行政区与功能区嵌套空间的生产与重构——国家尺度重构视角下的深圳特区扩容

我国经济特区的设置具有明显的国家尺度重构特征。深圳经济特区在扩容过程中产生了行政区与功能区嵌套的地理空间。采用 TPSN 组合方法对深圳特区扩容不同阶段的社会空间特征进行比较,发现,不同阶段会形成不同类型的嵌套空间,并且 TPSN组合存在明显的差异。嵌套空间生产与重构的直接动因包括资源协同效应、政策协同效应和综合协同效应,以政治动员网络为主的网络维度在嵌套空间生产与重构过程中扮演着关键角色。研究结果表明,对我国嵌套空间的研究深化了国家尺度重构理论,而在行政区划调整的制度供给进一步收紧的背景下,嵌套空间可视为一种新型的行政区划改革与调整手段。     

Pluralising Political Forests: Unpacking “the State” by Tracing Virunga's Charcoal Chain

Peering through the lens of illegal charcoal production in the forested areas of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this paper makes a case for disaggregating the notion of “the state” to better capture “the political” in contemporary political forests. It argues that to identify the fluctuating importance of different dimensions of “stateness”, it is crucial to acknowledge the polymorphous socio-spatial relations that produce political forests. Thus, we draw on the notions of territory, place, scale and network (TPSN) to examine how “stateness” in Virunga has transformed under the particularisation, transnationalisation, and regionalisation of authority. This approach allows us to show how these processes do not only stem from neoliberalisation, but are also driven by, inter alia, regional warfare and non-state militarisation. The resulting complexity of the regulatory landscape turns Virunga into a space marked by a plurality of partly overlapping and partly conflicting political forests.     

Socio-Spatial Strategies of Worker Centres: An Ethnography of Alt-Labour in NYC

This article examines the typology of worker centres from a socio-spatial perspective. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative fieldwork and applying the multidimensional TPSN (Territory, Place, Scale and Network) framework, it analyses three worker centres: Make the Road New York (MRNY), Retail Action Project (RAP) and Laundry Workers Center (LWC). Each model is the result of the predominance of certain logics of action, political strategies, and spatialities. The multidimensional socio-spatial approach allows us to identify the advantages and problems of each strategy. MRNY shows a territory-based strategy that combines membership participation with effective advocacy on different scales. RAP, despite focusing on services, has been able to overcome the fragmentation of the retail industry and escalate to regulating labour relations at the industry level. LWC prioritises workplace organising and shows a high level of experimentalism and grassroots base, although the results of their irradiation strategy are very modest.     

Thinking State/Space Incompossibly

Abstract: This paper develops multi‐dimensional analyses of socio‐spatial relations. Building on previous research, we identify some tensions associated with different dimensions of socio‐spatiality and introduce the theme of compossible and, more importantly, incompossible socio‐spatial configurations. Two short studies are deployed to highlight the socio‐spatial implications of the principle that not everything that is possible is compossible. The first shows the power of thinking varieties of capitalism compossibly (via the concept of variegated capitalism) and then examines the successive strategies adopted by the European Communities and European Union to address the significance of changing patterns of variegation for approaches to European integration, spatial strategies, and economic and social policies. The second case discusses some related problems for state spatial projects, starting in the 1980s with spatial planning, promotion of a Europe of the Regions and/or of Europe and the regions, and then turns to examine city‐regional development strategies.