Category Archives: City

Occupy Volume, Occupy Verticality

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

#Occupy. Where does it go from here? How ‘bout up? I’m not 100% serious, but it’s been fascinating to see how #Occupy has expanded occupation to mean more than parking our collective butts on a flat—or at least, horizontal—and usually … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, City, Everyday Life, Henri Lefebvre, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Power, Spatiality, The State, Violence | 6 Comments

Occupy on Fiber Optics

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

It’s been difficult to keep up with events in recent days. Enter haggard movie voice: “It’s all happened so faaast!” Of course, it’s still happening. It’s also been hard to keep up with all the great analysis, writing, and ideas … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, City, Everyday Life, Spatiality | 4 Comments

The Mask of ‘Anarchy’

Posted on November 7, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

An article by Jonathan Jones in the Guardian has been making the rounds and offers some interesting commentary on the proliferation of the V for Vendetta mask at recent #Occupy protests. Coming on the heels of the Oakland General Strike, … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, Bandits, City, Everyday Life, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Networks, Pirates, Power, Spectacle, The State, Violence | 5 Comments

Occupy Oakland Photo Slideshow

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

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Posted in #Occupy, City, Everyday Life, Power | Comments Off

¡General Strike! Oakland Walks

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Today. A General Strike. Oakland will become liberated territory. I will be in Oakland with many many people. I read a great post this morning on what a “General Strike” actually means. The post draws on Walter Benjamin and Rosa … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, City, Dialectics, Elites, Everyday Life, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Pirates, Power, Violence | Comments Off

The Country and the City

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Williams, Raymond. 1973. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. At the end of The Country and the City, Raymond Williams offers the reader an appendix on the origins of the keyword “country.” The word, he writes, “is … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, City, Critique, Land, Marxism, Place | Comments Off

Street Art and Protest

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Like many others around the world, I was appalled by Troy Davis’ execution—along with capital punishment in general. But I was again reminded about the power of street art and its striking potential to politically express the ineffable when I … Continue reading →

Posted in City, Critique, Everyday Life | 4 Comments

The Sicilian Mafia

Posted on August 21, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Gambetta, Diego. 1996. The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of Private Protection. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Diego Gambetta’s hugely important book conceptualizes the Sicilian mafia as not an organization but as an industry that’s in the business of producing, promoting, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, City, Drugs, Elites, Illegality, Law, Political Economy, Scale, The State, Violence | Comments Off

London’s Burning and that Little Four-Letter Word: Riot

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

This past week was record-setting in terms of site visits to Territorial Masquerades. The extraordinary numbers had everything to do with the street protests in London. Events apparently sent people in droves to the Internet searching for anything related to E.P. … Continue reading →

Posted in City, Spatiality, Violence | 1 Comment

Guevara: Guerrilla Warfare

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Che Guevara’s manual for guerrilla warfare was published a year after his bearded rebels marched triumphantly into Havana. Rebels across the world have thumbed its pages for tactics and strategies aimed at defeating their much more powerful foes. Unfortunately, it … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, City, Forests, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Political Ecology, Territory, Violence | Comments Off