The Possibilities of a Politics of Place Beyond Place? A Conversation with Doreen Massey

Abstract

What follows is the edited and footnoted transcript of a conversation between Doreen Massey, recipient of an Honorary Doctorate from University of Glasgow in July 2009, and the Human Geography Research Group in the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, to mark this occasion. Themes explored include Doreen Massey's early work and influences ranging from geology to Marxism and feminism; recent political engagements in Venezuela; the politics of place beyond place; climate change and transnational solidarities; and 'being' political and an academic in the current conjuncture.

Common Sense Community? The Climate Challenge Fund's Official and Tacit Community Construction

“…It was seen as easier to have a topographical 2D map, with a borderline round a representation of territory, and be able to say 'this is our community' or 'who we represent'. Topological representations of space and community can be seen as less traditional, sedimented and beyond the norm (Massey 2005;Massey et al 2009), at least through CCF eyes. Each project's need to demonstrate that they are a community project leads to a narrow vision of community being chosen and preferred.…”

Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration – Co-management and watershed knowledge in Jukajoki River

“…More specifically the paper argues that the linear science-based readings of time and space connected with established means of watershed restoration do not address the local context adequately. Rather the local knowledge embedded in the residents of the watershed, if properly and respectfully investigated, can produce non-Euclidean time-spaces (Massey 2005(Massey , 2009) which will widen the scope, means and substance of watershed and ecosystem restoration efforts. Massey (2009) makes the case for a new understanding of open, unbounded place, such as quantum animisms 6 .…”

“…Rather the local knowledge embedded in the residents of the watershed, if properly and respectfully investigated, can produce non-Euclidean time-spaces (Massey 2005(Massey , 2009) which will widen the scope, means and substance of watershed and ecosystem restoration efforts. Massey (2009) makes the case for a new understanding of open, unbounded place, such as quantum animisms 6 . Bridging tools can be found from the co-management regimes (Carlsson & Berkes 2005) that take both kinds of time-space processes into account.…”

“…They are constantly changing and they are multidimensional, cross-scale social-political units. In terms of investigations of time-space, they may contain and produce non-Euclidean narratives of a place (Massey 2005(Massey , 2009Luotonen 2006;Mustonen 2009;Ettlinger 2011). Carlsson and Berkes (2005: 66−67) interpret comanagement as a continuum from the simple exchange of information to formal partnership.…”

“…Ecological restoration in the context of severe damage such as in Jukajoki and Jukajärvi watersheds demands a range of innovative, extraordinary and unconventional methods (Berkes 2012) (Massey 2005;Mustonen 2009Mustonen , 2012a, provide unique non-Euclidean views on a place (Ingold 2000(Ingold , 2004Sheridan & Longboat 2006;Massey 2009). …”