Populism,Hegemony, and the Politics of Natural Resource Extraction in Evo Morales's Bolivia

Is populism necessary to the articulation of counter‐hegemonic projects, as Laclau has long argued? Or is it, as ?i?ek maintains, a dangerous strategy, which inevitably degenerates into ideological mystification and reactionary postures? In this paper, I address this question by exploring the politics of discourse in Evo Morales's Bolivia. While, in the years leading to the election of Morales, a populist ideological strategy was key to challenging neoliberal forces, once the hegemony of the new power bloc was stabilised, indigenous demands for emancipatory socio‐environmental change began to be perceived as a threat to resource‐based accumulation. In this context, the populist signifiers that originated in indigenous‐popular struggles were used by the Morales government to legitimise repression of the indigenous movement. I argue, therefore, that ideological degeneration signals a problem not with populism per se, but rather with the class projects and shifting correlations of forces that underpin it in changing conjunctures.     

In the Nature of the Non‐City: Expanded Infrastructural Networks and the Political Ecology of Planetary Urbanisation

This paper proposes extending Urban Political Ecology's (UPE) ideas about the urbanisation of nature in order to include the geographical imprints of expanding, global metabolic flows of matter, energy and capital. It does so through the analysis of Huasco, a small agricultural village in northern Chile that has been overburdened with massive energy undertakings aimed at powering the operations of mines that supply raw materials to international markets. Like the sewage and technological networks that feed the life of cities, the paper argues that Huasco—as a metabolic vehicle of planetary urbanisation—has also been hidden from view, and thus the fetishisation of urban infrastructural networks initially theorised by UPE, has been ratcheted‐up to the global level by the mediating powers of neoliberalising capitalism. Just as the socio‐material arrangements that facilitate the smooth functioning of the modern city and household are riddled with glitches and exclusions, the paper suggests that globally up‐scaled infrastructures reveal even larger contradictions that put into jeopardy the very premises upon which the ongoing commodification of nature is grounded.     

In the Long ‘Run’: Kanak Stockmen,the Cattle Frontier and Colonial Power Relations in New Caledonia, 1870–1988

ABSTRACT For more than a century, from the 1870s to the 1980s, stockmen were important intermediaries and figures of power and influence in the construction, maintenance and renewal of the colonial order in New Caledonia. Social relations between Kanak and settlers working in the cattle ‘runs’ permitted a unique form of mobility spanning the frontier. The relations developed between chiefs and cattle farmers are central to the processes by which certain administrative chieftaincies emerged in the late‐nineteenth century, and by which Kanak entered the ‘political’ sphere in the second half of the twentieth century. With reference to the locality of Koné, this article traces the political alliances fashioned between Kanak stockmen and their employers in the context of colonisation, rebellion, evangelisation, post‐war political emancipation, local development and, finally, the struggle between supporters and opponents of independence in the 1980s.     

The contentious politics of nationalism and the anti‐naturalization campaign in Tunisia, 1932–1933

This article asks how, when, and why people came to mobilize en masse in the name of the Tunisian nation against French Protectorate rule. Rather than taking anti‐colonial nationalism as an inevitable response to the imposition of colonial rule, the account offered here insists that it is an outcome to be explained. Building on more recent theoretical directions that stress the processual, relational, and eventful dynamics of nationalism, the article shows that nationalism and nationalist mobilization cannot be attributed simply to the workings of nationalist intellectuals, to long‐standing grievances, or to larger macro‐level transformations. Rather, seeing nationalism as part of struggle and as a domain in which various forms of contentious politics are played out, I show how attention to a particular contentious event in the anti‐naturalization campaign can help us to understand how a certain version of the nation becomes salient as a mobilizing rubric for mass‐level mobilization and how various forms of contention coalesce to produce nationalist outcomes.     

Chronotope,Story, and Historical Geography: Mikhail Bakhtin and the Space‐Time of Narratives

Abstract: This article studies space‐time as revealed in narrative, especially narrative intended to validate truth claims. Narrative plot is uniquely suited to capturing truths about time, causal complexity, and space. Bakhtin's “chronotope” (space‐time), which bridges plot, narrated events, and the real world, is critical to understanding this capacity, whether in fiction, in histories, or in didactic stories, myths, and parables. The chronotope is underutilized in the social sciences, but disputes over indigenous land in Canada exemplify its potential applications. To fully capture these heteroglot (“many‐voiced”) conflicts, factual verification should not be the only test of a narrative's truthfulness.     

The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter‐globalization,Anti‐privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South

Abstract: In response to the growth of private sector involvement in water supply management globally, anti‐privatization campaigns for a human right to water have emerged in recent years. Simultaneously, alter‐globalization activists have promoted alternative water governance models through North‐South red‐green alliances between organized labour, environmental groups, women's groups, and indigenous groups. In this paper, I explore these distinct (albeit overlapping) responses to water privatization. I first present a generic conceptual model of market environmentalist reforms, and explore the contribution of this framework to debates over ‘neoliberalizing nature’. This conceptual framework is applied to the case of anti‐privatization activism to elucidate the limitations of the human right to water as a conceptual counterpoint to privatization, and as an activist strategy. In contrast, I argue that alter‐globalization strategies—centred on concepts of the commons—are more conceptually coherent, and also more successful as activist strategies. The paper concludes with a reiteration of the need for greater conceptual precision in our analyses of neoliberalization, for both academics and activists.     

