1st Edition

Performativity, Politics, and the Production of Social Space

Edited By Michael R. Glass, Reuben Rose-Redwood Copyright 2014
    278 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    296 Pages 11 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Theories of performativity have garnered considerable attention within the social sciences and humanities over the past two decades. At the same time, there has also been a growing recognition that the social production of space is fundamental to assertions of political authority and the practices of everyday life. However, comparatively little scholarship has explored the full implications that arise from the confluence of these two streams of social and political thought. This is the first book-length, edited collection devoted explicitly to showcasing geographical scholarship on the spatial politics of performativity. It offers a timely intervention within the field of critical human geography by exploring the performativity of political spaces and the spatiality of performative politics. Through a series of geographical case studies, the contributors to this volume consider the ways in which a performative conception of the "political" might reshape our understanding of sovereignty, political subjectification, and the production of social space. Marking the 20th anniversary of the publication of Judith Butler’s classic, Bodies That Matter (1993), this edited volume brings together a range of contemporary geographical works that draw exciting new connections between performativity, space, and politics.

    1. Introduction: Geographies of Performativity  Reuben Rose-Redwood and Michael R. Glass  Section One: Taking Performativity Elsewhere  2. Taking Butler Elsewhere: Performativities, Spatialities, and Subjectivities  Nicky Gregson and Gillian Rose  3. Engaging Butler: Subjects, Cernment and Ongoing Limits of Performativity  Lise Nelson  4. Performativity and Antagonism as Keystones for a Political Geography of Change  Carolin Schurr  5. Performativity, Events and Becoming-Stateless  Robert J. Kaiser  Section Two: Performativity, Space, and Politics  6. Disentangling Property, Performing Space  Nicholas Blomley  7. "Sixth Avenue is Now a Memory": Regimes of Spatial Inscription and the Performative Limits of the Official City-Text  Reuben Rose-Redwood  8. "Becoming a Thriving Region": Performative Visions, Imaginative Geographies, and the Power of 32  Michael R. Glass  9. Performing Scale: Watersheds as "Natural" Governance Units in the Canadian Context  Alice Cohen and Leila Harris  Section Three: Political Performativity and the Production of Social Space  10. Finding New Spaces for Performativity and Politics  Michael R. Glass and Reuben Rose-Redwood

    Biography

    Michael R. Glass is a Lecturer of Urban Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

    Reuben Rose-Redwood is an Associate Professor of Geography and member of the Cultural, Social, and Political Thought program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.