Conjunctural analysis:moments and methods

There has been a remarkable resurgence in the adoption of various forms of conjunctural analysis in recent years, in the long decade that began with the global financial crisis of 2008-2010, to be punctuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been roiled by the rise of resurgent currents of authoritarianism, populism, nationalism, protectionism, and more. With deep roots traceable to Machiavelli and Gramsci, and more recently to the work of Stuart Hall and his collaborators, conjunctural analysis comes with a reputation for potency and contextual relevance, yet remains somewhat elusive and enigmatic, combining as it does a critical ethos, ethic, and orientation, along with a bundle of craft practices, but no more than a tacit methodology. Conjunctural analysis will not be reduced to a method, but it is not methodologically neutral or indifferent. The presentation reflects on the recent (re)turn to conjunctural analysis in the critical social sciences, including geography and urban studies, exploring its implications for contemporary methodological practice.

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Host or Publisher Caterina Ciarleglio