Policy Press

The Spatial Limits of Political Community

Bordering the Neighbour in Urban Spain

By Ari Jerrems

Through analysis of political events in Madrid, Spain, this book explores what the figure of the neighbour can tell us about the current political conjuncture and interrogates the possibilities it offers for imagining new, and more just, forms of political community.

Through analysis of political events in Madrid, Spain, this book explores what the figure of the neighbour can tell us about the current political conjuncture and interrogates the possibilities it offers for imagining new, and more just, forms of political community.

The book traces the emergence of contemporary forms of neighbouring through social formations and moments of crisis in Spain. Its analysis provides insights into how neighbouring has been envisaged and contested. It reveals both changing conceptions of space and community while underlining how previous conflicts reverberate in the physical landscape, ideas and memories which inform contemporary political interventions.

Ari Jerrems is Lecturer of International Relations and Political Science at the University of Western Australia.

1.Introduction: Bordering the Crisis

2.Neighbouring in Global Politics

3.Neighbour-as-Archive

4.Toward a Spatial History of the Possible

5.Neighbouring in Crisis

6.Bordering the Neighbour

7.Makeshift Political Community

8.Conclusion: The Crisis of Political Space, Again