Interview: David Harvey. The Politics of Social Justice

Transcription

1 disclosure: A Journal of Soial Theory Volume 6 revisioning Justie Artile Interview: David Harvey. The Politis of Soial Justie Raymond P. Baruffalo University of Kentuky Eugene J. MCann University of Kentuky Caedmon Staddon University of Kentuky DOI: Follow this and additional works at: Part of the Geography Commons This work is liensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Nonommerial 4. Liense. Reommended Citation Baruffalo, Raymond P.; MCann, Eugene J.; and Staddon, Caedmon (1997) "Interview: David Harvey. The Politis of Soial Justie," disclosure: A Journal of Soial Theory: Vol. 6, Artile 9. DOI: Available at: This Artile is brought to you for free and open aess by the Soial Theory at UKnowledge. It has been aepted for inlusion in disclosure: A Journal of Soial Theory by an authorized editor of UKnowledge. For more information, please ontat UKnowledge@lsv.uky.edu.

2 interview: David Harvey The Politis of Soial Justie by Raymond P. Baruffalo, Eugene J. Mann, and Caedmon Staddon April 1996 left Untitled. oil on anvas. Chris Huestis. David Harvey is a professor in the D'partment of Geography and Environmental Engin,ering. Johns Hopkins Univ,rsity C> 1997,disOosure. Committtt on Soial Theory. University of Kentuky. Lexington, Kentuky. Raymond P. Baruffa lo, Eugene J. MCann, and Caedmon Staddon are members of th' di1osure editorial olletiv' in th' Department of Geography, University of Kentuky. uring the Eighth Annual Spring Publi Leture Series hosted by the Committee on Soial Theory at the University of Kentuky, David Harvey talked on "Justie and the Geographies of Differene." In his leture, Professor Harvey ontinued his interrogation of issues of soial justie as viewed through the lens of his historial-geographial materialism. Although most widely known to an interdisiplinary audiene for his book, The Condition of Postmodernity ( 1989), David Harvey has written extensively over the past quarterentury on Marxism, urbanism, and soial justie - a projet already underway when his Soial justie and the City (1973) radially redefined geographi approahes to the urban sene in the early 197s. The major aim of this interview is to illuminate onnetions and (dis)ontinuities in David Harvey's body of work at a time when his just-published book, justie, Nature and the Geography of Differene, 1 explores the disursive onstrution of 'the' environment and the manner in whih oneptions of nature bear theoretially on broader issues of soial justie. The first part of the interview deals with disourses surrounding the definition of the environment as an objet of politial struggle and aademi inquiry and touhes on how notions of the individual are mobi- lized, onsiously or unonsiously, in those dis- ourses. In the seond part, Professor Harvey disusses 9" the strengths and weaknesses of Marxian notions of ~ produtivism and their bearing on environmental poli- tis. The interview onludes with a provoative dis-.2 ussion of institutionalized identities in aademia. $ While Professor Harvey suggests that institutes of Afri- CU, "' :s 12SldisClosure

3 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddon I 126 an-amerian Studies, Environmental Studies, Queer Studies, and Women's Studies among others, are politially useful in their ability to provide institutional support for underrepresented viewpoints within the aademy, he argues that these institutionalized identities often foster an unwillingness to engage in broad-based politial struggles.. J'f'urse, anf he 'i.; 11 dc: Can we start with what may be an obvious question? Why this book now; why the environment now? What purhase might it give you? DH: Well, atually, it is part of a rather ontinuous projet that seems to have me, as a geographer, in perpetual dialogue with Marxism and, as a Marxist, having a perpetual dialogue with geography. The book is not only solely about the environment, it is also about themes of plae and spae and time and dialetis and materiality and history and geography. In many ways I want to view it as an exerise in how to theoretially onstrut what I would all an historial-geographial materialism. You an't do that without taking aount of environmental history and the environmental aspet of things. I've always felt that the traditional Marxist emphasis on the point of prodution missed a lot of things about urbanization, so a lot of my work has been on soial and politial issues involved in urbanization. I've written a lot on the built environment and it seemed to me that the idea that there is something over there alled the 'built environment' and something over here alled 'the environment' was a totally false dihotomy. Therefore, this was a very appropriate moment to say: well, you an't really separate those two questions. If you an't separate them then you also have to go out and look at what many people are saying about the environment - how it is being talked about and the sorts of politis that ome out of different ways of talking about it. So, for me anyway, this has been part of a long projet of the last twenty, thirty years. It's not as if I've suddenly disovered the environment. In a sense, there are bits of it there all along. dc: Could you say that your fous now, on partiular environmental movements and different disourses of the environment, is a new perspetive you are trying to take? ADH: Yes, well, I think that it seemed important to engage with what f ~ple are saying about the environment and to engage with it riti ~',, \~!.