Unsettling feminist geopolitics: forging feminist political geographies of violence and displacement

Feminist geopolitics has analyzed violence across scales and critiqued the dominant epistemology of political geography for almost two decades. What theoretical and political purchase does it have today, given the potpourri of perspectives and reimaginings of the idea? Current research on violence, human displacement and the security of people out of place is used to explore answers to this question, finding that feminist political geography – a bigger tent than just feminist geopolitics – is indispensable to geographical thinking. Recent non-human feminist geopolitics of ‘earthliness’ offer an original theoretical departure from what has come before, though truncate political possibilities by refusing to engage the individuated subjects of ‘conventional’ feminist geopolitics. Feminist geopolitics and its consonant concepts remain relevant to addressing the fast violence of war, displacement, detention and the attendant waiting, or slow violence, that these power relations imply. Feminist geopolitics can and has been enriched by critical work on subaltern geopolitics and post-secular geographies and is shown to be vital to understanding human displacement for those living in the postcolonies of the global South. A case study of private refugee sponsorship to Canada is critically analyzed as one pathway out of protracted displacement. While resettlement is valorized by states and their civil societies as a laudable ‘solution’ offering permanent protection, a feminist geopolitical analysis exposes the Canadian Government’s racialized preferences and prejudice against Sub-Saharan African asylum seekers, masked as geography. The research presented exposes some of the Orientalist assumptions that frame and figure private refugee sponsorship. Taking this Orientalist critique and these additional literatures into the fold of feminist geopolitics, ‘feminist political geography’ offers a larger umbrella under which to collaborate, innovate, and intervene in political struggles that interrupt salient geopolitics and state discourse across world regions and inhibit violence wherever possible.     

Nativist-populism,the internet and the geopolitics of indigenous diaspora

The increasing influence of nativist-populism across Europe has provoked public and scholarly debate in recent years, to which political geographers are well placed to contribute. This article synthesises recent work on popular geopolitics and the geopolitics of diaspora to analyse the ways that the MAK-Anavad (the Kabyle government-in-exile) positions itself politically through both reactionary nativism and progressive indigenism. The politics of diaspora, indigeneity and nativism share some common discursive traits relating to territory and belonging, though their starting points and political effects are different. This article outlines and explains the ways the MAK-Anavad's discourse articulates with the nativist-populism of the French Right, arguing that this is possible because of its diasporic situation, colonial history, and a common discourse of anti-Islamism. Online social media, an important new field for the study of popular geopolitics, is argued to offer a key political opportunity structure for the MAK-Anavad and to privilege a populist communication style.     

西方选举地理学的研究进展

选举地理学是政治地理学的重要研究领域之一。本文以Web of Science中选举地理学的学术论文为依据,借助科学计量工具,系统回顾了1982-2018年选举地理学的发展脉络,归纳了西方选举地理学的主要研究领域和研究范式。研究表明：选举地理学主要包括投票地理、选举制度、选区划分、选票转化四个领域;与此相应,西方学界对选举地理的研究范式可归纳为空间分析、地理制图、政治经济学、后结构主义。展望未来,选举地理学在解释中国的地方政治、基层选举、社区自治,以及推动中国政治地理学的学科发展方面将值得期待。     

On What's Right and Keeping Left: Or Why Geography Still Needs Marxian Political Economy

Recently the value of Marxian approaches to human geography has again been called into question in the pages of Antipode. In this paper I review the reasons as to why geographers re‐discovered Marx and then, from the late 1960s, began to engage with Marxian approaches. I then consider some of the reasons why Marxian approaches in their turn became the subject of critique in geography and some of the alternatives explored in the wake of this. The conclusion is that a pluri‐theoretical human geography is necessary but that Marxian approaches remain of central significance to radical and critically minded geographers.     

