Statism, urbanism, and the politics of spatio-temporalities

Space and time are certainly (among) the most fundamental categories not only of the natural sciences, but also of the social sciences. Consequently, social philosophy and social theory feature rich traditions of reflecting on how social realities intersect with space and time. Political theory, in contrast, still has a somewhat aloof relationship with space and time. Surely, space and time regularly come to the fore both in canonical texts of the history of political thought and in different strands of contemporary theorizing; however, this has not resulted in an explicit recognition of space and time as central concepts of political theorizing. In this paper I want to sketch some preliminary thoughts on how this lacuna could be addressed. I will put the notions of space and time centre stage, based on the premise that any meaningful action does not only “take place” in a certain here and now, but is linked to the very emergence of spatial and temporal environments. More specifically, I will loosely relate to Foucault’s notion of a “micro-physics of power” in order to come to terms with the categories of space and time in their relation to instances of power and political practices more generally. I will use this Foucault-inspired focus on “physics” to sketch two (ideal-type) logics, rationales, or imaginaries of how political practices, space and time relate to one another: statism and urbanism. I will argue that these embody two specific ways of making space and time productive in and for political realities, resulting in two distinct, albeit intertwined, ways of political spatialization and temporalization. The aim of my paper is to develop the notion of political spatio-temporalities in the sense of a political theory of space and time. This in turn also enables to grasp urbanism as a distinct form of political life which is not simply a smaller or local variant within an overarching statist register.