TSpace Research Repository tspace.library.utoronto.ca On Articulation, Translation, and Populism: Gillian Hart’s Postcolonial Marxism Michael Ekers, Stefan Kipfer & Alex Loftus Version Accepted manuscript Citation Michael Ekers , Stefan Kipfer & Alex Loftus (2020) On Articulation, Translation, and (published Populism: Gillian Hart’s Postcolonial Marxism, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110:5, 1577-1593, DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2020.1715198 version) Publisher’s This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Statement Francis in Annals of the American Association of Geographers on 16 Mar 2020, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/24694452.2020.1715198. How to cite TSpace items Always cite the published version, so the author(s) will receive recognition through services that track citation counts, e.g. Scopus. If you need to cite the page number of the author manuscript from TSpace because you cannot access the published version, then cite the TSpace version in addition to the published version using the permanent URI (handle) found on the record page. This article was made openly accessible by U of T Faculty. Please tell us how this access benefits you. Your story matters. 1 53 2 54 3 On Articulation, Translation, and Populism: 55 4 56 5 Gillian Hart’s Postcolonial Marxism 57 6 58 † ‡ 7 Michael Ekers,Ã Stefan Kipfer, and Alex Loftus 59 8 60 9 ÃDepartment of Human Geography, University of Toronto 61 †Environmental Studies, York University 10 ‡ 62 11 Department of Geography, King’s College London 63 12 This article reviews Gillian Hart’s unique anticolonial Marxism, which she deftly deployed to explore 64 13 questions regarding development, capitalism, and the post-apartheid trajectories of South Africa, focusing in 65 14 particular on the articulations of race, class, gender, and nationalism therein. We argue that Hart’s careful 66 15 engagement with Gramsci’s work enables her to be particularly attentive to both materiality and meaning in 67 16 particular historical and geographical conjunctures. In so doing, we focus on how Hart enrolls and furthers 68 17 understandings of articulation, language, and populism to develop a conjunctural analysis that is sensitive to 69 18 the differentiation and politics of racialized capitalism. Key Words: Antonio Gramsci, articulation, Gillian Hart, 70 19 populism, translation. 71 20 72 21 73 22 n this article, we review Gillian Hart’s postcolo- take the middle of the road, the place where one 74 23 nial Marxism, demonstrating how Hart’s discus- encounters a lot of roadkill), Hart’s work represents 75 24 Ision of articulation, translation, and populism a vital resource for those seeking to develop a post- 76 25 consistently challenges the schisms between political colonial Marxist approach that resists the repeated 77 26 economy and cultural studies, Marxism and post- binary framing of geographical debates. Although 78 27 Marxism(s) that have shaped many debates in social focusing on Hart’s work throughout this review, we 79 28 theory since the dying days of the Cold War. would note that a number of others also work at this 80 29 Whether in the debates around place and postmod- interface, one we find to be profoundly generative. 81 30 ernism of the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the Positioning Hart’s work in this way, we note both 82 31 scale debates of the 2000s, or in the recent argu- resonances and divergences with the work of Stuart 83 32 ments around the planetary, human geographers Hall. For Chari (2017), Hall is “one figure for whom 84 33 often frame their discipline as caught between Marxism and post-coloniality have been intertwined 85 34 two irreconcilable or divergent perspectives. Most in practice,” thereby offering an antidote, or a path 86 35 recently, a supposedly residual economism within through “sterile debates about Marxism as separable 87 36 Marxist approaches has been counterposed to the sit- from and in opposition to postcolonial theory, or 88 37 uated and ethnographic approaches that are said to postcoloniality as separable from Marxism and from 89 38 learn from the Global South. Marxism and postcolo- its normative hopes of a socialist and human future” 90 39 nialism are therefore said to represent “divergent (842). As we detail, Hart’s engagement with these 91 40 ways of theorizing the urban and associated political same traditions, as seen most recently in her reading 92 41 possibilities” (Derickson 2015, 648). The study of of populism, allows her to open up intellectual 93 42 political ecology, similarly, is characterized as having and political space in geographical debates. Hart is 94 43 been shaped by two distinct trajectories: historical clearly not alone in this project, as others such as 95 44 materialism, and a second approach that “attends to Gidwani (2008) and indeed Chari (2004, 2017) 96 45 diffuse forms of power, uses ethnographic approaches have advocated for a postcolonial Marxism that mar- 97 46 and postcolonial and feminist critiques of knowledge ries an analysis of broad political economic transfor- 98 47 production” (Lawhon, Ernstson, and Silver 2013, mations with the legacies of racialized colonial rule. 99 48 100 499). Such characterizations often pit an inflexible, Notably, Gramsci and Hall are also key intellectual 49 101 “structuralist” Marxism against a nuanced alternative allies in Gidwani and Chari’s respective projects. 