Spatializing Politics: Essays on Power and Place

by Delia Duong Ba Wendel (Editor), Fallon Samuels Aidoo (Editor)

Overview

Spatializing Politics is an anthology of emerging scholarship that treats built and imagined spaces as critical to knowing political power. In academic and popular discourse, spaces tend to serve as passive containers, symbols, or geographical coordinates for political theories, ideologies, and histories. By contrast, the essays in this collection illustrate how buildings and landscapes as disparate as Rust Belt railway stations and rural Rwandan hills become tools of political action and frameworks for political authority. Each chapter features original research on the spatial production of conflict and consensus, which ranges from exclusion and incarceration to reclamation and reconciliation. By focusing on the architects and spaces of political empowerment, the anthology fills a critical gap in studies of space and politics in anthropology, architectural history, conflict studies, geography, public policy, science/technology studies, and urban planning. These essays also demonstrate the global, historical, and contemporary relevance of thinking spatially for political action. Altogether, this multidisciplinary collection puts forward various spatial epistemologies that conceptualize, concretize, and contest forms of spatial politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781934510469
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	02/15/2016
Series:	Harvard Design Studies
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	226,767
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Delia Duong Ba Wendel is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning at Harvard University.

Fallon Samuels Aidoo is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning at Harvard University.

Table of Contents

Foreword Susan S. Fainstein vi

Acknowledgments x

Introduction Toward a Spatial Epistemology of Politics Delia Duong Ba Wendel 2

Contentious Politics 14

"There Were Streets": Urban Renewal and the Early Troubles in London/Derry, Northern Ireland Margo Shea 19

Slum as Infrastructure: How the Politics of Informality Shapes South Africa's World-Class Cities Kerry Ryan Chance 51

Political Ground and Spatial Stakes in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Anh-Thu Ngo 85

Politics of Consensus 114

Imagining Spaces of Peace and Conflict in the Rwandan Radio Drama Musekeweya Delia Duong Ba Wendel 119

The Right-of-Way: Critical Infrastructure for the Right to Work in Postwar Philadelphia Fallon Samuels Aidoo 153

The Volcanic Heart of Nicaragua: Tiscapa and the Spatiality of Political Culture, 1936-1990 Ryne Clos 185

Biopolitics 212

The Permeable Institution: Community Mental Health Centers as Governmental Technology, 1963-1974 Joy Knoblauch 217

Imprisoned Bodies: North Korea audits Kwan-li-so Melany Sun-MinPark 243

The Right to Live in the World: Architecture, Inclusion, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Wanda Katja Liebermann 273

Politics of Expertise 302

Epistemologies of Public and Private Urban Design Expertise Orly Linovski 307

From the Street Civic Epistemologies of Urban Climate Change Michael Mendez 337

Immigrant Spatial Politics in Metropolitan Miami, 1957-2005 H. Fernando Burga 367

Afterword: A Conversation Toni L. Griffin Fallon Samuels Aidoo 400

Contributor Biographies 404

Index 412

Editorial Reviews

Invoking geographical theorists such as Harvey, Massey, McCann, and Soja, the level of intellectual cross-pollination is refreshing… The essays shed light on varying forms of state power and of resistance efforts in order to articulate dissent over the reconstruction of space that invariably benefits the entrenched interests driving the state… The book as a whole represents a consistent engagement with various forms of spatial politics across scales, but always reminds the reader of individual-scale processes. These chapters are well-theorized case studies, as the various theoretical underpinnings the authors leverage demonstrate their explanatory power. The collection’s strength is the varying takes on space and power, providing excellent analyses for scholars and students from geography and planning to sociology and anthropology.

Technology and Culture - Darren Purcell