Doreen Massey: Space and Responsibility
Doreen Massey presents a lecture with running discussion, where she puts forward four propositions to be expanded upon and discussed with the audience. These are 1) space is full of time, 2) to be more outward-looking, 3) space is the dimension of multiplicity, and 4) the necessity to keep space open and alive. Within this framework several subjects are explored, such as the relation between space and time and the political implications of this relation; the relation between the local and the global; the need to change established worldviews; how to re-conceptualise space as a political dimension; and how to keep space open for new political possibilities.
Synthesis
A critique of neoliberalism · Making space social · Proposition 1 – space is full of time · We should not counterpose space and time · Space is temporalised · So why does that matter? · Expand…
A critique of neoliberalism · Making space social · Proposition 1 – space is full of time · We should not counterpose space and time · Space is temporalised · So why does that matter? · The reason it matters is that it brings space alive · Space is not just a product of our actions · Spatial organisation has effects · It feeds back into the organisation of society · Space is a responsibility · We must deliberate about the spaces we make because they have effects · Implicitly we always think of space as a surface · The crossing of space to discover new cultures – a European view of the world · That’s not correct · If space is temporal then we walk across a multitude of stories · Space is a cut across a multitude of stories · That automatically complicates walking · The discovery of new cultures was a meeting of different trajectories · A lot of neoliberal critique of space is a critique of a point on a timeline · Generally a critique of the past · Museums follow this practice · It closes the past, encloses it · Patrick Keiller · Films that are walks · A recognition that stories continue · Space is not a surface it is a multiplicity of stories so far · Walking across space is to walk past several on going stories · The past is unfinished, it continues to pose questions for us today · Spatial Divisions of Labour · The interpretation of the past is a political activity · There is an active reconstruction of the past, an active forgetting · The reconceptualisation of space is a political activity · Science Bytes · Seeking a Gestalt shift · The narrative of progress is linear · Difference is organised in a historical sequence · These are the grand narratives · Once the grand narrative is specialised then it opens up to the possibility of political alternatives · Proposition 2 – to be more outward-looking · There is an awareness of the planet unparalleled in history · Contrasted by a total self-absorption · This must be challenged · The concept of identity and the relational aspect of identity construction initiated this · Every place is a hybrid construction · ‘A Global Sense of Place’ · Following relations around the world to see what our relationship is to these other parts of the world · The global shapes the local and the local shapes the global · We need a politics of arrivals and departures in terms of the relation between localities · A local politics of arrival and a global politics of departure · What is happening with migration? · A global ‘free’ labour market is emerging · We must become less self-absorbed in order to become critical of this emergent model · Personal reorientation · What are the processes for this to happen? · There are no fixed points · Anti-foundationalism · Anti-essentialism · How to get it across? · Proposition 3 – space is the dimension of multiplicity · Time is the dimension of the coexistence of trajectories of ‘nows’ · It is the dimension of our togetherness · Space imposes the most fundamental of political questions which is: how are we going to live together? · Space is the grounding dimension of the social · Radical contemporaneity – coevalness · A coexistence in time · In the grand narrative there is only one “now” · The multiplicity of views is the challenge that space sets for us · Chantal Mouffe · In order for there to be politics there must be opposition · Proposition 4 – the necessity to keep space open and alive · For there to be politics and democracy there must be no final point
Short biography
Doreen Massey, an Emeritus Professor at the Open University since 2009, remains active in a number of areas, most notably Expand…
Doreen Massey, an Emeritus Professor at the Open University since 2009, remains active in a number of areas, most notably the AHRC project The future of landscape and the moving image with Patrick Keiller of the Royal College of Art and Professor Patrick Wright of Nottingham Trent University. Her ongoing book project Voices of Places, based on her Clarendon Lectures given at Oxford in 2008, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. She is pursuing continuing interests in space and power through engagement with political change in Venezuela, where the concept of power-geometries has been taken up as part of the effort to extend grassroots and participatory democracy. She is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Revista Pós at the School of Architecture and Urbanism of São Paulo, Brazil.