50 102 that is sensitive to a range of different determinants. Hart’s writing, like Gidwani or Chari, works against 51 103 Firmly rejecting such polarities (but also refusing to a dualistic rendering of academic debates and in part 52 104 Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 0(0) 2020, pp. 1–16 # 2020 by American Association of Geographers Initial submission, April 2019; revised submissions, October and December 2019; final acceptance, December 2019 Published by Taylor & Francis, LLC. 2 Ekers, Kipfer, and Loftus 105 this stems from methodological sensibilities inspired articulation, we analyze how she mobilizes under- 156 106 by Gramsci and her attentiveness to historical and standings of translation and populism by grappling 157 107 geographical specificity, albeit a specificity always with the politics of South Africa. Drawing on these 158 108 produced in relation to other spaces, places, and concepts, we discuss how Hart is furthering and trans- 159 109 times. The examination of Hart’s work offered in lating her Gramscian approach to understand the vir- 160 110 this article provides a lens on a body of work that is ulent forms of right populism in the North today. In 161 111 attentive to materiality and meaning, to political this regard, this article is both an assessment of Hart’s 162 112 economy and social difference. Moreover, a sustained approach and an attempt to show why this approach 163 113 reading of Hart’s scholarship highlights the unique matters for a range of scholarly and practical concerns 164 114 analytical leverage that her postcolonial Marxism in the present moment. Crucially, we demonstrate 165 115 provides in unpacking the world-wide constellation why critical geographical scholarship needs Hart’s 166 116 of far-right political movements today. work in this present moment. 167 117 As with the best of Hall’s scholarship, Hart works 168 118 through questions of race, gender, and imperialism 169 119 on the terrain of Marxism itself and through histori- Articulation 170 120 171 cal materialist methods in their most promising, Although geographers have sometimes used artic- 121 172 open-ended, and dialectical form. At the same time, ulation conceptually, none have explored articula- 122 173 and as we go on to demonstrate, her work makes a tion in the sustained way that Hart does. For those 123 174 particularly powerful contribution to what one might engaging with the concept, including Glassman 124 175 call an ongoing political turn in critical geography (2010), Samson (2010), and McGrath (2017), Hart’s 125 176 that insists, in partial distinction to both the neo- work is of vital importance. As such, a discussion of 126 Marxist lineage inspired by Harvey and his students 177 127 her rendering of the concept is necessary for appreci- 178 and the range of postmodern critics it faced in the ating her contributions to the discipline as well as 128 1990s and early 2000s, on the importance of politics 179 129 for understanding the contours of her postcolonial 180 as an active and transformative force in the produc- 130 Marxist approach. 181 tion of time-space. Hart’s contribution is distinct 131 First appearing in Disabling Globalization, Hart 182 from others who have contributed to this turn, how- 132 (2002a) deployed the concept of articulation to ana- 183 ever, notably those who have raised concerns about 133 lyze the shifting relations of race, class, and, to a 184 postpolitical conditions by mobilizing insights from 134 lesser degree gender, that temporarily coalesce, or 185 theorists like Alain Badiou, Jacques Ranc¸iere, and 135 splinter, around particular political economic pro- 186 Slavoj Zizek (Wilson and Swyngedouw 2014). 136 cesses and struggles for hegemony. For Hart, articula- 187 Compared to these theorists, who gravitate toward 137 tion refers to the conjoining of different material 188 ontological conceptions of politics and the political 138 practices and social relations with questions of 189 139 (Bosteels 2011), Hart, along with other intellectuals, meaning and language. In her words, “in this com- 190 140 has been more adamant in her refusal to disentangle bined sense, articulation refers not just to structural 191 141 the art of politics from the inherited, limit-setting effect. The idea, rather, is that the ‘unities’ con- 192 142 forces of history, geography, and social life (Doucette structed through practices and processes of articula- 193 143 2019).