-'i 4i'Jr 1271 D. Harvey interview ally in terms of the kind of perspetive I was trying to build (the historial-geographial materialism) and to ask questions about whether these are fruitful ways of talking about the environment or whether they are what I would regard as negative and self-destrutive ways of talking about environmental issues. So, I wanted to look more losely at varieties of environmental disourse and, as so often happens, I get led by my graduate students. I had a graduate student who was working with me in Oxford on environmental disourses and I got very interested in what he was doing on the different ways in whih aid rain was talked about by sientists, politiians, the publi, and environmental groups. You ould see these different disourses being set up and used as part of a play of power (Hajer 1995). dc: There seems also to be an epistemologial shift, I think, in addition to a turning of attention to questions of environment for reasons you mentioned. At least in my mind, there seems to be a fairly strong ontrast between the rigorous, almost mathematial preision of books like Limits to Capital (1982) and the kinds of inquiries you are undertaking now, whih are muh more onerned with disourses. I don't believe 'disourse' is a term that would have ome up in the ontext of Limits. DH: Well, Limits was a very speifi exerise of burying myself in the Marxist disourse and then trying to understand from the inside how to approah some of these broader questions of urbanization, spae, and time. If I re-wrote it - and atually I'm thinking of rewriting Limits - I think the whole question of the relation to nature would be muh more strongly present. But I.think that the main themes I'm now looking at are still, as it were, defined in Limits in terms o~ ~uman relations to nature, spae, time, in relationship to pohnal eonomy and the kind of politis that an be developed around it. So, my main theme is the same but now I'm doing something different, in the sense of saying that, well okay I have my disourse b~t I.reognize that there are all these other disourses; muh as I did in The Condition of Postmodemity. In The Condition of Postmodemity I had to look at what all ki~ds of other people are saying and then try to set up an understanding of why people are saying the things they are sayin~.! think th~t that also follows through into the disussion of the varienes of envuo.nmen~al disourse beause that's a very omplex issue and these various disourses have to be addressed if you are going to get anywhere in terms of having a dialogue with them. I don't think that there is any en~ironmental disourse that doesn't have some moment of uuth to it. u " "' :I ~ a\ > "' u ~ disclosure

4 / R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddon I 128 Therefore, the whole question of dialogue is trying to find another way to talk about it that doesn't onede everything that they would want us to onede but, nevertheless, registers what I think are some important points. So, yes, I do engage with disourse - different disursive groups - now in ways that I didn,t in Limits to Capital But, if you go bak, you'll find that a book like Soial Justie and the City is, in fat, an internal dialogue between two disursive forms, so in a sense this isn't entirely foreign territory to me. dc: I wonder about the omparison between the analysis in The Condition and your treatment of questions of disourse in that book and the kinds of things I see in "The Environment of Justie" piee (Harvey forthoming), and the piee on militant partiularism (Harvey 1995). Again, to press the point a little, it seems as though there is a bit of an epistemologial shift in the sense that in The Condition - at the risk of over-simplifying - part of the exerise is to suggest that a lot of ontemporary disussions about disourse and power are, in fat, properly thought of as part of apitalist modernity. Contrast that with the disussion of power and disourse in "The Environment of Justie" whih seems muh more free-floating and muh more prepared to aept that different disourses about the environment reate a material reality all their own. So, the question of the onnetion to material proesses and proesses of prodution and onsumption is still important but, perhaps, seondary. DH: I don't think I would quite aept that as my meaning. It's maybe what people get out of it, and that's one of the things I never an tell. I think my meaning is to say that - if I go bak to Marx's phrase - the world of disourse, if you want to all it that, is where we beome onsious of questions and fight them out. I think that's orret. That doesn't mean the world of disourse is seondary to questions of prodution. I mean some people would use a simple base and superstruture argument and say: "Well, it's all epiphenomena in the disursive realm.,, But I wouldn't want to put it the other way round either and say that disursive ativities onstrut the world and therefore the disourses are primary in relation to praties. I just don't think that it's reasonable - if you take a dialetial view - to say that one dominates the other. They both internalize the effets of the other. Praties, for instane, inorporate tehnologial understandings whih would be ahieved through siene and through the formation of ertain kinds of disourses. So prodution internalizes ~h of what we have learned through disursive analyses and, at the ~,. f d' f,,r~e~ time o ourse, 1sourses are not immune to being transformed t ' ),,- ~ \~jl and translated by material praties. 129ID. Harvey interview ft ~iital Politif -- dc: I would like to point to another tension, not so muh between materialism and disourse per se, but in terms of praxis on the left. Roger Gottlieb (1995) has argued that radial politial movements in the west presuppose, or have presupposed, an individualisti, onsumerist ego despite their olletive rhetori. DH: Well, I think, part of what rm working on right now, or have been working on and that ame up very strongly in the book is preisely this question about how do we understand an individual and in what ways an we reate a theory of the individual whih is different from that whih exists in, say, the Lokian, Newtonian, Cartesian tradition of an isolated entity endowed with ertain powers that onfronts the world and does ertain things to it. This is a very different oneption to the premodern view and a very different oneption to the deep eologial view, and very different