Relational expertise and the spatial (re)production of austerity: Challenges and opportunities for progressive politics

Abstract

What is the role of expertise in reproducing austerity and how might this be challenged by the left? The implementation of austerity policies, the widespread public backlash to these policies and the role that expertise has played in their implementation have contributed to highlighting many of the pathologies of neoliberalism, particularly widening geographical and intergenerational divisions. This article adopts the sociological approach to expertise developed by Harry Collins and colleagues in the ‘Studies of Expertise and Experience’ field. Here expertise is understood as relational in the sense that expertise is not recognized by the extent to which it can be said to be right but rather experts are recognized by their own social group. It argues that this relational approach to expertise is explicitly political in nature, involving inclusions and exclusions based on pre-existing power relations and can be further extended to incorporate the relational nature in which various forms of expertise or knowledge are accepted as being authoritative by the broader public. Using examples from the UK, Portugal and Spain, principally in the area of housing and urban politics, this article explores how expertise under neoliberalism can be understood spatially. Local expertise under austerity is focused on either minimizing social harms which may arise – food banks, housing shelters, community social care – or else is directed towards competing for external investment, promoting policies of regeneration and gentrification for the benefit of foreign capital rather than existing populations. A progressive, relational and political expertise should, however, not merely point to the failures of the current system but shape events. The recent growth in social movements has made some progress in challenging austerity, in practice and discourse, and points towards a more joined-up thinking in which knowledge production is clearly and unambiguously linked to action.

Afterword: They say the Centre cannot hold: Austerity, crisis, and the rise of anti-politics

“…First, austerity was presented as global rationality against the flaws of certain nations, certain geographies, and certain classes. As Stranding (2019) shows in this SI, austerity policies invoked a rationality that was presented as objective because it was built from the outside of democratic representation: experts argued that "the markets", "the global economy", the international institutions "proved" the unsustainability of redistributive policies. Social spending and public debt became central within the conflicts among countries in the Euro Crisis; but also household debt proved the irresponsible private consumption habits of middle segments, although much of it resulted from homeownership policies and cheaper credit encouraged by the Euro Monetary System since the mid-90's.…”

Introduction: Anti-politics, austerity and spaces of politicisation

“…A concern with the dynamics of housing struggles in the context of austerity is also central to Standring’s discussion of the relation between neoliberalism, expertise and anti-politics. For Standring the ‘anti-political nature of expertise’ in neoliberal contexts shapes an instrumental logic ‘so that which is contentious, contextual and contingent – or ultimately political in nature – becomes subject to measurement and risk’ (Standring, 2021: 559). He also draws attentions to the activities of groups like the PAH in Spain, which was central to the popular struggles against evictions after the 2008–2009 crisis.…”

“…The new municipalism is conceived both in terms of cities (in practice usually larger ones), but also urbanization as a political plane to develop alternatives to nation state centred politics – contesting neoliberal and nativist agendas and forging transnational networks of solidarity and policy transfer (Thompson, 2021). This can be read as an (anti-)politics contesting the nation state and its austerity policies, whilst also developing new knowledge practices and political mobilisations to overcome them, as Standring’s article in this issue details in relation to the Barcelona en Comú Platform (Standring, 2021: 567). This movement, which has been in minority government since 2015, raises intriguing questions about the transformative potential of its constituent parts: the ‘local and the ‘urban’ as settings, sites and stakes of progressive left politics.…”

Planning amid crisis and austerity: in, against and beyond the contemporary conjuncture

“…Recent research and theory in the field has developed important accounts of the complicity of planning processes in the production of the global financial crisis which had significant roots in speculative cycles of real estate investment (Lovering 2009;Weber 2015). Studies have explored the transformation of planning practices in times of crisis and stress (Grange 2014;Knieling and Othengrafen 2016;Ponzini 2016), and how they have been reshaped by neoliberal governmentalities (Haughton, Allmendinger, and Oosterlynck 2013;Tulumello 2016;Standring 2019) with planning regulations frequently becoming a 'neoliberal scapegoat' for the crisis (Gunder 2016).…”

“…From this perspective, this special issue aims to further debate and build knowledge about the effects of crisis and/or austerity on planning ideas and practices. In doing so we hope to develop understanding of the possibilities for acting in and against the present political conjuncture (see also Standring 2019;Inch and Shepherd, 2019), considering whether and how local practices and politics can build sustained and scalable alternatives to global trends.…”