How to analyze non-state-centered world politics and the possibility of democratizing global futures? I consider the role of representational politics to be one of the most neglected areas in these debates.

Representation is a concept that carries a particularly heavy baggage of state territoriality that complicates its use in non-state, transnational and global contexts. When someone brings up the importance of representation as an issue that social movements should not evade, it is typically perceived as an attempt to emphasize the importance of connecting the strategies of the movements more closely with the state. This exclusive association between the state and representation, that Silke Trommer and I have called their “umbilical cord”, needs to be cut. Continue reading →