Below the Belt? Territory and Development in China's International Rise

China's internationalization has been heralded by some as a new era of South–South cooperation. Yet such framings of development are pitched at an abstract space of the ‘global South’ which conceals more than it reveals. With some theory moving towards ontologies of ‘global development’, we need to capture both the connectedness and the local specificity of increasingly diffuse processes. This article sets out a more fine‐grained understanding of how political territories and processes are imagined and produced by and through China's internationalization, focusing on infrastructure as a ‘technology’ of territorialization. Much of the focus on China's internationalization has been on state‐to‐state relations, but this obscures the ‘omni‐channel politics’ that China practises. Using a critical literature review and illustrative case study, this article develops the idea of omni‐channel politics to posit a view of ‘twisted’ territories in which political processes and development outcomes are more complex and contingent.     

Engendering citizenship: gendered spaces of democracy in South Africa

The dramatic political upheavals and transformations that have occurred throughout the world during the 1990s have served to refocus international attention on theories of citizenship and democracy. Feminist theorists have explored alternative notions of radical and substantive democracy, suggesting that extending democratization depends upon the creation of metaphorical and material spaces for women's effective participation. Related to this is a growing interest among political and feminist geographers in the scales and spaces of citizenship. Drawing upon these theoretical contexts, this paper explores how transformations in South Africa present opportunities for reworking understandings of democratization and citizenship. The paper places gender and citizenship in South Africa within international feminist debates, and explores the sequence of events through which gender issues came to prominence in South Africa during the transition to democracy. The ways in which political rights are mediated by informal structures, and the effects of this on women, are analysed. The paper concludes by discussing the ways in which the construction and contestation of citizenship in South Africa might inform broader international feminist debates.     

Divergent desires for the just transition in South Africa: An assemblage analysis

In this paper I establish a ‘just transition assemblage’ as a theoretical and empirical case-study to explore the plurality of justice in South Africa's energy transition. The coal phase-out is complicated by the legacies of apartheid, poverty, inequality, unemployment and structural crisis in the state-owned power utility. This transition is loaded with expectation but there is no consensus on what would qualify it as ‘just’. This assemblage analysis clusters desires around two distinct post-carbon imaginaries. The first is an ordering of desires for justice in a diffuse, distributional sense, targeting greenhouse gas emission reductions and looking to smooth the negative impacts of the transition. I label this approach ‘net justice’. This targets more justice overall in defined political spaces, and contrasts with the second orientation around recognising, reconciling, and addressing specific injustices. These desires are distinguished by a contrasting purpose of renewable energy and differing attitudes to its appropriateness or fit. There are incoherent spatial effects, where net justice is shown to be a territorialising project whilst specific injustices need to be de-territorialised. Emphasising desire shows how material and history are enrolled and enlivened, contributing to post-carbon imaginaries. This approach enables injustice and net justice to be understood as conceptually distinct, despite seeming unified calls for a just transition. The primary contribution of this paper is to show how in some cases, popular uses of the terms justice and injustice refer to different things. It forces attention on the question of: ‘justice for whom?’     

Using measures of cost distance in the estimation of polity boundaries in the Postclassic Yautepec valley,Mexico

The reconstruction of polity boundaries is essential for the study of political evolution, but few enhancements to archaeological boundary estimation methods have been proposed in recent years. New techniques of terrain modeling and geographical analysis provide the means to augment traditional methods of boundary estimation. In this paper, I review archaeological methods for estimating the spatial location of boundaries between independent polities and ways to modify these methods to explore the processes of political expansion in the evolution of complex societies. I demonstrate several of these methods using data from Postclassic polities in the Yautepec valley, Morelos, Mexico. Through time, seven independent polities were founded, expanded, and were ultimately incorporated within two levels of regional political administration. I apply new quantitative methods for the estimation of polity territories and explore the processes that resulted in the formation of a regional polity. The resulting boundaries are objective estimates of the location of borders based on energetic efficiency that can be systematically tested against theoretical models. These estimated boundaries provide a basis for exploring the social meaning of territorial divisions. Additionally, energetic boundaries provide a means for delineating local zones for landscape utilization and comparative analyses.     

