Timely Partnerships? Contrasting Geographies of Activism in New Zealand and Australia

Abstract

Analyses of activism have inspired geographers for many years, but most of this work has focused on relatively short time-frames, events and struggles. This paper suggests that there is much to be gained from a greater engagement with issues of time and time-spaces. It outlines and applies the contrasting conceptions of chrono/chora and kairo/topos notions of time-space as potentially useful ways to interrogate geographies of activism. The paper focuses on two specific forms of activism-an Australian women's 'Heritage Project' and a New Zealand 'Fishbowl' evaluation of a community development programmeto show how politics is contingent on diverse temporal as well as spatial conditions. It reveals the complex navigations that are made as these politics are negotiated via both mutual learning processes and the forging of new activist-state relations. It is concluded that these 'timely partnerships' have involved moving beyond adversarial conceptions of 'state' and 'activist', but at the risk of reconstituting activism as 'social capital'. associated with identity struggles, political critique and more contemporary urban debates about 'rights to the city' (Forest

Community asset transfer and strategies of local accumulation

“…In such programmes, citizens are capable of forming ideas and acting on identities not inscribed by legal rules and obligations but which are actively made in everyday lives and shaped by their own cultural reference points. In order to create and maintain this independence, Panelli and Larner (2010) advocate 'timely partnerships' in which state-activist alliances may encourage more effective practices but also enable connections to be made with other issues, institutions and spatial scales. 'Less clear-cut divisions between state and activists now exist and more messy and contingent interactions (and temporally legitimized opportunities) have unfolded and been explicitly recognised as an integral part of political processes' (Panelli andLarner, 2010, p.1360).…”

“…In order to create and maintain this independence, Panelli and Larner (2010) advocate 'timely partnerships' in which state-activist alliances may encourage more effective practices but also enable connections to be made with other issues, institutions and spatial scales. 'Less clear-cut divisions between state and activists now exist and more messy and contingent interactions (and temporally legitimized opportunities) have unfolded and been explicitly recognised as an integral part of political processes' (Panelli andLarner, 2010, p.1360). New 'community brokers' are emerging with the skills to both resist and educate state officials in more meaningful engagement processes.…”

Dynamic Resistance: Third-Sector Processes for Transforming Neoliberalization

“…However, subversive practices lurk beneath apparent co‐optation. Within and despite neoliberal structures, such practices contribute to interstitial and symbiotic transformations of neoliberalization (Bondi ; Glasius and Ishkanian ; Meade ; Panelli and Larner ; Trudeau ). This paper proposes a framework for two purposes: analysing and informing third‐sector practices for transformation.…”

Replication through partnership: the evolution of partnerships between community land trusts and housing associations in England

“…This highlights wider trends in the planning of developments that may be locally unpopular, moving from what Armour (1991: 5) describes as technocratic decision-making that results in the imposition of unwanted developments, to processes "based on the voluntary participation of communities and collaborative, joint problem solving and decision making." Panelli and Lerner (2010) argue that these processes involve moving beyond binary conceptions of different partners in governance, arguing that less clear-cut divisions exist between communities, the state and other actors and that instead partnerships may be contingent on, and facilitated by, moments of opportunity whereby mutual interests and goals are identified and agreed upon by partners that may have contrasting forms, functions and philosophies.…”