Geographies of Responsibility

Author(s): Doreen Massey

Source: Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, Vol. 86, No. 1, Special Issue: The
Political Challenge of Relational Space (2004), pp. 5-18
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Swedish Society for Anthropology
and Geography
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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

by
Doreen Massey

Massey, D., 2004: Geographies of responsibility. Geogr. Ann., 86 commitments. What one might call the more gen-
B (1): 5-18.
eral rethinking of identity engaged with a number
ABSTRACT. Issues of space, place and politics run deep. There
of currents, from a determination to challenge the
is a long history of the entanglement of the conceptualisation of hegemonic notion of individuals as isolated atom-
space and place with the framing of political positions. The in- istic entities which took on (or were assigned) their
junction to think space relationally is a very general one and, as
essential character prior to social interaction,
this collection indicates, can lead in many directions. The partic-
ular avenue to be explored in this paper concerns the relationship through re-evaluations of the formation of political
between identity and responsibility, and the potential geographies identities, to the fundamental challenges presented
of both.
by second-wave feminism and by some in postco-
lonial studies. For these latter groups, rethinking
Key words: space, place, identity, responsibility
identity has been a crucial theoretical complement
to a politics which is suspicious of foundational es-
sentialisms; a politics which, rather than claiming
Changing identities
'rights' for pre-given identities ('women', say, or
Thinking space relationally, in the way we mean it gays, or some hyphenated ethnicity) based on as-
here, has of course been bound up with a wider set sumptions of authenticity, argues that it is at least
of reconceptualisations. In particular it has been as important to challenge the identities themselves
bound up with a significant refiguring of the nature and thus - afortiori - the relations through which
of identity. There is a widespread argument these those identities have been established. It is worth
days that, in one way or another, identities are 're- noting a number of points immediately. First, that
lational'. That, for instance, we do not have our be-
although there are in the wider literature many dis-
ings and then go out and interact, but that to a dis- agreements about this, and many variations in em-
puted but none-the-less significant extent our be- phasis, I take 'identity' here, along with the prac-
ings, our identities, are constituted in and through tices of its constitution, to be both material and dis-
those engagements, those practices of interaction. cursive. Second, it might be noted that this refor-
Identities are forged in and through relations mulation of identity itself already implies a
(which include non-relations, absences and hiatus- different spatiality, a different 'geography' of iden-
es). In consequence they are not rooted or static, but tities in general. Third, the political abandonment
mutable ongoing productions. of the security of a grounded identity in what we
This is an argument which has had its precise might call the old sense has been difficult. The long
parallel in the reconceptualisation of spatial iden- and fraught debates over the political stakes at issue
tities. An understanding of the relational nature of in the ability, or not, to mobilise the term 'women'
space has been accompanied by arguments about are just one case in point. It has been a discussion
the relational construction of the identity of place. which entailed not only theoretical confusions, and
If space is a product of practices, trajectories, in- clashes between conceptual positions and the de-
terrelations, if we make space through interactions mands of 'real' politics, but - as if that were not
at all levels, from the (so-called) local to the (so- enough - also huge emotional challenges and up-
called) global, then those spatial identities such as heavals, not least about how one conceptualises
places, regions, nations, and the local and the glo- oneself. Linda McDowell's paper (this issue) ex-
bal, must be forged in this relational way too, as in- plores an acute situation in this regard, and draws
ternally complex, essentially unboundable in any a clear connection between the conceptualisation
absolute sense, and inevitably historically chang- of identity and the changing demands on policy and
ing (Massey, 1994; Ash Amin in this issue). politics. Here, then, is another aspect of the con-
These theoretical reformulations have gone nection between thinking relationally and the af-
alongside and been deeply entangled with political fective dimension of politics of which Nigel Thrift

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 DOREEN MASSEY

lonial globalthis
writes in this issue. It is important to mention status', that is an argument of peculiar
here because the politics associated with force.the re-
Indeed, it may be argued that London/Lon-
doners
thinking of spatial identities have been, and have begun to assume an identity, discur-
contin-
ue to be, equally emotionally fraught and liable
sively, within to
the self-conception of the city, which
touch on deep feelings and desires not is always
preciselyim-
around mixity rather than a coherence
mediately associated with 'the political'. derived from common roots.
Rethink-
ing a politics of place, or nation, is an emotionally Now, it is perhaps in these terms, concerning the
charged issue. internal construction of the identity of place, that
But that is what thinking place relationally was many of our threads of thinking about ethics have
designed to do - to intervene in a charged political evolved. The old question of 'the stranger within
arena. The aim initially was to combat localist or the gates'. Many of our inherited formulations of
nationalist claims to place based on eternal essen- ethical questions have that particular imaginative
tial, and in consequence exclusive, characteristics geography: the Walled City (and who shall come
of belonging: to retain, while reformulating, an ap- in), the question of engagement in proximity, the
preciation of the specific and the distinctive while question of hospitality. Jacques Derrida's On Cos-
refusing the parochial. mopolitanism, with its consideration of open cities
This then has been a theoretical engagement pur- (villesfranches) and refuge cities (villes refuges), is
sued through political entanglement, and what I a recent example. These questions are important
want to do in this paper is to push further this pon- and are by no means going away (Critchley and
dering over the spaces and times of identity and to Kearney, in the Introduction to Derrida, call them
enquire how they may be connected up with the 'perennial'). Thinking in terms of networks and
question of political responsibility. The political lo- flows, and living in an age of globalisation, refash-
cation that has sparked these enquiries is London: ions, but does not deny, a politics of place (see also
global city and bustling with the resources through Low, 1997). Propinquity needs to be negotiated.
which the lineaments of globalisation are invented However, there is also a second geography im-
and coordinated. This, then, is a place quite unlike plied by the relational construction of identity. For
those regions considered by Ash Amin in his paper, 'a global sense of place' means that any nation, re-
and in consequence the challenges it poses, both gion, city, as well as being internally multiple, is
conceptually and politically, though within the also a product of relations which spread out way be-
same framework are rather different. yond it. In his paper Ash Amin has broached 'a pol-
itics of connectivity', and it is this issue which I
wish to pursue. London, as a whole, is a rich city,
The question certainly not a place on the wrong end of uneven
This destabilisation and reconfiguration of the no- development, with huge resources and a self-de-
tion of identity can lead in many directions, both clared radical mayor who has proclaimed his desire
conceptually and politically. to work towards London being a sustainable world
It can, on the one hand, turn us inwards, towards city. There are certainly, in principle, more choices
an appreciation of the internal multiplicities, the available to London than to the regions in the north
decentrings, perhaps the fragmentations, of identi- of England. It is a city which exudes the fact that it
ty. It is in this context that we consider place as is, indeed, a globally constructed place.
meeting place and the inevitable hybridities of the So, if that is the case, if we take seriously the re-
constitution of anywhere. It is this which Ash ad- lational construction of identity, then it poses, first,
dresses in his discussion of 'a politics of propinqui- the question of the geography of those relations of
ty': the necessity of negotiating across and among construction: the geography of the relations
difference the implacable spatial fact of shared turf. through which the identity of London, for example,
If places (localities, regions, nations) are necessar- is established and reproduced. This in turn poses
ily the location of the intersection of disparate tra- the question of what is the nature of 'London's' so-
jectories, then they are necessarily places of 'nego- cial and political relationship to those geographies.
tiation' in the widest sense of that term. This is an What is, in a relational imagination and in light of
important shift which renders deeply problematical the relational construction of identity, the geogra-
any easy summoning of 'community' either as pre- phy of our social and political responsibility?
existing or as a simple aim (Amin, 2002). In Lon- What, in other words, of the question of the stranger
don, with the cultural multiplicities of its 'postco- without?

