International Political Economy and Ecology Summer School 2015, York University, Toronto
Mean Streets: Class Struggle, Capital Circulation and Public Space
Dr. Don Mitchell, Distinguished Professor, Syracuse University
Monday July 6 to Friday July 17, 2015
This course will focus on the production of urban space – especially public space – as a function of both class struggle and the circulation of capital. It is vital to understand how capital circulates through and shapes the urban landscape – through property and built forms – as well as how it doesn’t: struggles often interrupt the circulation of capital and themselves significantly shape urban space. Such circulation and struggle is not abstracted from the “natural” world of which it is a part. Rather, capitalism must be understood as ecosystem. Therefore, in this class we will examine the position of public space in urban political economies and political ecologies, since public space is a basis for urban life as well as for accumulation. We will also analyze how and why “the streets” of the city are becoming increasingly mean in capitalism: mean in both the pecuniary and the punitive sense. Such meanness is, we’ll see, precisely the state of the contemporary class struggle in urban capitalism.
The application deadline is Thursday, April 30, 2015
The IPEE Summer School invites applications from graduate students, local activists, and other interested individuals. Application procedures for the Summer School vary, depending on whether or not you intend to take the course for academic credit. For further information, please contact Jlenya Sarra-De Meo at jsarra@yorku.ca or visit the website: http://political-science.gradstudies.yorku.ca/ipee-summer-school/
Dr. Don Mitchell is Distinguished Professor of Geography at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University in New York. He is a prominent Marxist geographer, and has published numerous articles and books on public space, homelessness and rights (to the city), migrant labor and radical geographical politics. In 2011, Dr. Mitchell was awarded the James Blaut Award in recognition of his theories of socio-spatial injustices of capitalism as well as his activism.
Presented by the Department of Political Science, the Department of Geography, and the Faculty of Environmental Studies
