“The Ground-Zero of Politics: Musings on the Post-Political Polis”

The city has undergone radical change over the past two decades or so, most dramatically in its modes of urban governing and polic(y)ing. New forms of neo-liberal urban governance in fact annul democracy: while promising equality, they produce instituted forms of governing in which political power seamlessly fuses with economic might. Governance arrangements shape the city according to the dreams, tastes and needs of the transnational economic, political, and cultural elites. In his lecture, Erik Swyngedouw will talk about what he thinks went wrong, but also about what he calls proper urban politics that foster dissent, create disagreement and trigger the experimentation with more egalitarian and inclusive urban futures. Erik Swyngedouw is professor of geography at the University of Manchester. His research interests revolve around two main issues: political ecology with a particular emphasis on the governance, politics and economics of water resources, and gegraphical political economy, paying particular attention to the articulation between local/regional and national/transnational processes. This lecture is a joint event of the Centre for British Studies and Institut for Sozialwissenschaften, Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Announcement by the Centre for British Studies here.

Monday, 30 January 2012, 17.00 hours
Centre for British Studies
Mohrenstr. 60
10117 Berlin-Mitte