Re‐appropriating the political through enacting a pedagogical politics of place

This paper critically analyses the post‐political thesis, highlighting its universalising and agency‐grabbing tendencies. Drawing on my own family life, anarchist theory and long‐standing traditions of “properly” political placemaking by past and present grassroots actors, the paper unsettles two interrelated claims on which the post‐political thesis sits. First, that the political (le politique) is in retreat. Second, that “proper” politics constitutes a confrontational set of relations. Informed by empirical observations I present an existing form of rigorous political encounter enacted in anarchist‐influenced social centres. The politics on offer here has a supportive pedagogical quality to it and, crucially, there are semblances of this pedagogical politics found in multiple sites. Focusing on the “micro‐physics of power” at work in social centres, I show how such organisational practices counter the predetermined finalities of the post‐political condition by enacting what I call “equality‐as‐tactic”. Community here is not an empty vessel that can be easily filled with “empty signifiers”. On the contrary, post‐political practices tend to crack under the scrutiny of a pedagogical politics aimed at equalising participation in the decisionmaking process.