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Reassembling the Spatial: Material Geography and Political Contention in Jordan
Abstract
Space features variously in the literature on social movements. It appears both as the site, scale or “field” within which struggles unfold, and as a metaphorical arena within which we attribute meaning to those struggles. Rarely, however, is the materiality of space itself considered a constitutive stake of political struggle. How do social movements inscribe their claims into the world? How do they inscribe the world into their claims? And how do they reassemble the elements of geography to create a world within which their claims might be made intelligible and effective—spaces within which their facts or claims might survive? Such questions suggest the ways in which the work of social movements intersects with that of engineers, tour operators, planners, farmers, archeologists, environmentalists and many others. They also call attention to the agency of artifacts, infrastructures and technologies—ranging from industrial plant, agricultural systems and built heritage, to the catalogues that assemble the global geographies of tourism and leisure—in the production of the spaces within social movements act, seeking to give traction to particular political claims. Drawing on evidence from Jordan and Palestine, this paper situates social movements within the place-making (and deeply intertwined) geographies of colonialism and commodification, suggesting how they mobilize elements of the material world to establish alternative relations of power, economy and significance, and counter geographies of possibility.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Jordan
Sub Area
Globalization