A nomadic war machine in the metropolis

Conceptualising animation in rural communities: the Village SOS case

“…Activists are motivated by a perceived sense of injustice, have a shared set of experiences, develop a collective identity, care for themselves and one another, and understand the collective action of their group as an extension of existing sociability practices (or an expanded ethics of care) across the striated spaces (Watt 2016) of capitalism (Jupp 2012, 3034-3040), mediating in community conflicts, negotiating or 'battling' with officialdom, demonstrating tenacity and perseverance, leading to 'critical friendships' with officials and community workers (Gilroy and Booth 1999), and connecting to other groups and projects. Such activism is neither about resistance nor about becoming co-opted to governmental projects.…”

The Repoliticization of High-Rise Social Housing in the UK and the Classed Politics of Demolition

“…Security and segregation are suddenly in the limelight; how are the wealthy and their investments to be protected, not least from those deemed to be 'other', or defined in some way as a problem population. 'As safe as high-rise houses', in terms of both security but more so of wealth generating outcomes, is a key part of the story of the contemporary highrise for the super-rich (see Atkinson, 2016;Atkinson et al, 2017;Burrows et al, 2017;and Watt, 2016). 'As safe as houses' is not a claim that can apply in the context of the future facing many high-rise social housing blocks and their tenants elsewhere in London (Polsky, 2015) and across the rest of the UK.…”

Authoritarian governmentality through the global city: contradictions in the political ecology of historical capitalism

“…The utility of the Deleuzo-Guattarian strand of assemblage thinking flowing from this has been brought out in the journal City, where Colin MacFarlane and others have attempted to translate it into the molecular terms of radical urban movements. Here the promise lies in more effectively critiquing 'bourgeois forms of knowledge' about the urban (Brenner, Madden, & Wachsmuth, 2011;McFarlane, 2011aMcFarlane, , 2011bMcFarlane, , 2011cWatt, 2016). By alloying this vector of analysis to Lefebvre and David Harvey's Marxist 'ensemble', a line of critical analysis can be opened that allows a sensitive consideration of the material social metabolism where so much Deleuzo-Guattarian thinking has been allowed to spin off into the virtual ether.…”