Toward a Politics of A-filiation

In the conclusion to Exiles in the City, and drawing from the writings of Hannah Arendt, Edward Said, and Giorgio Agamben, William Spanos refers to an “agonic friendship” that is not “‘friendship’ as such”—that is, friendship premised on “filiation or affiliation”—but the affirmation of an “agonic” friendship characterized by “a-filiation.” The essay addresses the conditions or presuppositions—at once ontological, philosophical, and political—in which this affirmation of agonic friendships and a-filiative relationships begins to emerge. At the same time, it seeks to trace out the implications of such a politics for a renewed concept of the polis, understood in light of what Spanos terms a “coming global polity.”