On Militant Particularism and Universal Emancipation: Prolegomena for an Eco-Socialist Future

Upon reading Justice, Nature & the Geography of Difference (JNGD), published in 1993, one cannot help but be impressed by the remarkable intellectual and political achievement Harvey accomplished in writing this treatise.  This book presented an early and compelling vision for an emancipatory eco-socialist transformation and politics, and it still offers an intellectual challenge to contemporary radical debates.  Indeed, more than 30 years later, the book remains more relevant than ever for those committed to transforming capitalism toward greater equality, inclusion, freedom and ecological sensibility. Harvey’s warnings of the potential pitfalls of a wide range of avant-garde and popular intellectual positions of the 1990s—post-modernism, identitarian inscriptions, the celebration of localist action over universal demands— are almost prophetic of the specific cultural trends which would dominate intellectual discourse and leftist politics in the decades that followed. Although intellectually innovative and often seductive politically, these trends proved powerless against the apparently unstoppable march of neo-liberalization, privatism and deepening capitalism. Although these prefigurative insights present in Harvey’s book have been largely ignored, the book has nevertheless become a key reference for thinkers and activists working toward just and emancipatory socio-ecological change; an inspiring milestone for those committed to the need for a post-capitalist eco-socialist future and seeking strategies to break through the current ecological and political deadlock.  

Justice, Nature & the Geography of Difference explicitly aims to demonstrate how historical-geographical materialism can help chart a path toward eco-socialist transformation. it is a complex book, demanding from the reader to engage with an expansive intellectual landscape. JNGD is part of a series of books that marked a new phase in Harvey’s remarkable intellectual journey, following his earlier work on the geographical political economy of capitalism. The publication of Limits to Capital in 1982 coincided with the ideological resurgence of neoliberal ideas and practices, the weakening of labor unions and the decline of left parties rooted in socialist and communist traditions. During this same period, the legacy of Marxist political economy and Marxism was heavily criticized by postmodernist thought and post-structuralist theories that nurtured a growing distrust of what were seen as reductionist, Western, totalizing, white male perspectives that claimed to be emancipatory but in fact practiced systematic racial, colonial, and gendered exclusion. In addition, while class-based politics declined, the environmental crisis and the rise of ecological movements of various kinds amid rapid ecological collapse became one of the most intense arenas of conflict and social struggle. 

It was within this intellectual and political climate that Harvey wrote JNGD. Harvey took seriously the critique of Western ‘structuralist’ Marxism and engaged critically yet constructively with the insights that intellectual debate offered: the focus on affect, discourse, representation, poetry, art, and identity as crucial for understanding the multiple power relations that drive capitalism and for building strong anti-capitalist coalitions capable of influencing or changing the political-economic system toward socialism. In a Lefebvrian tradition, Harvey had always been attentive to the symbolic, cultural, and experiential practices that shape the conditions and possibilities for transforming everyday life. Consciousness and the Urban Experience (1985), for example, powerfully demonstrates this, while his systematic engagement with these concerns culminated in The Condition of Post-Modernity (CPM), which argued that the socio-cultural and political practices of post-modernity do not signal a radical break from the capitalist past and mark a new era. Instead, he argued that the cultural practices—including thought and theory—that operated under the banner of ‘postmodernity’ were symptomatic of deepening capitalist relations of production and reproduction. JNGD pursued further the challenges he identified in CPM.  

In JNGD, Harvey engaged constructively with the post-modern criticism of the pitfalls of Marxist thought and embarked on a project to identify four key axes that had been stressed insufficiently in Marxist thought and practice, and which demanded further theoretical and political development: 1) the role of the non-human (or nature), 2) the political importance of discursive and symbolic practices, 3) the centrality of time, place, and space, and 4) the treatment of difference and otherness in emancipatory struggles. Furthermore, he contended that understanding the internal dialectical relationships through which these (and other) ‘moments' become constituted and transformed via dialectical flows—leading to ongoing change and transformation— is an essential element in constructing an eco-socialist strategy.

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In pursuing these theoretical and practical challenges in JNPD, he also opened a dialogue between ecological thought and historical-geographical materialism. Theoretically and politically, his goal is to offer a materialist integration of space, place, and the environment. This approach would be further refined and elaborated in his subsequent book, Spaces of Hope, which presents a very detailed vision of the path toward eco-socialist transformation. 

