Policeman says to a protester: you should go home now. Protester responds: this is my home.
If we stop for a moment to consider this deceptively simple, even pathetic exchange of affects that could have taken place in so many different location across the globe during the last few years (months, weeks, days) we will notice that our first habitual interpretation will always frame such an exchange as a conflict generated by a different claims concerning the distribution of public/private spaces and rights of ownership over them. I would like to propose a slight shift of focus that should direct our attention beyond the spatial perception of politics and make us recognize the tension which is underlying it. This tension, the real site of political and social contestation, is, in my opinion, not territorial but is grounded in an incompatible uses of language.
thepi archive 