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POWER-GEOMETRIES IN ACTION

In itself, the term power-geometry does not imply any specific form (any specific geometry). It is a concept through which to analyse the world, in order perhaps to highlight inequalities, or deficiencies in democracy. It is in this mode an instrument of potential critique. It may also, however, be an instrument through which to imagine, and maybe to begin to build, more equal and democratic societies. This point was brought strongly home to me in the spring and summer of 2007 when I received an invitation to visit Venezuela to participate in the processes of change underway as part of the Bolivarian project of building a socialism of the twenty-first century. After a resounding election victory in December 2006 this project, led by Hugo Chávez, had moved in a more explicitly socialist direction (its own characterisation) and in this context five motors had been set out to carry the revolution forward. The fourth of these motors is to build a new power-geometry (la nueva geometría del poder). Here, then, a geographical concept is being put to positive political use. Indeed, as will be seen, part of what lay behind the proposal was an impressive recognition of the existence and significance, within Venezuela, of highly unequal, and thus undemocratic, power-geometries.

In its particular form of the fourth motor, the new power-geometry referred to the need to reorganise the geopolitics of Venezuela, the geopolitical organisation of its territory. Importantly, however, this was recognised to refer both to the formal geography of its democracy and to the form of the power-relations that it entailed. Schematically, it is possible to spell out these aspects separately. Thus, on the more purely geographical side, the intent is to distribute «power» and participation more evenly – to give more voice to the vast regions of the south of the country, that stretch away from the towns and populated areas of the coast towards the headwaters of the Amazon; to give more voice to smaller communities; and to give more voice to indigenous communities. On the other side, there was recognition of the need also to address the nature of the power within these power-geometries.