from what I would all a relational view of an individual where the individual is really onstrued not so muh as a box but as a point whih is defined by vetors of proesses whih are more free-flowing. That relational oneption of the individual is embedded in some of deep eology - you'll find it in Naess 2 for example - but you'll also find it in a lot of the ethnographi materials and you'll find it in the Mediaeval oneption of the individual whih was very muh more porous and open in relation to the world. I think that the rethinking of who is the individual and how an individual exists in the midst of soio-eologial proesses strikes me as one of the more important gestures to make, whih is why I reently got interested in how we understand the body. So, I think that it is true that most of the radial politial movements - and this would also inlude ommunist movements - have arried over ertain of the baggage of eighteenth entury liberal thought on the individual. These movements have also arried over a lot of that thinking into very produtivist, instrumental notions in terms of dealing with nature. The left has atually inherited from the apitalist era some very fundamental onepts and hasn't atually revolutionized them. I think one of the good things that is oming out of environmentalism and deep eology is the hallenge to reoneprualize these onepts. I think I would aept that hallenge. I mean, I think it is important to admit that the whole history of soialism and ommunism from the nineteenth entury onwards has \I., "' :s 91\ Cft dislosure > "'

5 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddon I 13 not had a good reord in its dealings with nature. I think that it's unfortunate if we on the left in that tradition merely go bak to the Eonomi and Philosophial Manusripts and Engels and then trot out Raymond Williams and William Morris to say, "Oh well, we were interested in this all along." I think we have to reognize that muh of the history of ommunism has gone in a different diretion. And that involves me, as a geographer, with historial interests in questions of environment and nature and urbanization, in some sort of ritial stane in relationship to that whole Marxist, leftist history. dc: So, an engagement with the environment and the individual's relationship to it from a Marxist perspetive, would open up the ategories of the individual or the identity of individuals and maybe move us away from more rude soialist ideas of the individual as primarily a worker or a apitalist. I realize that's a very rude haraterization but does it open it up so someone an be a worker, also a onsumer, also.? DH: One of the things I have tried to do is to redefine what I think the lass relation is. The interesting thing about Marx was that he had no theory of lass. Where did he write out his theory of lass? There are three pages right at the end ofvolume 3 of Capital where he wrote something about lass. If you look in detail at how he treats lass, my onlusion is that the proper definition of lass is positionality in relationship to the irulation and aumulation of apital. Now, that means that the worker as a person has a very omplex positionality in relationship to that irulation proess. They exist in a relationship to it as onsumer; they exist in relationship to it as somebody who has rights of exhange - rights of exhange of their own labor power, rights of exhange of whatever money they hold. They also exist in a ertain relationship to apital and the labor proess and so on, so that the lass relation is really positionality in relation to aumulation. As a worker they may have pension rights and as a pension-holder they have, atually, an interest in sustained aumulation. In fat, you might turn to a worker and say. "I am going to fire you and just think what benefit you are going to get when the stok market goes up after I fire you! Your pension will be worth muh more." So this is the point about positionality in relationship to irulation. Again, environmental questions open up all sorts of interesting questions of positionality. When Gottlieb says there is a whole history of /'ooupational safety and health disussions whih are a part of what {.~~n istory of labor has been about, I think that that's right. The envi ~~ onmental issue in the workplae is just as important as the environ- \'~ 131 ID. Harvey interview mental issue in the living plae. Those kind of questions, then, start to hange the definition of what an environmental issue is. I think the same thing would arise in terms of quality oflife in urban areas. If you wander around Baltimore and start talking to people about what they think the key environmental issues are, you get a ompletely different story than when you wander around in the exurbs or in upstate Vermont. Lead poisoning in Baltimore has a variety of different forms, one of whih is bullets and, you know, at that point you say, "Well as far as the people in those situations are onerned, the differentiation between natural and soial environments disappears." It's a very interesting thing. Where in this room does the natural environment begin and the soial environment stop? Where in a field of wheat does nature begin and soiality stop? We have these extraordinary onventions that there is something alled 'nature' and something alled 'soiety.' There are two boxes, an we put those two boxes together? dc: So it seems then that you see the different disourses raking plae at the moment about the environment and how we define the environment as issues that give us a lot of politial purhase in ontemporary soiety under apitalism. Do you think that that purhase has inreased in reent years? DH: I think that depends where you are. I mean, I think that in some parts of the world, it has definitely beome a major politial issue and that some of it is rather onservative, middle lass, quality-of-life kinds of questions, some of it is a rather romantiized reation to the high-teh industrialized world. There are all sorts of