networks and networking have been accepted as positive, and sometimes also as progressive or radical within both social science and policy discourses. In this article we analyse regionally embedded economic networks and the EU's urban and regional policy networks as a new mode of administration, at a variety of spatial scales. Little attention has been paid to the theoretical implications of using the concept of network as a social metaphor or to the operation of actually existing networks, as a result of conceptualizing networks in ways that deny their constitutive inequalities, asymmetries and democratic deficits. This darker side has been pushed into the shadows by the rhetorical emphasis on the benefits claimed for networked organizational forms.