中国政治地理学研究展望

相对于人文地理学的其他几个主要分支学科而言,政治地理学在中国发展缓慢。本文认为这主要不是由于中国缺乏政治地理研究的素材,也不单纯是由于中国缺乏研究政治的环境。从学科的角度看,有四个方面的原因束缚了政治地理学在中国的发展:地理学分析尺度的下移、建设性实证研究的缺乏、相关学科理论支持不足和地理学本身"远离政治"的惯性影响。本文在粗略梳理了西方政治地理学发展脉络的基础上,通过对比分析,提出了中国政治地理学发展的三个方向:城市政治地理、地方政治地理和新地缘政治学,期待中国政治地理多尺度、多样化的实证研究尽快展开。     

Geopolitics at the margins? Reconsidering genealogies of critical geopolitics

Critical geopolitics has become one of the most vibrant parts of political geography. However it remains a particularly western way of knowing which has been much less attentive to other traditions of thinking. This paper engages with Pan-Africanism, and specifically the vision of the architect of post-colonial Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, to explore this overlooked contribution to critical engagements with geopolitics. Pan-Africanism sought to forge alternative post-colonial worlds to the binary geopolitics of the Cold War and the geopolitical economy of neo-colonialism. The academic division of labour has meant that these ideas have been consigned to African studies rather than being drawn into wider debates around the definitions of key disciplinary concepts. However Nyerere's continental thinking can be seen as a form of geopolitical imagination that challenges dominant neo-realist projections, and which still has much to offer contemporary political geography.     

Arcane geopolitics: Heidegger,Schmitt and the political theology of Gnosticism

In this paper, we discuss what is at stake in appropriating the thought of reactionary figures, such as Heidegger and Schmitt, for critical geography. We will argue that Heidegger and Schmitt were beholden to an arcane geopolitics shaped by supposed gnostic insights into the deeper currents of world history. This (geo-) political theology of Heidegger and Schmitt has not yet been given sufficient attention by geographers engaging their work. However, it is only in approaching their work in a theological key that the gnostic political theology that undergirds their arcane geopolitics can be fully understood. At the core of this arcane geopolitics is the conviction that modernity and all those identified as its agents is a force for ill, setting the world towards catastrophe. In this paper, we excavate this gnostic disposition in the thought of Heidegger and Schmitt in order to raise questions about how their work ought to be mobilized in and for critical, emancipatory, progressive thought so that this appropriation does not bring unwanted residues along with it.     

Political geography and geopolitics

This essay discusses the key contributions of Canadian political geographers to the remarkable growth of the subfield in the past two decades. I focus on two burgeoning strands of work: first, the transformation of state power, and second, the current phase of war, militarization and surveillance globally. My goal is not to review the field of political geography. Rather, I use the two themes to foreground prominent strands of recent work and delineate some lines of inquiry that require more attention and are likely to grow in importance. In particular, I underscore the need for closer attention to human agency—that is, capacity to act—in political geography and geopolitics.     

Towards a feminist geopolitics

The intersections and conversations between feminist geography and political geography have been surprisingly few. The notion of a feminist geopolitics remains undeveloped in geography. This paper aims to create a theoretical and practical space in which to articulate a feminist geopolitics. Feminist geopolitics is not an alternative theory of geopolitics, nor the ushering in of a new spatial order, but is an approach to global issues with feminist politics in mind. 'Feminist' in this context refers to analyses and political interventions that address the unequal and often violent relationships among people based on real or perceived differences. Building upon the literature from critical geopolitics, feminist international relations, and transnational feminist studies, I develop a framework for feminist political engagement. The paper interrogates concepts of human security and juxtaposes them with state security, arguing for a more accountable, embodied, and responsive notion of geopolitics. A feminist geopolitics is sought by examining politics at scales other than that of the nation-state; by challenging the public/private divide at a global scale; and by analyzing the politics of mobility for perpetrators of crimes against humanity. As such, feminist geopolitics is a critical approach and a contingent set of political practices operating at scales finer and coarser than the nation-state.     

