Stasis in the Planetary-City: Conflict and Spatiality within the Fading of Western Modernity

In recent decades, an unprecedented scenario has gradually emerged, assembling and dissolving previous conditions: the materialization of a “planetary-city”, intended as a figure for understanding contemporary political spatiality. The ancient Greek notion of stasis is tested on this hypothesis in order to measure the changing forms of conflict within the new political configuration. To elaborate this theoretical perspective, the article adopts a historical-political methodology. It firstly investigates the parabola of the state and war binomial during Western modernity and, secondly, it traces a genealogy of the city during the same period, showing the historical link between urban development and globalization processes. Thirdly, the paper analyzes the becoming-planetary of the city and the dynamics of conflict inherent to this framework, explained by using the notion of stasis. These hermeneutical hypotheses are discussed within their inextricable interconnection, showing the importance to open up a reflection on how an original cultural production is emerging, shaping and deciphering this new architecture of political concepts.