Applying the Strategic‐Relational Approach to Urban Political Ecology: The Water Management Problems of the Baixada Fluminense,Rio de Janeiro,Brazil

Abstract: The complexity of water management requires an explanatory framework that is able to capture the multidimensionality of the relations between nature and society increasingly mediated by the state. The evolution of water problems in the Baixada Fluminense, a wetland area situated to the north of Rio de Janeiro, provides a paradigmatic example of how water management becomes incorporated into the fluid politics between state, nature and society. The local experience is examined by making use of the strategic‐relational approach (after Bob Jessop) expanded to urban political ecology. The concept of “trialectics” is proposed as an ontological representation of the interconnections between the state apparatus, class‐based relations and the socionatural elements of the water cycle. The empirical results show that, in a situation of precarious water supply, regular flooding and severe river degradation, state interventions have tended to favour certain groups and areas, which only intensifies the politicisation of water management.     

Capitalism,Inequality and Ideology in Singapore: New Challenges for the Ruling Party

Amidst popular concerns about rising inequalities and living costs, reduced social mobility and inadequate public infrastructure, Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) suffered significant declines in electoral support in the 2006 and 2011 general elections before regaining support at the 2015 polls. Importantly, these concerns reflect the intensification of contradictions inherent to Singapore’s model of capitalist development. This juncture in the city-state’s political economy has been conducive to greater scrutiny of core PAP ideological notions about the perils of “Western” social welfare and the moral and functional advantages of non-democratic institutions of political accountability and representation. The PAP has responded with creative new defences of its core ideologies in conjunction with social spending boosts, a strategy that will be further tested following the 2015 election.     

Negotiating Green Space with Landed Interests: The Urban Political Ecology of Greenway in the Pearl River Delta,China

Land‐centred urbanisation has precipitated shortage of green space in Chinese cities. However, in the Pearl River Delta, an ambitious greenway system has recently managed to flourish. It is intriguing to ask how this has become possible. Informed by the perspective of urban political ecology, this paper finds that the greenway project in the Pearl River Delta represents a set of politically realistic endeavours to alleviate urban green space shortage by adapting to, rather than challenging, powerful landed interests. Three interlocking dimensions about land—municipal land quota, rural land use claims, and real estate development—have influenced why, where and how greenways have been created. Based on these findings, we argue that research on China's politics of urban sustainability necessarily needs to understand the country's land politics.     

“Much in Blood and Money”: Necropolitical Ecology on the Margins of the Uganda Protectorate

Increasingly, political ecologists invoke the concept of “green grabbing” to refer to the ways in which processes of accumulation by dispossession articulate with various imperatives for environmental protection. This paper traces these contemporary processes to their roots in the colonial era, focusing on how dispossession in the name of environmental protection intersects with complex historical geographies of state formation and internal territorialisation. Drawing upon the case of Mount Elgon in Britain's Uganda Protectorate, in particular, we reconstruct the ways in which the interrelated “birth” of both conservation and transcontinental agrarian markets were intimately connected to the emergence and normalisation of the colonial state itself. In doing so, we propose the term necropolitical ecology as a framework to encompass the ways in which contemporary “green grabs” partially emerge from racialised modes of colonial appropriation, the violence of which often still lingers in agencies and institutions of environmental governance in the contemporary postcolony.     

Lithium extractivism and water injustices in the Salar de Atacama,Chile: The colonial shadow of green electromobility

This paper analyzes the linkages and feedback between green electromobility, lithium extractivism, and water injustices affecting the Atacameño's indigenous communities in the Salar de Atacama basin (Atacama Salt Flats). Currently, lithium is in high demand in the international markets as a strategic resource for the green electromobility industry, which represents part of the Global North policies established by the Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change's effects. Using both documentary and ethnographic methods based mainly on semi-structured interviews conducted with Atacameño people, public officials, and lithium companies' representatives and workers, we propose a decolonial interpretation of lithium extractivism in brine mining through the lens of Latin American political ecology combined with a decolonial and water justice approach. The results demonstrate how the linkages and feedback between global and local dynamics of lithium mining in the Salar de Atacama constitute a form of green extractivism that further replicates the historical inequalities between the Northern and Southern hemispheres and especially affects the indigenous Andean territories and the water ecosystems in the Global South. We call this phenomenon the colonial shadow of green electromobility. We conclude by exposing the need to rethink global proposals addressing climate change by reducing the commodity demand and aiming for water justice at global and local levels.     

