Category Archives: Dialectics

Marxism, Culture, and Political Ecology

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Moore, Donald. 1996. “Marxism, Culture, and Political Ecology: Environmental Struggles in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands.” In Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements. London: Routledge. Donald Moore sets out to critique what he sees as political ecology’s emphasis on macro-structural dynamics whereby … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Antonio Gramsci, Dialectics, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Land, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Marxism, Culture, and Political Ecology

The New Imperialism

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This is the last of David Harvey’s books that I’ll read (or re-read) for a while, and I’ve already reviewed some of his other books here, so I’ll pretty much … Continue reading →

Posted in David Harvey, Dialectics, Hegemony, Historical Materialism, Historical-Geographies, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy, Power, Primitive Accumulation, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off on The New Imperialism

Soja’s Postmodern Geographies

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Soja, Edward W. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso. [Ch 1-3] I learned a lot from this book. Reading about Marxism and geography feels a bit like peering into a family album. Ed … Continue reading →

Posted in David Harvey, Dialectics, Henri Lefebvre, Historical Materialism, Marxism, Michel Foucault, Spatiality | Comments Off on Soja’s Postmodern Geographies

Spectacle and the Production of Space

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

The Society of the Spectacle helps me pick up where I left off with my recent comments about the centrality of “fetishism” and “critique” in Henri Lefebvre’s work. Put simply, Guy Debord’s “spectacle” is Marx’s notion of fetishism writ large. … Continue reading →

Posted in City, Critique, Dialectics, Guy Debord, Henri Lefebvre, Karl Marx, Power, Spatiality, Spectacle | Comments Off on Spectacle and the Production of Space

The Production of Space

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

After having just finished Capital (Vol. I), Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space makes so much more sense than the first time a read it. (Though hugely insightful, it’s still a total slog to read.) The reasons behind my understanding … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialectics, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy, Power, Spatiality, The State | 5 Comments

Hegemony and the Philosophy of Praxis

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

After reading Antonio Santucci’s short political biography on Gramsci and after re-reading some of the Prison Notebooks (edited and translated by J. Buttigieg), I want to offer a reading of the relation and significance of “hegemony” within what Gramsci conceives … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Dialectics, Hegemony, Historical Materialism, Marxism, The State | 2 Comments

Jacobins of the Black Atlantic

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

In the preface to Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History, Susan Buck-Morss credits the positive reception of her original article to the “unconventional topologies of time and space that it mapped out” (ix). The analogy with topology—a field in mathematics—is particularly … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialectics, Historical Materialism, Historical-Geographies, Post-Colonial, Spatiality, Violence | 2 Comments

Hegel’s Dialectic and Haiti

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Hegel’s dialectic allows us to think and ask questions about the world in ways that encompasses a key set of fluid relations. As I understand it, these are the relations between the ideal and the material, which is implicitly also … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialectics, GWF Hegel, Historical-Geographies, Violence | 1 Comment