从国家间到多尺度的政治地理学：日本的历程与启示

二战后日本政治地理学经历了盛极而衰之后再起步的曲折历程，政治地理学一度成为日本地理学中最不活跃的分支学科，也少有学者出席相关的学术活动。但是，20世纪90年代以后，这种状况发生了转变，政治地理学在日本再度兴起。本文通过分析在日本政治地理学相关出版物的变化，考察了二战结束以来政治地理学在日本复兴并被重新建构的过程。研究发现，与地缘政治和领土相关的出版物在日本比较多，经历了两个高峰，而最近又处于增长趋势。政治地理学在此期间经历了由国家间地缘政治向多尺度的政治地理学的转变。基于日本政治地理学的发展历程，本文认为，未来包括中日韩在内的东亚政治地理学的发展尤其要重视以下三点：一是要注重东方国家政治地理学的独特性；二是要警惕回归到作为治国方略的古典地缘政治学的危险性；三是要充分认识多尺度视角的重要意义。本文认为，这三方面的努力，将有可能使东亚政治地理学为当代世界政治地图的领域性和复杂性理解做出独有的贡献。     

Historical geography and the society/nature “problematic”: the perspective of J. F. Schouw,G. P. Marsh and E. Reclus

The “retreat” of the recent past within geography to a conception of the discipline as an ahistoric science which is either spatial or ecological is seen to be an atavism—a throwback to a disciplinary framework or “problematic” which dichotomizes human society and nature into fixed exclusive categories. This essay explores an alternative “problematic” which integrates society's spatial and ecological dimensions in a study of the historical process of “dialectical” interaction between society and its geographic environment, and the political and economic consequences of this interaction. The significance of this alternative approach is elucidated through an examination of its emergence, at the time of the origins of modern geography in the early nineteenth century. Its developing importance for the present-day position of the discipline is exemplified in the work of three prominent, socially engaged, nineteenth-century geographers. Although these geographers have tended to be either ignored or misunderstood in the recent literature, their approach has much to offer the field at a time when its division into ahistoric spatial and ecological disciplines is being questioned.     

Searching for feminist geographies: mappings outside the discipline in Poland

Abstract

Feminist geography in Poland does not exist as a sub-discipline of geography. While there are individual Polish geographers pushing for feminist perspectives, most feminist analyses of issues relating to place, space and politics of location can be found within gender studies or feminist sociology. In this sense, feminist geography in Poland cannot compare to Anglophone feminist geography and attempts to incorporate it within such an established field risks being reductive. Instead, in this report, we shift the focus to the scholarship and activism that does exist in Poland, outside of geography. This contribution focuses on shedding light on geographical questions such as the body, the city and gendered geopolitics that have been recurring themes in gender studies, feminist sociology and feminist activism in Poland. We conclude by pointing to the need to mobilise broadly, and internationally, between disciplines with the intention of de-centering dominant knowledges. For feminist scholarship this is particularly important in the context of recent political successes of right-wing forces.     

试论现代物流的地理学研究及发展趋势

基于阐述现代物流的发展背景,本文介绍了国际地理学对现代物流的研究进展,分析了其主要研究论点;同时探讨了我国现代物流的地理学研究进展,并分析了物流地理学的提出和理论体系;然后探讨了现代物流的地理学研究切入点和发展趋势。     

瑞典人文地理学发展回顾

瑞典作为北欧国家之一,其特殊的地理和社会环境,为学术发展提供了特有的基础,也形成了独特的传统。作为少数未参加第二次世界大战的国家之一,瑞典建立并逐步完善了福利体系,人文地理学的发展正是在这一过程中逐步发展起来,对瑞典福利体系的建立起到了不可忽视的作用,同时也逐步形成了其特有的研究体系,并在部分领域成为先导者。本文将通过回顾瑞典人文地理学的发展历程,重点分析瑞典人文地理学的三个重点研究领域:区域规划研究与应用,历史地理与景观研究,时间地理学。     