strains whih you an find. So, I think environmental disourses have a variety of origins and then have a variety of politial meanings, and I suppose the interesting thing is how to find ommon threads or find what are not ommon threads between those different disourses. Why is it, for example, that the environmental justie movement by-and-large doesn't like the Big Ten environmental groups? Why are they onstantly at loggerheads with those people? What's going on there? There's a funny thing here. What's nature? What if I give you a hemial formula and say, how do you feel about your relationship to that? If you are a hemist you might say that there are all sorts of interesting things that an be done with it. If I then take that hemial formula and represent it to you as a tree, then you relate to it in a different way. Now, what's nature? Is it all the moleules that make up the tree, or is it the tree? The point is that if you see a tree, you'll reat to it differently than you would if you saw a bunh of moleules, and if you see a tree in a habitat in a forest with a spotted owl sitting in it you " "', :s ~ "' :: dislosure

6 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddon f 132 would reat very differently than if you just saw a tree. So, the question is, what is nature and I think my point is that nature is all of those. I think there is no one, single representation of nature whih an really apture the ways in whih we might relate to it. dc: Certain ways of looking at it are given more power in ertain ases. The idea of sientifi disourse versus some more loalist, environmentalist idea of what is best for nature. DH: Yes, but in our pratie, you see, we atually use all of those disourses. When we use paper, we are atually relating to a whole history of tehnology whih is about understanding the tree as a bunh of moleules whih an be transformed in different ways into a different form. So, at the same time, we see a tree. It's not as if one bunh of people looks at it one way and another looks at it another way. We internalize a variety of ways oflooking at it and as we swith our terrain, we hange the sorts of things we think we might want to do with it. If I look at a bunh of moleules, I say, "Well, why don't we transform them and make them do this,,, and if I look at the tree I say, "Don't ut it down.,, I think the point is to ask, whih way of looking should be dominant? dc: And that's the politis. DH: And that gets you into the politis. What are you trying to do? And why would you hoose one level of looking at things rather than the other? Why did I hoose the tree instead of global warming or why would I hoose the moleular struture? To me, the rihness of part of the environmental debate is preisely that it aptures a relation to nature understood at different sales, understood in terms of different positionalities. dc: I think this returns us to the question about identity and individuality. It often seems to me that in these so-alled debates, say between the pro-spotted owl and the pro-logging fores in the Paifi Northwest, that one of the basi problems is that people are operating within the same paradigm of identity, property, spae, and time. So, one of the ironies is that it appears we 1 re speaking very muh the same language. One looks from the outside and suggests that you an't resolve these onflits unless you transend that language and think about identity in a different way. A sense of identity that would not be zero-sum would say, "Your gain is not neessarily my loss; your sense of_eroperty is not neessarily my sense of exlusion.,, #" ' ( 'fj!.,, 1: No, I think that's right. I think part of the problem right now in t. ~ whole area is to find a politis that transends that zero-sum men- ~~;/ 133ID. Harvey interview tality and atually starts to work through a different way of framing what the issue is. dc: This would be part of what you all "transformative politis,,? DH: Yes. It's transformative, but transformative politis are also transgressive and you find yourself transgressing sometimes the Marxist tradition, sometimes the bourgeois tradition, and obviously some of the deeply-held belief strutures of the environmental groups. Take the disourse of the hemist who thinks about moleules and the disourse of the person who talks about habitats and trees. Those are different disourses that an be reasonably ombined to look at a partiular kind of question. You don 1 t say it's either one or the other, you don't say that you should never think like the hemist. One of the problems I have with some of the environmental justie rhetori is that it sometimes seems like you should never think like a hemist, you should never produe a toxin. I don 1 t know if you remember the priniples of environmental justie, 3 but one of them says you shouldn't produe any toxins. Think how many people in the world will die if we stop produing toxins! This is a very odd priniple and, in a sense, it is part of the rhetori of the environmental justie movement, partiularly in its more spiritual forms. It says you annot ever think like a hemist and if you think like a hemist it's betraying Mother Earth. I would not aept that; you have to be prepared to think like the hemist a lot of the time, but you also have to be prepared to think about trees and habitats and the like. But again, it omes bak to this notion of the transformative ways in whih we think biologially and soially and historially. So, rd want to onentrate on that sort of transformative idea and then ask questions about transformation into what, for whom, with what onsequenes for whom? At that point you look at the history of what 1 s gone on and you say that, basially, muh of transformation has go~e on for apital aumulation, for the rih, the privileged, the bourgeoisie, and not for those who have been marginalized. So, indeed at that level, the environmental movement is piking up on something whi~ is very powerful and very strong and very orret. It's saying the environmental transformations that have ourred in our soiety are for the benefit of some and have not benefited others. And, in fat, environmental degradation has been onneted to the whole question of disempowered, underprivileged and frequently raially-marked pop~lations. And, in that sense, the environmental justie movement is dead right in pointing to that as a ritial issue. The demand.for a different form of transformative politis that is not about apital au- "., "' :I en disclosure > "'

