RADICAL POLITICS TODAY

1
RADICAL POLITICS TODAY REVISIONING the spaces
of UNIVERSITY AND COMMUNITY
Node Director, USA Dr. Deborah Thien, Geography,
College of Liberal Arts, California State
University Long Beach Network Director Dr.
Jonathon Pugh, Newcastle University, UK
Introduction
3 Days in August politics as methodology
Website
The Spaces of Democracy and the Democracy of
Space a network exploring the disciplinary
effects of the spatial turn Students and
academics today are encouraged to reflect upon
questions of ethics and responsibility who is
responsible and how, between and across places,
for matters of pressing global concern such as
climate change, the worldwide disaggregation of
an international production process, human
rights, liberal democracy, the feminization of
poverty, fair trade, imperialism,
post-colonialism, genetically-modified foods,
indigenous peoples, Afghanistan, the cyclone that
devastated Burma, or the earthquake that hit
China in 2008. New forms of analysis,
methodologies and modes of investigation in the
social sciences and humanities seek to examine
such concerns by engaging with the spatiality of
such issues. That is, such analyses seek to open
out understandings of the spatial, as a
concept, such that space is increasingly seen as
more than a predefined territorial container of
political life SPACES PLACES MATTER.
As one of 6 original nodes of the Spaces of
Democracy the Democracy of Space Network, the
Long Beach Node hosted an international,
interactive and interventionist workshop over the
course of 3 days in August 2008. The three-part
agenda encompassed a beach tour, a community
forum panel, and a scholarly symposium. This
multi-element event was carefully designed to
embody and enliven the concerns of the network
how do we (variously defined and positioned)
think about space(s), how do such understandings
affect contemporary politics, and what is radical
politics today? All participants were encouraged
to attend all portions of the workshop. The broad
rationale for this structure was to link the
local, place-making radical politics of Long
Beach and surrounds, together with conceptual and
empirical scholarship addressing such concerns,
offering a communal space for consideration,
reflection and debate, and disrupting
conventional (spatial) boundaries between
university/community scholar/activist
formal/informal politics.
DAY 2 August 4th Radical Politics Today,
Community Forum Long
Beach Public Library, 101 Pacific Avenue, Civic
Center Plaza, Long Beach, 90822, 6-8pm
Panelists Gilda Haas, Strategic Action for a
Just Economy, Los Angeles (left) Laura Pulido,
American Studies and Ethnicity, University of
Southern California (right) and Goetz Wolff,
Harry Bridges Institute, San Pedro University
of California, Los Angeles discuss radical
politics with a Long Beach audience (below)
DAY 3 August 5th Ontology, Space Radical
Politics, Symposium Karl
Anatol Center California State University, Long
Beach, 830am-430pm Speakers Nigel Thrift
(right), Vice-Chancellor, Warwick University
Edward Soja, Urban Planning, University of
California, Los Angeles Lawrence Berg,
Geography, University of British Columbia John
Paul Jones III, Geography and Regional
Development, University of Arizona Sallie
Marston, Geography and Regional Development,
University of Arizona Keith Woodward,
Geography, University of Exeter Liz Philipose,
Womens Studies, California State University,
Long Beach and Mary Thomas, Womens Studies
Geography, Ohio State University examined
questions of ontology, space and radical politics
(right). A roundtable discussion completed the
workshop.
As the Network has expanded to include over 30
countries, a website has become an increasingly
important means of communication and
dissemination. You can find this website under
construction at http//www.spaceofdemocracy.org/
Contact
For more information, please contact Deborah
Thien, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of
Geography, California State University, Long
Beach Node Director, The Spaces of Democracy and
the Democracy of Space Research
Network Telephone [phone] Email
dthien_at_csulb.edu Website http//www.csulb.edu/col
leges/cla/departments/geography/faculty/thien
Aim
The Network aims to examine the practical
consequences of new spatial conceptualizations
for contemporary politics. If space is not a
container, but the sphere of multiplicity and
difference within which lines of responsibility
toward others are traced (Massey 2005), then
spatial flows of capital, services, passions,
people, democratic imaginations, conceptions of
imperial power, the media, material goods,
information and technoscience(s) among others,
are an important constitutive realm of political
and ethical responsibilities and subjectivities.
Such thinking emphasizes spatially delineated and
experienced tensions for example, between space
as a predefined territorial entity (the
university, or the community) and space as the
post-territorial circulation of power relations,
contingently articulated political identities,
and ethical responsibilities. We ask How are
such modes of spatial analysis linked to, and
means of constituting, spaces of and for
politics? What IS Radical Politics today?
DAY 1 August 3rd Radical Politics hits the
Beaches of Malibu (right and below) An
alternative tour of Malibus public spaces by the
LA Urban Rangers (www.laurbanrangers.org) sees
participants engaging in local behaviors of
typical Malibu species Frisbee throwing, sun
tanning and yoga.
Acknowledgements

• The Long Beach Public Library
• President F. King Alexander, CSULB
• Deans Gerry Riposa Mark Wiley, College of
  Liberal Arts, CSULB
• Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
• Ken Curtis, International Education Global
  Engagement, CSULB
• Juan Benitez Carina Sass, Center for Community
  Engagement, CSULB
• Jonathon Pugh, Director, Spaces of Democracy
  Network, University of Newcastle, UK Zoe Pugh,
  Newcastle, UK
• Vincent Del Casino, Chair, Geography, CSULB
• Julie Ortiz Carol Philipp, Administrative
  Support, Geography, CSULB
• John Fawcett, Kentaro Iwamoto, Mary Ngo,
  Student Coordinators, Geography, CSULB
• Unna Lassiter, Christy Jocoy, Paul Laris
  Dmitrii Sidorov, Geography, CSULB
• All participants from Long Beach community and
  area

Responses
In my experience, it is rare to find such a
powerful connection between high-level
intellectual work and meaningful community
engagement, and in fact that is tough to pull
off. You made an excellent start on what I am
sure will be a continuing enterprise --
Attendee thanks for inviting me, giving me an
opportunity to reflect, however informally, on
such important issues. I really enjoyed the
event and the exchanges we had. The effort to go
beyond the (inevitably) limited perspectives of
academia (my continuing agenda) was much
appreciated. -- Panelist
A Project of the Spaces of Democracy and the
Democracy of Space Research Network