“The glaciers, once remote and immobile, are now at our door. And the multitudes of disadvantaged are becoming actors on a global stage. Neither the glaciers nor these multitudes can be kept in that putative no-man’s land that powerful shapers of this economy thought they could rely on.” (Sassen)

Saskia Sassen’s picture of the old leaking cages refers to the nation-state structures that are slowly coming apart, creating a no man’s land of wars, violence, inequality and global warming. These conditions have been here for a long time, but now When Territory and Time Seap out of the Old Cages they are being revealed. It is becoming clear which devastating landscape these old structures of nation-state and capitalism are built on, Sassen argues. The old cages are no longer sufficient for our current situation, and problems like climate change break down borders and create a new kind of no man’s land. These new interzones are a fertile soil from which new assemblages emerge-- assemblages which are neither national nor global. They cross across the dichotomy of national vs. global but are localized practices with globalized networks. They are building blocks for planetary negotiations and discussions between different cultures.

Read Saskia Sassen’s essay When Territory and Time Seap out of the Old Cages and share your opinion. Can these new assemblages create new geographies and new power structures, breaking down our cases of nation-states and/or democracy?