Other News

The Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation is pleased to announce a new editorial board line-up for the Routledge Studies in Globalisation series.

For nearly two decades the Routledge Studies in Globalisation series has published leading research on the theory and practice of globalisation and regionalisation. Building on this strong record, the series will continue to have an interdisciplinary focus and to publish research that advances knowledge about the changing dynamics of globalisation and regionalisation, global governance and global order, and global civil society.

Further information about titles published in the series is available at: www.warwick.ac.uk/csgr/series and www.routledge.com/series/RWSG

SERIES EDITORS:

André Broome, University of Warwick
Leonard Seabrooke, Copenhagen Business School

ASSOCIATE EDITORS:

Shaun Breslin, University of Warwick
Sophie Harman, Queen Mary University
Richard Higgott, University of Warwick
Manuela Moschella, Scuola Normale Superiore
Helen Nesadurai, Monash University
Andreas Nölke, Goethe University Frankfurt

Prospective authors are encouraged to contact the Series Editors directly to discuss manuscript ideas or to submit a book proposal:

André Broome (a.j.broome@warwick.ac.uk)
Leonard Seabrooke (ls.dbp@cbs.dk)

(DIS)ASSEMBLING STATE SPACES

Borders are breaking, ecology is unruly, bodies are suspect, walls are rising, information is clouded, and thoughts are crowded. The relation between states and space appears to be in constant contestation on a variety of fronts. We are witnessing the financialized dislocation of economies and ecologies, the subordination of the state to processes of deregulation and international governance, the militarization of 'failed states', the privatization of all forms of commons, the irruption of mass migrations and the explosion of grassroots dissent. In the context of these new geometries of power, the more the state extends its calculating mechanisms of control, the less firm seems its grasp.

Such questions, rather than appease the problem of imagining 'the state', throw us into the ontological turmoil that this very idea is experiencing. Where is the state? What ground can it claim and what claims can it hold? What is the state? What ideas and materialities is it assembled of and how are these tied to specific historical lineages and geographical projects? Who is the state? Who does it speak to and what agencies can it rely upon? How can we conceptualise the state today?

Rather than taking an abstract conception of the state for granted, we aim to explore its actual, materialised, contested and messy embodiments and imaginations. This implies not only interrogating its place, but also how space has worked as one of its key assembling concepts (i.e. Lefebvre, Deleuze, Massey). How does the state come together or fall apart? What mundane realities does it find itself entangled in? How does it (not) appear as a disparate occurrence over a variety of spatialities and temporalities? How is it assembled and disassembled? How does it coalesce and dissolve?

We invite proposals for abstracts which come from a variety of theoretical positions and empirical focuses that show the contested and unruly aspects of processes of state space (dis)assemblage, and how these can be considered political. Submissions are encouraged to make contributions along these broad themes:

• Corporeality and materiality of state space.
• Temporalities of state action and the rhythms of bureaucracy.
• Spaces of presence and absence of the state.
• City and/or rural space and state space. - The production of state spaces and the everyday.
• Biopolitics, race, migration and state space.
• State spaces, the nation and citizenship.
• Security and state space assemblages.
• Land grabbing , extractivism, open regionalisms and state space.
• State spaces and spaces of exception.
• Post/decolonial approaches to state space.
• Radical approaches to state space.

Abstracts and of maximum 450 words and short biographies of maximum 200 words should be sent to politicalgeographywarwickgmail.com no later than 8th of March 2016, accepted papers will be notified by 30th of March 2016.

PAIS is delighted to announce the availability of funding for travel grants, non-UK attendees will be given preference.

PAIS PhD researcher Matthias Kranke has published a commentary for The Conversation on the question of leadership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde has recently announced to stand for re-election notwithstanding legal charges of negligence in a previous assignment as French finance minister. In the commentary, Matt argues that leadership questions get too much attention, often effectively crowding out more important issues. Public debate should centre on how the IMF is governed and what policies it promotes, rather than on who leads the organisation.

The piece can be found at: https://theconversation.com/beyond-lagarde-theres-more-to-the-imf-than-who-the-leader-is-53651

Matt's doctoral research examines the politics of collaboration between the IMF and the World Bank. Further information on his research and publications is available at: www.warwick.ac.uk/pais/people/eportfolios/mkranke/

Thursday 28 January, 2016

The Department has received some exceptionally sad news this morning. Filip Brkovic, one of our very recently completed GEM School PhD students, died last night in Brussels. He had been in hospital there for the last week with viral myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle brought about by an as yet unidentified viral condition. Unfortunately last night he succumbed to heart failure.

The Department will do all that it can to support all of Filip’s friends during this desperately sad time. Our thoughts are particularly with his wife, Katarina, who is of course also one of our GEM School PhD students, and their young son Mihailo. Filip’s GEM School colleagues are already discussing the possibility of putting together a book of memories for Katarina and Mihailo, and further information about this will be passed around the Department in due course. We also intend to name an annual PhD Prize in honour of his memory.

In an article for Your Middle East, PAIS PhD researcher Ragnar Weilandt argues that Tunisia's shattered economy puts its political transition at risk and that the recent social unrests across the country are a warning shot that should be taken seriously.