This conference wants to discuss whether, and to what extent, are the global society and space moving toward a state of generalised and planetary, if creeping, apartheid – borrowing on ideas of Agier (2014), Brenner (2013), and Yiftachel (2009). Settler colonialism is becoming a global and transnational phenomenon (Veracini 2010; Wolfe 1999), apartheidisation represents one of its forms in a continuous relationship with other political forces/processes, and in the consolidation of multiple (in)visible borders.
The set of questions to discuss includes, but is not limited to:
- What are the political dimensions of planetary apartheid? Is it a (global, locally shaped) political project? Or another dimension of the post-political (Wilson and Swyngedouw, 2014)?
- Is planetary apartheid the consequence of an excess of human beings with no place in the current socioeconomic system (Bauman 2004)?
- Or are such different forms of apartheid rather the place where the ‘political’ (cf. Mouffe, 2000) is again alive and kicking, by taking modes and strategies for instance in the form of insurgence (Roy, 2009)?
- How are contemporary cities being reshaped by processes of in(voluntary) inclusion/exclusion and fragmentation?
When: 9th-11th May 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal
Deadline for abstract submission: 1st December 2017