On the Politics of Evolutionary Thought

This commentary on Elvin Wyly's paper, ‘The Evolution of Geographic Thought’, aims at stimulating a reflection on the possibilities offered by the politics of evolutionary thought as envisaged in the paper and its use by critical scholars. Through the analysis of the paper's ambivalences towards the politics of evolution and its history, the commentary discusses the limits and the potential of Wyly's effort to destabilise the linearity and unity of evolution

(Un)Ethical Boundaries: Critical Reflections on What We Are (Not) Supposed to Do

Building on critical readings of the rationalities behind ethical committees and their guidelines, this article analyzes how their positivist, biomedical conception of the research process can have a negative impact on research participants who might perceive their voices erased by these institutional practices. Using examples from my recent research with gay men living with HIV in England and Italy, I show how research participants have contested the General Data Protection Regulation guidelines I was following in relation to the use of pseudonyms and the depersonalization of data and the sharing of interview transcripts. Questioning the fixity of the position of the researcher and the research participants assumed in ethical guidelines, the article explores the impact of the encounter with research participants on the researcher’s life course well beyond data collection and analysis, emphasizing the need for a different care ethics

‘I guess I really survived many crises’: On the benefits of longitudinal ethnographic research

Building on my ongoing ethnographic research with people living with HIV in different European countries, the paper focuses on RD, a Catalan man I have interviewed three times since 2014. In RD's life narrative, ‘crisis’ is a recurring theme including both the most blatant forms, like the severe housing crisis in Spain that followed the global financial crisis, and the most ordinary ones like domestic violence. Analysing the impact of crises in RD's perception and experience of the present, interwoven with the past(s) and the future(s), the paper discusses two main benefits of longitudinal ethnographic research. First, it allows to capture how crisis is not just a moment or a phase in RD's life, but acts as context generating a recurring experience of an ‘uncanny present’ shaped by logics of return and repetition of the past, and anticipation of the future. Second, it supports RD's self-awareness around his ability to navigate the unknown when experiencing the ‘uncanny present’; this highlights the ethical care dimension entailed by such methodology

Struggles over property in the ‘post-political’ era: Notes on the political from Rome and Dublin

© The Author(s) 2019. Geographical analyses on protests against austerity politics using the framework of post-politics have proliferated in recent years, mostly building on the work of Jacques Rancière and his conceptualisation of the political and the police order. The paper continues this tradition but seeks to move beyond those analyses reducing the political gesture to a ‘rare’ and ‘heroic’ act. It does so by bridging the work of Rancière with the work of Jean-Luc Nancy, developing two main arguments. The first one concerns the local and situated dimension of the political moment; the second concerns the dialectical relation between the police order and its disruption, while at the same time viewing insurgent acts as part of a chain of perpetual acts that destabilise the police order, which moreover are the inevitable outcome of its excess. These theoretical arguments are developed in relation to the analysis of the trajectory of disruptive politics around vacant property in Dublin and Rome. In both cities, several contentious political initiatives around property emerged as a response to the crisis and austerity politics, but they were unable to translate into bigger movements. To account for this, the paper identifies two main factors: the limited violence of the crisis in terms of evictions and foreclosures, and the instrumental use of ‘legality’ and ‘rules’ by the police order. Nevertheless, we argue, activist engagements with vacant property can be considered as examples of ‘world forming’ that create the possibilities for further disruptive politics

Geographies of PrEP, TasP and undetectability: Reconceptualising HIV assemblages to explore what else matters in the lives of gay and bisexual men

© The Author(s) 2021. Recent biomedical innovations in the field of HIV prevention and treatment – namely PrEP, TasP, and ‘undetectability’ – have completely reshaped the experience of living with HIV, as well as the meanings of ‘risk’ and ‘safety’ in relation to sexual practices, leading to new forms of pleasure and sociality for gay and bisexual men in the Minority World. While human geographers have been slow to engage with the changing social dimensions brought by these innovations, scholars across the whole spectrum of the social sciences have been far more creative and responsive contributing to a critical understanding of what these processes entail in terms of subject formation as well as social and communal relations. This article proposes a distinctly geographical contribution to analysing and interpreting these biomedical technologies, exploring the ways that new spatialities and spatial relations emerge from their use and circulation. Our approach is based on provisional assemblage thinking as it offers the possibility to think the complex connections between biomedical innovations in the field of HIV, sexual practices, subjectivity, pleasure, spaces, and technologies, going beyond the subdisciplinary preoccupations and methodological reflexes of geographers focused primarily on either health or sexuality

