Doreen Massey was a geographer and public scholar concerned with how political action takes place not only on the level of policy, but also on the level of activism and everyday discourse. Host Agata Lisiak speaks about Massey’s political engagement with Jo Littler, Professor of Social Analysis and Cultural Politics at City, University of London. Jo is part of the editorial collective of Soundings, the journal of politics and culture Massey co-founded in 1995.

Jo and Agata meet with James Marriott from Platform, a London-based collective of artists, activists and researchers working on social and environmental justice issues. James tells us about Massey’s involvement with Platform, her “bad behaviour” – her love of challenging the system – and her lasting impact on his thinking and action.

We also discuss Jo’s recent publications: The Care Manifesto, written with the Care Collective, and Left Feminisms, a collection of interviews with feminist activists and theorists politically engaged across a variety of issues and locations.

We’d love to hear from you: what inspires your political engagement? When do you decide to act and what formats, tools, or tactics do you use? What are the joys and challenges of political collaborations that you’ve encountered? Please fill out this form to share your thoughts with us.

Episode Credits
Host: Agata Lisiak
Guests: Jo Littler, James Marriott
Writer and Producer: Agata Lisiak
Senior Editor: Susan Stone
Sound Producer: Reece Cox
Production Assistant: Adèle Martin
Music: Studio R
Artwork: Bose Sarmiento
In partnership with: The Sociological Review Foundation
Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation

Find more about Spatial Delight at The Sociological Review.

Episode Resources

Doreen Massey’s work quoted or mentioned in this episode:

• World City (Wiley, 2007)
• Space, Place, and Gender (Polity Press, 1994)
• After Neoliberalism? The Kilburn Manifesto, with Stuart Hall and Michael Rustin (Lawrence and Wishart, 2015)
• When Theory Meets Politics, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography 40.3 (2008): 492-497.

Also mentioned:

• Left Feminisms: Conversations on the Personal and Political, Jo Littler (Lawrence and Wishart, 2023)
• The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence, Care Collective (Verso, 2020)
• Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation, James Marriott and Terry Macalister (Pluto Press, 2021)
• Platform London
• Take Back the City
• The Doreen Massey we knew, Jo Littler and Jeremy Gilbert, Open Democracy, 2016
• European Social Forum
• Massey, D., Hall, S., Rustin, M., et al. 1995. Uncomfortable Times, Soundings 1 (1995): 5-18.