Interstices 20, Journal of Architecture and Related Arts: Political Matters

Abstract

At a time when the Western political climate is synonymous with Brexit, Donald Trump and Boris Johnston, the Christchurch terrorist attack, Australia’s Manus Island detention centres, the US-Mexico border and the global refugee crisis, the urgency of addressing the relationship between politics and spaceis more pressing than ever. To answer the question of what it means for space to be political beyond it merely being an expression of hegemonic orders, we follow Hannah Arendt’s celebration of political action, and her stance that political questions are far too serious to be left to politicians(1970). We draw upon Chantal Mouffe’s concept of agonism and the impossibility of a final reconciliation in thinking the political(2013). We acknowledge Paul Virilio’s thinking on negative horizon whereby perception is not just dependent upon the framing and mastering of the rhetoric of media and memory, but rather this mastery is also framed and dependent upon seeing abysses(1989, 2005, 2009). Finally, we emphasise Michel Foucault’s reconceptualisation of power as being productive rather than oppressive(1980). To make sense of, and come to grips with, this contemporary landscape requires a detailed reflection and analysis at different levels –individual, social, cultural, environmental, technological, medical, economic or legal. Comprehending the complex forms of surveillance and governance in the age of contemporaneity requires one to problematise the limits of spatial politics in the society of control(1995). Indeed, it may require a different placing and questioning of ideas, events and spaces than the norm. Questioning and disrupting the limits of the norm may enable frictions and generate new knowledge. This issue of Interstices seeks papers that address the complexity at the nexus of architecture, urbanism, sociology, human geography and political philosophy, and focuses on the following themes: •Power, Memory and Identity •The Spectacle and the Screen•Housing, Urban Commons and the Social •Events, Flows and Public Space•Territories, Walls and Peripheries.