Wandering identities in energy transition discourses: Political leaders’ use of the “we” pronoun in Ontario, 2009–2019

This paper explores the use of universalizing language as a discursive strategy to promote shifts in energy policy. Building on scholarship that seeks to understand the political nature of energy transitions, including resistance to transitions, the role of the state, and implications for justice, we examine three phases of energy transition in Ontario in the period 2009–2019, focusing on the ways that three successive ruling coalitions used the first plural pronoun “we” to promote contrasting energy policy orientations. Our analysis of policy documents and government news releases confirms that all three coalitions used the “we” form as a strategic device to define priorities, prescribe courses of action, and broadcast achievements. However, they also used the ambiguity of the “we” form to obscure alternative perspectives, claim credit for rivals’ accomplishments, and gloss over harmful and differentiated impacts of policy choices. The paper concludes by reflecting on broader questions about power and justice relevant to energy transition scholars.     

Beneath the “Zunami”: Jacob Zuma and the Gendered Politics of Social Reproduction in South Africa

Abstract: In April 2009, African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma was swept into power in South Africa's fourth democratic general election. To date, this political “Zunami” has largely been presented as either a leftist rebellion against Mbeki's neoliberalism, a reassertion of patriarchal “traditionalism”, or an example of Zulu ethnic mobilization. This article draws on a long‐term ethnographic study to provide a critical gendered perspective on Zuma's rise. It argues that Zuma resonates with many poor South Africans, including women, in part because of his ability to connect the personal and political in ways that talk to South Africa's “crisis of social reproduction”. A key point the article emphasizes—one virtually absent from contemporary discussions about Zuma—is the profound gendering of growing class divisions, specifically the way this manifests itself in huge reductions in marital rates and heightened gendered contestations.     

Gender Equality in National Politics: The Views of Australian Male Politicians

Studies of gender and politics have typically been studies of women and politics. In contrast, this paper places men at the centre of its inquiry by drawing on interviews with 15 current federal male politicians. Of concern is exploring the ways in which men conceptualise the question of gender equity in the Australian parliament. Three frameworks are identified in the men's narratives. These are that the parliament is a masculinised space but that this is unavoidable; that the parliament is now feminised and women are advantaged; and that the parliament is gender neutral and gender is irrelevant. It is argued that collectively these framing devices operate to mask the many constraints which exist to marginalise women from political participation and undermine attempts to address women's political disadvantage as political participants. The paper concludes by highlighting the significance of the paper beyond the Australian context and calling for further research which names and critiques political men and their discourses on gender and parliamentary practices and processes.     

Online methods in geography educational research

South Africa's higher education system has undergone significant change since the end of apartheid. A central theme in the debates on higher education transformation has been the tension between the global imperatives of development and the need for universities to respond to the legacy of apartheid. This paper explores this tension by considering recent changes in geographical teaching and research. The paper argues that many of the tensions evident in higher education between the global and the local, which are as yet unresolved, find expression within South African geographical scholarship.     

National maps, digitalisation and neoliberal cartographies: transforming nation-state practices and symbols in postcolonial Ecuador

The paper explores the connection between computerised techniques of mapping and the role of maps in modern nationhood, interrogating the ways that maps are naturalised and deployed in postcolonial neoliberal statecraft. A case study of Ecuador demonstrates how the relationship between cartography and the nation-state is being both altered and reaffirmed by new mapping practices and institutional processes. Despite neoliberalising moves to decentre state cartographers and the technological advances supporting the proliferation of national maps and map-makers, Ecuadorian cartographies are still authorised by the nation-state, as explored in relation to spatial information about the country, and in relation to the processes of land-titling. Under neoliberal governance and with advanced mapping techniques, land-titling produces small territories that replicate – in miniature – the jigsaw-like and modular quality of national territories. As such, mappings of individual private properties produce the reality of neoliberal statecraft.     

