Revolutionary possibilities of love in a time of disaster, decolonisation, and diffraction

Abstract

Representations of love appear across many disciplines and discursive fields that are and should be in conversation with geography. It is imperative that geographers engage in formidable but worthy tasks to distil diverse renderings of love into the regenerative interventions we urgently need. Those interventions require geographically minded interpretations of love to drive radical research, pedagogies, policies, and practices in ways that have direct and indirect effects across the life course and life worlds. Such labours are mediated by state and law, by intersectional relations, or by neuroscience, and involve asking how love underwrites critical infrastructures—of place (making), care and entanglements, colonialism, and human‐nature relations in the Anthropocene and posthuman—that lead to the flourishing futures we seek. Rich geographical studies oriented to those tasks still face charges of flattening difference. This commentary picks up one aspect of this agenda: a blind spot in geographical research relating to the ethical imperative to love based on benevolence. Instead, I champion the revolutionary possibilities for geography to inform policies, pedagogies, and practices by using a love based on alterity aligned with social weight, reasserting accessible science as an effective driver of social and system transformative changes. Specifically, I argue for a regenerative socio‐political analytic of love in a time of disaster, decolonisation, and diffraction.

El cuidado: posibilidades y rupturas antelas modalidades de violencia propias del conflicto armado colombianola voz de dos mujeres de antioquia.

“…Recibir a alguien, acogerlo y ofrecerle cobijo es un signo de amorosidad que da cuenta del reconocimiento del rostro del otro, lo que contribuye a la reparación del daño que ese rostro, esa humanidad ha sufrido, teniendo presente que debemos movilizarnos para defender formas de crecer hacia y más allá de nuestro dolor, mientras presenciamos, compartimos y exploramos el amor en momentos más pequeños y más grandes; momentos que nos ofrecen posibilidades regenerativas para sanarnos de daños traumáticos y duraderos y avanzar hacia estados humanos de florecimiento (Mouat, 2023).…”

Responsibilities of geographers: Are we role models or hypocrites?

“…Rather, I broach this subject by reference to examples in literature that set a foundation for obligations, and which have been empowering for me outside of writing. Among these examples are works by Mouat (2023), who has discussed the significance of love in geography, and by Dorling (2019), who has discussed the same about kindness. Head ( 2016) is an inspiration for starting conversations about the pressures on climate scientists trying to communicate grim and politicised information, her picture of the future, and for explaining that action in our close relationships drives household decisionmaking, even among the environmentally minded.…”

Coexistence and collaboration: Our Institute’s 2023 conference in Perth

“…associate editors, Clare Mouat (2023). Her focus is upon the ways in which regenerative-indeed lovinginterventions are urgently needed to support radically positive pedagogies, policies, and geographical practices.…”