The limits to Marx: David Harvey and the condition of postfraternity. Issue 3 (November 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Springer, Simon
• Is Part Of: Dialogues in human geography. Volume 7:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 280
• Page End: 294
• Publication Date: 2017-11
• Subjects: anarchism -- anarchist geographies -- David Harvey -- hierarchy -- Marxism -- radical geography -- statism; Human geography -- Periodicals; Human ecology -- Periodicals; Environmental ethics -- Periodicals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1177/2043820617732918
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2043-8206

Abstract

Responding to David Harvey's critique of my article, 'Why a Radical Geography Must Be Anarchist', I reiterate the importance of anarchist perspectives in contemporary politics and geographical praxis. In challenging Harvey on the limits to Marx, I urge him to think again about the hidden vanguardism, implied statism, and veiled hierarchy that continue to lurk within the Marxist project, and importantly how these specters constrain both our collective political imagination and the possibilities of radical geography. I am admittedly very critical of Harvey, but I nonetheless refuse to close the door on dialogue between the Black and Red, even in the face of ongoing Marxist ridicule of anarchist politics. Accordingly, I propose an agonistic embrace of a 'postfraternal' or 'postsororal' politics on the left, where we come to appreciate ongoing conflict as a sign of a healthy leftist milieu. In doing so, we can move beyond the misguided idea that all disagreements over strategies, tactics, and organizing methods will ever be resolved. Ultimately, what I have dubbed 'the condition of postfraternity' keeps us alert to the continually unfolding possibilities of a thoroughly politicized and forever protean space. By embracing this shifting horizon, not as a static limit to our politics but as a beautiful enabler of visionary possibilities, the rhizomes of emancipation grow stronger.