Kirsten Simonsen

The Meaning of Work Some Arguments for the Importance of Culture within Formulations of Work in Europe

This paper is concerned with examining the meaning of different forms of work found within the EU. Despite the increasing acknowledgement of the importance of the diversity of work forms within Europe, both within the Commission and the European academic literature, it is argued that existing formulations are highly problematic. Existing research, both academic and policy-related, is shown to be characterized by a bewildering terminology, which is often used interchangeably, and which works to reinscribe existing lines of power within the EU. Moreover, this work is shown to be theoretically problematic. The centrality of distinct measurable categories to representations of the diversity of contemporary work within the EU is argued to be a way of thinking which constructs difference in terms of statistical differences, which encourages homogenizing and oppositional representations of North and South, and which also facilitates thinking as the same that which may be very different. Correspondingly, we argue for an alternative analysis of the diversity of work forms, one which is grounded in the different meanings these forms assume in different cultural contexts. Taking three categories of ‘atypical’ work (part-time, self-employed and undeclared) in three EU member states (Greece, Denmark and the UK), the paper proceeds by demonstrating how categories which are constructed as same/different statistically are rather more complicated when considered in terms of the meanings invested in them. The categories of work are argued to be contextually and culturally embedded; they are inscribed with and reconstituted through culturally specific sets of meanings in each of the three member states under consideration. We conclude the paper by reflecting on the possibilities opened up by this kind of analysis, its implications regarding debates over European labour markets, and its positioning with respect to debates over the relationship between the cultural and the economic.

Bodies, Sensations, Space and Time: The Contribution from Henri Lefebvre

Abstract: In geography as well as other human/social sciences, issues on the body and embodiment have increasingly come to the fore over recent decades. In the same period, and in particular following the English translation of The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre has been a central figure in the geographical discourse. However, even though a range of writers on Lefebvre do acknowledge his emphasis on embodiment, it seems that he has only partially found his way into the core of the body literature. The aim of this paper is to explore Lefebvres contribution to a geographical theory of the body, in particular when it comes to the conception of a generative and creative social body as an intrinsic part of social practice. I start by exploring the way in which Lefebvres conception of the body is developed in creative dialoque with other philosophers, such as Marx, Heideggger and Nietzsche, and continue by way of an explication of his own contribution. This is done under the headings of ‘spatial bodies’ and ‘temporal bodies’, in this way also emphasizing creative, moving bodies. Instead of a conclusion the paper argues that Lefebvres contribution could gainfully interact with later (not least feminist) approaches, and through such interactions add to current discussions on ‘body politics’ and ‘performativity’.

In quest of a new humanism Embodiment, experience and phenomenology as critical geography*

During the last 20 years anti-humanist and posthumanist thinking have gained a strong foothold in human geography. This development has indisputable benefits regarding our understanding of the power-knowledge complex, representation and ‘new materialisms’, respectively, but it has also had a troubled relationship to the comprehension of lived experience, notions of agency and politics. This paper aims to explore how a practice-oriented re-reading of phenomenology can contribute to a ‘new humanism’ after anti-/posthumanism. The paper starts from a research study on ‘The Stranger, the city and the nation’, which I have recently completed with my colleague Lasse Koefoed. The purpose is to embed the subsequent philosophical discussions in their consequences for the empirical analysis of social life. The re-reading of phenomenology revolves around three issues: thinking the body as a phenomenal, lived body; orientation and disorientation in the directions and possibilities of social life; and the phenomenological travel along the anti-/posthumanist lane. The paper concludes with a suggestion of a ‘new humanism’ that avoids the rationalist and self-righteous claims of the old ones but maintains elements of the experiential dimension of social life, the acknowledgement of the other and the significance of human agency.

Scaling from ‘below’: practices, strategies and urban spaces

Over the last 10 years, scholars in human geography have been paying increasing attention to the social construction of scale. Most of this literature takes its starting point in discourses of globalization and the way in which re-definition of scales operates through global political economics. This article is starting from an acknowledgement of the value of the scale debate for the analysis of urban everyday life and urban politics. Briefly, we reconsider the debate, in particular emphasizing the urban question as a scale question. However, we also identify some shortcomings in the debate so far. Even though many authors forward a conception of scales as relational, it is argued, they are often caught in a ‘hierarchical’ view of ‘scaling from above’. This is the background for an attempt to reverse the debate and consider the construction of urban spaces ‘from below’—from the practices and strategies of ‘ordinary’ people and organizations in the city. The interest in this article is how the diversity of everyday practices and politics interact with other scales in the construction of urban space.

Guest Editorial: Does Anglophone hegemony permeate Gender, Place and Culture?