7 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddonl134 mulation and is not about reinforing that power struture is a dead right argument, from my perspetive. dc: Could soial eologists, in terms of building bridges and building a basis for more widespread poliies, perhaps be more reeptive to broadly defined spiritual views that stress soial ompassion and transendene of desire (by desire, I mean desire for onsumption)? It seems to me thaes another partiular tension between the deep eologial view and the soial eologial view. DH: I think that whole argument an also be grounded in a ompletely different way. For instane, if you go bak to Manes argument that real, sensual interation with nature is both the grounding of personal and politial onsiousness and that through real sensual interation with the world we learn who we are and what we are and how we are and learn all kinds of things about ourselves. I would rather talk about it in terms of sensuality rather than talking about what seems to me to be the somewhat mystial onept of spirituality. This is diffiult terrain, I mean I understand what some people are saying when they are talking about spirituality. My diffiulty with it is that it often means that you atually ome bak to a Cartesian split; that onsiousness and materiality are separate from eah other. Naess, for example grounds a lot of his work in Spinoza but I think atually with a hidden Cartesianism even though they are overtly ritial of Desartes. If you trot out Desartes in front of many of those folks, they go up the wall, but atually, if you look, a lot of what theire talking about in terms of spirituality often has this Cartesian element in lt. ~ote: The remainder of the interview was arried out the following morning. dc: It ourred to me that a number of people might argue that your attempt to weld an environment.alist politis to a Marxist analysis is problemati beause Marxist analysis, itself is part of the problem, epistemologially. I was trying to think about a ritique that would suggest that part of the problem is the way in whih we philosophize about nature as an objet, about ategories of rae and about atego ~ _of gender as objets. I think that some people would suggest that ~~arxi~t envir~nm~~talism m~ght b.e an appropriate tatial position {, ~. ~e m ertam militant paruulansms, but as a general eologial W;< 1 ' \").".,.,~/; :,J ~,; ~~,?, ' soial projet, it is fundamentally problemati. 13SID. Harvey interview DH: It seems to me, you have multiple foundational arguments being used in the environmental question and if you're saying, do I think that Marxism an embrae all of them; no, I think the answer is not. There 1 s obviously going to be a struggle over what kind of attitude we take to the environment. My attitude is ertainly not that of deep eology or eo-feminism although I think both are saying something thaes interesting. So, for me the problem is to reate a very distintive approah to environmental questions that is embedded in Marxian epistemology. Now, for some other people in the environmental movement, that might be problemati, but I want to see how far I an get with it. I think that one of the things thaes happened within Marxism as it has approahed the environmental issue is that it has oneded too muh in terms of trying to shape a different epistemologial basis. I think Marxists are doing too linle to look at the question of how far we an go within the Marxian frame itself to talk about many of these environmental, eologial questions. My grounding in a lot of this omes out of a very lengthy and deep engagement with Manes own work. That is always the basis on whih I start. Within that framework, I find that there is a great deal in terms of phenomenologial approahes to nature, partiularly in the early work of Marx. There is a great deal in terms of historial materialism, whih I have tried to broaden to historial-geographial materialism, that has a lot to say about environmental issues. I think that environmental poliies is not really very well integrated into the Marxian tradition but I don 1 t see any real big barriers to better integration. Not to everybody 1 s satisfation, but then eo-feminists are not saying things that satisfy deep eologists or Earth First!ers. So, we know we are not going to satisfy everybody, but there is something that an be done. dc: So you don 1 t think that the inherent produivism of lassial Marxist tradition is neessarily a barrier to thinking eologially? DH: No. In fat I think ies fundamental beause you an 1 t deny the issue of prodution and I think that Marx 1 s fous on the labor proess as being that point of fundamental interation between us and the metaboli world around us is a fundamental starting point for any analysis. I don 1 t find any theory of prodution in, for instane, deep eology; in fat, they evade it. Now, the theory of prodution is fundamental. So, if you say there is a whole history of produtivism "' :I "' "" ~ dislosure > "'

