Learning from Stoke‐on‐Trent: Multiple ontologies, ontological alterity and the city

Abstract

AbstractThis paper seeks to learn from Stoke‐on‐Trent by asking questions about the ontologies of cities. It does so by counterposing two accounts of Stoke‐on‐Trent: one grounded in a critique of neoliberal urban development (or rather post‐industrial decline), and the other grounded in the experiences of Spiritualists. Placed side‐by‐side, Stoke‐on‐Trent demonstrates that cities accommodate more than one lived reality or mode of existence (ontology). The coexistence of multiple ontologies has been observed elsewhere, as a discussion of the work of Tariq Jazeel and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro shows. The important point, then, is that Stoke‐on‐Trent highlights the ontological heterogeneity of a city that seems to have only one story to tell: post‐industrial decline. This raises further questions: in part, about ontological alterity; in part, about the production of new ontologies; but, significantly, about the politics of coexisting ontologies – which ontologies count, and which do not.