FOR MARX AND MARXISM:

AN INTERVIEW WITH KOSTAS

AXELOS

Christos Memos

Without consideration, without pity, without shame

They have built big and high walls around me.
And now I sit here despairing.
I think of nothing else: this fate gnaws at my mind;
For I had many things to do outside.
Ah why didn’t I observe them when they were building the walls?
But I never heard the noise or the sound of the builders.
Imperceptibly they shut me out of the world.
C. P. Cavafy, ‘Walls’ (1976: 17)

INTRODUCTION
Have ‘big and high walls’ been built around the several Marxisms that
have shut them ‘out of the world’? If so, who were the builders? To what
extent was Marx himself responsible for the closure, crisis and withering away,
both of Marxism and the labour movement? To paraphrase Lenin, was Marx’s
theory an infantile disorder of Marxism, or is there something in Marx’s argu-
ment that facilitated the petrification of Marxism? Were there ingredients and
seeds of this metamorphosis of Marxism that could be traced back to Marx
himself? To deal with these questions at all during the 1950s and 1960s, and
to make the claim that you would be looking at them from a radical angle,
was almost a scandal.
More specifically, at the beginning of the Cold War period it seemed
to be extremely difficult for a scholar to articulate and defend a method for
analysing Marx’s positions and elaborating his concepts without mystifications
and ideological entrenchments. Moreover, one could say that for a radical
thinker to publicly ‘negate’ the positivist elements of Marx and Marxism, or
to exercise a ‘destructive’ critique against their shortcomings, could lead to

Thesis Eleven, Number 98, August 2009: 129–139

SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)
Copyright © 2009 SAGE Publications and Thesis Eleven Co-op Ltd
DOI: 10.1177/0725513609105487
130 Thesis Eleven (Number 98 2009)

unpleasant consequences: He was ‘likely to be forced to live in the shadows’

(Agnoli, 2003: 28). Obviously, he could have been forced to ‘live in the
shadows’ by the ‘Marxist’ scholars, political parties and regimes that had
transformed Marxism into an ideology and a ‘dead dogma’. And behind them,
by the interests and social relations that had produced this ideology.
Thus, the several Marxist trends, political parties and groups, or the
Soviet-type regimes, had contributed enormously to the cult of Marx by
creating a ‘myth’, a ‘legend’ for Marx and his works. In many cases, the glori-
fication of Marx took religious dimensions and kept pace with the mystifi-
cation of his writings. In doing so, they cancelled Marx’s revolutionary and
liberating elements, and at the same time they continued to reproduce stereo-
types and presuppositions. There were, however, some scholars who went
against the tide, chose to pass through the Scylla of Stalinism and the Charyb-
dis of the ‘marketization’ of the role of intellectuals, and viewed themselves
as ‘independent leftist intellectuals’. Among other scholars, this has been the
case with Kostas Axelos, a Greek scholar, relatively unknown in the Anglo-
Saxon world, who has lived and written in France since the close of the
Second World War.
Kostas Axelos was born in Athens on 26 June 1924 and was the off-
spring of a bourgeois family. His father was a doctor and his mother came
from an old Athenian family. Axelos’ formative years were very significant
for his future ideological and political evolution. He received a multilingual
education – while still in secondary education he attended classes at both
the French Institute of Athens and the German school. He also showed an
interest in philosophy at this early stage and became familiar with ancient
Greek philosophical and political thought. As he considered that the Philo-
sophical School of the University of Athens at that time was inadequate to
offer a satisfactory level of the teaching of philosophy, Axelos decided to
enrol in the Faculty of Law. He did not, however, manage to attend, since
he was obliged to go underground to avoid arrest. Thus, though Axelos was
of bourgeois origin, he had been through painful and unique experiences
that formed his personality and his intellectual background. He lived under
the dictatorship of the 4th of August 1936 regime and the Nazi occupation
of Greece, joining the Greek communist movement and the Greek Resist-
ance. He realized what Stalinism would mean, and at the same time he fought
against British imperialism (the armed conflict of December 1944). For his
political action he was persecuted, jailed and sentenced to death by a court
of the right-wing government.1
Finally, in December 1945, Kostas Axelos, along with Cornelius Casto-
riadis and Kostas Papaioannou, joined approximately 200 young Greek intel-
lectuals and students – leftists in the main, and persecuted by the rightist
government – who sailed on the Mataroa from Piraeus to France, thanks to
a scholarship provided by the French government. In France, Kostas Axelos
studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and in 1959 he submitted his two theses:
 For Marx and Marxism: An Interview with Kostas Axelos 131

