Mobilising post-political environments: tracing the selective geographies of Swedish sustainable urban development

Abstract

This paper develops an analytical framework from which to understand the mobilisation of post-political urban environments across spatial and institutional contexts. Our analysis of two closely related cases from a Swedish context reveals the potential benefits of combining studies on urban political ecology and policy mobility. By utilising Actor-Network Theory (ANT) we illustrate how post-political environments that are shaped by mobile and mutating policies of sustainable urban development are stabilised through distinct discursive strategies, capital investments and the desire for increased influence within global frames of action and contribute to the creation of, what we call, selective geographies.