This paper puts forward a retheorisation of urban agonistic politics, using the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to reground Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's theories of agonism in a more explicitly spatial register. The author theorises the city, in terms of its potential, in a utopian or ‘humane’ fashion. Social scientists and philosophers both explore how the ontological and the political are coconstitutive. An ontopolitical perspective can be found in the works of many of the poststructuralists, and this paper forwards another such approach to the ontology of the political by taking together the agonistic politics of Laclau and Mouffe with the intersubjective and intercorporeal framework of Merleau-Ponty to create a novel perspective on the functioning of democracy and the democratic city. The city is conceived of both literally and figuratively as a system for the proliferation of multiple publics, or multiple spaces and modes of appearance, in the Arendtian sense. By taking agonism and intersubjectivity together, the paper attempts to resist some of the individualising tendencies within liberal democracy whilst retaining its commitment to freedom.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AdamsH, 2001, “Merleau-Ponty and the advent of meaning: From consummate reciprocity to ambiguous reversibility”Continental Philosophy Review34203–224
2.
AminA, 2005, “Local community on trial”Economy and Society34612–633
3.
AminA, 2006, “The good city”Urban Studies431009–1023
4.
AminA, 2007, “Re-thinking the urban social”City11100–114
5.
AminAThriftN, 2002Cities: Re-imagining the Urban (Polity Press, Cambridge)
6.
AndersonB, 2006, “‘Transcending without transcendence’: Utopianism and an ethos of hope”Antipode38691–710
7.
ArendtH, 1958The Human Condition (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL)
8.
BaetenG, 2002, “Western utopianism/dystopianism and the political mediocrity of critical urban research”Geografiska Annaler B84143–152
9.
BarbarasR, 2004The Being of the Phenomenon: Merleau-Ponty's Ontology translated by ToadvineTLawlorL, (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN)
10.
BarnettC, 2004, “Deconstructing radical democracy: Articulation, representation, and being-with-others”Political Geography23503–528
11.
BaumanZ, 2003, “Utopia with no topos”History of the Human Sciences1611–25
12.
BonnerK, 2008, “Arendt's concept of action: The tension between citizen participation and Planning in Dublin”, in Acts of Citizenship Eds IsinENielsenG, (ZED Books, London) pp 137–159
13.
BraunK, 2007, “Biopolitics and temporality in Arendt and Foucault”Time and Society165–23
14.
BrownM, 1997Replacing Citizenship: AIDS Activism and Radical Democracy (Guilford Press, New York)
15.
BrubakerD, 2000, “Merleau-Ponty's three intertwinings”The Journal of Value Inquiry3489–101
16.
CooleD, 2007Merleau-Ponty and Modern Politics After Anti-humanism (Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD)
17.
CowardM, 2009Urbicide: The Politics of Urban Destruction (Routledge, New York)
18.
DeleuzeGGuattariF, 1984Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia translated by HurleyRSeemMLaneH, (Athlone, London)
19.
DeleuzeGGuattariF, 1988A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia translated by MassumiB, (Athlone, London)
20.
DerridaJ, 1997Politics of Friendship translated by CollinsG, (Verso, London)
21.
DillonM, 1997Merleau-Ponty's Ontology2nd edition (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL)
22.
DubowJ, 2009Settling the Self: Colonial Space, Colonial Identity and the South African Landscape (VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken)
23.
FriedmannJ, 2000, “The good city: In defense of utopian thinking”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research24460–472
24.
FritschM, 2008, “Antagonism and democratic citizenship (Schmitt, Mouffe, Derrida)”Research in Phenomenology38174–197
25.
GunderMHillierJ, 2007, “Planning as urban therapeutic”Environment and Planning A39467–486
26.
HarrisonP, 2007, “The space between us: Opening remarks on the concept of dwelling”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space25625–647
27.
HarrisonP, 2008, “Corporeal remains: Vulnerability, proximity, and living on after the end of the world”Environment and Planning A40423–445
28.
HarrisonP, 2009, “In the absence of practice”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space27987–1009
29.
HarveyD, 2000Spaces of Hope (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh)
30.
HillierJ, 2003, “Agon'izing over consensus: Why Habermasian ideals cannot be ‘real’”Planning Theory237–59
31.
IvesonK, 2007Publics and the City (Blackwell, Oxford)
32.
JohnsonG, 2003, “Merleau-Pontian phenomenology as non-conventionally utopian”Human Studies26383–400
33.
KnoxPTaylorP, (Eds), 1995World Cities in a World-system (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge)
34.
KohnM, 2005Brave New Neighbourhood: The Privatization of Public Space (Routledge, London)
35.