‘Heraclitus and Philosophy’ and ‘Alienation, Praxis and Techne in the Thought
of Karl Marx’.2 He worked as a researcher for the National Centre of Scien-
tific Research (1950–7) and taught philosophy at the Sorbonne (1962–73).
During this period he met Lacan, Picasso and Heidegger.
Axelos joined the editorial board of the journal Arguments in 1958
and later on was its editor in chief (1960–2). The journal had links with other
European publications such as Praxis in Yugoslavia, Nowa Cultura in Poland
and Das Argument in Germany. According to Poster, it ‘was the only Marxist
journal in the period of the later 1950s and early 1960s to avoid sectarianism.
It therefore became an important centre for an exchange of ideas, for an
opening up of Marxism towards new intellectual currents and new social phen-
omena’ (Poster, 1975: 212). As Axelos has put it: ‘I would say, briefly, that an
attempt at an open Marxism, of a revised and corrected Freudo-Marxism and
finally a post-Marxist and post-Heideggerian thought were elaborated, but
not without difficulties’ (Elden, 2005: 27). Contributors to Arguments included
some of the most important leftist French thinkers such as Edgar Morin, Jean
Duvignaud, Pierre Fougeyrollas, Henri Lefebvre, Maurice Blanchot, Gilles
Deleuze, Roland Barthes and François Fejtö. Finally, Arguments folded in
1962. Then, Kostas Axelos launched and directed the book series Arguments
that translated and published writers such as Korsch, Marcuse, Trotsky,
Hilferding, Carr, Hegel, Novalis, Bataille, Deleuze, Jaspers and Wittfogel.
In 1960 Axelos translated into French Lukács’ most influential work,
History and Class Consciousness (despite Lukács’ objections to this publica-
tion) and Heidegger’s What Is Philosophy? During this period Axelos coined
the term ‘Open Marxism’ and attempted to ‘open a window’ in the ‘walls’
that have led to the petrification of various Marxisms. Later, meeting with
Heideggerian thought, Axelos moved from his Marxist positions, following
a different intellectual course.
In this interview we are not going to follow Axelos in his later ‘intel-
lectual errancies’, but we will focus on Axelos’ critical approach to Marx’s
thought by drawing on the following texts: Alienation, Praxis and Techne
in the Thought of Karl Marx (1976),
      
(1989), Einführung in ein künftiges Denken: Über Marx und Heidegger (1966)
and Theses on Marx (1982).

THE INTERVIEW
Christos Memos: What were the specific historical, social and political
circumstances in Greece that shaped your experience and determined your
attitude towards Marx and Marxism?

Kostas Axelos: I grew up in a liberal family and at the age of 17 joined

the Greek Communist Youth Movement. I was a leader and a theoretician
in the student movement. Thus, I was provided the opportunity to become
132 Thesis Eleven (Number 98 2009)

familiar with so-called ‘real Marxism’. On the one hand, my participation in

the communist movement was a valuable life experience. I somewhat came
to understand the vibration of both Greek and world history, and at the same
time I experienced comradeship, since we used to spend all day long together.
On the other hand, having been pissed off with the bourgeoisie, I thought
that Marxism was an open society, but very soon realized that there was too
much dogmatism and bureaucracy, mainly because of the harsh Stalinist
model of the Greek Communist Party. Later on, I took part in the armed
conflict of December 1944 (the so-called Dekembriana). We were in the
Polytechnic University and fought a battle against the security police. But
the British tanks closed in upon us and we tried to get away. Some were
injured and the rest were captured. However, we managed to escape and
rejoin the National People’s Liberation Army (ELAS).
In short, I had a double negative experience of Greece. First, the experi-
ence of the bourgeoisie from which I came and found suffocating – its ideas,
conventions and morality. I was against the bourgeoisie before joining the
Communist Party. I wanted this class to perish. Second, I had the bad experi-
ence of the Stalinist bureaucracy. In other words, when I left Greece I had
to shake the dust off my feet from both the bourgeoisie and the Stalinist
Communist Party. Since the period I went politically underground I had
wanted to leave Greece. It seemed to me that Greece was ‘narrow’ and gave
me the sense of a strong ethnocentrism. Ultimately, I left Greece and settled
in France thanks to a scholarship given to me by the French government.