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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

gles' along the Pacific Coast of Colombia ar

On not opposing space and place that they had as one of their axes of orientat
One of the difficulties of addressing this question
struggle for territory: 'The struggle for territo
thus a cultural
stems from the way in which, in much academic lit- struggle for autonomy and sel
termination'
erature and in many political discourses, local (Escobar, 2001, p. 162). Exam
abound.
place is posited as being so much more meaningful
Such struggles over place, and the meaningful-
than space. A regular litany of words accompanies
the characteristic evocation of place; words such
ness in and ofas place, return us to the argument in the
'real', 'grounded', 'everyday', 'lived'.previous
They section
are that in any even minimal recogni-
mobilised to generate an atmosphere of tion of the relational construction of space and of
earthiness,
authenticity, meaning. And over and again identity,
that ev- 'place' must be a site of negotiation, and
ocation is counterposed to 'space' which is,thatin con-
often this will be conflictual negotiation. This,
sequence, understood as somehow abstract. then, So
is a Ed-
first move away from the universalising/
ward Casey writes, 'To live is to live locally,
essentialising
and topropositions implicit in some of the
know is first of all to know the place evocations
one is in' of the meaningfulness of place. It may
(1996, p. 18). Or again, Arif Dirlik proposes that
indeed, further, be a crucial political stake to chal-
'Place consciousness ... is integral to human exist-
lenge and change the hegemonic identity of place
ence' (1998, p. 8). Or finally - and I cite and
thistheonewayin in which the denizens of a particular lo-
particular because they erroneously attribute
cality imagine
the it and thereby avail themselves of
sentiment to me - Carter, Donald and the Squires in resources to reconstruct it. Indeed,
imaginative
their collection called, precisely, Spacethe and Place
process of what they call 'resubjectivation' is an
state that 'place is space to which meaning essential
has beentool in J.K Gibson-Graham's attempt to
work
ascribed' (1993, p. xii). I want to argue that through
this line an active politics of place in the con-
of argument is both intellectually untenabletextand
of globalisation.
po- We shall return later to con-
litically problematical. sider their important work in this regard. But the
A first and obvious question concerns thefor
point uni-
now is that this relationship between place
versalising discourse in which so manyand ofidentity,
these in its many potential dimensions, is in-
claims are lodged. Place is always meaningful? for if not in the manner proposed by
deed significant
everyone everywhere? It is always a prime writers such as Casey. One implication of this is
source
that
for the production of personal and cultural it matters very much how both 'place' and
identity?
It is worth exploring this further. 'identity' are conceptualised.
One aspect of this universalisation of theA second
mean-set of questions which must be posed
ingfulness of place concerns, ironically, to the
the characteristic
pro- counterposition of space and
duction of difference (and in this discourse
placethe
takes'lo-
us back, again, to relational space. If we
cal' is frequently invoked as the source of differen-
sign up to the relational constitution of the world-
tiation). 'Place' is posited as one of thein grounds
other words to the mutual constitution of the lo-
through which identity is rooted and cal developed.
and the global - then this kind of counterposi-
The preceding quotations already hint attionthis,between
and space and place is on shaky ground.
Charles Tilley makes the point directly: The 'Personal
'lived reality of our daily lives', invoked so of-
ten toa buttress
and cultural identity is bound up with place; topo- the meaningfulness of place, is in
analysis is one exploring the creation offact
self-iden-
pretty much dispersed in its sources and its re-
percussions.
tity through place. Geographical experience beginsThe degree and nature of this dispersal
in places, reaches out to others through will
spaces,of course
and vary between individuals, between
creates landscapes or regions for human social groups and between places, but the general
existence'
proposition
(1994, p. 15). This feeding of place/placedness intomakes it difficult seriously to posit
identity may occur both at the level of 'space' as the abstract outside of 'place' as lived.
individuals
Where would
and at the level of 'cultures', as Tilley argues. The you draw the line around 'the
establishment of place, through renaming, grounded
through reality of your daily life'? As Ash Amin
arguesalso
the claiming of territory and so forth, may in this
be volume, the habitual now routinely
draws
a significant stake in the establishment of in engagement at a distance. The burden of
political
identities. National liberation strugglesmy have long here is not that place is not concrete,
argument
wrestled with this. And Arturo Escobar's analysis
grounded, real, but rather that space - global space
- is so strug-
of the Process of Black Communities' 'local too.