8 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddon I 136 within the Marxist movement, I'd agree with you and say, yes that's problemati. We have to start with the analysis of prodution, and I think Marx's starting point is the orret one. What kind of prodution, how prodution is organized, what sort of relation to nature evolves out of different prodution proesses is a question to be looked at in terms again of soialist objetives whih are not about the health of some abstrat onept alled 'nature,, they are very muh about the exploration of human potentialities and possibilities. dc: So you would define as produtivism that way of thinking that sees prodution as always prodution for, it's always the prodution of objets for human needs, it's always a produtivist approah and an objetifying approah to the natural world? DH: Yes, but it's a little bit more than that. As produtivism developed in some aspets of the Marxist tradition, it basially said that we an use the world around us in any way we want and there are no barriers. So one an ritiize that, but for me the philosophial basis for this is to say that prodution is a proess and that it's a transformative proess and we're onstantly transforming the world around us, we an't stop doing that. Even by the at of breathing and eating we are transformative eologial agents. So, Marx's analysis of prodution as a proess is talking about that proess of transforming the world around us in ways that we an use. Now, in the proess, we do indeed produe objets and those objets have harater and qualities whih are, in some instanes, fairly stable eologial features. But then I don't see any other theory of eology that an say we do not reate objets for others or ourselves. I mean, what kind of eologial world would it be if we didn't do that? I think a lot of the evasion that goes on inside some areas of the eologial movement about the question of prodution and transformative ativities of human beings is not helpful. dc: I don't think, though, that that's what feminists are onerned about when they say the prodution paradigm onentrates on the prodution of goods within eonomi iruits and that these always seem to be defined in terms of 'male' ativities of prodution and that 'female' produtive ativities in the domesti sphere, for example, tend to get ignored, elided, or submerged. I know one of the basi feminist onerns with Marxist thinking is the way in whih it has a built-in gender-privileging in terms of prodution. / D!f.: Well historially that may be the ase but there is nothing philo / ~phially in Marxism that says that it is the ase. If ation is a trans-,~~r} ~:~~,.-~/ ""'.W-.,;~W" J Harvey interview formative proess then all forms of transformative ativity are part of that prodution proess. I don't think that it is fundamental to the Marxian approah that there should be some ativities that don't ount and others that do. That separation between what goes on in the household and what goes on in the formal workplae is indeed something that the Marxist tradition has worked with in terms of its definition of lass and lass relations. It has been important and I don't deny that. But what I'm driving bak to is to say yes, there may be some problems with suh thought and that prodution should be looked at as all forms of transformative ativities whih our, whether they our in the domesti sphere or in a more publi arena like the workplae. So, there are these historial shisms, if you like, and I think that the feminist ritique of Marxist produtivism is perfetly orret on all of that. But it doesn't seem to me that that undermines the philosophial basis of looking at prodution as a proess as being the fundamental starting point for understanding any eologial issue. dc: Well, it seems that brings us to the question of identity and politis that you've disussed reently (Harvey 1993). Coul~. you t~k about how you see the possibilities for a generalized pohus whih reognizes different identities - the worker, or someone who produes, as being a ertain identity or a politis based on being a woman or being gay or being a ertain ethni minority, for instane - but allows a movement to ome out of it? Or, have things just beome too fragmented? DH: I think there are some issues where the fragmentations are there and there is no point in saying they an all be submerged, but there are many very pressing issues where, it seems to me, the fragmentations really don't matter so muh in relationship to politis. It ~mes bak to the statement by Donna Haraway whih says some differenes are signifiant and others are relatively trivial and the key question for a lot of us is to figure out what are signifiant differenes ~d what are not. 4 For example leaners and janitors have launhed a livable wage ampaign against Johns Hopkins University in ~altimore. That is indeed a fundamentally lass issue but the ampaigners are mostly women and Afrian-Amerians. They want a livable wage, whih doesn't mean there aren't problems of sexual harassment on the "' > disclosure

9 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddon I 138 job, that there aren't problems of raial disrimination whih are also important in their lives. But if you said that those questions are more signifiant than the livable wage question, I think they would look at you and say, "You, re off your roker!" Primarily, they're interested in a livable wage and that's the lass aspet of their lives, whih is fundamental to how they're living and what's happening to them. I don't think they would see this as a separate issue in the way that so many people in the aademy would. The livable wage means all kinds of things to them in all kinds of ways and that does inlude their status as women and it does inlude their status as Afrian-Amerians. What annoys me a little bit is that when you hit these situations you so frequently find that those people who are heavily invested in identity politis won't enter into them in a supportive way beause they are not the kind of issues they like to take on. A lot of aademi disussion has moved off into a kind of identity politis whih is about struggles for power inside the aademy and I think some of that is understandable and justifiable beause the only way you an get power in the aademy is, in effet, to launh some kind of identity-based ampaign and to say that this is a speial issue that has to be taken are But if we are not going to pay attention to the leaners' and janitors' ampaign, then it seems to me that we've got a problem with the way in whih identity