Paper short abstract:

This paper will illustrate how pet dogs in South Africa are part of upholding gendered racial relations, through spatial, affective and bio-political bondings and separations. In view of this, it considers the possibilities and limits of refiguring these relations.

Paper long abstract:

Understanding the ways in which the nonhuman is folded into oppressive systems is necessary in pursuing justice for both humans and nonhuman animals. I illustrate how suburban dogs become part of a racialized species kinship, in which they are humanized and cast as white people’s companions, while protecting private property and white bodies. In the logic of this kinship, dogs are figured in ongoing discursive iterations of the human Self and the animalized-racialized Other, where the value of life is defined by proximity to whiteness. Dogs also function in material systems of oppression, as part of the organization of white spaces as inhospitable to black bodies, including the hypervisibilising of white female bodies as objects of protection and racialization of black men as threatening. These processes of bonding and separation, are not only bio-political, but also affective. This mandates an attentiveness to the chains of affect in the network of interactions between humans, and humans and animals, while also acknowledging the reality of gendered and racial vulnerability. Exploring the intersections and dissonances between critical animal studies and critical reflections on race, the paper will ultimately consider if it is possible to imagine different forms of relation and thus different spatial and discursive landscapes. In this, the researcher's positionality poses limitations and ethical questions in proposing the symbolic and material possibility of dog-human relations in undermining oppressive systems of power. Considering these questions is necessary when reimagining a future for our multi-species world.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on the concept of postcolonialism, the aim of this text is to offer an examination of whether (and eventually how) the concept of politics of scale has been “decolonized” across the discipline of Critical Geography.

Paper long abstract:

This paper advances political geography by critically examining power dynamics and knowledge production of politic of scale through a postcolonial theoretical analysis, particularly in relation to decolonization. By introducing a Subaltern politics of scale, it establishes a novel framework that challenges the prevailing Western-centric perspective and expands the scope of analysis to incorporate the experiences and scales from the Global South.

The essence of politics of scale relies on the presence of physical and abstract boundaries, as without them, the concept itself would cease to exist. Given the paramount importance of borders in postcolonial theories, this analysis aims to investigate the historical construction and conceptualization of the 'imaginary' boundaries associated with scale, that is, how we perceive and contemplate its borders. By examining the relationships between different scales and everyday experiences, the study unveils the hidden power structures that perpetuate Western dominance in knowledge production. It argues for the necessity of recognizing and naming Subaltern scales, as this act not only challenges Western supremacy but also fosters true pluriversality within the scholarship.

The findings of this research advance political geography by promoting a more inclusive and equitable understanding of the politics of scale. By amplifying the voices and experiences of marginalized communities, the paper contributes to the broader decolonization discourse within geography and emphasizes the importance of decolonizing not only the concept of scale but also the underlying epistemological and ontological foundations of the scholarship.

Paper short abstract:

In this panel, I would like to discuss how decolonial methods can be very useful to understand indigenous affective everyday experiences with the social infrastructures in the post-displacement life. I question urban redevelopment practices through indigenous knowledge and perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

This study draws attention to the role of urban redevelopment practices in shaping social infrastructures and community life in the post-displacement and resettlement agenda. I question: in what ways the relationships with social infrastructures are transformed due to urban redevelopment practices after the Ilisu dam-induced displacement and resettlement in Hasankeyf? I explore lived and embodied experiences and practices through everyday interactions, socio-cultural and spatial relations between indigenous locals and social infrastructures. The study focuses on the reconstruction of Hasankeyf through the state-assisted resettlement in the wake of Ilisu dam hydropower development. In doing so, study focuses on affective ramifications in the life with/after the changes in social infrastructures through urban redevelopment practices. I conducted a qualitative empirical study by incorporating the decolonial method of body-mapping (cuerpo-territorio) in Hasankeyf (before the submergence in 2020 and after in the resettlement in 2021). Findings suggest that the resettlement town of Hasankeyf tend to wipe away the rural texture of everyday relationships with existing social infrastructures, therefore, people who have stronger sense of place with social infrastructures of natural elements (water, garden, soil, animals), ethnic ovens, and historical artefacts (those non-human neighbours) are more likely to embody struggles and discomfort with the social infrastructures in resettlement.

Paper short abstract:

This work presents a form of mapping cities called Sustainable Cartography in the Global South. The purpose is to construct a mapping method of drawing and interpreting cities via an ecological lens, which delineates a storyline of spatial justice with examples in Mexico, Brazil, India and China.

Paper long abstract:

This paper provides the theoretical framework of a mapping method of cities called Sustainable Cartography in the Global South. Over the last fifty years cities and villages of this region of the world have experienced, in different intensities, an enduring ecological deficit.

For half a century, evidence suggests that industrial dynamics in Latin America, Africa, and South-East Asia are responsible for the extraction and consumption of more ecosystem services than their lands and bodies of water can offer. This environmental debt challenges the capacity of architects, urban designers, and civil society to craft maps that register -interactively and simultaneously, local and global forces that influence the development of cities in the Global South.

The aim is to construct a hybrid form of drawing and reading cities via an ecological lens. One that visualizes them as biospheres that consume electricity, water, food, oil, and telecommunications through buildings and infrastructure networks. What patterns do they form? What is the impact of those spaces on the ecological imagination of cities?

This cartographic system first seeks to identify Ecological Utopias and Dystopias that are imagined upon them. Finally, this mapping method focuses on two possible places of action called Eco-centric and Techno-centric landscapes, where we can delineate a storyline of spatial justice with the analysis of the size and scale of infrastructures. The idea is that, in the pursuit of sustainable cities in the Global South, layering cartographic data will allow the discovery of new relationships between previously dispersed infrastructures.

Paper short abstract:

The aim is to problematize the view of the Alerce (Fitzroya Cupressoides) forests within the framework of the Anthropocene. Where is the Anthropocene in the Alerzales mountain ranges? What are the affective ecologies that these millenary forests express and link with humans in these wounded times?

Paper long abstract:

The alerce (larch) forests, located in southern Chile and part of Argentina, are characterized by their longevity and ecological properties; in addition to possessing a highly valued wood in the construction of houses and churches in the regions surrounding the forests in Chile. Due to its exploitation by the timber industry for more than a century, since 1976 the tree species Fitzroya Cupressoides has been protected and its logging prohibited.

This article seeks to problematize the human-forest relationship from the decolonial gaze and the practices and experiences of those who inhabit the alerzales. From posthuman geographies and vegetal thought, we ask about the idea and presence of the Anthropocene in the mountain ranges inhabited by the alerce trees. The forests protected as reserves and conservation areas allow, from an ethnographic point of view, to be explored and territorially re-recognized. The affective ecologies that emerge from there tell us about other relationships, new histories and other territories. We seek to verify these other ways of inhabiting and establishing links and alliances between humans and the larch forest. Where is the Anthropocene in the larch forests? What are the affective ecologies that these millenary forests express and link with humans in these wounded times? What lament do the Fitzroya trees express in the highlands of the southern mountain ranges? What territories emerge by walking the forest and allowing themselves to be transformed by them?

Key words: Anthropocene, Alerces, Forests, Territory, Affects.