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 DOREEN MASSEY

'capital operates at the local level [i.e. it is 'ground-

There are a number of ways into this proposition.
The work of Bruno Latour provides one ofed'] but cannot
them. At have a sense of place - certainly not
one point in We Have Never Been Modern in the phenomenological sense' (2001, p. 165).
(1993)
he asks if a railway is local or global (p. This is anHis
117). important point - embodiedness, then,
has to
reply is that it is neither. It is global in that inbe on certain terms to result in meaningful-
some
sense it goes around the world; you mayness. (Some
travel onof the more universalist phenomeno-
it from Paris to Vladivostok (and the fact thatclaims
logical this seem to me to begin to unravel at this
example misses out the whole of Africapoint.) And Arif Dirlik writes of the 'essential
and Aus-
placelessness
tralasia, as well as some other places, is only a par- of capitalism' (cited in Gibson-Gra-
ticularly clear case of 'globalisation's' very selec-
ham, 2002, p. 34) - here, again, 'place' must be dis-
tive incorporation of the global). However, tinguishable
and thisfrom simple locatedness.
is the crucial point here, the railway is also Yet there are still, it seems to me, uneasinesses
every-
in this
where local in the form of railway workers, argument which it may be important to ad-
signals,
track, points, stations. What Latour emphasizes
dress. Escobar, again, writes that 'From an anthro-
wonderfully here is the groundedness,pological
the em- perspective, it is important to highlight
placement, even of so-called 'global' phenomena.
the emplacement of all cultural practices, which
The same point has frequently been madestems
by from
geog- the fact that culture is carried into plac-
raphers such as Kevin Cox (see his 1997escollection
by bodies ...' (p. 2001,43). But then, capitalism
Spaces of Globalisation: Reasserting the
is Power
a culturalof
practice, or at least it has its cultural
sides,
the Local), and about those iconic sectors ofand indeed these vary between places. The
glo-
balisation finance and 'high technology'.
vital Could
confrontation betweenAnglo-Saxon neoliber-
global finance exist without its very alism
definite
and the continental European attempt to hold
on to a more
groundedness in that place the City of London, forsocial democratic form is one obvious
example? Could it be global without being case inlocal?
point. Capitalism too is 'carried into places
by bodies'.
This, however, is to deal with only one part of theIndeed, politically it is important that
evocative vocabulary of place. It is to thistalk of
is recognised, in order to avoid that imagina-
groundedness. What I want to argue here is tion of the
that thiseconomy (or the market) as a machine,
a figuring
in itself begins to highlight a terminological slip-which renders it unavailable to political
page in some of the discourses about thedebate.
meaning-
fulness of place. To speak of groundednessMy is aim
to do here is not really to take issue with au-
thors with whom I agree on many counts but to in-
just that and that alone. One important dimension
of the phenomenological position is that dicate some worries about the kinds of argument
the mean-
ingful relation to place is intimately boundthatup arewith
being mobilised about the nature of place
the embodied nature of perception. In other and the local and to suggest that there are questions
words,
it is based in the fact of groundedness, of which remain unaddressed about the relations be-
embodi-
ment. One direction in which to take thistweenargumentplace, embodiment and meaning.
is that every groundedness, through that very This,
facthowever,
of is important to the argument here
emplacement, is meaningful. A Heideggerian less in termsline of challenging the basis of the mean-
of thought might follow this thread. To do ingfulness
so, how- of place than in beginning to explore its
ever, means to abandon 'space' altogether;potentially
for there wider ramifications. If space is really to
is only place (Ort). Certainly there cannot be thought
be a di-relationally, and also if Latour's propo-
chotomy between meaningful place and a space
sition is to be taken seriously, then 'global space' is
which is abstract. no more than the sum of relations, connections, em-
As we have seen, however, this is a dichotomy bodiments and practices. These things are utterly
which is not only retained but which figures widely everyday and grounded at the same time as they
in the debate about place, and particularly in the may, when linked together, go around the world.
context of globalisation. Here it must be that only Space is not the outside of place; it is not abstract,
certain forms of emplacedness and embodiedness, it is not somehow 'up there' or disembodied. Yet
certain specifiable relations of situatedness, can en- that still leaves a question in its turn: How can that
tail meaningfulness and the creation of identity. kind of groundedness be made meaningful across
Thus Arturo Escobar, who earlier in his major arti- distance?
cle on this issue cited the phenomenological ap- This is an issue because, certainly in Western so-
proach to the meaningfulness of place, writes that cieties, there is a hegemonic geography of care and

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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

responsibility which takes the form of amultiply

nested mediated
set political and social relationships
of the
of Russian dolls. First there is 'home', then possibility of embodying democracy or so-
perhaps
place or locality, then nation, and so on.cial
There
justiceisisaa key feature of the politics of place'
kind of accepted understanding that we (p. care
265).first
I would want to open up the possibility of
for, and have our first responsibilitiesantowards,
alternative politics of place which does not have
those nearest in. There are two qualities ofthese
thischaracteristics,
geo- but the central burden of
Low's argument
graphy which stand out: it is utterly territorial, and is correct and important. Indeed
it proceeds outwards from the small and nearupata politics of place which does not de-
opening
hand. prive of meaning those lines of connections, rela-
There are many reasons for that Russian tions anddoll
practices, that construct place, but that
geography. There is, undoubtedly and with also go beyond it, is a central aim of this paper. If
recog-
nition back to the preceding arguments, thethatstill-re-
is impossible, as some of the counterpositions
maining impact, in this world sometimesofsaid spaceto beplace would seem to imply, then how
and
increasingly virtual, of material, physical proxim-
do we maintain a wider politics? How then is it pos-
sible to respond
ity. There is the persistent focus on parent-child re- to the challenge in John Berger's
lationships as the iconic reference point oft-quoted
for ques-comment that 'it is now space rather
tions of care and responsibility (see Robinson,
than time that hides consequences from us'?
1999 for a very insightful critique of this, and of its
effects). (This is a focus already geographically
Identity
'disturbed' by the numerous family relations and responsibility
now
as a result of migration stretched over truly global
There are, in fact, many resources to draw on here.
One of theof
distances.) There are all the rhetorics of territory, most striking, and one which links up
nation and of family, through which we are aspects
many daily of the debate within geography, is the
urged to construct our maps of loyalty andwork of feminist philosophers Moira Gatens and
of affect.
There is the fact that, in this world soGenevieve
often de- Lloyd. In their book Collective Imagin-
scribed as a space of flows, so much of our formal
ings (1999) they have attempted to reformulate the
democratic politics is organised territorially
notion-ofandresponsibility by thinking it through the
that spatial tension is at the heart of thephilosophy
questionsof Spinoza. Their 'Spinozistic respon-
being asked in this paper. It has also beensibility',
suggestedas they call it, has a number of character-
that this focus on the local, and the exclusive
isticsmean-
which cohere with the arguments being de-
veloped
ingfulness of the local, has been reinforced here. First, this is a responsibility which is
by post-
colonialism and poststructuralism through a wari-
relational: it depends on a notion of the entity (in-
ness of meta-narratives. dividual, political group, place) being constructed
There are, then, many reasons for that territorial, in relation to others. Second, this is a responsibility
locally centred, Russian doll geography of care andwhich is embodied in the way place is said to be
responsibility. None the less, it seems to me, it is embodied. And third, this is a responsibility which
crucially reinforced by the persistence of the re- implies extension: it is not restricted to the imme-
frain that posits local place as the seat of genuine diate or the very local.
meaning and global space as in consequence with- What concerns Gatens and Lloyd, however, is
out meaning, as the abstract outside. Murray Low extension in time and, in particular, present respon-
has counterposed the relational understanding ofsibility for historical events. Their specific interest
space and place which underlies this present vol- is in the potential white Australian collective re-
ume to another powerful and influential discourse sponsibility towards aboriginal society for histori-
through which, he argues, there 'has been a reas-cal events. They write:
sertion of closeness or face-to-face interaction in
various forms as a source of morality in social life' In understanding how our past continues in
(Low, 1997, pp. 260-261). He cites Bauman (1989, our present we understand also the demands
1993) in this regard, and counterposes Bauman's of responsibility for the past we carry with us,
position to the reconceptualisation of place as ad- the past in which our identities are formed. We
vocated here1 'not to deny the difficulties involved are responsible for the past not because of
in reorienting ethical conduct and political value what we as individuals have done, but because
away from immediate relationships and contexts, of what we are.
but to insist that the draining of distanciated and (Gatens and Lloyd, 1999, p. 81)