CM: Where did you find yourself after immigrating into France? How
was the atmosphere?

KA: The atmosphere was friendly and I immediately started to study

philosophy at the Sorbonne. During these first years in France I systemati-
cally studied Heraclitus, Marx, Hegel and Nietzsche. At a political level, general
elections were going to be held when I arrived in France. One could see
posters of the French Communist Party with the ‘political slogan’: ‘Vote for
the French Communist Party, the party of the small property owners’. And I
asked myself: ‘Was it the small property owners that we had fought for?’ In
March 1946 I was expelled from the Greek Communist Party because I had
stated that it was dogmatic, and I was opposed to the French Communist
Party’s policy. It is worth mentioning here that during the first post-liberation
years the French Communist Party reached the peak of its political influence
and made an endeavour to impose its ideological dominance along with
Sartre and leftist Catholicism. I found myself outside and against these ideo-
logical trends. Thus, I joined some scholars with whom I shared common
experiences, that is, we were ex-communists, former cadres of the Com-
munist Party, without having become anti-communists, and we edited the
journal Arguments.
 For Marx and Marxism: An Interview with Kostas Axelos 133

CM: In your editorial with which the cessation of the journal Argu-
ments was announced, amongst other things, you noted that, ‘It is particu-
larly difficult to learn how to talk and think and, as for action, a long way
to go is still needed in order to understand what “transformation of the world”
(Marx) or “change of life” (Rimbaud) mean. Nor is it easy to give up the
bad habits, to transcend stammers and screams, cliché and slogans, wishful
thinking and “future illusions”’ (Axelos, 1989: 248). Why do the vast majority
of Marxists remain ‘closed’, both in their thinking and action?

KA: In each period of history and thought, an absolutely moderate

mentality, an amalgamation of several trivial-isms, prevails. It seems like
people and societies are indifferent to great thoughts; on the contrary, a
vulgar popularization of these thoughts dominates. Nowadays, only a few
people adduce Marx’s thought and Marxism. Even these people, however,
do not relate to the vibration of Marx’s thought; instead, they only ask for
minor theoretical and practical instructions, while in their action they follow
movements which are consistent with the mediocrity of our times.

CM: You have written that ‘Marxism has been involved in a complicated
rigorousness. It has been drained like wood ready to fall from a previously
green tree. . . . To endorse the liberation of the living elements included in
Marxism is without doubt painful’ (Axelos, 1989: 243). Which, do you think,
are these living elements and how could they contribute to the opening of
Marxism?

KA: In order to enter into a productive dialogue with Marx’s thought

rather than Marxist theory, other great thinkers (Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger)
should be employed, not to revitalize Marxism conventionally, but to maintain
the problematic element of Marx’s thought open and to question it as a unity
and from several aspects. Further, the bourgeois horizon, which mainly
remains Marx’s horizon, should be illuminated.

CM: In the 1960s you had already coined the term ‘Open Marxism’.3
What did you mean exactly with ‘Open Marxism’? How could this opening
of Marxism lead to ‘pulverization of the Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, Trotskyist
and Anarchist sects and beyond them’ (Axelos, 1989: 242)?

KA: By using the term ‘Open Marxism’, I meant a theoretical current

– which never came into being as a movement – and which, in opposition
to Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism-Maoism, did not render Marxism an ideology
of power, but attempted to pose fruitful questions and demystify the so-
called ‘existing realizations’. Lukács and Korsch made an effort, but their
contemplative measures were limited. Any kind of action, political or non-
political, cannot be defined a priori. Today, the critical question might be
134 Thesis Eleven (Number 98 2009)

formulated: why are we not able to escape the predominant capitalist, petty-
bourgeois and techno-bureaucratic form?

