Seeing Red: Baghdad and the event-ful city

In late modern war visuality plays a vital role in both the conduct and the rationalization of military violence. This essay explores the techno-cultural apparatus of US military operations and media briefings in occupied Baghdad from 2003 to 2007. It traces the visual reconfiguration of the city as a space of events rather than purely objects. These digital mappings were an intrinsic part of the US Army’s counterinsurgency strategy, and their performances were punctuated by a dialectical interplay of geopolitical and biopolitical imaginaries that was focal to the abstraction and legitimation of American military intervention.     

Geopolitics and visuality: Sighting the Darfur conflict

In the many considerations of visual culture in geography, there are few works concerned with the visual culture of contemporary geopolitics. In seeking to rectify this lacuna, this paper outlines elements of a research project to consider the way visuality is a pivotal assemblage in the production of contemporary geopolitics. Signalling the need for a conceptual exploration of the importance of vision and visuality to all forms of knowledge (rather than just those associated with or manifested in specific visual artefacts like pictures), the paper argues that understanding the significance of visuality for geopolitics involves recasting visual culture as visual economy. This enables the constitutive relations of geopolitics and visuality to shift from the social construction of the visual field to the visual performance of the social field. This argument is illustrated through an examination of some of the documentary photography and photojournalism covering the most recent outbreak of war in Darfur, Sudan, beginning in the summer of 2003. Exploring the tension in these pictures between the established disaster iconography of ‘Africa’ and the desire to image genocidal violence and war crimes, considering in particular the way photography captures identity, the argument concludes with reflections on the way the visual performance of the social field that is Darfur structures our encounters with others.     

中亚的地缘政治--历史和现实

一个多世纪以来 ,中亚的地缘政治格局和作用不断发生变化 ,并在不同时期以不同的方式影响着中国。“9·11”事件之后 ,中亚的地缘政治形势变得更加复杂 ,大国的、区域的、国际的利益交织在一起 ,成为全球关注的热点。阿富汗反恐战争的结束为中亚国家提供了国际合作的新通道 ,尽管中亚在国际地缘政治格局中的作用将越来越重要 ,但它不会成为新的地缘政治“核心地区”。     

Geopolitics and the Northern Sea Route

Experimental transit voyages along the Northern Sea Route to the north of Russia are breaking new ground each year and the route is already significant for the export of raw materials from Russian ports. National and corporate interests are now driving Russia's Arctic policy, rather than, as formerly, an exclusive focus on security, and the Russian government has ambitious plans for the development of the route. Future regular transit of the Northern Sea Route between Europe and Asia, at present facing serious obstacles, could be accelerated not only by climate change, but by overload on, or interruptions to, the existing route through the Suez Canal, which passes through some of the world's most volatile regions. Despite the formidable impediments to regular year round transit of the Northern Sea Route, governments of the non‐Arctic states with most at stake, particularly Germany and China, appear to be taking no chances, and to be jockeying for influence in the Arctic region. The interests of the non‐Arctic trading states, and of the European Union, more inclined to view the Arctic Ocean as part of the ‘common heritage of mankind’, are however potentially different from those of Russia, and indeed of Canada in respect of the North East passage, both determined to maintain their exclusive national jurisdiction over emerging sea lanes through their territorial waters. Great issues are at stake here. The emergence of new sea lanes has historically impacted heavily on the international balance of power. Where the merchant fleets go, navies will shortly follow.     

The India-Iran-Pakistan Triad: Comprehending the Correlation of Geo-economics and Geopolitics

Historically, India’s policy on Iran has been a balancing act between securing its interests as a counterweight to Pakistan, and ensuring its continued partnership with the US and other regional players. Yet confusion in India’s Iran policy became evident when Iran’s nuclear program began to draw international attention in the 1990s. More recently, India has attempted to reach out to Iran, reigniting trade relations and initiating new plans. Growing Indo-Iran relations are however a worrying sign for Islamabad, which is attempting a simultaneous expansion of ties with Tehran while continuing to resolve outstanding disputes. The central argument of this paper is that India’s relations with Iran are best understood through the prism of the intertwining of geo-economic and geopolitical considerations. Analysis has often separated these two factors, but there is evidence that a synergy exists – and that it is particularly visible when the Pakistani element is introduced. Often emphasising historical and cultural affinity, India and Pakistan have each sought politically and economically viable relations with Iran. Yet their bilateral political calculations and the current economic challenges have prompted a nuanced policy based on a careful balancing of geo-economics and geopolitics.     

对地缘政治学批判的再思考

本文探讨了政治地理学最重要流派的地缘政治学的理论、发展和实践;对“反动”的德国地缘政治学历史批判的渊源进行了探索。作者认为,地缘政治学在二次大战后的一度衰落,仅是其理论组成之一的国家有机体学说,而另一理论组成的地缘战略学研究一直是地缘政治学研究的主流,是历史和当今国际关系研究的重要基础;德国的地缘政治学,其理论的合理部分,其研究所用的方法,对今天的地缘政治学研究仍有意义,应该历史地、客观地、科学地探讨德国地缘政治学的合理内核,恢复其作为一门科学的应有地位,促进政治地理学学科的发展。     

Geopolitics by another name: immigration and the politics of assimilation

In this introduction to the special issue on the geopolitics of migration, I discuss some of the problematic elements of current approaches to migration studies. In particular, I comment on the concept of ‘transnationalism’ as it has been applied to immigrant communities, and argue that claims about immigrant transnationalism resemble contemporary and historical polemics on the non-assimilation of immigrants. I propose that our understanding of the dynamics of immigrant-host society relationships must begin with an understanding of the geopolitical contexts in which migration takes place. I illustrate my argument using the case of Arab Americans in the aftermath of September 11, and I conclude by urging a reconsideration of the concept of assimilation as a ‘politics of sameness’.