Dispossession describes the condition of those who
have lost land, citizenship, property, and a broader
belonging to the world. This thought–provoking book
seeks to elaborate our understanding of dispossession
outside of the conventional logic of possession, a
hallmark of capitalism, liberalism, and humanism. Can
dispossession simultaneously characterize political
responses and opposition to the disenfranchisement
associated with unjust dispossession of land, economic
and political power, and basic conditions for living? In
the context of neoliberal expropriation of labor and
livelihood, dispossession opens up a performative
condition of being both affected by injustice and
prompted to act. From the uprisings in the Middle East
and North Africa to the anti–neoliberal gatherings at
Puerta del Sol, Syntagma and Zucchotti Park, an
alternative political and affective economy of bodies in
public is being formed. Bodies on the street are
precarious – exposed to police force, they are also
standing for, and opposing, their dispossession. These
bodies insist upon their collective standing, organize
themselves without and against hierarchy, and refuse to
become disposable: they demand regard. This book
interrogates the agonistic and open–ended corporeality
and conviviality of the crowd as it assembles in cities
to protest political and economic dispossession through
a performative dispossession of the sovereign subject
and its propriety.
|
|