Category Archives: Everyday Life

Bureaucracy is Beautiful? Or Death by Papelismo

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

Kyle Grayson’s Chasing Dragons pointed me to this extraordinary gallery of photographs called “Bureaucratics” by photographer Jan Banning. I recognized one of them (left): it graces the cover of Akhil Gupta’s new book Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence, and Poverty in … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Critique, Everyday Life, Law, Power, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Medellín: Who’s Afraid of Hip-Hop?

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

My article on hip-hop and violence in Medellín is now out: Héctor Pacheco walked down the steep hillsides of his barrio in Medellín, Colombia to wish his aunt a happy birthday. Pacheco—a local rapper nicknamed “Kolacho”—had spoken at a public … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Boundaries, City, Drugs, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Security, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Visualizing Space and Injustice in Palestine

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

In an old post about the potential political capacities of the infographic, I wrote: “If Guy Debord was right in highlighting that social relations between people are increasingly mediated by images and representations, then can the infographic be a popular … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Boundaries, City, Critique, Everyday Life, Guy Debord, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Maps, Media, Primitive Accumulation, Scale, Security, Spatiality, Spectacle, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

The New Aesthetic Part III: The Network

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

This final installment on the New Aesthetic (Part I: Seeing Like a Machine; Part II: Writing Like a Drone) considers the awkward physicality of the Internet as a thing. If the New Aesthetic is that “structure of feeling” produced by … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, City, Everyday Life, Law, Media, Networks, Science & Tech., Spatiality | Comments Off

Medicating Austerity and Biopower

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I read the article “Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School” this morning in the NY Times and it freaked me out. Then, the article was sent around on my department’s listserve and I just can’t get over it. … Continue reading →

Posted in Drugs, Everyday Life, Political Economy, The Body | Comments Off

The New Aesthetic Part I: Seeing Like A Machine

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

You know how sometimes you learn about something you had never heard of before and then you start seeing it everywhere? The New Aesthetic has been one of those things for me since Derek Gregory turned me on to it (sue … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Assemblages, Boundaries, City, Everyday Life, Media, Networks, Science & Tech., Spectacle | 2 Comments

Roberto Bolaño & Geopolitics

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

David Kurnick published an interesting piece about Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño on Public Books, which I just discovered and is a partner site of the journal Public Culture. Like many others, I’ve noted the “discovery” of Bolaño by the Anglo literary … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Everyday Life, Historical-Geographies, Jester, Place | 4 Comments

Everyday State Formation

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I have a new article that was just published in the most recent issue of Environment and Planning D: Society and Space titled, “Everyday State Formation: Territory, Decentralization, and the Narco Land-Grab.” The lag between writing and printing, of course, … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Development, Drugs, Elites, Everyday Life, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Karl Marx, Land, Law, Marxism, Primitive Accumulation, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Blog on Vacation!

Posted on June 12, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Vacation is upon me, kind readers, so Territorial Masquerades will be entirely on haitus until sometime in July. Until then, enjoy the summer or winter or vaguely seasonless climate in your patch of earth. I’m off to the old continent, where … Continue reading →

Posted in Everyday Life | Comments Off

Black and Green

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Asher, Kiran. 2009. Black and Green: Afro-Colombians, Development, and Nature in the Pacific Lowlands. Durham: Duke University Press. Kiran Asher’s Black and Green: Afro-Colombians, Development, and Nature in the Pacific Lowlands argues that “development” and “resistance” are mutually shaped in southwest … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, Everyday Life, Forests, Land, Post-Colonial, Race & Ethnicity, The State, Violence | Comments Off