Resistance is in the air: From post-politics to the politics of expertise

Abstract

Knowledge about air pollution is key, both to contest the status quo and to propose a different environmental imaginary as to how urban reality should be. Empirically, this paper focuses on Brussels and its history of air pollution contestation over the last fifty years, in order to trace how knowledge dynamics shape the politics of air. Theoretically, the paper offers a critical reading of the ‘post-political city’ literature that has been omnipresent in urban studies, human geography and political ecology over the last decades, in order to offer a more sophisticated theorization of expertise and knowledge. The paper offers at least three key insights. First, lay as well as public knowledge is of key importance in making air pollution manifest as a matter of concern. Making a perceived problem visible to a wider public in itself can be transformative and can pressure governments to respond, albeit rarely adequately. Second, the use of scientific knowledge by social movements and civil society plays a central role in contesting established priorities and in developing counter strategies, often alternating lay knowledge and more formal scientific knowledge in the process. At the same time, scientific knowledge and other forms of specialized expertise also play an important role in solidifying existing hierarchies of authority. Third, our analysis points to the centrality of the state as an arena for political action and to the importance of a politics of shifting blame and responsibility onto other layers of government or other societal actors.

Towards a post-foundational geography: Spaces of negativity, contingency, and antagonism

“…While various scholars have shown how the post-foundational concept of the post-political can be used as an analytical lens to engage geographically related matters, including spaces of urban and climate politics, others have criticized the post-political as a diagnosis (Beveridge and Koch, 2016, 2017; Chatterton et al, 2013; da Schio and Van Heur, 2021; Featherstone, 2013; Kenis, 2019; McCarthy, 2013; North, 2010; Urry, 2011). Regarding the post-political city, Ross Beveridge and Philippe Koch (2016: 31) claim that it is this diagnosis itself (and not the socio-geographical condition) that diminishes the possibilities of the urban as a political space of resistance and emancipation, whereby the “binary understanding of the real political/politics as police” would thus negate “the in-betweenness and contingency of actually existing urban politics.” With regard to climate politics, John Urry (2011: 90) criticizes the post-political as a “new orthodoxy” that disregards the manifold manifestation of environmental mobilization and protest, such as Climate Justice Action and Transition Towns (see North, 2010; Featherstone, 2013; Chatterton et al, 2013).…”

“…Overall, what unites the critical accounts of the “post-political thesis” is that they see the latter as leading to an overemphasis of the institutional foreclosure (of the political) by contemporary governance regimes (of politics). This might lead to and encourage post-political thinkers to ignore, or at least underestimate, the multiple forms of contestation and politicization (da Schio and Van Heur, 2021: 3).…”

Just air? Spatial injustice and the politicisation of air pollution

“…These investigations into making the invisible visible are often linked to an interrogation of the different forms of knowledge production and dissemination involved in grasping and politically translating the air, or in the words of Landau and Toland (2021), how different kinds of knowledge, including affective knowledges, are interwoven into ‘curated experiences of air pollution’. Nicola da Schio and Bas van Heur (2021) have taken this question of the politics of knowledge production as the core focus of their contribution. By interrogating the intricacies of alternating formal scientific knowledge with lay knowledge and the difficult place of experts and expertise in this process, they foreground the contested experiential dynamics of air pollution research and politics.…”

“…This brings us to the last but maybe most important guiding thread of this special issue: the politicisation of air. Whereas Walker et al (2020) argue that whose rhythms are to be intervened with is the key political question, da Schio and Bas van Heur (2021) question the privileging of streets and squares as spaces of politicisation, and plea for a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the state as a space where politicisation can happen. Landau and Toland (2021) take up a Rancièrian approach to show how activist art projects can ‘lay bare the unequal relations of health, wealth, and well-being’ and can thereby politicise the air.…”

Assemblies, Coalitions, and Conflicts Over Free Speech: From “Trespass” to “Encroachment” in Urban Space at Hyde Park, London, 1861–1962

“…For example, the state will seek to create evaluative historical‐schemes that justify why some in society are deemed to be of more “worth” than others to play a full role in liberal democratic practices (Butler 2020:63–64, 136). Second, it is important to understand how different forces within the state—a particular state department, for instance—might, for hegemonic purposes, strategically favour the interests of certain forces in civil society over the interests of other state forces (see da Schio and van Heur 2022:596).…”