War in the feudal zone: state failure and the abandonment of anthropological research in Mexico and Central America

We analysed the extent to which violent, organised crime has disrupted anthropological research in Mexico and Central America by conducting a survey of anthropologists who work in the region. We found that although anthropologists will continue research in regions they perceive to have the socio-economic characteristics of a failed state they are far less inclined to work in areas that they perceive as excessively violent. We continue with examination of the state failure and feudalisation that are affecting the region. We conclude that in the feudal zones, the state has lost its comparative advantage in the use of force and that state intrusion into these areas increases armed collective violence in a manner similar to that described in the literature on warfare in tribal zones.     

Fear,feminist geopolitics and the hot and banal

In this paper we bring together Billig’s notion of banal nationalism and recent feminist geopolitical examinations of fear in order to analyze two cases studies of fear among U.S. college students and U.S. soldiers experiencing sexual violence. Putting banal nationalism and feminist geopolitics into conversation, we argue, reveals both their compatibilities and important pathways for political geography and critical geopolitics to build on Billig’s work. In this regard, the paper makes three key contributions. First, we demonstrate how the insights and imperatives of banal nationalism intertwine in critical ways with the work of feminist geographers, as the banal is often rendered feminine and apolitical and as gender itself is often treated as banal despite its role in the reproduction of the nation. Second, we argue that the multi-scalar analytic of feminist geopolitics offers a valuable intervention into banal nationalism, as relational feminist approaches to binaries like intimate/global provide a useful model to account for hot and banal nationalism as a single, intertwining complex. Finally, through an analysis of fear in relation to sexual violence, the paper illustrates both the inseparability of banal and hot nationalism and how they are deeply gendered, as certain forms of deeply hot violence and fear are depoliticized through their banalization (e.g. sexual assault on college campuses), and as violence that is recognized as hot (e.g. war) is maintained through processes that are deemed banal (e.g. gender).     

“Let us create space”: Reclaiming peace and security in a Kenyan Somali community

This article pushes for a postcolonial, feminist critique of “anti-terrorist” securitization, that makes space for transformative peace-building. The post-9/11 securitization of the African continent builds on a long legacy of colonial conquest and racist Othering. Somalia is regularly centered here, portrayed in media and state narratives as a volatile failed state, one that produces terrorist bodies and acts. But rather than building peace, we follow others in arguing that the projects of securitization have stoked violence, intensifying discrimination against the Somali diasporic community (Mohamed, 2017; Wairuri, 2020). To counter this dominant narrative, we centre the Somali-Kenyan Awjama Cultural Centre, in the Eastleigh neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya. A particularly rich and instructive case study of peace-making through community activism, we ask: How do Somalis who use the Centre subvert racist, Islamophobic narratives and reclaim their own modes of representation? And how do these new narratives disrupt systemic violence and build peace? Demonstrating the insights of a feminist, postcolonial geographic approach, we argue that spaces like the Awjama Centre provide interpersonal support and new kinds of (self-) representation. These fundamentally disrupt single stories of Africa and of terrorism, with greater possibilities for establishing long-term embodied peace than projects of geopolitical securitization.     

Companions,zappers, and invaders: The animal geopolitics of Sealab I,II, and III (1964–1969)

Between 1964 and 1969, the US Navy undertook a series of experimental projects designed to enable ‘man’ to live and work on the seafloor, in undersea habitats, for prolonged periods of time without surfacing. These little studied projects, known as Sealab I, II, and III, were framed as an ‘attack’ on the hostile space of the sea by the warrior like figure of the American ‘aquanaut’. Drawing on feminist geopolitical scholarship, this paper seeks to decentre the human protagonists of Sealab by foregrounding the role of non-human animal life in the projects. In doing so, it argues that animals actively shaped how the undersea environment came to be understood and inhabited by the US military and calls for greater attention to be paid to the agency of animals – their lives and fleshy affordances - in the construct of territory, and to the ways in which non-human life can complicate the ideas associated with the frontier, gender, and the exertion of colonial power.     

The US military base network and contemporary colonialism: Power projection, resistance and the quest for operational unilateralism

This article explores the contemporary global network of US military bases. This paper examines how the geography of this network is shaped not only by military objectives but also by resistance from allied governments and communities adjacent to bases. Using examples from Guam, Puerto Rico, Okinawa and other locales this paper examines how local resistances to US bases have caused the Department of Defense to increasingly rely on non-sovereign islands as sites for bases. These sites, military strategists believe, will enable the military to train without hindrance and to operate without the need for consultation with allies. These colonies, however, are also sites were military activities are actively resisted. The resulting base network is thus shaped not only by global military priorities, but also by an increasingly globalized network of local social movements resisting militarization.     