politis is working inside of universities. I'm going to speak personally; I often find myself in support of a lot of those identity reognitions inside universities beause I think it is very important that those things happen, but then I get very annoyed when that support doesn't ome bak in terms of supporting projets like the one in Baltimore. That is the dilemma I have with some identity politis in the aademy. It's a positive proess but it produes a thing i.e., a Women's Studies enter, a Queer Studies enter, or a Blak Studies enter, and the thing then beomes an internalized ghetto almost and there is a refusal to ome out of that thing and engage with broader politis. I think those are the sorts of things that I find a bit hard to take. When almost anything gets institutionalized it beomes very muh about the perpetuation of its own existene. I guess one of the things I'm glad of is that I don't have a Center of Marxist Studies. I'm glad I don't have that beause I would be worried that I'd lose my enter when I engaged with ertain issues. dc: So you have a problem with the institutionalization of identities? / DJ}: No, I an see that there is a ertain logi to it that is probably, ~essary at a ertain stage. In order to build and bolster ertain "' "' ilnderrepresented groups or urrents of thought inside of the aad " } I /.,-.. A!'" r r 139ID. Harvey interview emy, you probably need to go through a stage of setting up a enter to highlight it, but at some time or another the point would be to dissolve it. For instane, I don't think that women's studies, in the long run, should be Women's Studies, I think it should be everywhere and understood to be everywhere. We do have lots of enters of lass studies in aademia - they're all in business shools. If you think of the resoures that go into setting up business shools and what they're all about, you say, "If the same resoures were setting up labor shools.,,, but hardly any universities have anything of that sort. Again, you an say that one of the weaknesses of Marxist lass analysis within aademia is that there are very few enters where it has been institutionalized in order to protet itself. There are a few, but very few. It omes bak to finanial power, and where is the finanial power to support these kinds of issues? Finanial power lies with orporate apital and the state apparatus. There are very few plaes where you'd have the finanial power to engage in the kind of pro-labor studies whih parallel pro-business studies that ome out of eonomis departments and business shools. dc: If I ould paraphrase; it sounds to me that what we are saying is that identity is absolutely neessary and unavoidable, but that it beomes very problemati if one ries to raise it to the level of an eologial-soial projet. I've notied that often in your writings, you don't talk about identity, you talk about differene and partiularly signifiant differene and the onditions under whih ertain. differenes ome to make a differene. So, it seems that you are saymg, on the one hand, that in ertain loal partiularisms, partiular kinds of identity politis are going to be important but that, at the level of projets, we should be thinking about the onstitution of differenes. DH: Certain politial situations an arise when one element of identity beomes more signifiant than others. For the leaning people in Baltimore, the eologial-environmental issue is not signifiant in the same way it is for somebody who has a omfortable life living out in the suburbs, whih is not to say that the environmental issue is not important but that the environment is defined in a different way. For ~ people who live in the inner-ity of Baltimore, environi:ient is.under- i stood as a set of questions and problems whih are radially different ~ from those whih you,d experiene somewhere else. So, I would have a '7' muh more relational view of identity. The self, the individual, the.5 subjet internalizes all sorts of effets from the ativiti~ they e~gaged.2 in, and uses that information to engage in ertain projets whih are.~ more signifiant than others. I don't think that most people in iden- =: dislosure

10 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddonl14 ity politis would even make the laim these days that identity is singular. dc: What they are willing to do is engage in strategi essentialism, where a enain identity is onsidered to be the one that is most imponant in a given situation. When you talk about the leaners' ampaign in Baltimore and how you don't get the support you'd like from the Women's Studies department, it seems that maybe the reason for that is that they are engaging in a strategi essentialism whih gives them politial power by fousing on the identity of 'woman' rather than of 'lass., Is it possible to bridge the gap between one strategi essentialism and another? How an one identity help in another identity's struggle? DH: I think most people would aept that, in terms of strategi essentialisms. There are strategi essentialisms built around the notion of lass and some around rae and some around gender, and you an multiply that in terms of sexual preferene and the like. But, if the strategi essentialism beomes exlusionary and says, "I'm not going to be bothered about that question beause thaes just about women, or that's just about rae and I'm only interested in questions of lass.,, If it beomes exlusionary in that way, then it beomes self-defeating. What has to be engaged in is a proess of persuasion to say when a differene is signifiant and why it's signifiant. Why should a Women's Studies program or some institute for the study of global power take a position on the situation of the leaners in Baltimore? The task is up to those who think they should do it to get into some sort of persuasive mode and say, "This is a situation where there is suh a strong, overwhelming gender omponent that not to engage in it is, in fat, to be self-defeating, even though it is fundamentally a lass issue." As you make those arguments, my