Gendering environmental geography

Despite sharing common interests in being advocates for social change, feminist and environmental geographers have yet to acknowledge interests they share in common. Environmental geographers, particularly those focused on policy and institutional analysis, have not embraced feminist theories or methodologies, while few feminist geographers have engaged issues associated with environmental policy-making. Our purpose is to initiate a dialogue about how linkages might be forged between feminist and environmental geography, particularly among Canadian environmental geographers working on institutional and policy analysis. We begin by illustrating that environmental geographers working on Canadian problems have neglected to introduce gender as an analytical category or feminist conceptual frameworks to guide their research. Second, we identify four feminist research approaches that should also be pursued in environmental geography. Third, we consider examples of how feminist perspectives might be incorporated in three themes of environmental geography: institutional and policy analysis, participatory environmental and management systems and alternative knowledge systems. Fourth, we consider two research frameworks—political ecology and environmental justice—and suggest that these may be useful starting points for integrating feminist analysis into environmental geography. Last, we summarise our suggestions for how future research of feminist and environmental geographers could benefit from a closer association.     

东西对话：中国政治地理学研究展望

中国政治地理学的发展尚处于起步阶段。中国与西方政治地理学者的学术交流相对有限,这主要是由于语言的障碍,以及中国学者对于研究课题政治敏感性的担忧,普遍缺乏对政治地理学研究内涵的理解。本文基于对中西方政治地理学发展现状及相关研究可能性的理解,指出以下五个在中国具有进一步拓展空间的政治地理学课题：广域行政与空间政治;国际关系与地理想象;边界冲突与划界研究;边界与边界区域研究;环境政治地理学。这些课题的开展不仅可以加强中国自身的政治地理学研究,而且对西方正在进行的政治地理学研究也会起到积极的推动作用。     

Nationalist geographies in interwar Yugoslavia: manoeuvring between national and transnational spaces

Taking into consideration several seemingly contradictory characteristics of Yugoslav geography, this article examines the employment of transnational spaces by the competing nationalist geographical narratives in interwar Yugoslavia. Though preoccupied with Yugoslavia and its political crises, at the beginning and the end of the interwar period Yugoslav geographers were concerned with international political developments, especially in East Central Europe. There were tensions between a geographical region and a national space as a preferred framework of research as well as between the belief that the political, economic and cultural development of Yugoslavia was unique and that it was comparable to development of other parts of East Central Europe. The determinist understanding of the nation as shaped by the physical landscape emphasized not only the ability, but also the necessity, of nationalist geographies to function on multiple spatial levels. Yugoslav geographers used the conceptual apparatus developed by French and German geographical traditions to establish a comparative framework in which they elaborated on various geographical characteristics of Yugoslavia, especially those politically significant, by referring to other European countries because it seemed difficult to describe the new country in terms of itself. German Geopolitik became particularly influential and, although taking different stands on it, several Yugoslav geographers pointed to geopolitical similarities with Czechoslovakia and Poland to draw conclusions regarding Yugoslavia. But geographical comparison had ambiguous implications, as it was used both to fortify and challenge the interwar Yugoslav state.     

In praise of the International Geographical Union

This viewpoint is a highly personal account of what the International Geographical Union (IGU) has meant for a 50‐year career in Canadian geography and is a consideration of the importance of the IGU to geographers world‐wide. The author's earliest experiences of the IGU, the IGU's Commissions, its disciplinary perspective, some political problems experienced by IGU scholars, and the IGU as a global geographical community are the main topics considered.     

Between realism and the 'New Right': geopolitics in Germany in the 1990s

This essay explores the connections between geopolitics and political conservatism. The introductory argument is that geopolitics historically has been appealing and useful for two very different expressions of conservatism: one which aims to preserve the political geography of the existing international status quo and one which seeks to transcend it and establish a new international order. Through an examination of the 'renaissance' of a conservative geopolitics in Germany, the essay considers how this particular pattern is reproduced in the present day. Although this conservative geopolitics operates for the most part at the fringes of political discourses in Germany, it does have a more specific significance for nationalist-conservative perspectives and those of the 'New Right', both in Germany and elsewhere.