Suchergebnisse

Geographical analyses on protests against austerity politics using the framework of post-politics have proliferated in recent years, mostly building on the work of Jacques Rancière and his conceptualisation of the political and the police order. The paper continues this tradition but seeks to move beyond those analyses reducing the political gesture to a 'rare' and 'heroic' act. It does so by bridging the work of Rancière with the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, developing two main arguments. The first one concerns the local and situated dimension of the political moment; the second concerns the dialectical relation between the police order and its disruption, while at the same time viewing insurgent acts as part of a chain of perpetual acts that destabilise the police order, which moreover are the inevitable outcome of its excess. These theoretical arguments are developed in relation to the analysis of the trajectory of disruptive politics around vacant property in Dublin and Rome. In both cities, several contentious political initiatives around property emerged as a response to the crisis and austerity politics, but they were unable to translate into bigger movements. To account for this, the paper identifies two main factors: the limited violence of the crisis in terms of evictions and foreclosures, and the instrumental use of 'legality' and 'rules' by the police order. Nevertheless, we argue, activist engagements with vacant property can be considered as examples of 'world forming' that create the possibilities for further disruptive politics.

AbstractIn the wake of the global financial crisis, and as Europe's financial and fiscal woes continue, Ireland's beleaguered economy has attracted a great deal of scrutiny, with much made of the country's status as one of the PIIGS and the fact that it was bailed out by the troika of the IMF, EU and ECB in November 2010. Whilst most attention has been directed at Ireland's banks and the strategy of the Irish government in managing the crisis, substantial interest (both nationally and internationally) has been focused on the property sector and in particular the phenomenon of so‐called 'ghost estates' (or, in official terms, unfinished estates). As of October 2011 there were 2,846 such estates in Ireland, and they have come to visibly symbolize the collapse of Ireland's 'Celtic Tiger' economy. In this essay, we examine the unfinished estates phenomenon, placing them within the context of Ireland's property boom during the Celtic Tiger years, and conceptualize them as 'new ruins' created through the search for a spatial fix by speculative capitalism in a time of neoliberalism. We detail the characteristics and geography of such estates, the various problems afflicting the estates and their residents, and the Irish government's response to those problems. In the final section we examine the estates as exemplars of new ruins, the remainder and reminder of Celtic Tiger excess.

Using cutting-edge academic work on migration and citizenship to address three themes central to current debates - borders and walls, mobility and travel, and belonging - the authors provide new insights into the politics of migration and citizenship in the UK and the US.

Cover; Contents; Preface; List of Figures; List of Tables; Abbreviations; Notes on Contributors; Introduction; 1. Spatial justice, housing and financial crisis; 2. Territorial politics after the global financial crisis; 3. Spatial justice and housing in Ireland; 4. 'Planning gain' in a time of crisis; 5. Greening the economy in Ireland: Challenges and possibilities for just transitions through clustering for cleantech; 6. The nature of uneven economic development in Ireland, 1991-2011; 7. Environmental justice, childhood deprivation, and urban regeneration; 8. Health and spatial justice.