Queer ecology: nature, sexuality, and heterotopic alliances. Matthew Gandy

This paper explores the interdisciplinary terrain of ‘queer ecology’ by using the example of an urban cemetery in North London as an empirical and conceptual starting point. Though the term ‘queer ecology’ has cropped up a few times it has yet to be addressed directly in order to consider how the seemingly disparate fields of queer theory and urban ecology might benefit from closer interaction . It will be suggested that the theoretical synthesis represented by queer ecology serves to expand the conceptual and material scope of both fields: queer theory is revealed to have only a partially developed engagement with urban nature whilst critical strands of urban ecology such as urban political ecology have yet to connect in a systematic way with queer theory, posthumanism, or new conceptions of complexity emerging from within the science of ecology itself. It is concluded that queer ecology may enrich our understanding of both urban materiality and the role of metaphors in urban theory. In particular, the idea of queer ecology illuminates the possibility for site-specific ‘heterotopic alliances’ in the contemporary city.

Keywords: Abney Park Cemetery, queer ecology, queer theory, urban ecology, urban political ecology, urban nature, heterotopia, posthumanism

 
http://www.envplan.com/abstract.cgi?id=d10511f (requires subscription – though the paper will shortly be part of a virtual theme issue on ‘Queer Space’  edited by Natalie Oswin and will become open access then for a three month period)

Hester Parr reviews Catherine Robinson

Catherine Robinson’s Beside One’s Self: Homelessness Felt and Lived was published by Syracuse University Press last year.  Hester Parr reviews it for Society and Space.

Michael Dear on the US-Mexico border

Society and Space founding editor Michael Dear has a new book forthcoming later this year – Why Walls Won’t Work. His ‘Save the Monuments’ page (and related exhibition) on the boundary markers is here.

Last year Society and Space had a paper from Edward Casey on the border, with responses by Michael, Mat Coleman, Roxanne Doty and Ronald Rael. You can find those papers here.

Peter Gratton reviews Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization

Society and Space coeditor Peter Gratton offers his review of Hasana Sharp’s 2011 book, Spinoza and the Politics of Renaturalization (from University of Chicago Press).

Last days for current free ‘highlight’ papers

We’re currently discussing some new highlight papers to make open access. So if you don’t have institutional access, this would be a good time to grab the following papers.

Eternity or infinity? Badiou’s Point 27(5) 823 – 839 Juliet Flower MacCannell

Geometry in the colossal: the project of metaphysical globalization 27(1) 29 – 40 Peter Sloterdijk (translated by Samuel A Butler)

The Shock Doctrine: a discussion 26(4) 582 – 595 Naomi Klein, Neil Smith

Theorizing sociospatial relations 26(3) 389 – 401 Bob Jessop, Neil Brenner, Martin Jones

Justice and the geographies of moral protest: reflections from Mexico 26(2) 216 – 233 Melissa W Wright

Torture and the ethics of photography 25(6) 951 – 966 Judith Butler

Where eagles dare: an ethno-fable with personal landfill 25(2) 194 – 212 Shiloh R Krupar

And the ‘Boys Town Redux’ virtual theme issue is available for two more weeks…

Review of Flammable by Thomas Perreault

Thomas Perreault reviews Javier Auyero and Débora Alejandra Swistun’s 2009 prize-winning Flammable, from Oxford University Press.


Elizabeth Grosz discussion at the AAG – audio recording

The 2012 AAG meeting in New York brought philosopher Elizabeth Grosz into discussion with geographers in a session entitled “Elizabeth Grosz, Chaos, territory, art: Deleuze and the framing of the earth- Author meets Critics”. The session was organised by Kathryn Yusoff and chaired by Jamie Lorimer.

