C-change? Geographies of crisis

Abstract

It is now widely accepted that this is a period of crisis, although commentators differ as to the appropriate comparisons. This article begins by emphasizing that this is not the first time that social scientists have invoked claims of crisis and qualitative change, then examines geographical accounts of neoliberalism to see how crisis is analysed in this literature. It asks if the geographical frameworks and modes of analysis that emerged are adequate to analyse the current period, identifying the significance of five Cs; namely the ‘credit crunch’, climate change, China and the other ‘BRIC’ economies, crusades or the resurgence of religion, and cyborgism. The article concludes that in order to examine the changing terrains of the five Cs, both individually and collectively, it will be important to carefully consider the processes through which heterogeneous elements are being configured into new political assemblages, the mutations and transformations that happen as an integral part of these redeployments, and the objects and subjects that are being constituted in these new governmental terrains.