IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v61y2024i9p1625-1644.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reimagining hope through the political: A post-foundational reading of urban alternatives beyond postpolitics

Author

Listed:
  • Mohamed Saleh

    (University of Groningen, The Netherlands)

  • Friederike Landau-Donnelly

    (Radboud University, The Netherlands)

Abstract

This paper proposes hope as a lens for critical urban research for the purpose of grasping the interplay between forces of change and stability as manifested in popular uprisings, as well as in broader, self-organised spatial practices in everyday life. This hopeful lens allows for reimagining hope through the concept of ‘the political’, defined in the post-foundationalist literature as an ontological condition assuming the inherent impossibility for ‘politics’ to reach its final closure, fixation or stability. The hopes thus arising from ‘the political’ provide critical urban scholars with better tools to navigate the ever-present possibilities for emancipatory change and action, arising from an ontological lack of foundations, upon which political orders are temporarily based. In this paper, we show how theoretical notions from post-foundationalism can expand the current sense of hope by instilling a non-teleological view on inherent possibilities for matters to be otherwise, thus implying the absence of certainty about presupposed ideas of what genuine political change should look like. Through this lens, hope appears linked to concrete openings for alternatives found in everyday life. By laying out such a hopeful approach, we aim to expand the awareness of urban ‘scholars’ to ponder both mundane and radical materialisations and practices of ‘the political’ within urban settings. Ultimately, by reimagining hope to look beyond or alongside postpolitics, we unlock a future-oriented research agenda that adds nuance to an ontologically restricted conception of ‘politics’, which allows for broader empirical attunement to ever-present embodied signs of unfinished urban alternatives generated by ‘the political’.

Suggested Citation

  • Mohamed Saleh & Friederike Landau-Donnelly, 2024. "Reimagining hope through the political: A post-foundational reading of urban alternatives beyond postpolitics," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(9), pages 1625-1644, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:9:p:1625-1644
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980231213733
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980231213733
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980231213733?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Erik Swyngedouw, 2009. "The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 601-620, September.
    2. Mustafa Dikeç & Erik Swyngedouw, 2017. "Theorizing the Politicizing City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(1), pages 1-18, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cesare Di Feliciantonio & Cian O’Callaghan, 2020. "Struggles over property in the ‘post-political’ era: Notes on the political from Rome and Dublin," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 38(2), pages 195-213, March.
    2. Ricardo Fuentealba & Hebe Verrest, 2020. "Disrupting Risk Governance? A Post-Disaster Politics of Inclusion in the Urban Margins," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 5(3), pages 274-283.
    3. Andrew Clarke & Lynda Cheshire, 2018. "The post-political state? The role of administrative reform in managing tensions between urban growth and liveability in Brisbane, Australia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(16), pages 3545-3562, December.
    4. Kleemann, Janina & Struve, Berenike & Spyra, Marcin, 2023. "Conflicts in urban peripheries in Europe," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Aryana Soliz, 2021. "Creating Sustainable Cities through Cycling Infrastructure? Learning from Insurgent Mobilities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-21, August.
    6. Ross Beveridge & Philippe Koch, 2017. "The post-political trap? Reflections on politics, agency and the city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(1), pages 31-43, January.
    7. Laurence Troy, 2018. "The politics of urban renewal in Sydney’s residential apartment market," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(6), pages 1329-1345, May.
    8. Janet Newman, 2014. "Landscapes of antagonism: Local governance, neoliberalism and austerity," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(15), pages 3290-3305, November.
    9. Colin Lorne, 2024. "Repoliticising national policy mobilities: Resisting the Americanization of universal healthcare," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(2), pages 231-249, March.
    10. Gordon MacLeod, 2013. "New Urbanism/Smart Growth in the Scottish Highlands: Mobile Policies and Post-politics in Local Development Planning," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(11), pages 2196-2221, August.
    11. Jean Hillier, 2009. "Assemblages of Justice: The ‘Ghost Ships’ of Graythorp," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 640-661, September.
    12. Filippo Menga & Michael K. Goodman, 2022. "The High Priests of Global Development: Capitalism, Religion and the Political Economy of Sacrifice in a Celebrity‐led Water Charity," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(4), pages 705-735, July.
    13. Darren Sierhuis & Luca Bertolini & Willem Van Winden, 2024. "“Recovering†the political: Unpacking the implications of (de)politicization for the transformative capacities of urban experiments," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 42(2), pages 303-321, March.
    14. Filip Stabrowski, 2015. "Inclusionary Zoning and Exclusionary Development: The Politics of ‘Affordable Housing' in North Brooklyn," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1120-1136, November.
    15. Ralph V Tafon, 2018. "Taking power to sea: Towards a post-structuralist discourse theoretical critique of marine spatial planning," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(2), pages 258-273, March.
    16. Scott Rodgers & Clive Barnett & Allan Cochrane, 2014. "Where is Urban Politics?," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1551-1560, September.
    17. Stock, Ryan, 2021. "Bright as night: Illuminating the antinomies of ‘gender positive’ solar development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    18. Eugene McCann, 2017. "Governing urbanism: Urban governance studies 1.0, 2.0 and beyond," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(2), pages 312-326, February.
    19. Veikko Eranti & Taina Meriluoto, 2023. "PLURALITY IN URBAN POLITICS: Conflict and Commonality in Mouffe and Thévenot," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(5), pages 693-709, September.
    20. Idalina Baptista, 2013. "Practices of Exception in Urban Governance: Reconfiguring Power Inside the State," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(1), pages 39-54, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:9:p:1625-1644. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.