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 DOREEN MASSEY

Responsibility, in other words, derives fromwhythose

oppose these things? The internal hybridity of
place My
relations through which identity is constructed. is incontestable. But cultural difference is im-
question is: Can the temporal dimension ofplacably
respon- also very different others in very distant
sibility drawn out by Gatens and Lloyd be paral-
lands. In our current concern for hybridity at home
leled in the spatial and in the present? Forwe must
just asnot forget that wider geography.
Fiona Robinson has tackled some of these issues
'the past continues in our present' (a very Bergso-
head-on.
nian reflection) so also is the distant implicated inIn her book Globalizing Care: Ethics,
our 'here'. The notion of responsibility for Feminist
the past Theory and International Relations
(1999) she challenges the assumption that the base
has led to a spate of 'apologies' for it. Apologising
does not always amount to the same thing as model for relations of care is the family. By releas-
taking
responsibility. But were the 'distance' to being
spatial,
responsibility and care from that imaginatively
and in the here and now rather than imagined localisingasand territorialising constraint, but at the
only temporal, the element of responsibility same- time
the holding on to the groundedness it is said
requirement to do something about it - would as- she argues for the possibility of a more
to represent,
extended
sert itself with far greater force. The identities in relational groundedness, and thus pro-
question, including those of place, are forged
vides yet another component for the project to re-
think relations at a distance; the question of the
through embodied relations which are extended
geographically as well as historically. stranger without.
I believe this can be usefully linked up, also, to
Gibson-Graham's writing in this area. Her argu-
ment is that one necessary component in theOn not exonerating the local
project
There is one other thread which is crucial to the ar-
of re-imagining 'the power differential embedded
in the binaries of global and local, space andgument
place'(i.e. to addressing the question of the geo-
(p. 29) is a reformulating of local identities.graphies
For herof our political responsibilities). Once
a central aspect of this 'resubjectivation' isagain
an im-it turns upon the troubled nature of the pair-
aginative leap in which we can lear 'to think ing ofnot local/global.
about how the world is subjected to globalization There is an overwhelming tendency both in ac-
(and the global capitalist economy) but how we are
ademic and political literature and other forms of
subjected to the discourse of globalization discourse
and the and in political practice to imagine the lo-
identities (and narratives) it dictates to us'cal as a35-
(pp. product of the global. Understanding place
36; emphasis in original). As with the workasof the product of wider relations has often been
Gat-
read dif-
ens and Lloyd, I want to twist this in a slightly as understanding place as having no agency.
ferent direction. For while we are indeed all discur-
All the agency somehow lies beyond (the incoher-
sively subject to a disempowering discourse ofof
ence the
this position, given the critique of the space/
inevitability and omnipotence of globalisation,
place ma-
dichotomy advanced in the second section of
terially the local identities created throughthisglobali-
paper, is evident). As Escobar characterises the
sation vary substantially. Not all local places
classic are
mantra: 'the global is associated with space,
simply 'subject to' globalisation. The nature capital,
of the history and agency while the local, con-
versely, is linked to place, labor, and tradition - as
resubjectivation required, and of the responsibility
implied, in consequence also varies between wellplac-
as with women, minorities, the poor and, one
es. This thread of argument will be taken mightup again add, local cultures' (2001, pp. 155-156).
centrally in the next section. Place, in other words, 'local place', is figured as in-
The persistence of a geographical imaginary evitably the victim of globalisation.
which is essentially territorial and which focusesHowever, in recent years there has been some-
on the near rather than the far is, however,thing
also of
ev-a fightback on this front. The work of Gib-
son-Graham
idenced even in the work of Gatens and Lloyd. For has been important in articulating an
argument
when they do touch upon the spatial, in this ques- that 'the local', too, has agency. She also
argues,
tion of the construction of identities, they write crucially, that it is important both theoreti-
that
cally
'the experience of cultural difference is now and politically to distinguish between various
inter-
nal to a culture' and they cite James Tully: 'Culturalcontrasting formulations of this agency. As she
diversity is not a phenomenon of exotic and incom-
points out, even those positions most concerned to
mensurable others in distant lands.... No. It is here assert the overwhelming power of the global
and now in every society' (Tully, 1995, p. 11). But (where 'the global is a force, the local is its field of

