Full of Power

10/28/22 • 29 min

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’t need an academic degree to listen to it.
Knowledge and politics can be produced in a wide variety of places. What intellectual spaces have you encountered or actively created beyond the classroom? Please use this form to share your reflections with us.
Episode Credits
Host: Agata Lisiak
Guests: John Allen, Ash Amin, David Featherstone, Yasmin Gunaratnam, Tariq Jazeel, Linda McDowell, Tracey Skelton, Hilary Wainwright
Also Featured: Doreen Massey
Writer and Producer: Agata Lisiak
Senior Editor: Susan Stone
Sound Producer: Reece Cox
Production Assistant: Adèle Martin
Music: Studio R
Artwork: Bose Sarmiento
Special Thanks: The Open University, Michael Chanan
In partnership with: The Sociological Review Foundation
Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation
Find more about Spatial Delight at The Sociological Review.Doreen Massey’s essays and interviews quoted in this episode:

Doreen Massey speaking about London, extract from Secret City, dir. Michael Chanan, 2012
“I feel as if I've been able to reinvent myself” – a biographical interview with Doreen Massey, by Tim Freytag and Michael Hoyler, Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg, 1998
Understanding cities – Doreen Massey interviewed by Bob Catterall, City, 2000
Space, Place, and Politics – opening remarks, The Open University, 2009
The Possibilities of a Politics of Place Beyond Place? A Conversation with Doreen Massey, Human Geography Research Group, Sophie Bond, David Featherstone, Scottish Geographical Journal, 2009
Liverpool's football activists are part of a wider social movement, The Guardian, 2010

Selected tributes and obituaries:

Hilary Wainwright, “How we will miss that chuckle”: my friend, Doreen Massey
Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, The Doreen Massey we knew
Emma Jackson, Keeping one eye on the bus: A tribute to Doreen Massey
David Featherstone, Doreen Massey obituary

Doreen Massey speaking about London, extract from Secret City, dir. Michael Chanan, 2012
“I feel as if I've been able to reinvent myself” – a biographical interview with Doreen Massey, by Tim Freytag and Michael Hoyler, Department of Geography, University of Heidelberg, 1998
Understanding cities – Doreen Massey interviewed by Bob Catterall, City, 2000
Space, Place, and Politics – opening remarks, The Open University, 2009
The Possibilities of a Politics of Place Beyond Place? A Conversation with Doreen Massey, Human Geography Research Group, Sophie Bond, David Featherstone, Scottish Geographical Journal, 2009
Liverpool's football activists are part of a wider social movement, The Guardian, 2010

Selected tributes and obituaries:

Hilary Wainwright, “How we will miss that chuckle”: my friend, Doreen Massey
Jeremy Gilbert and Jo Littler, The Doreen Massey we knew
Emma Jackson, Keeping one eye on the bus: A tribute to Doreen Massey
David Featherstone, Doreen Massey obituary

Previous Episode

Introducing 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 closer look at a contested waterfront in Kochi and the Egyptian desert, we learn that “the way we are, and the way places are, is a product of our interrelations with everywhere else,” as Massey put it.
Created by Agata Lisiak, Associate Professor of Migration Studies at Bard College Berlin, Spatial Delight seeks to inspire listeners to think about space and place as full of power, and to imagine political alternatives to the current world order.
Episode Credits
Host: Agata Lisiak
Featured Guests: John Allen, Yasmin Gunaratnam
Also Featured: Doreen Massey
Writer and Producer: Agata Lisiak
Senior Editor: Susan Stone
Sound Producer: Reece Cox
Production Assistant: Adèle Martin
Music: Studio R
Artwork: Bose Sarmiento
Special Thanks to: Serpentine Gallery, Michael Chanan
In partnership with: The Sociological Review Foundation
Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation

Find more about Spatial Delight at The Sociological Review.

Next Episode

Geography Matters!

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 pretending their position was in any way universal, and to provincialise their questions and theories instead.

What has shaped your geographical imagination? What – or who – has challenged the way you understand the world? How does geography matter to you? Please use this form to share your thoughts.

Episode Credits
Host: Agata Lisiak
Guests: John Allen, David Featherstone, Tariq Jazeel, Linda McDowell, Tracey Skelton
Also Featured: Doreen Massey
Writer and Producer: Agata Lisiak
Senior Editor: Susan Stone
Sound Producer: Reece Cox
Production Assistant: Adèle Martin
Music: Studio R
Artwork: Bose Sarmiento
Special Thanks: The Open University, Michael Todd
In partnership with: The Sociological Review Foundation
Funded by: Volkswagen Foundation

Find more about Spatial Delight at The Sociological Review.

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

Is the World Really Shrinking?, The Open University radio lecture, 2006
Doreen Massey on Space, Social Science Space, 2013
Space, Place, and Politics, The Open University, 2009
A Global Sense of Place, Marxism Today, 1991
Space, Place, and Gender, Doreen Massey, (Polity Press, 1994)
Geography Matters!, edited by Doreen Massey and John Allen (Cambridge University Press, 1984)
Human Geography Today, edited by Doreen Massey, John Allen and Philip Sarre (Wiley, 1991)
Geographical Worlds, edited by Doreen Massey and John Allen (The Open University, 1995)
A Place in the World, edited by Doreen Massey and Pat Jess (The Open University, 1995)

Spatial Delight - Full of Power

Transcript

Doreen Massey 0:01

The way we are, and the way places are, is a product of our interrelations with with everywhere else. So, England could not be England without having had that empire. And the way in which it is England is a result of all of those relations. The fact that I have the characteristics I have is a result of the geographies within which I am set. And those geographies, those relations within which am set, are all full of power. (Doreen Massey speaking in th