This editorial is seen as a comment on the on-going concern expressed in several Anglophone geography journals about the hegemony of Angloamerican production and its role in formulating the terms of international academic debate. We examine the extent to which Angloamerican dominance is equally true with regard to feminist geography, by looking at how/whether Gender, Place and Culture (GPC) deals with this bias. Finally we forward some suggestions for positive action towards enhancing the international character of the journal. ¿La hegemonía Anglosajona impregna Gender, Place and Culture? Esta nota editorial trata de un tema que en la actualidad es motivo de preocupación en algunas revistas anglosajonas, la hegemonía de la producción anglosajona en geografía y su papel crucial en la formulación de los debates académicos internacionales. A través del anàlisis de la revista Gender Place and Culture, se discute cómo esta situación se da también en la geografía feminista. Finalmente, se proponen una serie de acciones positivas para potenciar el carácter internacional de la revista.

‘The stranger’, the city and the nation: on the possibilities of identification and belonging

The paper explores the relationship between ‘the stranger’ and the spatial formations of the city and the nation in a dual sense. On the one hand, it discusses the construction of the stranger as a figure, both generally and in relation to formation of the city and the nation in particular. On the other hand, it explores the experiences and practices of people designated as ‘strangers’, that is, the experiences and feelings arising in the multiplicity of everyday signifying encounters and the possibilities of identification afforded by the city and the nation respectively. This twofold aim is pursued through an integrated reading of literature on the stranger and material from an interpretative analysis performed in Copenhagen among citizens of Pakistani origin. The main point argued throughout the paper is that it is not possible to simply ‘be’ a stranger; you become a stranger through specific, embodied encounters. The stranger is a relational figure, constituted in a spatial ambivalence between proximity and distance, and in this way he/she can take different shapes and different roles depending on the context in which it is performed. This indeterminacy shows in the empirical analysis, where the stranger takes a very different role within the nation and the city and in some sense helps to differentiate between the qualities of these two spatial formations.

Whose Economy for Whose Culture? Moving Beyond Oppositional Talk in European Debate about Economy and Culture

This paper provides an overview of the economy-culture debate as currently rehearsed within European urban and regional change circles, explores some of the key theoretical inadequacies of this debate and outlines and illustrates one possible way of moving debate forward. The paper begins by identifying the different ways in which economy and culture, and economy-culture articulations, are thought about within this debate and by arguing that what purports to be a debate about articulation collapses in practice into the respective privileging of either culture or economy. Subsequently, after a critique of the “economy-culture as differential logics” argument, we forward what we consider to be the minimal conditions for conjoining economy and culture theoretically. These entail according economy and culture equivalent conceptual standing, centring meaning and seeing meaning and practice as conceptually inseparable. We then illustrate this approach at the level of particularities, using a range of examples that span commodities, “productive” practices and processes of consumption and exchange.

(Re)scaling identities: Embodied others and alternative spaces of identification

This article draws attention to life as an ‘internal stranger’ in the city, the nation and other spatial formations. It explores the habitability of the different spatial formations and the possibilities of identification for ethnic minority groups. Drawing on research on citizens in Copenhagen of Pakistani origin, the study employs theoretical ideas of estrangement, identification and recognition in order to obtain a thorough understanding of the complexity and the contradictory character of their spatial identities and affiliations. A turning point in the double processes of estrangement and identification is ambivalence in affiliation to the Danish nation expressing the discrepancy between feeling Danish and not being recognized as a full member of the Danish imagined community. This emotional ambivalence gives rise to what we call jumping scale in identification and a search for alternative spaces of identity.

‘Europe’, National Identities and Multiple Others

Provoked by recent developments in Denmark (and also other European countries), I consider the construction and reconstruction of territorial (national and transnational) identities in the ‘new’ Europe to be a question of exceptional ethical and political importance. Therefore, the paper concentrates upon this issue and discusses the construction and re-negotiation of (trans)national identities as a multi-scalar process of ‘othering’. Specific attention is drawn to current discourses of ‘neo-nationalism’.

Space, culture and economy—a question of practice

This article addresses the current debate within geography and other circles studying urban and regional development of the relationship between culture and economy. It revolves around two arguments. First, that the relationship should be seen not only as a question of epochal change, of de‐differentiation and culturalisation of the economy; it should be considered as an analytical rather than a historical question. Second, it is argued that a theoretical articulation may be gainfully employed starting from the level of social ontology‐particularly an ontology of practice. These arguments are developed starting from a critical discussion of two dominant bodies of thought about the relationship, following which, a demonstration of the inseparability of practice and meaning is used to conduct a theoretical re‐articulation of culture and economy. Finally, the spatiality of the culture economy relation is considered, displacing the emphasis from connectivity in bounded regions towards joint involvement in the production of space on different scales.