Cartographies of encounters: Understanding conflict transformation through a collaborative exploration of youth spaces in Beirut

This paper explores practices and imaginations of space among young people in postwar Beirut. Relying on an innovative collaborative-mapping methodology, it shifts the focus from the traditional analysis of the city at war, centred on anxious urbanism, toward spatial dynamics of conflict transformation. It deploys an ethnographic approach to shed light on everyday perceptions of the urban landscape among a group of students. Their visions of space are composed along conventional tropes, comparable to Bakhtin's notion of chronotopes: images that connect temporal and spatial relationships to describe their ways of inhabiting the city. These images reveal that their experiences of space are not produced exclusively in relation to the memory of wartime topographies and politico-religious territories. Rather, they are also the result of their personal trajectories and agency. For these young people, ordinary encounters inspire a reframing of the political geography of the everyday, including renewed narratives on coexistence and strategies of circumventing the sense of spatial confinement they inherited from the war. The analysis shows that the experiences of these students stand in sharp contrast with the dominant image of unbending intergroup boundaries in postwar Lebanon. Young people's abilities to navigate, negotiate and rediscover social encounters in a complex, changing environment call attention to the transformative power of micro-situations in postwar contexts. Through highlighting their original lifestyles and ways of thinking, this paper argues that the city, far from only symbolising and reproducing conflicts, is also the place where mundane practices and imaginations reinvent the social fabric.     

An Island Divided: Politicised Landscapes,Modern Borders,and Shifting Identities

Abstract

This paper looks critically at the division of Cyprus into North and South (the politically unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus respectively) and will consider how this physical division emphasised and further developed a divided identity based on 'ethnic' differences (and the development of the 'other') between the two major populations—Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. The Green Line is just one of several recent manifestations in the landscape of social contestations between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. This paper outlines how the Green Line has structured the lives of people in relation to the ways that they conceptualise their environment, the past and, importantly, the 'other' side. Further, it addresses how this division, this physical line across the landscape, impacts upon the social landscape as it defines and reinforces identity through the processes of memory and forgetting.     

Hegel and Historicism

Abstract

This article summarises the story of the production of the historical volumes by the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET). SADET was established after former president Thabo Mbeki expressed concern that there was very limited research done on the achievement of a peaceful political settlement in South Africa after decades of violent conflict. SADET's mission is, and has been to conduct a major study of South Africa's political history between 1960 and 1994. The focus of the article is on the project's editorial structure and on its research methodology, particularly the benefits and limitations of the use of oral interviews as the main research tool.     

Confined within: National territories as zones of confinement

The securitization of immigration has led to increased reliance on border enforcement, detention, and deportation to control unauthorized movements. Based on a case study of the ways that Salvadoran immigrants to the United States have experienced these tactics, this paper analyzes the spatial implications of current enforcement strategies. As movement across borders becomes more difficult for the unauthorized, national territories become zones of confinement. This carceral quality is a dimension of national territory in that undocumented and temporarily authorized migrants cannot exit their countries of residence without losing territorially-conferred rights, while if they are deported, their countries of origin become extensions of the detention centers they occupied before exit. This transformation of national spaces is accompanied by internal differentiation, as interior enforcement confines migrants to subnational spaces where they must remain to avoid detection or harassment. Securitization thus entails both extraterritoriality, that is the extension of U.S. legal regimes into foreign territories, and intraterritoriality, or the operation of different legal regimes within national territories. The paper also highlights the ways that securitization contributes to multidimensionality, such that spatial locations are rendered ambiguous, both inside and outside at the same time. Finally, the paper considers how these spatial transformations redefine citizenship and belonging.     

