Speaker: Jamie Peck (University of British Columbia)

References to “conjunctural” circumstances, and more specifically to conjunctural analysis, are back in circulation (maybe even vogue), perhaps reflecting the growing sense that orthodoxies are breaking down, crises are piling up, orders are being reordered, and the ground is moving beneath our feet. The presentation will reflect on these developments in relation to the “case,” “model,” and situation of China, exploring the potential contributions (and challenges) of conjunctural modes of analysis in this context. These have a distinctive and generative contribution to make, given their defining concerns with context-rich, multicausal explanation; their combinations of exploratory, midlevel theorizing and extended casing; and their principled refusals of essentialism, reductionism, and foreclosures both political and analytical. As a relational and reflexive approaches, they seek to navigate around the cul-de-sac of exceptionalist, taxonomic, and introspective explanation, insisting on the animation and ongoing reconstruction of theory claims and emergent concepts, both through and across cases, against their deployment as rigid frameworks or inert foils. This is a rationale for working and indeed staying with awkward, multi-dimensional, and question-begging concepts, such as “party-state capitalism,” at least where these provoke new insights and provide demonstrable traction.

Speaker’s bio:

Jamie Peck is University Killam Professor in the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia and a Fellow at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (2026-2027).