ISSN:
0042-0980
Language:
English
Titel der Quelle:
Urban studies
Publ. der Quelle:
London : Sage Publications Ltd
Angaben zur Quelle:
Vol. 54, No. 1 (2017), p. 31-43
DDC:
300
Abstract:
This commentary reflects on the influence of the post-political critique on urban studies. In this literature (e.g. Swyngedouw, 2014), the default position of contemporary democracies is post-politics – the truly political is only rare, random and radical. The ‘post-political trap’ refers to the intuitively convincing, yet ultimately confining account it provides of contemporary urban governance. We identify three shortcomings. First, the binary understanding of the real political/politics as police negates the in-betweenness and contingency of actually existing urban politics. By so doing, secondly, political agency is reduced to the heroic and anti-heroic. Thus, the plurality of political agency in the urban sphere and multi-faceted forms of power lose their political quality. Third, the perceived omnipotence of the post-political order actually diminishes the possibilities of the urban as a political space of resistance and emancipation. On these grounds we argue not for a rejection of the notion of the post-political per se but for a more differentiated approach, one more alert to the contingencies of the political and of depoliticisation in the urban realm.
Note:
Copyright: © Urban Studies Journal Limited 2016
DOI:
10.1177/0042098016671477
URL:
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0042098016671477
URL:
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1850015432
