Spatial Delight

Spatial Delight is a podcast about the politics of space inspired by the life and work of British geographer Doreen Massey. Over the course of ten episodes (eight in English, two in Spanish), we engage with Massey’s enduring concepts – a global sense of place, geometries of power, space invaders, geographies of responsibility, and more – to challenge the way we think about the world today. As we travel from a London laundromat to a public park in Berlin, and invite listeners to take a c...

Some of our listeners – especially the lucky ones who got hold of our postcards – have asked us about the beautiful illustration accompanying Spatial Delight. What exactly does the colourful image depict? How does it connect to Doreen Massey’s work? And, last but not least, who made it? This bonus episode features a conversation between host Adèle Martin and Bose Sarmiento, the artist who designed the illustrations for Spatial Delight. Bose discusses the main themes and symbols in her work, a...

In this first episode, you will learn who Doreen Massey was and get a sneak peek at her politics. We’ll hear from Massey’s former collaborators, friends and colleagues. And from Massey herself.For nearly three decades, Massey was a professor at The Open University and “loved every minute of it”. The OU’s aim has been to literally open up access to higher education for a wider variety of people. Our approach with this podcast is similar: you don’t need to come prepared – and you certainly don’...

Much of our world – how we imagine it, how we inhabit it – continues to be shaped by various forms of imperialism and colonialism. In this episode, we discuss how geography can help us understand the many entanglements of the global and the local. Doreen Massey thought geographically about everything. She rejected the neat, linear ideas of spatial difference that have long shaped western geographical imaginations. Massey challenged western scientists, including herself, to stop pretendin...

Doreen Massey once wrote that “it is (or ought to be) impossible even to begin thinking about Kilburn High Road without bringing into play half the world and a considerable amount of British imperialist history.” In this episode, urban sociologist Emma Jackson joins us to unpack London’s entanglements with places elsewhere. London’s imperialist and colonialist legacies are evident not only on the city’s streets, but also reach behind closed doors: into our classrooms, living rooms, offic...

For Doreen Massey, every place poses a challenge, “the challenge of negotiating a here-and-now” – or what she called throwntogetherness. In this episode, we hear about different struggles to make cities more liveable – and more just – for the many, not the few. We discuss various limitations of the dominant political structures and why it is crucial to put continuous pressure on those who hold power.Agata Lisiak and her co-host for this episode, Anna Richter, speak to geographer Ash Amin abou...

El paisaje físico y político de un país es un reflejo de las relaciones de poder en la sociedad. ¿Es posible hacer que estas relaciones sean más igualitarias? ¿Es posible cambiar significativamente lo que Doreen Massey llamó "geometrías del poder" y crear espacios sociales que representen los intereses de los sectores históricamente excluidos de la sociedad? Doreen Massey vio en Venezuela un intento prometedor de generar una nueva geometría del poder, más justa y democrática. En este epi...

Though she was a life-long Liverpool FC fan, Doreen Massey felt like a “space invader” whenever she attended matches, as she’d often be one of the few women on football terraces. Inspired by Massey’s usage of the term, sociologist Nirmal Puwar developed it into a sociological concept to understand “what happens when women and racialized minorities take up ‘privileged’ positions which have not been ‘reserved’ for them”. What kind of bodies are the somatic norm? What are the conditions of inclu...

Host Agata Lisiak meets with artist and academic Heba Y. Amin at the Zilberman Gallery in Berlin. Professor Amin gives us a tour of her exhibition, When I See the Future, I Close My Eyes, and discusses how colonial and imperialist violence continues to shape our present. Her art demonstrates that technologies – even, or perhaps especially, those that appear to be “objective” – are inherently biased in favour of some populations and actually violent against others. Her art practice invol...

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 Marr...