CM: How would you define the ‘crisis of Marxism’? Is this crisis related
to the fact that Marxism is an integral part of contemporary European thought
which has always been in a substantial and perpetual crisis? Finally, does
this crisis call for a ‘new radicalism’?

KA: Marxism’s crisis belongs to a more general crisis. The historical

period we live in is and will be in crisis. Until when? None can predict it.
The crisis reflects both Marxism as theory (its contemplative inadequacy)
and practice (its application), which failed miserably. There seems to be a
need for a new radicalism. I am saying ‘it seems’ since the question remains:
Is there a need in general? It might be quite radical to insist on asking the
question and perceiving its preconditions and its consequences.

CM: What connects and disconnects Marx’s thinking and Marxism? Is

there a unity between them or is there anything in Marx’s thought that has
allowed the development and realization of certain versions/interpretations
of his thought (Social Democracy, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.)?

KA: What connects a thought with its ‘practice’ always remains prob-
lematic. Would another practice be possible? I would like to argue that there
is both a continuation and a break in continuation between Marx and Marxism.
Nevertheless, there is a dogmatic element in Marx’s thought itself, the closure
of many questions.

CM: Given your opinion that Marx’s thought, like every great thought,
is very significant and multidimensional, as well as that no understanding
and interpretation exhaust their source, in which manner do you think that
we should approach and ‘read’ Marx?

KA: One cannot propose a one-dimensional approach and reading of

Marx. If someone did so, she would be dogmatic. What I suggest is to place
Marx among the other thinkers of modernity – from Descartes to Heidegger
– to whom Marx also belongs. That is, one needs to examine both the current
to which he belongs (against his will) and his own contribution: the critique
of theoretical thought, which mainly – but not only – remains theoretical;
also, the critique of individual and public practice, which we always hesitate
to exercise vigorously, including ourselves in the object of critique.

CM: As you have stated, your aim has been ‘to discover the intention
of Marx’s thought and follow it to its ultimate consequences. By trying to hear
the words of Marx as a coherent, consistent, and all-embracing discourse,
 For Marx and Marxism: An Interview with Kostas Axelos 135

we shall set ourselves as well to make its truth shine out clearly ’ (Axelos,
1976: 20). What is the truth included in Marx’s thought that we have to make
shine out clearly? What is the main dimension, the central core, the revolu-
tionary element in Marxian thought which we ought to bring to light, liberate
and maintain as part of a ‘new, open and radical’ thought-action, in order
to act as an alternative to capitalism?

KA: The central core of a thought is not motionless. It resists various

interpretations that get inspired by it. Each thinker should be rendered more
problematic than he actually is. Can we understand a thinker better than he
has understood himself? The question remains open. The rupture that has
been indicated by Marx, the rupture between what we think and how we act,
should be opened even more, so that the rupture will be able to be produc-
tive. We have to deepen the rupture beyond illusions, self-deceptions and
the lies we tell ourselves and others, to bear its poignancy without aiming at
easy solutions. The big question refers to a concrete epoch, that is, it includes
people and societies, and it is dubious whether the question has been
addressed to its greatest depth and extension. Is there or is there likely to
be any alternative in the near future, or is there a great deal of time for the
present situation to be generalized, to carry everything away, to get exhausted?

CM: On which foundations was your critique on Marx based? Did you
exercise your critique on concrete elements of Marx’s thought or was your
critique total? What exactly did you reject in his theory? How has the concept
of technique influenced Marx’s thought?

KA: Marx reduced the open and multidimensional world both to a

material world as a product of material labour and to an ideological super-
structure. As a result, the liberation he was aiming at was and remained partial.
This contemplative constraint and the lack of poetic dimension in the thought
of Marxism’s founder were obvious for all those who would like to deal with
him more radically than critically. Marx considered technique as a driving
force; however, he failed in conceiving its remote origin and its dominance
over his own thought and action as well.

CM: How did you read Marx through Heidegger?4

KA: I did not read Marx through Heidegger, but I read Marx along with
Heidegger. Despite their important differences, I was impressed by their con-
current affinity – between what Marx calls alienation and Heidegger oblivion
of Being. This double reading led me to comprehend that Marx belongs to
the history of metaphysics, which in its recent period regards Man (subject)
as its basis. Marx simply socializes subject-Man, believes in universal society,
but this remains very prosaic, deprived of world.
136 Thesis Eleven (Number 98 2009)

CM: Does Marx provide us with the methodological and theoretical

tools in order to proceed beyond or even against him?