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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

play; the global is penetrating, the local as taking advantage of those areas of economy and
penetrated
and transformed', p. 27), the local is not society which are not simply 'subject to' globali-
entirely
passive. In these worldviews the agency of sation).
theNonelocalof the authors whom I have cited are
consists in moulding global forces (which arguingarrive
for a politics which simply posits the local
from outside) to specific circumstances. (good)Local
against the global (bad).2 Nor is this a local-
place, here, is the locus of the productionismofbased on any kind of romantic essentialism of
heter-
ogeneity. This is its role in life. It is an endless
place. It is, none-the-less, a politics which is char-
acterised
theme of cultural studies. Moreover, on some over and over again as a 'defence' of
read-
ings, even this agency is promptly snatched place. back
again since it may be argued that this kind However,
of dif- if we take seriously the relational con-
ferentiation is just what capitalism wants: whatever
struction of space and place, if we take seriously the
the local does will be recuperated; the 'global' willnature even of the global, and take
locally grounded
reign supreme. This is not only a diminished un-that oft-repeated mantra that the
seriously indeed
derstanding of the potential of local agency; local it
andisthe
al-global are mutually constituted, then
so, I would argue, a very diminished understanding there is another way of approaching this issue. For
of spatialisation, in terms simply of inter-local in this imagination
het- 'places' are criss-crossings in
erogeneity. the wider power-geometries which constitute both
Gibson-Graham, Escobar, Harcourt and many themselves and 'the global'. In this view local plac-
others want to go beyond this very limited view of es are not simply always the victims of the global;
local agency. For Gibson-Graham one of the criti- nor are they always politically defensible redoubts
cal issues here concerns the re-imagining of 'capi- against the global. For places are also the moments
tal' and 'the global' away from being seamless self- through which the global is constituted, invented,
constituting singular identities, and the assertion of coordinated, produced. They are 'agents' in glo-
the presence in their own right of other forms of balisation. There are two immediate implications.
practice, other ways of organising the economic. It First this fact of the inevitably local production of
is a form of re-imagination, of an alternative under- the global means that there is potentially some pur-
standing, which she argues is an essential element chase through 'local' politics on wider global
in the redistribution of the potential for agency: an mechanisms. Not merely defending the local
attempt to get out from under the position of think- against the global, but seeking to alter the very
ing one's identity as simply 'subject to' globalisa- mechanisms of the global itself. A local politics
tion; it is a process which goes hand in hand with with a wider reach; a local politics on the global -
inhabiting that reforming identity through engage- and we do need to address global politics too. This,
ment in embodied political practice. The stress on then, is a further, different, basis for the recognition
the embodiedness of all this, again, is interesting. of the potential agency of the local.
Of her opponents, the globalists, Gibson-Graham The second implication of this line of reasoning
writes of the rejection of local politics as seeming returns us again to the central question of this paper.
'to emanate from a bodily state, not simply a rea- If the identities of places are indeed the product of
soned intellectual position' (p. 27). This is an ar- relations which spread way beyond them (if we
resting observation, which resonates with all those think space/place in terms of flows and (dis)con-
arguments about Western science's desire for re- nectivities rather than in terms only of territories),
moval from the world (the messiness of the local); then what should be the political relationship to
it may be, as I shall argue below, that there is also those wider geographies of construction?
something else at issue. Now, this is a general proposition. However, dif-
These arguments in favour of both recognising ferent places are of course constructed as varying
and acting upon the potential for local agency are kinds of nodes within globalisation; they each have
extremely important and I should like to take them distinct positions within the wider power-geo-
off in some rather different directions. Once again metries of the global. In consequence, both the pos-
this returns us to the nature of agency. sibilities for intervention in (the degree of purchase
In much of this literature the agency, or potential upon), and the nature of the potential political re-
agency, imputed to the local could be characterised lationship to (including the degree and nature of re-
either in terms of resistance and fightback (i.e. sponsibility for), these wider constitutive relations,
fending off in some way the 'global' forces) or in will also vary. As Escobar points out and exempli-
terms of building alternatives (itself characterised fies so well, one of the significant implications of

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 DOREEN MASSEY

thinking globalisation in terms of genuinely communication).

rela- In Germany the concern with re-
tional space is the multiplication, and diversifica- gions continues strongly. In the UK there was the
tion, of speaking positions. For him, this major
suggests
programme of localities studies. As has been
above all a consideration of local cultures: 'one has pointed out there are notable differences between
to move to the terrain of culture' (2001, p. 165).geography in the USA and that in anglophone Eu-
Gibson-Graham would add to this the very differ-rope, with non-anglophone Europe having its own
ent articulations in different places of capitalist and variations again (see Massey and Thrift, 2003). It is
other forms of economy. While these things donot possible to generalise from the USA to the
clearly differentiate places, what needs to be addedwhole of the First World.
to them as a further source of differentiation is the Second, it is important to register that Escobar is
highly contrasting position of places in different careful not to fall into an essentialising or simply
parts of the world in terms of the patterns and powerbounded understanding of place. (None-the-less it
relations of their wider connectivity (a point well is worth considering whether the kind of formula-
argued by Eugene McCann, McCann, 2002). Put tion used by Jose Bove - the defence of variation
bluntly, there is far more purchase in some places- might be preferable.) And although the burden of
than in others on the levers of globalisation. his article is about the defence of place, he does lat-
It is no accident, I think, that much of the liter- er broaden his formulation: 'it is necessary to think
ature concerning the defence of place has come about the conditions that might make the defense of
from, or been about, either the Third World or, forplace - or, more precisely, of particular construc-
instance, deindustrialising places in the Firsttions of place and the reorganization of place this
World. From such a perspective, capitalist globali- might entail - a realizable project' (Escobar, 2001,
sation does indeed seem to arrive as a threatening p. 166, emphasis in the original). This expansion is
external force. Indeed, in his appreciative commen-crucial.
tary on Dirlik's argument that there has been in re- Third, it may well be that a particular construc-
cent years in academic writing 'an erasure oftion of place is not defensible - not because of the
place', Escobar argues that this erasure has been animpracticality of such a strategy but because the
element in Eurocentrism. The argument is a veryconstruction of that place, the webs of power rela-
important one: tions through which it is constructed, and the way
its resources are mobilised, are precisely what must
The inquiry into place is of equal importancebe challenged. I am thinking here of a particular
for renewing the critique of eurocentrism in place. As pointed out at the beginning of this med-
the conceptualization of world regions, areaitation on the geographies of responsibility, the im-
studies, and cultural diversity. The marginali-mediate provocation has come from trying to think
zation of place in European social theory of what a politics of place might look like for London.
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has 'London' as a node within the power-geometries
been particularly deleterious to those socialof globalisation could hardly be more different
formulations for which place-based modes of from those Pacific rainforest places in Colombia of
consciousness and practices have continued to which Escobar writes, nor from some of the places
be important. ... The reassertion of place thusof disinvestment in which Gibson-Graham has
appears as an important arena for rethinkingworked. Of course, it is internally differentiated, vi-
and reworking eurocentric forms of analysis. olently unequal and occasionally contested. But
(Escobar, 2001, p. 141) without doubt London is also a 'place' in which
certain important elements of capitalist globalisa-
There are a number of points here, to take the ar-tion are organised, coordinated, produced. This
gument further. First, and somewhat parenthetical-place, along with a few others, is one of their most
important seats.
ly, the very term 'eurocentrism' here carries its own
ironies. For the argument seems to refer mainly to The work of Saskia Sassen (1991, and subse-
the USA, as does Escobar's detection of a possible
quently) has been of particular importance in es-
return to place - through analysis of sessions at the
tablishing the nature and significance of those plac-
AAG. In contrast, in Spanish geography there is es we call 'global cities'. From her book The Glo-
relatively little concern for space, in the sensebal City onwards she has stressed the strategic role
meant in this discussion, but rather an overwhelm-
of these places as command points within the glo-
ing focus on territories (Garcia-Ramon, personal bal economy, as key locations for finance and pro-

