Articles in vol. 21(2) and later of this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. This journal is published by the University Library System, University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH Editorial Note Ruling Abstractions and Unruly Spaces Andrej Grubačić Editor, Journal of World-Systems Research agrubacic@ciis.edu “She had thought time flowed! Now she finds it funny. It’s obvious that time spins around like skirts whirling in a dance.” Olga Tokarczuk, The Book of Jacob A character in Olga Tokarczuk’s magnificent novel The Book of Jacob refers to the time that is “not yet” historical; a time that is, in some ways, frozen, and as such excluded from the developmentalist and civilizationist historical narratives. Since its inception, the world-systems perspective has been concerned with the problem of historical time. The great innovation of scholars such as Fernand Braudel and Immanuel Wallerstein was the critique of the emptiness of time and space, formulated within the proposal for the development of a new historical social science. In world-systems analysis, time and space are seen as substantive properties of social relations, and the network of relations that comprises the capitalist world economy produces its own temporal spatial and temporal configurations. ISSN: 1076-156X | Vol. 28 Issue 2 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2022.1143 | jwsr.pitt.edu Vol. 1 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.1 http://www.library.pitt.edu/ http://www.pitt.edu/ http://www.library.pitt.edu/articles/digpubtype/index.html http://upress.pitt.edu/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:agrubacic@ciis.edu Journal of World-Systems Research | Vol. 28 Issue 2 | Grubačić 179 jwsr.pitt.edu | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2022.1143 In a similar vein, Jason W. Moore and Boaventura de Sausa Santos, in their respective contributions, both offer a world-historical critique of the Civilizing Project of capitalist modernity. The first in a two-part series, Moore’s superb account of Prometheanism shows that settler colonial formations are specific expressions of the Civilizing Project, within the imperialist system of class formation, situated in the web of life. His contribution is a compelling proposal for a new synthesis in and through world-ecology, as well as a devastating critique of Eurocentric class formalism. Boaventura de Sousa Santos reminds us of Gramsci’s interregnum, a temporal metaphor that points to an ambiguous temporality in which the new society is not yet fully born (but the old one has not yet definitively died). Both authors question the temporal provincialism of capitalist Prometheanism, as well as the epistemic roots of Eurocentric domination. In his essay on Immanuel Wallerstein's legacy, Javier Garcia Fernandez joins them in thinking about the lineages of the world-systems analysis observed from the time-space of southern Europe. His essay is situated at the theoretical intersection of the Arab-Muslim dependency theory and the analytic framework of southern Europe as semi-periphery. Time is very much on the mind of the authors of our research articles. Allan Hassaniyan and Mansour Sohrabi, in their essay on Colonial Management of Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat), examine the consequences of the “absolute colonization” of east Kurdistan and the “environmentalism of the subalterns” resisting eco-colonialism in what they categorize as the internal colonial space of the Iranian state. In the first part of her essay on Theories of Fascism in the Interwar Mediterranean, Kristin Plys examines the resurgence of fascism in the long durée of three waves of historical fascism. In dialogue with Enzo Traverso and other historians of fascism, her contribution is distinctly world-systemic. Her focus is on the classical, postcolonial, and postmodern fascism; but from the perspective of the resistance, including workers self management and autonomous zones of coffee culture in the colonial fascist interwar Mediterranean. In Interrogating Structural Conditions for Agricultural Production: A Comparative-Historical Study of Cuban Incorporation, Delinking and Exile, Andrew Smolski examines the anti-systemic potential of delinking and exile in the case of Cuba. In this important addition to literature on sustainable transition in agriculture, he suggests that the strategy of delinking, “necessary but not sufficient,” could provide important tools in strengthening the local anti-systemic structures. Finally, Çağrı İdiman in the second part of his essay on Tributary World-Ecologies, brings into sharper historical relief the distinctive element of capitalist world- ecology, distinguished from other world-ecologies by simultaneous transformation of productive relation and mode of appropriation of labor and nature. Transition to the capitalist world-ecology in the long fourteenth century was a result of a tributary collapse, one that implied endless accumulation of capital, ceaseless appropriation of nature, and territorial expansion, as well as a decisive moment of internal articulation of wage labor with other productive relations. Journal of World-Systems Research | Vol. 28 Issue 2 | Editorial Note 180 jwsr.pitt.edu | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2022.1143 We are excited to bring you a special issue on Anti-State and Anti-Systemic: Exilic Spaces and Societies in Movement in the World-System, guest edited by Spencer Louis Potiker and Yousuf Al-Bulushi, from University of California, Irvine. The papers in this issue explore a different dimension of historical time. Exilic spaces, defined here as instances of self-organization, autonomy, and mutual aid, are instances situated in the “black holes” of the world-time that exist at the margins of the capitalist world-economy. As for the non-state anti-systemic movements, these collective mobilizations are not a common topic in the world -systems literature. While critiques of capitalism and the state were both central to the development of world-systems analysis, historical documentation of anti-systemic movements has tended to center on a centrist liberal temporality and two-step strategy—first take control of the state, and second, change the world. While this strategy is no doubt historically relevant and state revolutions are important to understanding the inner workings of and resistance to the capitalist world-system, the analysis of non-state anti-systemic movements involves a different temporality and requires much further study from within the world-systems framework. Our guest editors have done an excellent job in documenting diverse non-state anti-systemic movements that place an emphasis on explicitly anarchist mobilizations, experiments in worker/community self-management and direct action, general strikes; horizontal forms of resistance to political authoritarianism and state violence, autonomous indigenous movements aimed at decolonizing ways of life both materially and culturally, and the non-sovereign freedom dreams within the Black radical tradition. The contributors to the special issue venture beyond simple documentation of these anti-systemic movements in order to explore the ways in which these formations interact with states and other social actors in the world-system. The collection develops innovative approaches to studying non- state anti-systemic movements and spaces from a world-systems perspective. Our book review section offers an engaging set of essays. This section includes reviews of two books: The Biomedical Empire: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic, written by Barbara Katz Rothman and reviewed by Durgesh Solanki; as well as Oil Crisis in Iran: From Nationalism to Coup d’état, written by Ervand Abrahamian and reviewed by Val Moghadam. The two books round out the issue in their discussion of comprehensive historical conflict and a history that in some ways is still in motion.