Celebrating the prophet: religious nationalism and the politics of Milad‐un‐Nabi festivals in India

The traditional honoring of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed (Milad‐un‐Nabi) has shifted in numerous Indian cities from private prayer and ritual meals in the home to grand public festivals that bear resemblances to Hindu religious processions. In 2010 in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, large‐scale Milad‐un‐Nabi festivals became implicated in Hindu–Muslim nationalist riots that erupted weeks later at the commencement of a Hindu festival for Hanuman Jayanthi. This paper explores the political production of Muslim ethno‐nationalism and the intra‐community debates over the legitimacy and piety of Milad‐un‐Nabi celebrations. It argues that Milad‐un‐Nabi as a public performance is a (re)invented tradition that is part of the struggle for material, political and symbolic goods of the nation‐state. It is shaped by local party politics and history of anti‐Muslim discrimination. However, as the festivals highlight community divisions and religious ambiguities, they ultimately reveal the fragility of ethnic groups.     

Seizing the Means of Circulation: Choke Points and Logistical Resistance in Coco Solo,Panama

Recent studies of logistics have embraced the “choke point” thesis: the notion that a strategically positioned group of workers or insurgents can exercise outsize power by disrupting the circulation of goods through the supply chain. This article examines this proposition through the case of Coco Solo, Panama, an informal community situated at the epicentre of Panama’s transit economy but persistently excluded from its benefits. Between 2001 and 2014, as part of a protracted struggle over housing, Coco Solo residents repeatedly blockaded key ports and logistics facilities. Despite their location at a critical node in global capitalist commodity circuits, the community’s actions met with limited success. I draw on the case to refine existing theorisations of logistical resistance, emphasising the contingent factors that influence the effectiveness of such tactics, the diverse contexts in which they are mobilised, and the value of going beyond workerist and insurrectionist accounts of supply chain disruption.     

Resistance,Symbolism and the Language of Stateness in Timor‐Leste

On gaining independence in 2002 after a protracted struggle against Indonesian occupation, the sovereign Timor‐Leste state began to assert its sovereignty in a range of discursive and expressive media. These assertions developed a distinct ‘language of stateness’ that is the focus of this article. This East Timorese expression of state sovereignty draws heavily on the legacy of the Timorese resistance struggle and on a variety of other sources of symbolic power such as flags, buildings, logos, and uniforms. Yet these efforts have been contested by a range of non‐state actors in Timor‐Leste and the shape that this language of stateness has taken now evokes complaints from martial arts groups (MAGs), ritual arts groups (RAGs), and veterans' organisations that seek to ‘become like the state’ themselves, and who also employ a ‘national language of stateness’ in the form of flags, graffiti, and official buildings. While not challenging the idea of an independent East Timorese state per se, these groups question the prerogative of the state to use and define the language of stateness. In this article I explore the way the state and its challengers use ‘languages of stateness’ and how this shapes their ambivalent stance vis‐à‐vis each other, with both sides often drawing upon a discourse of the fulfilment of the millenarian promises that have for a long time been tied to the achievement of independence.     

Post‐political planning and community opposition: asserting and challenging consensus in planning urban regeneration in Newcastle,New South Wales

This paper examines recent urban regeneration plans for inner city Newcastle, in New South Wales, Australia. The focus is on recent plans to rejuvenate the historical commercial centre of the city—the Hunter Street Mall. Recent plans for the city are positioned as post‐political efforts by planning and development agents to limit antagonistic politics and secure consensus around a future planning vision. Core to this new vision is high‐rise development. Formal and technocratic consultation processes are central to efforts to secure consensus and limit conflict. Yet, conflict nevertheless arises as local residents, community groups, and politicians oppose the planning vision pursued by planning and development agents. Debates about the need for regeneration and the form of regeneration surface as central points of contest. Likewise, the material configuration of the city and wider political context frame both post‐political planning efforts and oppositional politics. The paper contributes to a growing body of work by scholars who question the presence of a dominant, overarching post‐political condition. Rather, post‐political efforts emerge as contextual and fluid processes to secure the planning and development objectives of urban elites. As the case study illustrates, such post‐political efforts are rarely unchallenged, as contest and antagonistic politics emerge, allowing citizens to resist the efforts of state and development actors and help shape their cities.     

“I found the truth in Foot Locker”: London 2011, Urban Culture,and the Post‐Political City

The article begins with an overview of what is implied in the notion of the “post‐political” before looking closely at post‐political interpretations of the 2011 London riots. It presents a critique of the restricted sense of political subjectivity in such accounts. It demonstrates how participation in the riots and their aftermath may be seen as indicative of an embryonic form of urban politics that works with and against the post‐political city. This discussion is illuminated by an analysis of the discursive space of London hip‐hop which reveals an ironic, complex and reflexive dialogue about identity, justice and politics that is far removed from the caricature offered by “strong” interpretations of the post‐political subject. This is then linked to readings of the post‐political city that place a welcome stress not only on the evacuation of the political dimension from the city, but also on the opportunities for the re‐emergence of the proto‐political.