Two colleagues at Durham, Ben Anderson and Paul Harrison, have a new edited book out – Taking Place: Non-Representational Theories and Geography.

It’s published by Ashgate, and more info can be found here. You can download the book’s introduction for free here. So far I’ve only read the long introduction and the interview with Nigel Thrift. Here are what the reviewers said

‘Non-representational theories have exercised the discipline more than most in the first decade of the 21st century. This collection provides insights into what moved a generation of geographers to experiment this style of work, and where such experimentation might still lead.’

Sarah J. Whatmore, University of Oxford, UK

‘I read the manuscript of this book in two (long) sittings. I felt impelled to do so, to keep turning the pages. I was excited, moved, surprised, inspired; but always learning, sensing possibilities for thought-and-action leading me far from my academic comfort zone. As a gathering together of the remarkable intellectual and creative energies released by non-representational theory, this volume is a mightily impressive achievement where the multiple “rough grounds” of bodies, lives, events, movements, relations and spaces are allowed to challenge singular constructs of nature, society, politics, ethics, the human and the future. The volume serves simultaneously as a work of exposition and experiment, a rejoinder to critics, an elaboration of further paths, and a generous affirmation of responding geographically to more-than-representational worlds.’

Chris Philo, University of Glasgow, UK

‘Taking Place is a beautifully illustrated map of the most interesting work being pursued in geography today. It explores what nature, culture, language, and ethics can become once “social constructivism” has to share the bill with a variety of new materialisms. The book is a wonderful resource for political theorists, ethnographers, urbanists, ecophilosophers, and anyone interested in the strange magic of the encounter between things, events, places, and our accounts of them’

Jane Bennett, The Johns Hopkins University, USA

So it comes highly recommended, and interesting to see how impressed Jane Bennett was. I hope that it gets widely read outside of the discipline of geography: it is sure to get a lot of interest within. It’s a substantial book of nearly 400 pages, and I know that Ben and Paul  put a lot of work and thought in it. It’s great to see it out.