I’m a political theorist and doctoral candidate at Harvard University.

My research focuses on social movements and public space. My broader research interests include critical theory; feminist political thought; environmental studies; urban planning; and methodological innovations in political theory, especially ethnographic methods. My dissertation, Worlds of Our Own Making: A Political Theory of Protest Space, develops a novel account of spatialized political struggle. Occupations and encampments are central tactics in the repertoire of contentious politics—but why? Many familiar goals of protest—to raise awareness, articulate demands, build momentum, or assemble communities—are better served by other forms of protest. My dissertation aims to show why spatial protests remain widespread. Through case analysis of key moments of spatialized struggle from across the 20th and 21st centuries, I demonstrate how these protests use spatial transformation to denaturalize the political present and reimagine political futures—underappreciated epistemic goals of protest. In so doing, my work helps us better understand how political power is always already embedded in space, and how spacemaking can be wielded as a form of counter-power. My writing has been published in Political Theory, Jacobin, and KINO!.

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Celia Eckert