KA: Method and thought are not hermetically separated, are not two
distinct entities. If I used way instead of method, I would say that in a friendly
way, and in conjunction with Marx, one can go beyond and not against him.

CM: In your book entitled Alienation, Praxis and Techne in the Thought
of Karl Marx you have noted that ‘Marx’s thought contains negativity, which
is movement by supersession; and its negativity awaits the hour for breaking
out into the open. By putting into action the negativity that is implied in the
very movement of Marxian thought, we loosen the structural frame that blocks
negativity, we restore fluidity to the rigidity in Marxian thought’ (Axelos, 1976:
21). Given your above statement, do you think that you have put into action
the negativity of Marx’s thought? Have you attempted to radicalize and tran-
scend it?

KA: No one ever sufficiently puts into action the thought of the person
he is discoursing with. There always remain important hidden elements
which do not come to light. No thought can be transcended. All stay together
– linked and separate – in the empyrean of thought. What we can succeed
in, bearing in mind that success and defeat are not divided by a precipice,
is to show but not to prove, that beyond any milestone, a thought like the
one I am working on, drawing upon Heraclitus’ poetic thought and beyond
Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and Heidegger, can lead to a questioning thought
and enigmatic responses.

CM: What has been your contribution to critical and radical thought?

KA: I have attempted, and I am saying attempted because every thought

is an endeavour, to propose a thought which within the horizon of errancy
constitutes a thought of the world’s game, historical thought, systematic and
effective, open and multidimensional, poetic and planetary, which confronts
mainly the staking of our era: technique. The future of this endeavour does
not belong to me: it belongs to time.

CM: You have stated that Marx considered ‘material life as the only
truly human one, while thought and poetry were understood only in their
conditional and ideological forms. Hence he did not comprehend the signi-
ficance of thought calling everything into question and keeping the question
open, of thought daring to see that every great victory is the prelude to defeat’
(Axelos, 1982: 67). Granted that there is talk regarding the ‘defeat of Marx’s
thought’ or the ‘defeat of the socialist movement’, could we also make the
opposite claim, that is, every great defeat is the prelude to victory?
 For Marx and Marxism: An Interview with Kostas Axelos 137

KA: Victory and defeat are and remain inseparable, in every possible
way. All the great things are successful by being unsuccessful. The open world
that every individual and historical experience contains is the cradle and the
grave of each reflection and experience. And the game is continued.

CM: In your essay entitled ‘Is There a Marxist Philosophy?’ you have
maintained that ‘the Left seems to have dried up because she did not want
or was not able any more to refer to . . . the foundation of world history’
(Axelos, 1989: 260).What is this foundation? How is it possible for a movement
that disputes capitalism to recognize this foundation? What about the so-
called ‘anti-globalization movement’?

KA: World history is evolved by us, by human beings, while at the

same time it surpasses decisively our theories, our plans and our wills. What
we call its foundation or motive is lost in history’s vortex and in the unimagin-
able fatigue of this too-exhausted phase of history, within which we live,
think, act and die. Existing globalization – in its current meaning of the
concept, because it is decisively lacking in open world – integrates and under-
mines the alternatives. For the latter act on the same level as that they fight
against. So, what is left? A living communing with nature, the friendliness
that goes together with militancy, an endeavour of a radical thought which
does not close itself within its limits, the erotic errancy, the unmasking of
the political theatre which is not only theatre. It is also left the vivid and
critical political participation as well as the active and passive struggle, where
and when it is possible, provided it does not foster illusions, the change of
the level in which they want to locate us, our vigilant participation in a game
that does not close all openings. We must have not avoided practising what
is given to us and is being transformed.

Interview conducted in Greek and translated into English by Christos

Memos (Paris, 20 July 2006). Translation checked and authorized by Kostas
Axelos.

