#11-Summer serie « Cars and Political Struggles (3/4) »
Dialogue with the researcher William Callison
In the third episode of the summer series « Automobiles and Political Struggles », Yasmin Afshar spoke with political theorist William Callison, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Human Geography at Uppsala University in Sweden and a member of the Zetkin Collective, a group of academics and activists working on far-right ecology.
Taking the car as a symbol of individual freedom and the rejection of the state, Callison analyzed the anti-ecological drift of car culture in both Europe and the Americas. Taking the United States as a paradigm, our guest also addresses the masculinist and racist aspects that are expressed in driving behavior, as well as the centrality of the car in protests against measures to combat covid-19, the so-called « diagonalist » movement.
To find out more about William Callison’s research, we recommend the following pieces:
“Extinguishing the Flames: A Call for Future Research and Action on Far-Right Ecologies” (with The Zetkin Collective) in Irma Allen, Kristoffer Ekberg, Ståle Holgersen, Andreas Malm (eds.) Fanning the flames: Political Ecologies of the Far Right (Manchester University Press, forthcoming 2024 ).
“Postwachstum von rechts und die Gefahr des Ökofaschismus” (with Tatjana Söding), Ökologisches Wirtschaften (forthcoming 2023).
« Coronapolitics from the Reichstag to the Capitol » (with Quinn Slobodian), Boston Review (January 2021).
In German: « Querdenker: Der Aufstand des Mittelstands, » Zeit Online (April 3, 2021).