Entangled Spatial Politics: Pre-figuring Justice-to-come with the Posthuman Geographies of 21st century Democratic Transitions

Doctoral Research by Gustav Nielsen

Luxembourg is in the process of socio-ecological transition(ing). Since transition(ing)s are always plural and entangled, the socio-ecological transition involves simultaneous systems changes related to food, economy, energy, governance, education, health, territories and more. With the recent Luxembourg in Transition 2050 (LiT2050) consultation, launched by the Ministry of Energy and Planning in 2020, began a process of rethinking Luxembourg's territorial transition. Beyond the professional consultation LiT2050 included the commissioning of a first national Citizens' Committee in Luxembourg - the Biergerkommitee Lëtzebuerg 2050 (BK2050) - and was followed by a Citizens' Council on climate commissioned by the Ministry of State in 2022 - the Klima Biergerrot (KBR). This process has emphasized the role that territorial transitions play as a central driver of socio-ecological transitions, but also its imbrication with democratic transition(s), echoing historical ties between deliberative democracy and planning (Floridia, 2018).

In parallel with democratic innovations by the national government, municipalities such as Dudelange have been driving democratic transitions at the local level. Since 2004 Dudelange has experimented with participatory budgeting, deliberative assemblies and public referenda. Importantly, socio-ecological and democratic transitions have also been driven forward by civil society actors, collectively referred to here as the Transition Movement, and counts many established NGOs such as Citizens for Ecological Learning and Living (CELL), who host Citizens' Climate Assemblies, and local action groups, like Transition Minett, across the country.

While the literature on representative democracy and its spaces is rich, little attention has been given to the geographies and architectures of this dynamic field of ongoing democratic transitions with which "invited" and "invented" spaces (Miraftab, 2009) for participation emerge. As democratic innovations, such as citizens' assemblies, are proliferating, complementing and replacing existing democratic institutions and norms across state, market, and civil society, perhaps inquiring on the spatial politics (Massey, 2005) of how "spatiality is done" (Mol & Law, 1994) differently with democratic transitions appears as an important and challenging task.

Based on that assumption, this research problematizes and experiments with the spatial politics of 21st century democratic transitions in Luxembourg. Through a critical posthumanist and feminist new materialist lens I inquire on the socio-spatial by-products and practices of democratic transitions with a focus on how invited/invented differences are binarized, the fluid entanglements of inclusion and resistance, and unpacking-folding underlying epistemologies and ontologies. Through practice-based and post-qualitative approaches I develop diffractive methodologies for an affirmative critique that re-imagines democratic spatial politics Otherwise with justice-to-come.

Doctoral Researcher: Gustav Kjær Vad Nielsen
Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Markus Miessen
Supervision Committee: Dr. Annouchka Bayley and Dr. Päivi Kymäläinen