This book develops a conversation between Marxist theories of everyday life and recent work in urban political ecology, arguing for a philosophy of praxis in relation to the politics of urban environments. Grounding its theoretical debate in empirical studies of struggles to obtain water in the informal settlements of Durban, South Africa, as well as in the creative acts of insurgent art activists in London, the book builds on the work of key Marxist thinkers to redefine “environmental politics.” A Marxist philosophy of praxis—that world-changing ideas emerge from the acts of everyday people—u ... More

This book develops a conversation between Marxist theories of everyday life and recent work in urban political ecology, arguing for a philosophy of praxis in relation to the politics of urban environments. Grounding its theoretical debate in empirical studies of struggles to obtain water in the informal settlements of Durban, South Africa, as well as in the creative acts of insurgent art activists in London, the book builds on the work of key Marxist thinkers to redefine “environmental politics.” A Marxist philosophy of praxis—that world-changing ideas emerge from the acts of everyday people—undergirds the book. Our daily reality, states the book, is woven out of the entanglements of social and natural relations, and as such a kind of environmental politics is automatically incorporated into our lives. Nevertheless, one effect of the public recognition of global environmental change, asserts Loftus, has been a resurgence of dualistic understandings of the world: for example, that nature is inflicting revenge on arrogant human societies. The book reformulates—with the assistance of such philosophers as Georg Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Henri Lefebvre, and others—a politics of the environment in which everyday subjectivity is at the heart of a revolutionary politics.