Christos Memos teaches in the Department of Politics, University of York. He

holds a BA in Education Studies, a BA in Sociology, an MA in Political Philosophy and
a PhD in Politics/Political Theory (University of York). His PhD thesis examined the
critical theory of Axelos, Castoriadis and Papaioannou and their assessment of Marxism
and Marx. His research interests include social and political theory (especially critical
theory); political and historical sociology; Marx and critical Marxism; anarchism; and
Soviet-type societies (USSR, China, Cuba). His recent publications include ‘Neoliber-
alism, Identification Process and the Dialectics of Crisis’, International Journal of
Urban and Regional Research (forthcoming) and ‘Anarchism and Council Commu-
nism on the Class Nature of the Soviet System’, Anarchist Studies (forthcoming).
[email: cm193@york.ac.uk; memhris@yahoo.ca]
138 Thesis Eleven (Number 98 2009)

Notes
1. For Axelos’ biographical information see Haviland (1995).
2. Axelos has produced a remarkable body of published work. His major work
was published in French and has been collected into three trilogies: the first
trilogy, Le déploiement de l’errance, comprises Marx penseur de la technique
(1961), Héraclite et la philosophie (1962), Vers la pensée planétaire (1964); the
second trilogy, Le déploiement du jeu, comprises Contribution á la logique
(1977), Le jeu du monde (1969), Pour une éthique problématique (1972); and
the third trilogy, Le déploiement d’ une enquête, comprises Arguments d’une
recherche (1969), Horizons du monde (1974) and Problémes de l`enjeu (1979).
See also Axelos’ works, Einführung in ein künftiges Denken: Über Marx und
Heidegger (1966), Systématique ouverte (1984), Métamorphoses (1991), Lettres à
un jeune penseur (1996), Notices ‘autobiographiques’ (1997), Ce questionne-
ment (2001) and Réponses énigmatiques (2005).
3. For discussion of ‘Open Marxism’ see, for example, ‘Marxisme ouvert ou
Marxisme en marche?, Arguments (1957) 5: 17–20.
4. For Axelos’ reading of Marx along with Heidegger, see Axelos (1966).

References
Agnoli, Johannes (2003) ‘Destruction as the Determination of the Scholar in Miserable
Times’, in W. Bonefeld (ed.) Revolutionary Writing. New York: Autonomedia.
Axelos, Kostas (1966) Einführung in ein künftiges Denken: Über Marx und Heidegger.
Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag Tübingen. [See also the Spanish translation:
Introducción a un pensar futuro: Sobre Marx y Heidegger, trans. Edgardo
Albizu. Buenos Aires: Amorrortu editores.]
Axelos, Kostas (1976) Alienation, Praxis and Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx,
trans. R. Bruzina. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Axelos, Kostas (1982) ‘Theses on Marx’, in N. Fischer, N. Georgopoulos and L.
Patsouras (ed.) Continuity and Change in Marxism, trans. N. Georgopoulos.
Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
Axelos, Kostas (1989) ‘
       ;’ [‘Is There a Marxist
Philosophy?’], in K. Axelos,       [Towards Planetary
Thought], trans. . . Athens:   .
Cavafy, Constantine (1976) ‘Walls’, in The Complete Poems of Cavafy, trans. R. Dalven.
New York: Harcourt Brace.
Elden, Stuart (2005) ‘Mondialisation without the World: Kostas Axelos Interviewed by
Stuart Elden’, Radical Philosophy 130: 25–8.
Haviland, Éric (1995) Kostas Axelos: Une vie pensée-Une pensée vécue. Paris: Editions
de l’Harmattan.
Poster, Mark (1975) Existential Marxism in Postwar France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.

Works by Kostas Axelos in English

(1968) ‘Planetary Interlude’, Yale French Studies 41: 6–18.
(1970) ‘Marx, Freud, and the Undertakings of Thought in the Future’, Diogenes 72:
96–111.
(1976) Alienation, Praxis and Techne in the Thought of Karl Marx. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
 For Marx and Marxism: An Interview with Kostas Axelos 139

(1979) ‘The Set’s Game-Play of Sets’, Yale French Studies 58: 95–101.
(1980) ‘Play as the System of Systems’, Sub-Stance 25: 20–4.
(1982) ‘Theses on Marx’, in N. Fischer, N. Georgopoulos and L. Patsouras (eds) Con-
tinuity and Change in Marxism. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
(2006) ‘The World: Being Becoming Totality’, Society and Space 24(5): 643–51.