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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

ducer services, as sites of production and innova-

potential nature of 'local', or place-based, politics.
tion, and as markets. Such places, then, In dounderstanding
not fit the formation of that part of its
easily into the generalised understandingidentity of the which
lo- is as a financially elite global city
cal as the product of the global. It is from(and thislocal
these is the aspect of its identity most stressed
areas that much of what we call the globalby the city's
stems. In planners and policy-makers, not to
the Introduction to their edited collection Global mention 'the City' itself), 'we understand also the
City-Regions (2001), Allen Scott and colleagues al-demands of responsibility' for those relations with
lude to the same point a number of times - the enor-other parts of the world through which this identity
mous resources concentrated into these cities is formed.
which are mobilised to produce and coordinate Moreover, the second significance of Sassen's
'globalisation': they 'function as essential spatial
emphasis on the production (rather than just the as-
nodes of the global economy and as distinctive po-
sumption) of global control in various forms is that
litical actors on the world stage' (p. 11). Global cit-points to its lack of inevitability. It can be in-
it also
tervened in. There is a possibility of politics. This
ies, then, are not only 'outcomes' of globalisation.
Moreover, it is the very fact of globalisation, is
theanin-argument made by John Allen (2003) in his
creasing degree of spatial dispersion, which workhason power. And in specifying further the pos-
been reinforcing of their centrality (Sassen,sibilities
1991; for intervention, the various potential po-
Scott, et al. 2001). There is a virtuous circle inavenues open to taking responsibility for this
litical
which these cities are key. identity as a global city, it would also be necessary,
as that
It is also key to Sassen's particular argument Allen argues, to disaggregate and characterise
the various lines of coordination and control cannot
much more clearly the ways in which the accumu-
just be assumed (from the size of the cities, lated
say, or resources of London are in fact mobilised into
distinct modes of power.
from the location there of banks and corporations
This, then, would be a local politics that took se-
and international regulatory institutions); they
riously the relational construction of space and
must be produced and continually maintained.
Thus: 'A key dynamic running through theseplace.
vari-It would understand that relational construc-
tion
ous activities and organizing my analysis of as highly differentiated from place to place
the
place of global cities in the world economy isthrough
their the vastly unequal disposition of resourc-
capability for producing global control' (p. es. 6);
This is particularly true with regard to the spe-
cific of
there is 'a new basic industry in the production phenomenon of capitalist globalisation. The
management and control operations, of the mobilisation
highly of resources into power relations be-
specialised services needed to run the world tween
econ- places is also highly differentiated, and a lo-
omy, of new financial instruments' (p. 14). cal(One
politics of place must take account of that.
might add political and ideological rhetorics,Gibson-Graham
cul- writes of her antagonists the
tural constructions and symbolisms.) She writes
globalists
of that 'their interest in globalisation is to
understand
'the practice of global control' (p. 325; emphasis in it, expose it, and, hopefully, transform
original). This emphasis on production is signifi-
it, but they are not attracted to the local as a site of
realistic challenge and possibility' (p. 28). Her own
cant in two ways. First, as Sassen herself demon-
strategy
strates, it grounds the process of globalisation, and is to argue for a specifically local politics
it grounds it in place: 'a focus on productionanddoes
indeed to criticize others, such as Dirlik, when
not have as its unit of analysis the powerful it seems that the local may be valued less in itself
actors,
than as a potential base for wider actions. I am try-
be they multinational corporations or government,
but the site of production - in this case, majoring to argue something different again: that one im-
cities'
(p. 325). What these cities bring together is more of the very inequality inherent within cap-
plication
italistit
than just the peak organisations of globalisation; globalisation is that the local relation to the
is also a huge complexity of affiliated and subsidi-
global will also vary, and in consequence so will the
coordinates of any potential local politics of chal-
ary institutions. Place, one might say, very clearly
matters. lenging that globalisation. Moreover, 'challenging
If we now bring to these arguments of Sassen globalisation' might precisely in consequence
and others about the nature of global cities such mean
as challenging, rather than defending, certain
London the reflections on the relationship betweenlocal places.
identity and responsibility posited by Gatens andIndeed, it seems to me that to argue for the 'de-
Lloyd, a new line of argument emerges about the fence' of place in an undifferentiated manner is in

