Giorgio Agamben and the spatialities of the camp: an introduction

The Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben's conclusion that the camp has replaced the city as the biopolitical paradigm of the West is as difficult to digest as it is easy to see how it responds to contemporary political tendencies in the world today. In this introduction to this theme issue on Giorgio Agamben and the spatialities of the camp, a detailed exposition, emulating the structure of Agamben's seminal book Homo Sacer, is conducted, tracing the genealogies of Agamben's ideas and commenting on his swiftly enhanced importance in the social sciences and humanities. The introduction concludes by outlining some possible research fields in human geogrphy where much insight could be gained if Agamben's work is given more detailed consideration.     

Agamben and the Migrations of Glory

Abstract

In the American political imagination, there is a longstanding and wide-ranging discussion about the separation of church and state. Though Americans argue about whether it should be a ‘‘high wall,’’ or whether certain ‘‘breaches’’ in it might be desirable, they all take ‘‘separation’’ to describe an institutional arrangement. From Giorgio Agamben's perspective, however, ‘‘separation’’ is an image that conceals much more than it reveals about the religious character of the state and the global economy. Agamben traces ‘‘the migrations of glory’’ from church, to state, to global capitalism. For part of this task, Agamben accepts Michel Foucault's diagnostic approach to power. By one reading, certainly, governmentality has us in its grip. But now government itself is overshadowed by the power of global capitalism. While Foucault sought only to make us ‘‘a little less governed,’’ Agamben is interested in a deeper iconoclasm and a greater emancipation. According to Agamben, our less-than-free condition can be illuminated by reflection on: (1) the state of exception and the camp, which are only made possible by a form of idolatry in which the sovereign assumes to themself a power that they should not have; (2) On another of the ‘‘maps’’ drawn by Agamben, however, there is a further ‘‘migration of glory,’’ away from national sovereignty, toward postmodern global capitalism; (3) The Coming Community provides the barest sketch of Agamben's hope for a remedy, while his reading of Paul's Letter to the Romans in The Time that Remains brings a more visible kind of messianic expectation or vocation back into the discussion of political life. A concluding section discusses five sorts of questions that might be put to Agamben about the overall shape of his project.     

BIOPOLITICS AMONG THE DISCIPLINES

A new wave of publications attempts to bring together theory and history in order to reconsider the past, present, and future in light of a looming catastrophe. Whether in political theory, sociology, anthropology, or intellectual history, scholars are attempting to reflect about the present beyond the old boundaries that separate left and right, inner and outer, civilian and solider, friend and enemy. Three recent publications, by Catherine Mills, Didier Fassin, and an anthology edited by Devin Pendas, Mark Roseman, and Richard Wetzel, do so by considering the growth of biopolitical critique in their respective disciplines.     

The camp

Walter Benjamin has famously pointed out that we are living in a society in which the exception has become a norm. Giorgio Agamben adds to this claim another one, that the spatial ordering principle for this new order is the camp. This article focuses on this diagnosis. We do not, however, discuss its validity but rather unpack what is meant when the concept of camp is used. The camp is, we argue, given by three structuring principles that might contradict and overlap in various ways: a disciplinary disposit if according to which a distinction between inside and outside is established; a logic of transgression according to which the inside‐outside distinction is deliberately blurred; and finally a biopolitical rationale according to which the distinction between inside and outside is re‐established on each side so that the included are included as excluded (as bodies to be governed) and the excluded are excluded as included (within the realm of power). Finally, we claim that it is the combination of these three principles — discipline, transgression and biopolitics — that leads to a society in which the exception has become the norm. Such ‘society’ is, we show, given by a strange and paradoxical overlapping of bonding and un‐bonding, of distinction and indistinction.     

Today's State of Exception: Abu-Jamal,Agamben, JanMofiamed,and the Democratic State of Emergency

Abstract

This essay engages the political philosophy of Giorgio Agamben and the literary criticism of Abdul R. JanMohammed in critically exploring the contours of the present arrangement of democratic politics in the United States. Giorgio Agamben's exception theory of sovereignty and bare life are deployed in order to grasp the political meaning of surprisingly unprecedented and exceptional recent court rulings in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been on Pennsylvania's death row since 1982. Abu-Jamal's experience of exceptional rulings also requires a critical elaboration of the racialized nature of American democracy. Thus, Agamben's theory finds a critical complement with the work of literary theorist Abdul R. JanMohammed, particularly JanMohammed's formulations of "social death" and the "dialectics of death" for "death-bound-subjects." The theories of Agamben and JanMohammed make clear the nature of Abu-Jamal's political struggle and the state of democratic politics that so often transforms the exception into the rule, specifically in the case of the marginal and dispossessed. The significance of Abu-Jamal's case thus becomes one of understanding the production and reproduction of the state of exception and the (im)possibilities of political transformation and liberation from the arrested state of democracy in the modern world.     