experiene is that people are ertainly willing to listen. Part of doing politis is power: persuading people that this is a signifiant issue and it's an issue whih, even given your strategi essentialism, should be part and parel of what you are doing. Through that argument, people an be brought into ertain onfigurations of support. By the same token, I would expet that people from these other areas would approah me and say, "Listen, we need support. What kind of support are you willing to give?" On that basis, even though I'm not working primarily in Queer Studies or something of that kind, it seems to be totally reason-,.;ihle that I would try to support something along those lines even / ~ugh it is not my entral theoretial interest. ~ f"'a(4 :rhere seems to be a great deal of this oalition-building now, at!y ~, 141 ID. Harvey interview least in the labor movement, partiularly sine the eletion of John Sweeney. 5 In this sense, the aademy has fallen behind in various levels of support. Would you think that progressive oalitions in the 'real world' would have an impat on the study of identity in aademia and that it might begin to break down these strategi essentialisms in terms of oalition building? DH: I hope so. I'm not very good at prediting these things, but aademia has not been a very innovative plae if you look at it as a plae where soial movements arise. It's been a plae where soial movements start to get institutionalized inside the eduational apparatus. If you look at, for instane, the environmental issue: was it aademis who set this whole ball rolling? No, it wasn't really; it was something that was atually outside of the aademy, with some dissident sientists inside of the aademy. It's been drawn into the aademy and taken over inside the aademy in all kinds of ways. You've got all these Centers for Environmental Studies now, but I don't think the innovative impulse ame from inside. So, I think impulses from outside are inredibly important, and trying to break down the walls is atually a very enlivening experiene. When the organizers of this ampaign around the leaners ame to us and said, "We want to ome on ampus, we want to talk to you," they learly said they wanted an ongoing relationship with us and they hoped that the people they were talking to would remain in onversation, no matter what happened on this issue. I found that to be a very positive thing and I was very grateful to them that they didn't just say, "Well, you better do something about your university; why don't you go and do it?." They said, "Listen, this is part of an ongoing proess," and through that they have pointed out to students that they an spend the summer being trained as labor organizers and there are all these possibilities for undergraduates or graduates to build some sort of relationship with the labor movement. Some people may atually beome involved. I think that is all healthy. Now, whether that is going to lead to a long term thing or not, I don't know. Some of us would hope it would and some of us would try to keep the onnetion alive, but I think some sort of resurgene in the labor movement - building outwards and doing oalitions of this kind- seems to be a very positive thing not only for politis in the ity but also for politis inside the university. I am a bit hopeful along those lines. It does seem to me rather ruial for us inside the aademy to understand that a lot of the really ruial issues are defined outside. What we are very good at is taking up those issues and institutionalizing them and u., " llft :I 911\ al "' > u dislosure

11 R. Baruffalo, E. Mann, C. Staddonl142 sening them up in a ertain way and sometimes o-opting them too. I think Environmental Studies programs have taken up the environmental issue and turned it into something that is about environmental management, whih is something radially different from what muh of the environmental movement, as it was originally defined, had in mind. Notes 1. Harvey, David Jusrie, Nature, and the Geography of Differene. Cambridge, Mass.: Blakwell. This interview was onduted some months before the publiation of the book. 2. For example, see Naess, A Eology, Community, Lifestyle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. See Grossman, K The People of Color Environmental Summit, in Robert Bullard ed. Unequal Proterion: Environmental ]usrie and Communiries of Color. San Franiso: Sierra Club. 143 ID. Harvey interview Militant Partiularism and Global Ambition: The --Coneptual Politis of Plae, Spae, and Environment in the Work of Raymond Williams. Soial Text 42: Class Relations, Soial Justie and the Politis of --Differene. In Plae and the Politi.s of Identity, ed. Mihael Keith and Steve Pile, pp New York: Routledge The Conditi.on of Postmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blakwell The Limits to Capital Cambridge, MA: Blakwell Soial Justie and the City. London: Arnold. 4. "Some differenes are playful, some are poles of world historial systems of domination. Epistemology is about knowing the differene" (Haraway, Donna A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Siene, Tehnology, and Soialist Feminism in the 198s. In Linda Niholson ed. Feminism/Postmodernism. London: Routledge.) 5. John Sweeney was reently hosen president of the AFL-CIO in the first ontested eletion sine their merger in Mr. Sweeney oversaw the remarkable growth of the Servie Employees Internaional Union (SEIU) before being eleted o his position. Referenes Gottleib, R Spiritual Deep Eology and the Left: An Effort at Reoniliation. Capitalism, Nature, Soialism 6(3): Hajer, M The Politi.s of Environmental Disourse. Eologial Modernization and the Poliy Proess. Oxford University Press. Harvey, D. (forthoming). The Environment of Justie. IN Andrew Merrifield and Eri Swyngedouw (eds.) Soial lnjusti.e and the City. London: Lawrene and Wishart ]usti.e, Nature and the Geography of Differene. Cambridge, MA: Blakwell. ~. -~ ',;~,.-~r~."/ t!;rj 1- ~ \I, :s "' en ~ "' disclosure