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 DOREEN MASSEY

fact to maintain that association of the local Indeed,

with there is a similar puzzle in Dirlik's wider
the good and the vulnerable to which bothargument
Escobar that the survival of place-based cultures
and Gibson-Graham quite rightly object. It will be ensured only when the globalisation of the
contrib-
utes to a persistent romanticisation of thelocal local.
compensates for the localisation of the global.
Gibson-Graham writes of the difficulties ofHe means
over- this, I think, in both social and concep-
coming an imagination in which the global tual terms (see Escobar, 2001, p. 163; Gibson-Gra-
is inev-
itably imbued with more 'power' and agency ham, 2002, p. 34). But as Gibson-Graham points
than
out inthis
the local. In most discourses of globalisation relation to development, this 'is a curious
comment,
criticism is absolutely spot-on. It is even more so if given that "development" is now widely
the local place is London, Tokyo or New York.recognized as a "local" project of particular West-
ern economies
What I am concerned with here is a persistent ex- and regions that very successfully
oneration of the local. It takes the form not became globalized' (2002, p. 55). An exactly par-
only of
allelglobal
a blaming of all local discontents on external point may be made about the long history of
forces, and a concomitant understanding capitalism
of 'local and its current forms in globalisation, or
about
place' in entirely positive terms, but also of formulations such as 'global culture over-
under-
powers local cultures' (Escobar, 2001, p. 144, in a
standing globalisation itself as always produced
somewhere else. commentary on Castells and Dirlik). For writers in
Bruce Robbins, in his book Feeling Global
the USA and Western Europe in particular this is to
(1999, p. 154), muses ironically upon some USA- be blind to the local roots of the global, to under-
based political struggles around globalisation: stand - in classic fashion - the dominant local as
being global/universal.
One distinctive feature is that capitalism is at- This imagination of capitalism/globalisation be-
tacked only or primarily when it can be iden- ing somehow 'up there' has interesting parallels
also with that notion of power, or the resources of
tified with the global. Capitalism is treated as
if it came from somewhere else, as if Ameri- power, as being everywhere. As John Allen points
cans derived no benefit from it - as if ... out, this is an imagination which makes political
American society and American nationalism challenge particularly difficult (2003, p. 196). It is
were among its pitiable victims .... By refus- important that we analyse and recognise both the
ing to acknowledge that these warm insides specific forms of power at issue in any particular
are heated and provisioned by that cold out- case and the specific locations of its enabling re-
side, these avowedly anticapitalist critics al- sources.
low the consequences of capitalism to disap- In the ongoing struggle to disrupt the bi
pear from the national sense of responsibility. local and global, Gibson-Graham write
'practices of resubjectivation, a set of em
Perhaps this difficulty of looking at ourselves, at our terventions that attempt to confront and r
own, and our own locality's, complicity and com- ways in which we live and enact the pow
pliance, is another element in Gibson-Graham's global' (p. 30). This re-imagination of l
characterisation of the rejection of local politics as tioning is, she argues, absolutely crucial
visceral. Certainly one could make about London, addresses the deep affective substrate of
and some of London's professedly progressive pol- jection to globalization' (p. 30). Such a
itics, the same argument that Robbins makes about nation is indeed vital to any sense of empo
some of the 'anticapitalism' of the USA. but, in certain locations within the unequ
Theoretically, conceptually, this political stance geometries of capitalist globalisation,
accords with a notion of capitalist globalisation as tivation' must include also a recognition
somehow 'up there'. The evocation of a placeless sponsibilities which attach to those rela
capitalism can lead all too easily to an erasing from aspects of our identity - including tho
the imagination of the places in which capitalism places - through which we, and our pl
(and thus globalisation) is very definitely embed- been constructed.
ded;3 those places - such as the City of London - Perhaps the most crucial aspect of the
in which capitalism has accumulated the resources we call 'space' is that it is the dimension
essential to the mobilisation of its power. This in- plicity, of the more-than-one (Massey,
deed is an erasure of place which is politically dis- vital element that this insight gives us is t
abling. ence, even within globalisation, on a pl

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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

positionalities. Included within that, andincrucial

the cityto
centre, to a whole range of measures
against
the dynamics of the production of inequality, is racism
the and celebratory of the capital's hy-
recognition that not all places are 'victims' and that
bridity. This last measure continues a longer char-
not all of them, in their present form, areacteristic
worth de- of the capital and of a range of social
fending. movements within it. The place is most certainly
Indeed, it is precisely taking responsibility for riven with racism (the murder of Stephen Lawrence
challenging them that should be a political priority. being an iconic moment) but one strong aspect of
its self-identity is none-the-less constructed around
a positive valuing of its internal mixity. To me, this
Relational politics beyond a global city renders even more stark the persistent apparent ob-
'London' as a global city is certainly by no means livion of London and Londoners to the external re-
a victim of globalisation. It also, at the time of writ- lations, the daily global raiding parties of various
ing (2003), has a mayor committed to shifting the sorts, the activity of finance houses and multina-
nature and perception of this place. Ken Living- tional corporations, on which the very existence of
stone's declared aim, in numerous statements, is to the place, including its mixity, depends.
turn London into a different kind of global city. The London Plan gives evidence that this obliv-
This then is a space-time conjunction (a progres- ion is largely characteristic also of London's new
sive force at the political head of a powerful node governing council. The Plan, and its range of sup-
within the relations of globalisation) which could porting documents, understands London's identity
be seized for inventing a rather different politics of primarily as being a global city. Moreover, this in
place. turn is presented primarily as a function of Lon-
There are, of course, many radical groups work- don's position within global financial markets and
ing in London but I am concentrating here on the related sectors. This is presented as fact, and also as
politics of the local state specifically. This is be- an achievement. The Plan presents no critical anal-
cause this is a local state with serious potential to ysis of the power relations which have had to be
rearticulate the meaning of this place, to recharge sustained for this position to be built and main-
its self-conception, its understood identity, with a tained. It does not follow these relations out across
different kind of politics. Ken's statements give ev- the world. Only in one (important) respect is this
idence of this intention, and the previous period of question of the nature of this relational construction
London government under his leadership gives ev- of this aspect of London's identity held up to scru-
idence that the potential is realisable. The GLC tiny and investigated further - the question of the
(Greater London Council) of the early 1980s was demands on natural resources, and the capital's en-
one of the key foci of opposition to the government vironmental footprint. Quite to the contrary the
of Margaret Thatcher. It was, in other words, a key Plan has as its central economic aim the building up
opponent of the national government which did of London as a specifically financial global city. In
more than any other to mould the national econo- its consideration of this role, and of this strategy,
my, the major institutions of the international econ- the Plan fails to recognise both London's huge re-
omy, and the national consciousness, into forms sources and their historical and current mobilisa-
which favoured neoliberalism. In return for its op- tion into power relations with other places, and the
position, Margaret Thatcher abolished the GLC. subordination of other places and the global ine-
When Ken was re-elected, with Thatcher long gone qualities on which this metropolis depends and
but with Tony Blair's government having picked up upon which so much of its wealth and status have
the baton of neoliberalism, his opening words on been built. It does not question, for instance, the hu-
accepting the result were: 'As I was saying when I man resources on which it draws to enable its re-
was so rudely interrupted fourteen years ago....' production - which range from nurses from Africa,
There is a real question, then, already hanging in badly needed on that continent, and graduates from
the air, of how the politics of opposition to neolib- the rest of the UK (thus draining those regions of
eralism will be continued. one element in their potential regeneration). Such
It must also be recognised that in this term of of- relations are riven with political ambiguities and
fice much has indeed been done - from a doughty raise difficult issues which any 'exemplary' global
if unsuccessful battle against the government's tor-city should want to address openly and directly.
tuous privatisation of London's Underground, toFurthermore, when the London Plan does explicit-
the organisation of a congestion charge on vehicles ly address 'relations with elsewhere', the analysis

