A Place for Practice

Abstract

Debra Benita Shaw and Maggie Humm (eds), Radical Space: Exploring Politics and Practice, London and New York, Rowman and Littlefield International, 2016, 222pp; £24.95 paperback.The 'spatial turn' in the humanities and social sciences has been influenced by a range of thinkers, from the work of its 'traditional' founders - Merleau Ponty's phenomenology, Michel Foucault's writing on institutional space, Michel de Certeau's focus on everyday lived space, and Henri Lefebvre's work on the production of social space - to the more recent ideas explored through New Materialisms, topology and digital space. In light of so many developments in ideas surrounding the spatial since these founding authors, it will perhaps surprise the reader of Radical Space to discover that the ideas of thinkers such as Foucault and de Certeau feature prominently in this volume, over more current theorists of the spatial such as, for example, Peter Sloterdijk, Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti. The radical component of this collection is therefore not to be attributed to its theoretical or philosophical approach to the spatial. Radical Space is, in fact, not an attempt to 'do' theory. Rather, as Shaw and Humm state in the first page of their introduction:Radical Space conceives of 'radical' to encompass new political uses of space outside of capitalist and neoliberal organisations, new radical interpretations of space and new and radical imaginaries.Readers should therefore be mindful that this volume does not aim to define radical space, theorise space in a radical fashion, nor draw upon the latest spatial theories. Indeed, the focus on more 'traditional' spatial theorists can be accounted for in the aims of the Radical Cultural Studies series that this volume belongs to. With the recognition that the discipline of Cultural Studies has been extended to areas such as celebrity and game culture, the series 'encourages a return to the core project of Cultural Studies: to examine the culturopolitical, sociopolitical, aesthetic and ethical implications of international cultures'.1 The outcome of a 2013 conference held at the University of East London, organised by the editors, this collection is instead focused on the spatial in relation to political activism, creative interventions, quotidian spaces and cityscapes, aiming to move beyond the 'core spatial disciplines' such as geography and architecture. The volume is split into three parts: Art, Public Space and the Body, Heterotopias, and Extraterritorialities. Thus, the question of place becomes equally as important as space for many of the contributing authors, as they disaffirm normative ways of occupying and using spaces by rupturing these configurations with their practices and insights. Useful for all who have teaching and research interests in the spatial, and the relationship between theory and practice, this text will particularly appeal to those who appreciate the tradition of British Cultural Studies, as defined by the Birmingham School, whilst engaging in its multi-disciplinary contemporary debates.The book opens with a gripping and thought-provoking chapter by artist Joanna Rajkowska, the conference's keynote speaker, and Maggie Humm, who introduce many of the themes explored in subsequent chapters, including migration, national boundaries, public art and public space. This immediately conveys one of the book's key strengths - that it allows artists and practitioners a space to talk about their work, combining theory, practice and experience in ways that do not necessarily privilege one over the other. This element also comes through strongly in Zlatan Krajina's wonderfully articulated chapter, 'An Alternative Urbanism of Psychogeography in the Mediated City', where the recordings from participants of the project are transcribed next to citations from theorists to form compelling collages. Indeed, urban space and psychogeographies are an important component of this volume, which also features Matt Fish's piece on squatting, again written from the dual perspective of activist and theorist, as well as Angie Voela's chapter on 'Camp for Climate Action', in which she discusses the 2009 occupation of the site in Blackheath, London, in relation to heterotopias and Lacanian psychoanalysis. …