Contextualizing neoliberalism : an interview with Jamie Peck

In this interview, Peck looks back at the key influences on the ongoing development of his own approach to studying and critiquing neoliberalism, from treating it as a static phenomenon and as an ideologically expansive synonym for Thatcherism, to teasing out its more discursive, processual and protean character, as well as the contradictory and contextual complexity of its articulation as lived phenomenon; from critiquing the nature of neoliberalism, to critiquing its movements, triangulating between its 'ideological, ideational, and institutional currents, between philosophy, politics and practice' (Peck 2010, p. 8). He addresses the links between the sociological complexity and the historical geography of neoliberalism, between the lived experiences of actually existing neoliberalisms and the process of neoliberalization, and between the local and global conjunctures of neoliberalism. In emphasizing both thecontextual and processual nature of neoliberalism, he draws attention to the need to engage with conflicting theoretical and methodological paradigms, traditions and approaches if we are to understand neoliberalism both spatially (here and there) and temporally (then and now), and if we are to be prepared for whatever (similarly contextual and processual -ism) may come after neoliberalism.