The audio recording of the discussions is available in three parts:-

Part one - Jamie Lorimer; Elizabeth Grosz; Nigel H. Clark

Part two - Arun Saldanha; Kathryn Yusoff; Catherine Nash

Part three - Elizabeth Grosz response; discussion

An edited paper drawing on the discussion will appear in the print journal in the near future. In the meantime, we have made the audio recording available. Here’s the description of the session which gives a flavour of the fascinating discussion.

Rather than understand art as cultural accomplishment, Elizabeth Grosz argues that it is born from the intensities of chaos and disruptive forms of sexual selection—a corporeality that vibrates to the hum of the universe. Grosz contends that it is precisely this excessive, non-productive expenditure of sexual attraction that is the condition for art’s work. This intimate corporeality, composed of nonhuman forces, is what draws and transforms the cosmos, prompting experimentation with materiality, sensation and life. Drawing from The Nick of Time: Politics, Evolution, and the Untimely and Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power, in this book, Grosz reads Darwin and Nietzsche against each other, taking up the unrealised possibilities of both to compose a new philosophy of life that argues for the generative (and destructive) forces of the environment and embodied difference. This “bioaesthetics” (Saldanha 2009)—that is biospheric and biopolitical—presents a formable challenge to geographers interested in art, sexuality, time and the territorialisation of the earth. How might we understand this distinctly different kind of biopolitics? Grosz argues that art is not tied to the reproduction of the known, but to the possibility of the new, overcoming the containment of the present to elaborate on futures yet to come. In this rethinking of sexual selection, Grosz suggests an intensely political role for art as a bioaesthetics that is charged with the creation of new worlds and forms of life. Grosz makes a radical argument for a feminist philosophy of the biosphere and for our thinking the world otherwise.

Vol 30 No 2 out

New issue of the journal out, including an open access set of responses to the 22 July 2011 events in Norway; papers by Jeff Malpas, Mustafa Dikeç, Adrian Evans & Mara Miele and others; and a theme section on Mathematics edited by Christian Abrahamsson with papers by Quentin Meillassoux and Michel Serres.

Bloodlands: critical geographical responses to the 22 July 2011 events in Norway191 – 206 Veit Bachmann, Luiza Bialasiewicz, James D Sidaway, Matthew Feldman, Ståle Holgersen, Andreas Malm, Robina Mohammad, Arun Saldanha, Kirsten Simonsen

The lawn; or on becoming a killer207 – 225 David Lulka

Putting space in place: philosophical topography and relational geography226 – 242 Jeff Malpas

Not exactly like the phoenix—but rising all the same: reconstructing displaced livelihoods in post-cleanup Harare243 – 261 Amin Y Kamete

Politics is sublime262 – 279 Mustafa Dikeç

Economies of empathy: Obama, neoliberalism, and social justice280 – 297 Carolyn Pedwell

Between food and flesh: how animals are made to matter (and not matter) within food consumption practices298 – 314 Adrian B Evans, Mara Miele

Theme issue: MathematicsGuest editor: Christian Abrahamsson

Guest editorial 315 – 321
Christian Abrahamsson

The contingency of the laws of nature322 – 334 Quentin Meillassoux

More parts than elements: how databases multiply335 – 350 Adrian Mackenzie

Experimenting with ontologies: sets, spaces, and topoi with Badiou and Grothendieck351 – 368 Arkady Plotnitsky

Differences: chaos in the history of the sciences 369 – 380 Michel Serres, Taylor Adkins

Review of Craig Jeffrey’s Timepass, by Dia Da Costa

Dia Da Costa reviews Craig Jeffrey’s 2010 book, Timepass: Youth, Class, and the Politics of Waiting in India, from Stanford University Press. Craig is a Society and Space Editorial Board member.

Mary Thomas’ Multicultural Girlhood, reviewed by Wendy Shaw

Mary Thomas’ 2011 book, Multicultural Girlhood: Racism, Sexuality and the Conflicted Spaces of American Education, is reviewed by Wendy Shaw here. Find out more about Mary’s book at its Temple University Press homepage.

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