 The reader almost feels like they can physically sense and follow Harvey’s thought process. In this way, JNGD is a rare yet vital book because it moves away from Harvey’s typical tightly argued and carefully constructed texts. In JNGD, he systematically develops his ideas around creating a framework for a dialectical, historical-geographical materialism that considers the four axes mentioned earlier. Throughout the book, Harvey engages with a surprisingly wide range of intellectual interlocutors, critically analyzes their arguments, and advances his unique revolutionary historical-geographical materialism agenda for eco-socialist transformation. Harvey clearly states his position in the opening chapters. He strongly believes in the power and necessity of an eco-socialist future and the crucial role of radical thought in fostering such change. This belief is rooted in a firm loyalty to local militant particularisms; however, these must still point toward a universal goal of emancipation. Both dialectical reasoning and radical practice help him navigate this complex relationship. Harvey’s dialectical reasoning is carefully explained in the book and offers one of the most accessible descriptions of dialectical inquiry. It also exemplifies how dialectics can be used as a method to explore different possible future worlds. For Harvey, dialectical reasoning is fundamentally open and contingent, making the future inherently uncertain and adaptable. While he highlights the importance of dialectical flows, fluxes, and processes, these unfold within the context of certain ‘permanencies’—such as stable structures like institutions, infrastructure, rules/regulations, or socio-ecological systems—that, in turn, shape the patterns of future change and transformation. These permanencies serve as key ‘moments’ in the ongoing process of political and socio-ecological change.

 The tension between the particular and the universal on the one hand and materialist dialectical reasoning on the other hand underpins all the arguments in the book. In doing so, Harvey critically engages with ideas that are potentially progressive yet, have hindered the eco-socialist movement. But he insists that at the end of the day, navigating the tension between the particular/local and the universal remains a key challenge for radical emancipatory change. Focusing on either only the particular or the universal aspect inevitably leads to forms of domination and exclusion, he argues. For instance, while he emphasizes that any emancipatory effort must be rooted in specific localities, striving for a universal egalitarian goal should nonetheless be a key part of socialist transformation. Excessive attachment to community, locality, or bio-regional seclusion often results in authoritarian or exclusionary politics. Likewise, he rejects a narrow focus on identity and bodily inscriptions that does not also aim at universal equality and justice. For him, diversity and difference can only flourish in a framework where unconditional equality and universal freedom are upheld. The theoretical and political edifice that Harvey builds in JNGD is also mobilised to insist on the importance of the dialectics of discourse, the imaginary, and the symbolic as a material force. Yet Harvey departs here from both Foucault and Derrida’s views that insist on the primacy of language and discourse. For Harvey, the key is grappling with discourse and representation in dialectical articulation with social processes, class dynamics, and material practices. Discourse and symbolization are but one, albeit vitally important, moment in the dialectical flux that animates socio-ecological transformation.   

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The question of the non-human (or nature) also becomes a key area in socialist transformation. While Harvey controversially insists here on the dualism between nature and society, he agrees that the dialectic between the non-human and human continually produces new socio-ecological configurations. This production of nature, a term borrowed from his former PhD student, Neil Smith, is a political ecological process whose internal dynamic requires foregrounding. An eco-socialist project, therefore, cannot be based on the idea that nature knows best or that a return to ‘nature’ leads to socio-ecological sustainability, but must emphasize the socio-imaginary and political practices that shape the kind of environment we aim to inhabit. In other words, it is a socialist imaginary and practice that should guide the development of just and livable socio-ecological configurations. Such a perspective directly challenges deep-ecological and nature-centered views that characterize some contemporary environmental activism, and points to the urgent need for an eco-socialist vision of human and other-than-human entanglements.

For Harvey, the urban and the process of urbanization are where these contradictions converge, creating the dynamic landscapes of capitalist urbanization and its combined and uneven social and ecological development. Eco-socialist visions must understand urbanization as both a stage and a result of transformative political strategies. A just and sustainable world depends on a just, inclusive, and sustainable urbanization process. Developing radical urban visions is essential to achieving eco-socialist change. 

 While Harvey agrees that the class configurations and politics of the 19th and 20th centuries radically changed in the final quarter of the 20^th century, he argues that the core of emancipatory struggle must still focus on the key dynamics and class configurations driving contemporary capitalist transformation. He rejects the often repeated and overly romanticized attachment to radical social margins, as celebrated by a diverse range of intellectuals like bell hooks and Slavoj Žižek, as the privileged revolutionary subjects. For Harvey, the true essence of eco-socialist transformation lies with those living centrally within the maelstrom of capitalist contradictions and capitalist relations of (re-)production, and who mobilize their bodies, imaginations, and loyalties toward a universal eco-socialist vision that must be rooted in the specificities of place. With the closing of the first quarter of the 21^st century, the eco-socialist horizon seems to fade ever more as the barbarism of existing capitalism and its associated class, gender, ethnic, and other conflicts and exclusions rules the world, JNGD still provides a crucial set of pointers that are essential for reigniting a viable and performative eco-socialist project. As Harvey would undoubtedly agree, our choice is either to rekindle the political desire for emancipatory eco-socialist transformation or to face a deepening of the present eco-capitalist barbarism. There is really no alternative!

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