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 DOREEN MASSEY

is pervaded by anxiety about competitioning

with
in oth-
various ways, both economically and cul
ally, on fi-
er places, in particular Frankfurt as an alternative the global links embedded in London's
nancial centre. This form of self-positioning repre-
nic complexity. Twenty years ago huge controv
was closes
sents a significant imaginative failure which aroused by Ken Livingstone's statem
about pol-
down the possibility of inventing an alternative Irish politics. 'The capital city should
itics in relation to globalisation.4 have a foreign policy', shouted most of the ne
Had that closure not been imposed, allpapers.
kinds ofYet London has a huge population of
alternative politics and policies towardsdescent.
neoliberal
Irish politics are alive in the streets of
globalisation might have been proposed. They
city, in certain areas in particular. To pretend
could have raised to consciousness, opened up to
the boundaries which enclose the right to vote
debate, even disturbed a little, London's current
enclose po-
political influence and interests is inde
sition as promoter and seat of coordination'pretend'.
of that External interests are already pres
formation.5 through multinational capital, through social
For instance, and posing the least political chal-
cultural networks, through political organisat
lenge to the hegemonic order, there could
whichhave
do not stop at the boundaries of the
been a far broader and more imaginative sectoral
(Low, 1997). To make such issues at least ope
definition of London's claim to global city status.
debate would be to contribute further to local
The existing narrowness of the current definition is being genuinely political rather than
ernment's
probably the strategic aspect of the Plan parently)
which hasmerely a matter of administration
been most subject to criticism, and from Asha Amin's
whole paper, this issue). London ranks as
range of political directions (Spatial Development
second city in the world (after Brussels) for
Strategy, 2002). A wider sectoral definition, fol-
presence of international non-governmental or
izations (Glasius, et al. 2003); surely the issu
lowing some of London's other global connections
(other than finance, that is), would alsowithhave had they engage could legitimately be a p
which
very different implications, both socially ofand
political
spa- debate in the city. Or again, perha
tially, within the metropolis itself, broadening the
fuller recognition of the co-constitution of relat
growth potential and the economic benefits awaycould be embodied in collaborative, r
of power
from the Square Mile and its ever-spreadinger than competitive, relations with other pla
area of
influence and from the relative elite of the financial
(Phil Hubbard, 2001, has written about this po
sectors. There is little doubt that the current
bilitynarrow
more generally.) In particular, there migh
collaboration, around issues of globalisation,
focus is an element in the continuous reproduction
of poverty and inequality within the urban otherarea.
Left-led cities.
Such a broadening of the meaning of 'global It would be disingenuous to claim that a bundle
city' would, moreover, be but one element of in a nec- such as these would on their own do
strategies
essary re-imagining of the whole of the much to alter the dynamics of the current form of
metropol-
itan economy. London is far more mixedglobalisation.
than the They would certainly make some
Plan allows; indeed in their mammoth study Work-
difference in their own right. But one of their more
ing Capital, (2002), Buck, et al. havingimportant
demon- effects would be to stimulate a public de-
strated this point empirically, go on to bate
argue on that
London's place within current globalisa-
complexity and diversity are precisely crucial
tion, to provoke awareness of the capital's condi-
strengths of London's economy, strengths tions of existence. And conditions of existence are
which
could be placed in jeopardy by an over-concentra-
what Gatens and Lloyd are referring to when they
tion on finance.6 rethink the concept of responsibility through a rec-
It might also be possible, however, to ognition
mount of a the relationality of identity. To adapt
more explicit questioning of, and challenge theirto, the
phraseology to refer to geography rather than
current terms of neoliberal globalisation. history:
Alterna- We are responsible to areas beyond the
tive globalisations could be supported. The boundsGLC of not because of what we have done,
of place
the 1980s, for instance, gave aid in a variety
but because ofof what we are. A re-imagining of Lon-
don's identity in these terms, a re-recognition,
forms to the building of trade union international-
would befor
ism. Or there could be a programme of support very similar to what Gibson-Graham
calls for op-
fair trade associations both for their day-to-day as a first step of 'resubjectivation', but in
eration and for the debates which they aim this
tocase it would be 'empowering' in a wholly dif-
stim-
ulate. Other suggestions have been made ferent
of build-sense. Sassen has argued, indeed, that global

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 GEOGRAPHIES OF RESPONSIBILITY

to an extensive politics (see the critique of Dirlik, mentioned

cities are rich sites for the development of 'transna-
above). This is not the position being argued in this paper.
tional identities' (Sassen, 1991, p. 218). Such cities
3. Just to clarify this, Dirlik's use of 'place' here is a quite con-
'help people experience themselves as partfined of oneglo-but, as I have argued above, this can lead to its
bal non-state networks as they live their owndaily
difficulties. Moreover, places such as 'the City', the
lives'; and 'cities and the networks that bind verythem
hearths of an international capitalism and places culti-
function as an anchor and an enabler of cross-bor- vated to exude that status and to maintain a monopoly posi-
tion over it, are indeed also 'places' in that very narrow
der struggles' (p. 217). Sassen's concern in this sense (see here the work of Michael Pryke; Linda McDow-
work was to examine struggles within global cities, ell; Nigel Thrift).
but her arguments hold out potential also for a po- 4. There are also questions to be raised about London's rela-
tions to the rest of the UK. These are not discussed in this
litical recognition of the international interdepend-
paper, but see Amin, et al., 2003.
ence of those cities. Places, though, are not them- 5. Only a few indications will be given here.
selves in any simple sense 'agents', and this is one 6. It is also more than a question of diversity since London's
of the troubling threads that runs through some of economy is also a site of clashing trajectories between dif-
ferent elements of capital. The London Industrial Strategy
the literature referred to in the previous section. All
of the 1980s GLC presented a view of the London economy
of my arguments work against place as some kind which was radically different from that in the current Plan.
of hearth of an unproblematic collectivity. Indeed,
'counter-globalisers' within London, and the kinds
of strategies advocated here, precisely open antag- References
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