ABSTRACT
This chapter calls for a more relational approach to what in post-foundational literature has been called the ‘political difference’, i.e. the distinction between policing practices which create order in society, and practices that disrupt this order by claiming an equal right to speak. Using the struggle for ‘t Landhuis (Ghent) as a case study of contested urban development, it explores how the Rancièrean concepts of universalization and particularization can be utilized in adopting this relational approach, stressing that emancipation implies navigating the field of tension between particular subject positions and acting as a stand-in for a universalizing message of equality.