'Homo Sacer' out of left field: communist slime as bare life in 1930s and Second World War Sweden

This article maps ways in which radical left‐wing politics in 1930s and Second World War Sweden were conceived in medico‐biological and eugenic terms that expressed strong dehumanizing sentiments. The article engages Agamben's and Foucault's thinking on ‘biopolitics’ and ‘biopower’, and extensively exemplifies dehumanizing discourse as deployed by leading Social Democratic politicians, leading figures of government within the police and military, as well as by editors of both right‐wing and Social Democratic press. Ways in which individuals labelled ‘Communists’ were spatially managed in terms of extensive surveillance, registration, detainment planning and forms of incarceration are addressed. I further discuss state measures that may be seen as elements of a state of exception, some measures implemented against ‘Communists’, and others against individuals deemed to have undesirable characteristics seen to be hereditary. In employing Agamben's notion of ‘inoperosity’ in a discussion of a state paradigm of social productivity, eugenic measures in the building of the Swedish welfare state are then related to the dehumanizing framing of ‘Communists’. In conclusion, conditions for regaining a place in the body politic are briefly addressed. The article's focus on ways in which the ethnic and racial same was dehumanized within a democracy on political grounds results from a conscious effort to complement studies of dehumanization as related to colonialism, dictatorial regimes as well as identity politics.     

Taking back taste: feminism,food and visceral politics

Despite much thoughtful agro-food scholarship, the politics of food lacks adequate appreciation because scholars have not developed a means to specify the links between the materialities of food and ideologies of food and eating. This article uses feminist theory to enliven a discussion of what the authors call visceral politics, and thus initiates a project of illustrating the mechanisms through which people's beliefs about food connect with their everyday experiences of food. Recent work on governed eating and material geographies is brought together with poststructural feminism in order to move towards a non-dualistic, visceral understanding of (everyday) socio-political life. In showing how the mind–body whole can be conceived as a singular, albeit ambiguously-unified agent, the article prefigures a more complete disclosure of the play of power in food systems. Food is shown as a means to trace power through the body in order to understand the making of the political (eating) subject. Specifically, reconceptualizing taste and the ‘Slow Food’ (SF) movement of taste education helps to concretize what a visceral politics of food might look like. The authors conclude that appreciating how food beliefs and representations exist materially in the body is crucial to the ability of food-based movements to inspire action across difference and achieve their progressive goals.     

70年来中国历史民族地理研究的主要进展

历史民族地理是现代中国历史人文地理的一个分支,其研究成果涉及中国民族史、民族学(人类学)、历史人文地理以及边疆史地等多个学科。中华人民共和国成立70年来,历史民族地理的发展也经历了一个曲折而复杂的过程。改革开放以来,随着各个相关学科的蓬勃发展,历史民族地理研究成果丰硕,成绩斐然,已初步成为历史人文地理研究领域的一个重要分支。     

Encountering soviet geography: oral histories of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945–1991

This paper considers the history of British geographical studies of the USSR and Eastern Europe 1945–1991, presenting material from a research project which has included thirty-two oral history interviews. Oral history is an especially fruitful research methodology in this context due to the distinct issues of formality and informality involved in researching the Soviet bloc. After discussing the nature of the subdiscipline and the Cold War context, including the role of the British state in shaping the field, the paper considers the role of formal academic meetings and exchanges, and the place of unofficial spaces of encounter in the formation of an intellectual culture. The paper concludes by reflecting on the merits of oral history in studies of the production of geographical knowledge.     

Edgar Kant and The Rise of Modern Urban Geography

In every theory and worldview there are subjective and contextual elements. While knowledge is embedded and rooted in socio‐spatial contexts, it is also located in the bodies of researchers and travels with them. A travelling theory of knowledge is based on several context‐sensitive theories and concepts. This paper discusses Edgar Kant (1902–1978) and his work in the context of its important contribution to early modern urban geography. Kant as a person and his work is seen in the Estonian societal and academic context.     

