Promises of the Political: Insurgent Cities in a Post-Political Environment (The MIT Press)

Description

Review A wonderfully erudite dissection of the post-political and yet hyper-political times in which we live. Characteristically brilliant, characteristically iconoclastic, characteristically dialectical, this is the antidote to the optimism of the optimist and the pessimism of the pessimist in equal measure.―Colin Hay, Sciences Po, ParisErik Swyngedouw brings insights from urban political ecology to bear on debates over contemporary post-politics. He presents an egalitarian vision of the political that is responsive to the effects of planetary urbanization without falling prey to catastrophism or populism. Cities today are sites of new insurgencies. They are also openings to an egalitarian socio-ecological commons.―Jodi Dean, Harter Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, author of The Communist Horizon and Crowds and PartyIn this productively pugnacious intervention, renowned spatial theorist Erik Swyngedouw develops a devastating critique of “depoliticization” in contemporary public discourse on environment, urbanization, capitalism, and democracy. Only an insurgent movement for radical democratization, he argues, can reveal possible alternatives to hegemonic forms of identitarian violence, neoliberal austerity, and ecological plunder, while opening up new horizons for “being-in-common.”―Neil Brenner, Professor of Urban Theory, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University Read more About the Author Erik Swyngedouw is Professor of Geography at Manchester University and the author of Liquid Power: Contested Hydro-Modernities in Twentieth-Century Spain (MIT Press). Read more