The Politics of the Encounter: Urban Theory and Protest under Planetary Urbanization

Abstract

The Politics of Encounter is a spirited interrogation of as a site of both theoretical inquiry and global social struggle. The writes Andy Merrifield, remains important, virtually and materially, for progressive politics. And yet, he notes, more than forty years have passed since Henri Lefebvre advanced powerful ideas that still undergird much of our thinking about urbanisation and urban society. Merrifield rethinks in light of vast changes to our planet since 1970, when Lefebvre's seminal Urban Revolution was first published. At same time, he expands on Lefebvre's notion of the right to city, which was first conceived in wake of 1968 student uprising in Paris. We need to think less of cities as entities with borders and clear demarcations between what's inside and what's outside and emphasise instead effects of planetary urbanisation, a concept of Lefebvre's that Merrifield makes relevant for ways we now experience urban. The city--from Tahrir Square to Occupy Wall Street--seems to be critical zone in which a new social protest is unfolding, yet dissenters' aspirations are transcending scale of physically and philosophically. Consequently, we must shift our perspective from the right to city to the politics of encounter, says Merrifield. We must ask how revolutionary crowds form, where they draw their energies from, what kind of spaces they occur in--and what kind of new spaces they produce.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. University of Georgia Press eBooks, 2013 · DOI ↗