Unearthing feminist territories and terrains

The constructs of ‘territory’ and ‘terrain’ are the subject of increasing scrutiny within political geography. While momentum builds in their interrogation as both diverse and lively practices, and complex political technologies, this article takes pause. Drawing on a rich and diverse range of feminist scholarship, it seeks to reflect upon existing trajectories and provide provocation for further accounting. Inspired throughout by, and seeking to bring to bear, a feminist perspective on territory and terrain, this article follows a tripartite structure. First, it critically explores the bodies of knowledge historically underpinning the concepts of territory and terrain. Developing a call for a feminist historiography of territory and terrain, we reflect upon both the gendered evolution of the concepts, and their ongoing reproduction in conceptual debates. Second, it seeks to both highlight and diversify embodied accounts and accountings of these concepts. Here, thinking with and beyond the body, we turn to the non-human and spiritual to explore territory and terrain in expanded and extended ways. Lastly, we examine bodies of expertise, reflecting on academic territories and terrains, and highlighting potential concepts and methodologies seeking to (re-)sculpt and (re-)articulate understandings of territory and terrain. The paper, whilst not all-encompassing, serves as an important provocation that seeks more equitable accounts of political geography's messy, muddy, and lively territories and terrains.     

Disciplinary geopolitics and the rise of international development studies in China

There has been a growing political and scholarly interest in the re-emergence of Chinese development cooperation and this work explores the construction of South-South spatial matrix of knowledge, power and imagination. The paper examines the critical geopolitics of producing international development studies in China as an intellectual project over the last 5–10 years, in close relation to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Drawing on eight months' fieldwork in Beijing, it develops a political economic geography of individuals, institutions and ideologies that have shaped the geographically and politically situated processes of inventing Chinese international development studies. The paper traces the spatial genealogy of the disciplinary regime, making visible the rise of a division of social scientific labour at a complicated moment of geopolitical flux, especially against the backdrop of intensifying US-China rivalry. It also maps out the tensions and nuances in an uneven field of knowledge and power. The future of the nascent state-disciplinary apparatus is uncertain, not least dependent on China's ongoing reinterpretation of its national identity and national mission.     

The Dissolution of a Monetary Union: The Case of Malaysia and Singapore 1963–1974

The abrupt separation of Singapore and Malaysia in 1965 set these two states on separate political trajectories, but the economic ties proved more difficult to untangle. This article explores the nine years of transition required to complete the separation of the monetary systems of the two territories based on new archival evidence. It argues that, while socio-political hostility raged between the two partners, common economic interests prolonged an intimate monetary relationship that extended the interdependence of the two states for many years beyond their formal separation.     

The South African Transition: From Development to Security?

This article questions some recent analyses which claim that global neo‐liberal discourses are disseminated to shift the focus away from development towards a greater emphasis on security issues. Taking as its point of departure the analysis of empirical material from Cape Town, the article shows that security and development in South Africa were never separate concerns. After the ANC came to power in 1994 there was an effort to boost development efforts rather than security. However, these efforts were soon dwarfed by local circumstances, notably the pressure from local state employees who felt their jobs and lives to be under threat from the townships, and the changing nature of violence in the city. The first part of the article details the practices and discourses of state agencies; the second section analyses the consequences of reconfigured security and development concerns for the production of political subjectivity in South Africa's townships.     

What Happened to the “Promised Land”? A Fanonian Perspective on Post‐Apartheid South Africa

Abstract: This paper reviews post‐apartheid South Africa through Fanon's critical analysis of decolonization. Since, for Fanon, apartheid represented the purest form of the Manichean politics of space that characterizes colonialism, a Fanonian perspective on South Africa asks to what extent has the geographical layout of apartheid been remapped? Addressing this question necessitates shifting the “geography of reason” from technical discourses of policy‐makers to the lived reality of the “damned of the earth”. From this perspective, Fanon's critique becomes relevant in two ways, first as a prism to understand the rise of xenophobic violence as a symptom of the degeneration of the idea of South Africa's “promised land” and second as a way to listen to a new grassroots shack dweller movement, Abahlali baseMjondolo, that is challenging both neoliberal and progressive assumptions by advocating a quite different geographic layout for a “truly democratic” society.