Micropolitics and the minor

Abstract

General rightsThis document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/pure/about/ebr-terms AbstractMicropolitical investments and minor theoretical energies are of growing concern to geographers, yet conceptual ambiguity has inhibited broader discussion and deployment of these terms; even if they are the pivots of what we understand as, or take to be, the 'political'. In an effort to reinvigorate a dialogue about these crucial but underplayed concepts, and in an effort to push a micropolitical ethos in and of itself, we introduce a forum composed of six short interventions by geographers engaged in matters of the minor and micropolitical. Following these interventions, and leaning on a landmark article published in this journal twenty-one years ago, Cindi Katz revisits and reflects upon a vibrant conceptual assemblage that perhaps matters more now than ever, not least in questions of hope, discipline, ethics, existence, and politics itself. Key wordsMicropolitics; minor theory; ethics; hope; discipline Twenty-one years ago this journal published 'Towards a Minor Theory' by Cindi Katz (1996). i Despite the scale of the conceptual challenge laid down by Katz, specifically in unpicking the 'mastery' at work in much of critical geography, the article garnered little attention, in citation at least. It was something of a slowburner, a sleeper-hit lurking in the annals of contemporary geography. Harnessing, therefore, what seems to be a recent growing interest in the micropolitical and the minor in geography and the social sciences, the aim of this forum -itself composed of minor interventions by several geographers -is to re-invigorate these enigmatic concepts. These interventions return to the intellectual forum that gave rise to such concerns, but in a time when these provocations matter still further. This highlighting begins with a moment of critique. Specifically, that questions concerning the what, why and where of micropolitics and minor theory are missing, even from scholarship in which they act as anchoring concepts, not least in our own research

Practising post‐humanism in geographical research

“…Taking risks is equally about embracing failure as something affirmative and generative – an event that helps us to develop new techniques for thinking experimentally in “the movement from theory to the empirical and back again” (Gerlach & Jellis, , p. 143). We see this geographic appeal to experiment (see also Enigbokan & Patchett, ; Jellis, ; Jellis & Gerlach, ; Last, ) as intrinsic to the practice of post‐humanism and, while by no means the only philosopher to experience an “aversion to humanism” (Gutting, , p. 147), we follow a Deleuzian logic of experimentation as an alternative to the representational and humanistic logics of interpretation (Deleuze & Parnet, , p. 36). It is thus an experimentation that is open to what emerges in the field, without overcoding the process with preconceived expectations that are not predicated on the result.…”

Geographies of digital skill

“…We use the term micropolitics here to refer to more diffuse and decentralised forms of enablement and constraint that the concept of digital skills can potentially elucidate. Developed most comprehensively in the work of post-structuralist thinkers, the concept of micropolitics has risen to prominence in geography as a way of appreciating the complexities of power (Jellis and Gerlach, 2017). Where macropolitics concerns centralized top-down forms of power, and is based on categorical variables (e.g.…”

Singularity. A manifesto for incomparable geographies

“…Indeed feminist geography in particular has over the years sought to interrogate the performative masculinity and hegemony of Theory culture within the academy, which has precipitated a healthy suspicion amongst geographers toward what Said (: 239) referred to as theory's ‘bad infinity’. This has been signalled recently, for example, in a forum recuperating Cindi Katz's (: 489) notion of minor theory; a cluster of non‐dominant perspectives that Katz intended to tear at the confining role of theories which become dominant in geography at a given time (see Jellis & Gerlach, ). Whilst these attempts to substitute hegemonic with minor theory have pushed at the masculinity and Eurocentrism of Geography's theory culture, arguably in so doing they tend also to take the theoretical for granted.…”