KohnM, 2008, “Homo spectator: Public space in the age of the spectacle”Philosophy and Social Criticism34467–486
36.
LaclauE, 1996Emancipations (Verso, London)
37.
LaclauEMouffeC, 2001Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics2nd edition (Verso, London)
38.
LangerM, 1989Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: A Guide and Commentary (Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hants)
39.
Merleau-PontyM, 1962Phenomenology of Perception translated by SmithC, (Routledge, London)
40.
Merleau-PontyM, 1964Signs translated by McClearyR, (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL)
41.
Merleau-PontyM, 1965The Structure of Behaviour translated by FisherA, (Methuen, London)
42.
Merleau-PontyM, 1968The Visible and the Invisible translated by LingisA, (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL)
43.
Merleau-PontyM, 1969Humanism and Terror: An Essay on the Communist Problem translated by O'NeillJ, (Beacon Press, Boston, MA)
44.
MitchellD, 2003The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (Guilford Press, New York)
45.
MouffeC, 1993The Return of the Political (Verso, London)
MouffeC, 2005aOn the Political (Routledge, London)
48.
MouffeC, 2005b, “Some reflections on an agonistic approach to the public”, in Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy Eds LatourBWeibelP, (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 804–807
49.
MouffeC, 2005c, “Which kind of public space for a democratic habitus”, in Habitus: A Sense of Place2nd edition, Eds RooksbyEHillierJ, (Ashgate, Aldershot, Hants) pp 109–116
50.
MüllerM, 2008, “Reconsidering the concept of discourse for the field of critical geopolitics: Towards discourse as language and practice”Political Geography27322–338
51.
PinderD, 2002, “In defence of utopian urbanism: Imagining cities after the ‘end of utopia’”Geografiska Annaler B84229–241
52.
PløgerJ, 2004, “Strife: Urban planning and agonism”Planning Theory371–92
53.
PriestS, 1998Merleau-Ponty (Taylor and Francis, London)
54.
PurcellM, 2008Recapturing Democracy: Neoliberalization and the Struggle for Alternative Urban Futures (Routledge, Oxford)
55.
SartreJ-P, 1969Being and Nothingness: An Essay on Phenomenological Ontology translated by BarnesH, (Methuen, London)
56.
SassenS, 2002Global Networks, Linked Cities (Routledge, New York)
57.
SennettR, 2005, “Capitalism and the city”, in Future City Eds ReadSRosemannJvan EldjikJ, (Spon Press, Abingdon, Oxon) pp 114–124
58.
ShortJ, 1989The Humane City: Cities as if People Matter (Basil Blackwell, Oxford)
59.
SimonsenK, 2004, “Spatiality, temporality and the construction of the city”, in Space Odysseys: Spatiality and Social Relations in the 21st Century Eds BærenholdtJ OSimonsenK, (Ashgate, Aldershot, Hants) pp 43–61
60.
SimonsenK, 2005, “Bodies, sensations, space and time: The contribution from Henri Lefebvre”Geografiska Annaler Series B871–14
61.
StaeheliLMitchellD, 2007, “Locating the public in research and practice”Progress in Human Geography31792–811
62.
SwyngedouwE, 2007, “The post-political city”, in Urban Politics Now: Re-imagining Democracy in the Neoliberal City Ed. ‘BAVO’ BoieGPauwelsM, (NAi Publishers, Rotterdam) pp 58–76
63.
ThriftN, 2005, “But malice aforethought: Cities and the natural history of hatred”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series30133–150
64.
TorfingJ, 1999New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe, and Žižek (Blackwell, Oxford)
65.
TownshendJ, 2004, “Laclau and Mouffe's hegemonic project: The story so far”Political Studies52269–288
66.
ValentineJ, 2001, “The hegemony of hegemony”History of the Human Sciences1488–104
67.
WatsonS, 2006City publics: The (dis)Enchantments of Urban Encounters (Routledge, London)
68.
WebermanD, 2000, “Are freedom and anti-humanism compatible? The case of Foucault and Butler”Constellations7255–271
69.
WhitesideK, 1988Merleau-Ponty and the Foundation of an Existential Politics (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
70.
Willems-BraunB, 1994, “Situating cultural politics: Fringe festivals and the production of spaces of intersubjectivity”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space1275–104
71.
WylieJ, 2005, “A single day's walking: Narrating self and landscape on the South West Coast Path”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series30234–247
72.
WylieJ, 2006, “Depths and folds: On landscape and the gazing subject”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space24519–535
73.
WylieJ, 2009, “Landscape, absence and the geopolitics of love”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series34275–289
