Introduction to Critical Geographies of Resistance

Abstract

Critical Geographies of Resistance emerges from a recognition that the contemporary geopolitical moment is characterised by an increase in actions that are recognised as, or claim to be, 'resistant'. The rise of the far right, the decimation of the natural environment and the responses to the so-called refugee 'crisis' are illustrative of these disturbing times. This book contends that revisiting debates on what we mean by 'resistance' may go some way to question how geographers can, or should, respond to the contemporary moment.The chapters comprising this edited book therefore critically interrogate the political work of resistance in the contemporary moment. The authors carefully explore the multiple and everyday spaces, subjects and temporalities of resistance, and in doing so provide a novel approach to the study of resistance within geography. Together we aim to push forward debates on resistance in geography that perhaps have been stagnant over the last decade. That is not to say that there has not been scholarship on resisting and on resistance, but that a critical discussion on terminology of resistance remains missing. Whilst resistance has a long and rich history within geography, the book emerges from a recognition that tracing the concept of resistance within geography reveals a paradox: resistance is everywhere, and yet, surprisingly, elusive. Furthermore, whilst the conceptual vocabulary for resistance is increasingly diverse and splintered, and work on practices of resistance has proliferated, a critical engagement with resistance 'itself' has rarely been systematically engaged with, despite its apparent centrality to many geographical debates (for previous work,