The Leeds and Yorkshire Geographical Society c. 1902–17

The Leeds and Yorkshire Geographical Society was one of ten 'provincial' geographical societies in England and Scotland established between 1884 and 1910, of which five were in the North of England. It was conceived in about 1902, formally founded in 1908, but had ceased to exist after 1917. Virtually nothing has been discovered hitherto of the Leeds society's history, functions and contexts. This essay examines the evidence for its conception, inauguration, programmes of activity, and the broader local/civic, national and global contexts within which it operated. Its brief history sheds light upon: the need for commercial information to promote trade in an imperial context; the development of geographical thought in Britain and Western Europe; finally, popular curiosity about new geographical information and ideas promoted by geographical exploration and discovery. Comparison is made with the activities of other English ‘provincial’ geographical societies, particularly those in the North of England. The new evidence derives from papers in the West Yorkshire Archive Service Leeds, the archives and publications of the Royal Geographical Society, and the programmes of meetings promoted via the Society itself and the Leeds Institute, housed in Leeds Central Library, together with reports and advertisements in local newspapers.     

试论人文地理学思想史的范式——中国20世纪人文地理学思想史研究与表达的基本构架

21世纪的中国人文地理学势必在解决人类生存与发展中不断创新。而这种创新的重要基础之一是对于20世纪及其初初叶以来的人文地理学思想的系统评价与科学继承。而应该怎样研究与构建人文地理学思想史就成为了人文地理学理论研究的重要任务。为此本文进行了比较系统的阐述。     

Geography in Higher Education in Australia

Within the last 30 years, geographical information systems (GIS) have been used increasingly in the training of geographers. On the basis of the philosophy of technology and instrumental genesis, we sketch how the use of instruments interacts with learning processes and outline how this can be studied. We empirically analyse students' learning processes and the influences of teaching practice in an introductory course in GIS. We show that students have different strategies for creating their personal instrument for spatial thinking and how teaching interacts with the students' learning processes. Finally, we discuss how GIS may gradually alter future professional development of geographers.     

中国古代地理学的目录学考察(三)——两宋公私书目中的地理学

古代地理学作为一种观念体系,同时也可以看作是一种特殊的人文景观,因此对它的考察在相当的程度上可以采用历史地理学的方法。基于这样的认识,本文尝试着在两宋公私书目的基础上,复原这一时期的地理学"景观"。我们发现,宋人对地理学的观念性规定沿着疆域地理的路径前进。而与此相伴随的是,《山海经》所代表的古代地理学传统开始逐渐被有意识地淡化。最为引人注目的是,南宋初年,郑樵对地理学所做的分类,构成了一幅两宋之际,具有浓郁学科意识(专门之学)的地理学景观。此外,需要指出的是,"地理书"在两宋时期,作为一个学术概念并没有被独占,而是被相宅兆类著述以不同的形式所"分享"。     

现代历史地理学对当前淮河流域史研究的启示

在区域史的学术语境下,现代历史地理学对于当前淮河流域史研究具有一定的启示。首先表现在学术理念上,动态时空理念有助于对历史时期淮河流域空间范围的把握,借鉴人地关系、关怀现实这些理念,不仅可以对历史时期淮河流域复杂的人地关系进行学术层面的探讨与研究,同时,对于当前淮河流域的社会经济发展和环境改善也具有现实意义。其次表现在治学方法上,空间要素的分析、综合、比较有助于揭示淮河流域作为一个独立历史地理单元存在的事实,而文献记载与野外考察相结合的方法则可以加深研究者对淮河流域历史与现实的理解。     

因袭与调整:晚期方志中的分野叙述——以山东方志为例

本文梳理了明清以来的山东方志分野,总结了山东方志中各县分野分布,并进一步考察了其叙述方式与理论背景。本文认为,传统分野理论自身本存在矛盾,且关注对象为较大的行政区划。多数地方志编纂者并非盲目因袭经典或官方文献,而是有自发的思考与书写。在这种背景中,方志分野叙述既有对分野理论本身的怀疑,也有刻意地调整与弥合。如将之置于思想史的背景中理解,能帮助我们更好地认识分野理论的传承脉络及其在思想史与地理学史中的内涵。