Marion Werner – författare

Doreen Massey was a creative scholar, inspiring teacher and restless activist. Her path-breaking thinking about space, place, politics and economy changed not only geography but the critical social sciences, initiating new ways of seeing, understanding and indeed transforming the world.

This collection of commissioned essays, including from Doreen Massey’s long-time interlocutors and collaborators, explores both the generative sources and the continuing potential of her remarkably wide-ranging and influential body of work. It provides an unparalleled assessment of the political and social context that gave rise to many of Massey’s key ideas and contributions – such as spatial divisions of labour, power-geometries and the global sense of place – and how they subsequently travelled, and were translated and transformed, both within and outside of academia.

Looking forward, rather than merely backward, the collection also highlights the many ways in which Massey’s formulations and frameworks provide a basis for new interventions in contemporary debates over immigration, financialization, macroeconomic crises, political engagement beyond academia, and more.

Doreen Massey: Critical Dialogues is a testament to the continuing relevance of Doreen Massey’s work across a wide range of fields, serving as an invaluable companion to the new collection of Massey''s own writings, The Doreen Massey Reader published simultaneously and also compiled by the editors.

Doreen Massey (1944–2016) changed geography. Her ideas on space, region, labour, identity, ethics and capital transformed the field itself, while also attracting a wide audience in sociology, planning, political economy, cultural studies, gender studies and beyond. The significance of her contributions is difficult to overstate. Far from a dry defence of disciplinary turf, her claim that “geography matters” possessed both scholarly substance and political salience.

Through her most influential concepts – such as power-geometries and a “global sense of place” – she insisted on the active role of regions and places not simply in bearing the brunt of political-economic restructuring, but in reshaping the uneven geographies of global capitalism and the horizons of politics. In capturing how global forces articulated with the particularities of place, Massey’s work, right up until her death, was an inspiration for critical social sciences and political activists alike. It integrated theory and politics in the service of challenging and transforming both.

This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time the full span of her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on globalization, immigration, nationalism and neoliberalism, among other topics. With introductions from the editors, the collection represents an unrivalled distillation of the range and depth of Massey’s thinking. It is sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come.

Doreen Massey (1944–2016) changed geography. Her ideas on space, region, labour, identity, ethics and capital transformed the field itself, while also attracting a wide audience in sociology, planning, political economy, cultural studies, gender studies and beyond. The significance of her contributions is difficult to overstate. Far from a dry defence of disciplinary turf, her claim that “geography matters” possessed both scholarly substance and political salience.

Through her most influential concepts – such as power-geometries and a “global sense of place” – she insisted on the active role of regions and places not simply in bearing the brunt of political-economic restructuring, but in reshaping the uneven geographies of global capitalism and the horizons of politics. In capturing how global forces articulated with the particularities of place, Massey’s work, right up until her death, was an inspiration for critical social sciences and political activists alike. It integrated theory and politics in the service of challenging and transforming both.

This collection of Massey’s writings brings together for the first time the full span of her formative contributions, showcasing the continuing relevance of her ideas to current debates on globalization, immigration, nationalism and neoliberalism, among other topics. With introductions from the editors, the collection represents an unrivalled distillation of the range and depth of Massey’s thinking. It is sure to remain an essential touchstone for social theory and critical geography for generations to come.