变动中的东亚地缘政治与美国东亚政策的演变

近年来,伴随着中国的快速发展和东亚地缘政治格局的变化,美国加快了向东亚转移战略力量的步伐,这一动向值得中国关注。本文通过对近代以来东亚地缘政治格局的变化进行分析,系统梳理了美国东亚政策的来龙去脉及其主线,并对美国东亚政策的未来走向进行了预研。     

Post-secular geographies and the problem of pluralism: Religion and everyday life in Istanbul,Turkey

The concept of post-secularism has come to signify a renewed attention to the role of religion within secular, democratic public spheres. Central to the project of post-secularism is the integration of religious ways of being within a public arena shared by others who may practice different faiths, practice the same faith differently, or be non-religious in outlook. As a secular state within which Sunni Islam has played an increasingly public role, Turkey is a prime site for studying new configurations of religion, politics, and public life. Our 2013 research with devout Sunni Muslim women in Istanbul demonstrates how the big questions of post-secularism and the problem of pluralism are posed and navigated within the quotidian geographies of homes, neighborhoods, and city spaces. Women grapple with the demands of a pluralistic public sphere on their own terms and in ways that traverse and call into question the distinction between public and private spaces. While mutual respect mediates relations with diverse others, women often find themselves up against the limits of respect, both in their intimate relations with Alevi friends and neighbors, and in the anonymous spaces of the city where they sometimes find themselves subject to secular hostility. The gendered moral order of public space that positions devout headscarf-wearing women in a particular way within diverse city spaces where others may be consuming alcohol or wearing revealing clothing further complicates the problem of pluralism in the city. We conclude that one does not perhaps arrive at post-secularism so much as struggle with its demands.     

“Security,mobility, and the body – Syrian insurgent groups’ infrastructures and their geopolitical contestations through/by/in legal institutions”

Political geographers have repeatedly demonstrated how the ‘global war on/of terror’ has led to repressive and unjust international and domestic policies. Nevertheless, little has been said about the multifold intertwinements between such ‘Western’ perceptions and their shaping of anti-terrorism efforts within. To this end, this paper draws on recent feminist understandings of scale, global/local processes, and geopolitics, suggesting how these might be combined with current European participations in Syria, and its legal prosecution as ‘state-endangering actions.’ By visiting the sites where issues on security, mobility, and their interrelated body actions have been negotiated, I deploy an intersectional and multi-scalar analysis of how a layered system of gender-rendered and racialized patterns intersects with/in Germany's legal institutions combating terrorism wherever it may occur as well as the way multifold and different modes of support and logistics have been carried out through the European Schengen Area to Syria. Combining both feminist geopolitics and the vibrant work of (feminist) geolegalities, I offer another way of redressing Hyndman's call (2019) for expanding the tent of feminist geopolitics by not reversing the former, but through refocusing on embodied and material power-geometries and (legally) interconnected sites of an Islam-rendered, Western state-defined ‘war on/of terrorism’ simultaneously.     

Intimacies of global toxins: Exposure & resistance in ‘Chemical Valley’

This paper examines the geopolitics of the Aamjiwnaang First Nation's reserve, situated in a toxic petrochemical complex known as Canada's ‘Chemical Valley.’ While this reserve holds the perilous title of worst air-pollution in the country, research exploring the profound impacts that this toxic environment has on Indigenous communities remains limited and tends to resort to simplistic framings. In this paper we suggest that Michel Foucault's concept of the ‘heterotopia’ is a helpful prism through which to view Aamjiwnaang in more complex, political terms. We also suggest, however, that this prism has a limited scope when it comes to exposing intimate experiences of global toxins. Drawing on a feminist geopolitics, we seek to stretch Foucault's heterotopic approach in order to show how the reserve is intimately colonized and contaminated by Canada's chemical production. Vitally, our approach gleans insight into the everyday ways that Aamjiwnaang is governed by and also disrupts colonial configurations. Moreover, our paper illuminates how a feminist heterotopic approach can re-orient research towards a deepened understanding of Indigenous-led modes of environmental justice.