Geography and ethics: placing life in the space of reasons

Discussions of ethics in recent human geography have been strongly inflected by readings of so-called ‘Continental Philosophy’. The ascendancy of this style of theorising is marked by a tendency to stake ethical claims on ontological assertions, which effectively close down serious consideration of the problem of normativity in social science. Recent work on practical reason emerging from so-called ‘Analytical’ philosophy presents a series of challenges to how geographers approach the relationships between space, ethics, and power. This work revolves around attempts to displace long-standing dualisms between naturalism and normativity, by blurring boundaries between forms of action and knowledge which belong to a ‘space of causality’ and those that are placed in a ‘space of reasons’. The relevance of this blurring to geography is illustrated by reference to recent debates about the relationships between rationality and habit in unreflective action lies. Ongoing developments in this tradition of philosophy provide resources for strengthening a nascent strand of work on the geographies of practical reason that is evident in work on ethnomethodology, behaviour change, and geographies of action

Feministas en el Foro Feminists at the World Social Forum: challenges for a new political culture

El articulo trata sobre la forma de incursión de expresiones significativas de la pluralidad feminista en el Foro Social Mundial expresa. Estas incursiones expresan los cambios en las subjetividades y en las estrategias de lucha que comienzan a desarrollar los movimientos feministas en particular y los movimientos sociales en general, en el marco de un mundo globalizado y en el nuevo milenio. Es un proceso inédito, que esta impulsando el desarrollo de nuevos paradigmas para la acción colectiva, que combina lo local y lo global, la interconexión de múltiples agendas y la recuperación de una dimensión mas profunda de la justicia económica, social, cultural y simbólica, ampliando, en este proceso, el concepto de la política, lo político y el poder. El articulo coloca en debate las formas de hacer política de los movimientos sociales que confluyen en el Foro - que arrastran viejas dinámicas y al mismo tiempo recrean los nuevos paradigmas - y que abren la posibilidad de reinventar un mapa emancipatorio y un imaginario social, capaz de competir con el consenso neoliberal y el pensamiento único, recuperando la diversidad y la pluralidad de sujet@s y actor@s sociales.<br>The article deals with the ways of incursion of the feminist plurality's significant expressions in the World Social Forum. These incursions express the changes in the subjectivities and in strategies of struggle that feminist movements in particular and social movements in general begin to develop, in the frame of a globalised world and in the new millennium. It's an unprecedented process, that is promoting the development of new paradigms for collective action, that combines local and global issues, the interconnection of multiple agendas and the recovery of a more profound dimension of economic, social, cultural and symbolic justice, broadening, in this process, the concept of politics, the political and the power. The article sets discussion around the ways in which social movements converging in the Forum - that drag old dynamics and at the same time recreate new paradigms - work in politics and open the possibility of re-inventing an emancipation map and a social conception, capable of competing with neo-liberal consensus and with the single thought, recuperating diversity and plurality of social individuals and actors