The politics of the encounter: urban theory and protest under planetary urbanization

Abstract

The politics of encounter: urban theory and protest under urbanization, by Andy Mcrrifield, Athens, University of Georgia Press, 2013, xxi + 161 pp., US$22.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-8203-4530-7 Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991), French philosopher of is an unavoidable figure in urban theory and geographical thought. Leaving a paradigm-shifting impact on spatial humanities, he transformed way we think about place, politics, and everyday. In The Politics of Encounter: Urban Theory and Protest under Planetary Urbanization, Andy Merrifield revisits Lefebvrian legacy in light of twenty-first-century urban question. In particular, he explores to city, one of Marxist philosopher's most popular and debated ideas. Merrifield, a well-versed Marxist urban geographer, argues that concept of right to was a product of 1960s urban struggles and today, after more than 40 years since publication of Lefebvre's work, and progressive politics are no longer same. New theoretical tools, therefore, are needed to reshape current state and future direction of progressive urban thought. The new urban question, Merrifield argues, should address a wider variety of issues and a fuller scope of complexities of contemporary global urban society. He proposes the politics of encounter as a new framework to debate politics, and on street. In 2006, a turning point occurred in course of global urbanism: for first time in history, 3.3 billion people, majority of world's population, were living in cities. There is a growing scholarship in urban theory and geography on nature of this expanding global phenomenon and ways in which it is affecting political and economic dynamics of human settlement. Drawing mainly on Lefebvre, Merrifield attempts to decipher this new urban revolution. He reads Lefebvre's ideas in a way to push forth their theoretical boundaries: working through while trying to move beyond man (p. xv). In doing so, Merrifield intends to shift focus from question of cities, as absolute entities with borders and clear demarcations between what's inside and what's outside (p. xv), to prioritization of urban society, to what he calls planetary urbanization--borrowing from Lefebvre (planetarisation de Vurbain). The to city has become a vague phrase and has lost its initial radical undertone to level that even conservative groups on Right make use of it to move their own policies forward (p. …