'Southern' Alternatives of Urban Diffusion: Investigating Settlement Characteristics and Socio-Economic Patterns in Three Mediterranean Regions

© 2015 Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG. The present study investigates the relation between urban form and the socio-economic patterns of the resident population in three southern European cities (Athens, Lisbon and Rome) featured by different processes of urban diffusion. The paper goes beyond the literature on sprawl focused on (residential, income and ethnic) segregation and the different features of the inhabitants of the suburbs and those of the inner cities residents. By integrating multivariate statistics and spatial analysis, a methodology is proposed, based on morphological and socio-economic indicators available at a fine geographical scale. Results show how urban diffusion processes vary widely according to the context, as does the socio-economic profile of the actors, stressing the need to think about different 'southern European alternatives' of sprawl

The Prehistories of Neoliberal Housing Policies in Italy and Spain and Their Reification in Times of Crisis

© 2017 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In this article we analyze the historical roots of neoliberal housing policies, mottos, and principles in Italy and Spain, two countries with a Mediterranean welfare regime, showing how they are embedded in the twentieth-century fascist–dictatorial regimes of Mussolini and Franco. To stimulate economic growth in a situation of autarchy, both regimes saw the construction sector and the promotion of homeownership as keys to fuel the accumulation process while believing this guaranteed social order. After acknowledging these long-standing roots, we show how the current phase of neoliberalism, characterized by severe austerity policies, relies on similar principles, the main reforms approved in both countries proceeding mainly toward cuts to service provisions and resources, whereas the promotion of homeownership remains unchallenged

Living labs and vacancy in the neoliberal city

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd This paper evaluates smart city (SC) initiatives in the context of re-using vacant property, focusing on the role of living labs (LL). LL utilise Lo-Fi technologies to foster local digital innovation and support community-focused civic hacking, running various kinds of workshops and engaging with local citizens to co-create digital interventions and apps aimed at 'solving’ local issues. Five approaches to LL are outlined and discussed in relation to vacancy and gentrification: pop-up initiatives, university-led activities, community organised venues/activities, citizen sensing and crowdsourcing, and tech-led regeneration initiatives. Notwithstanding the potential for generating temporary and independent spaces for transferring digital competences and increasing citizens' participation in the SC, we argue LL foster largely a form of participation framed within a model of civic stewardship for 'smart citizens’. While presented as horizontal, open, and participative, LL and civic hacking are rooted often in pragmatic and paternalistic discourses and practices related to the production of a creative economy and a technocratic version of SC. As such, by encouraging a particular kind of re-use of vacant space, LLs are used actively to bolster the Smart City discourse, as part of the more general neoliberalization of urban political economy. We discuss these approaches and issues generally, drawing on previous fieldwork and with respect to a case study of Dublin, Ireland

The uterine junctional zone: A 3-dimensional ultrasound study of patients with endometriosis

The uterine junctional zone (JZ) alterations are correlated with adenomyosis. An accurate evaluation of the JZ may be obtained by 3-dimensional transvaginal sonography (TVS). The aim of the present prospective study was to assess the value of detectable alterations by 3-dimensional TVS of the JZ in patients with pelvic endometriosis (diagnosed by laparoscopy and histologic condition) and to compare these findings with those of women without pelvic endometriosis

Temporary techno-social gatherings? A (hacked) discussion about open practices

This paper is rooted in an experimental inquiry of issue-oriented temporary techno-social gatherings or TTGs, which are typically referred to as hackathons, workshops or pop-ups and employ rapid design and development practices to tackle technical challenges while engaging with social issues. Based on a collaboration between three digital practitioners (a producer, a researcher and a designer), qualitative and creative data was gathered across five different kinds of TTG events in London and in Tartu which were held in partnership with large institutions, including Art:Work at Tate Exchange within Tate Modern, the Mozilla Festival at Ravensbourne College and the 2017 Association of Internet Researchers conference hosted in Tartu. By analysing data using an open and discursive approach manifested in both text and visual formats, we reflect on the dynamic and generative characteristics of TTG gatherings while also arriving at our own conclusions as situated researchers and practitioners who are ourselves engaged in increasingly messy webs where new worlds of theory and practice are built