Morning Comrades.
Today’s dispatch is one that, in a slightly edited version, went out to the patreons of this newsletter. I wanted to share with you for two reasons. One, I am convinced that the contents of this dispatch will be beneficial to you all. It is without a doubt that I wouldn’t be where I am today without access to and help from Dr. Harvey. Secondly, with year 3 of this newsletter coming to an end I am going write one of those cringy, community academia went gig economy pitches for this work, a short one mind you.
You can support me and this work by becoming a patreon to this newsletter. It’s 10USD a month or 100USD a year. You can cancel it any time. I get around 8USD per patreon and substack gets the other 2 ( after taxes of course )- which I found fair enough considering the back end they provide for writers like myself. This money goes to paying my rent, groceries, you know, the usual life shit that I still don’t think we should be paying for in the first place, but I’ll leave that argument for the damn lawyers. You get an extra email like the one below a week, in addition to a free download of high res, printable artwork and never expiring discounts on any and all stuff I make through Black Lodges. That’s it. I know how rough life is right now so don’t feel bad or pressured to sign up to this. I for one just wanted to get that out of the way and get on with the important things.
Might be a fun present for yourself or someone you appreciate.
Transparency and all that.
A because you had to sit through that here is a free download of art for everyone as a little thank you. Click to download. It is set up as an A4 print. If anyone has problems with it, just drop me a line. The line “Le Monde est à Nous” is from the film La Haine and translates to The World is Ours. ( instead of “yours”, as seen in the film )
Critical Geography
There are two parts to this dispatch. A brief introduction about what Critical Geography is and why it is important / relevant and then we tap into Dr. Harvey and his work. This entire dispatch is most definitely influenced by a dear, dear comrade of mine who is infinitely more versed, academically and practically than I am on these subjects. You know who you are- so thank you.
So, what is Critical Geography and why is it important and relevant. To cut a very long, inbound, explanation short:
Critical geography is theoretically informed geographical scholarship that promotes social justice, liberation, and Marxist politics. Critical geography is also used as an umbrella term for Marxist, feminist, postmodern, poststructural, queer and activist geography. In short, a way to look at the world, and predominately our cities and towns, from a non-capitalist perspective. It criticizes everything we engage in and makes us realize that the world we live and operate in is indeed man-made and can be re-made to be not only sustainable, in every aspect but entirely inclusive of everything. Genuinely, if I had this subject existed back when I started this academic journey in 96 I would have happily gone down this rabbit hole. It’s wildly fascinating and engaging, especially because it takes so many of the theories we have and are learning and applies them to the tangible world in front of us.
Critical geography, then, is based upon the notion that humanity has the potential to transform the environment. It challenges the dominant ideologies that characterise international political structures, hence contesting traditional categories and units of analysis in IR such as anarchy, security and the concept of the state. Critical geography is based upon the principle that questions about spatial relations, which refer to how an object located within a particular space relates to another object, are important because political behaviour is embedded in socio-political structures based on ideas about space. Following from this, if scholarship and political behaviour are ingrained in socio-political structures, an objective analysis of international politics becomes impossible. IR theory cannot reflect the global situation from a neutral standpoint. Critical geographers suggest that alternative ways of thinking about space have the potential to change fundamental ideas, theories and approaches that dominate the study of international politics. In turn, they hope that this alternative scholarship will help to transform international politics and reduce human inequality.
Critical geography is rooted in neo-Marxism and draws upon the ideas of Jürgen Habermas and the Frankfurt school, who expanded upon ideas within classical Marxism by exploring how freedom from inequality could result from peaceful processes rather than revolutionary action. Arguably, and I will and have done so not just in my thesis, Habermas and the Frankfurt were wrong in this take and from this scholars began looking towards critical geography and Lefebvre’s critical theory of space to examine how assumptions about space perpetuated these existing insecurities and inequalities. Two important scholars associated with this are David Harvey and John Agnew, who highlight how traditional conceptions of space decontextualise processes of state formation and cement traditional polarised conceptions of space between East and West, North and South, developing and developed countries in International Relations thinking. Here is an interview with Dr. Harvey about some of this work that I found very informative.
For anyone who really wants to get into this subject, I highly recommend this text to get started, it helped me in any case:
And now to Dr. Harvey. It’s an odd bit of personal “wtf” story here because I, from an early age on, failed to connect Harvey to the above field, mostly, if not singularly because I was so embedded in Marxist Philosophy, or rather trying to understand it.
There is absolutely no way I can write all I want to say about Dr. David Harvey and / or Critical Geography in here, and even given the space, I probably couldn’t. To say that I am a massive fan of him and his work and that he has critically influenced and shaped my ideas about Marxism, Direct Action and more is an understatement. So chances are you probably have come across his work, or his name at the very least and apologies if you have, you can skip a few paragraphs. If not, get ready for a treat.
When I started with this field back in 2000/01, like most young and eager idiots wanted to dive in immediately and get cracking with Marx’ Capital and of course I did. I barely understood a thing and was luckily supervised by a number of incredibly patient and brilliant professors at Goldsmiths in London that guided me through the nebula of this philosophy and economic school. Personally, I am of the opinion that Marx’ “Capital” genuinely should and could be avoided by anyone just starting down this road. By all means, read the Manifesto ( that you can always read for free here ) and let that be your starting point but works such as “Capital” require, at the very least, reading groups - and I cannot stress these enough - and ideally, but necessarily, guidance. The density of this philosophy, especially starting with the secondary literature after Marx and Engels can be oppressive, confusing and seemingly irrelevant to not being able to pay rent, today. In comes Dr. Harvey though.
Around 2010 Harvey released, through Verso I believe, his reading companion to “Capital” and I am not exaggerating when I say it is the best bloody piece of work I have read and cherished in this regard. At that point I had read most of the volumes twice, figured I was pretty firm in my understanding of them and was blown away at how much I missed, mis-read, despite having read the volumes both in German and English. For anyone wanting to get into Marx’s unparalleled masterpiece, no matter your knowledge level, Harvey’s companion is an absolute must. You can buy it here but more interestingly, Harvey actually recorded 12 lectures at the People’s Forum that you can watch and listen to, again, comes utterly recommended.
As a matter of fact, over time Harvey has not only done this great service for “Capital”, but also, and each one of them is brilliant, on: Grundrisse, Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic Reason, The ABC of Contemporary Capital. For anyone even remotely interested in this work, this is where you need to go. Truly, I have learned more from these than I have in most Universities.
This brings me to my second point about Harvey and what I wanted to share with you, his Anti-Capitalist Chronicles. I kid you not, if you need anything to listen to or watch, both are available on most streaming services and YouTube, make it this. The sheer amount of work here is breath taking and a testament to his brilliance. Make no mistake, despite the seriousness of every topic approached, Harvey is highly entertaining, easy to follow and relate to.
Now, I have only just started with these Chronicles and I am utterly hooked to the point where I have to lay aside my utter disdain for podcasts, something I never imagined would happen but here we are. Before I started writing this special I just finished the latest one, in which he so utterly brilliantly gets into the question we so often talk about in here, what are we to do? Again,
In any case, this special here genuinely only scratches the surface not only in regards to his immense contribution to our case but also in regards to the amount of work he has and is still producing. Away from my own fandom, if you are looking for one of the smartest people in the room, who is entirely grounded in reality and focused on action based on knowledge and rage ( yes, make no mistake in that regard ) this is your place. Check out the Anti-Capitalist Chronicles, get into his reading companions and then dig into Critical Geography. You will not be disappointed.
Thank you as always for your time and support,
Yours,
Steven