Will There Be a Place for my Life?: Cities, Subjectivities and Geographies of Resistance

Abstract

The present paper pursues an encounter between pressing questions in both human geography and psycho-social and cultural theory, namely, between processes of subject-formation and the production of subjectivity and the way these are always already emplaced, enfolded within a culturally signified geography that in turn they come to sustain or contest through different means. The argument, or rather, the invitation, is that insofar as subjectivities take place, it might be promising to regard cities and urban spaces as spaces of subjectivation. Thus, firstly, the question of how it is we come to engender a subjectivity is posed and addressed following performativity theory. Secondly,  some of the implications of the proposed notion of ‘spaces of subjectivation' are stressed and a theoretical case of abject urban spaces is analysed.  Finally, the question of resistance and the possibility of contesting those geographies of subjectivation through geographies of resistance is posed and a possible approach is offered.