Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Human Geography
http://phg.sagepub.com/
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
Additional services and information for Progress in Human Geography can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://phg.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://phg.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://phg.sagepub.com/content/27/1/97.refs.html
Progress reports
Introduction
The attacks of 11 September 2001 changed many things. Though they will probably
change the subject matter of political geography too, most of the reviewed literature in
this essay was published either before or too soon after 11 September to provide direct
analysis. A series of commentaries in the Arab World Geographer provided a forum for
initial reflections that offered immediate impressions (Abu-Nimer, 2001; Agnew, 2001a;
Flint, 2001a; 2001b; Marston and Rouhani, 2001; McColl, 2001; Nijman, 2001; N. Smith,
2001). In addition, a mixture of historical analysis and policy recommendations has
begun to appear (Talbott and Chanda, 2001). However, the most recent scholarship that
I was able to review provides the intellectual foundations upon which post-9/11
research will be based. After briefly proposing a geographic research agenda on
terrorism, five key themes informed by political geographers are identified; modernity,
geopolitics, the state, representation and the public stance of geographers.
II
Terrorism
The academic study of terrorism, like much mainstream social science, has been
trapped in a paradigm that equates society with individual states (Taylor, 2000a).
Theories of terrorism reviewed by Laqueur (1987: 152-60) all focus upon how changes
in particular states may provoke terrorist action against that self-same state apparatus.
Not surprisingly, all of these theories are found wanting for one reason or another. In
addition, scholars make a consistent contrast between earlier state-based terrorism and
C) Arnold 2003
10.1 191/0309132503ph413pr
Downloaded from phg.sagepub.com at Kings College London - ISS on January 7, 2013
98 Political geography
One of the questions regarding 9/11 was 'Why now?' This answer is, of course, related
to the more basic question of 'Why?' Unpacking the uncritical claims that the terrorists
were attacking 'our way of life' is possible through an engagement of modernity from
a geohistorical perspective (Taylor, 1999). 'Our way of life' is the expression of the prime
modernity of the USA and attempts to globalize its practice (Holloway and Valentine,
2001; Santos, 1999). Yet there is widespread discontentment with the prime modernity
expressed by contemporary racist and white separatist groups in the USA (Flint, 2001c),
or a feeling of malaise and insecurity that has corrupted our view of children and young
adults (Aitken, 2001a; 2001b). The potentials of a changing modernity are manifest in
Colin Flint 99
religion.
A potential pathway has already been set by the suggestion of an International
Political Theology (IPT), the 'systematic study of discourses and relations amongst
them concerning world affairs that search for - or claim to have found - a response,
transcendental or secular, to the human need for meaning' (Kubalkovai, 2000: 675). IPT
recognizes the role of religion in defining multiple modernities that compete with westernization (Eisenstadt, 2000; Thomas, 2000), or the dominance of US prime modernity.
This may take the form of inter-civilizational dialogue or geopolitical tensions (Esposito
and Voll, 2000; Tibi, 2000) embedded within national identities (Smith, 2000). In general,
these reflections on religion and international politics recognize that the search for
meaning in modern life (H. Smith, 2001) is a component of contemporary geopolitical
tensions, and deserves our immediate attention.
IV
Geopolitics
1 00
conflicts), two important debates remain - the epistemology of geopolitics and the uses
towards which geopolitical studies should be put. The benefit of the postmodem
approach has been the expansion of geopolitical analyses into a multiscalar and multiprocess force, but at the expense of creating an approach that accepts and even
celebrates the chaotic nature of politics rather than making sense of 'seeming chaos and
complexity' (Parker, 2001: 125). This does not demand a singular and hegemonic
theoretical template, but does remind us that our role is to offer explanation and understanding of politics through a geographic perspective, and not merely an observation
(lament?) that the world is chaotic. Students, policy-makers, commentators and the
public felt bewilderment post-9/11 - what is our role, or even use, if we do not offer
competing explanations that provide a way of understanding the chaos? If all we can
say is 'You're right, the world is descending into chaos', we have offered no more than
the shallowest journalism or even street-corner conversation. Explanation through
competing theoretical frameworks adds to the conversation by identifying and
evaluating different causes and consequences in what, to an untrained eye, is seemingly
unexplainable chaos. This is not to say that we need to be banging the square pegs of
actual occurrences into the round holes of theoretical constructs, but that we do need to
offer parsimonious theories that help to uncover the multiple roots of all contemporary
geopolitical acts.
But who do we tell? Hepple (2001) reminds us of the dilemma of relevance and
service to a powerful Prince. Yet the multiplicity of political actors suggests a host of
Princes and Princesses. Serving a singular state Prince is a pathway back to intellectual
stagnation and imprisonment, but creating knowledge relevant to a host of political
actors is a potential spaghetti junction of intersecting theoretical, empirical and applied
political knowledges.
V The state
Signposts for this approach are replete within political geographies of the state.
Brenner's (2001b) engagement of Lefebvre's (2001) writings on the state have made
non-French speaking geographers aware of the notion of autogestion - or the political
call to democratize the institutions of the state. A parallel contribution is Jones's (2001)
use of Storper's (1997) distinction between institutions and organizations, with an
emphasis upon considering the perceptions and actions of the personnel of formal state
organizations. The spatiality of political strategies to control and alter political and
social institutions has also been discussed (Morrison, 2001; Watts, 2001), along with the
geographical variation in activism (Fincher and Panelli, 2001) and service provision
(Cloke et al., 2001; Peck and Theodore, 2001).
One continuing stream of analysis is the, mainly British, discussions of devolution
within the context of the increasing powers of the European Union and the Labour
Party's policies of reorganizing government (Raco and Flint, 2001). Attention has been
paid to the interaction of geographic scales, their role in both enabling and constraining
political actors (Mackinnon and Phelps, 2001a; 2001b), the undemocratic nature of the
new institutions (Robinson and Shaw, 2001), and the regional competition over their
control (Agnew, 2001c; Biscoe, 2001; Morgan, 2001; Shirlow, 2001). Similar competitions
between scales of government are evident in the European Union (Barnett, 2001),
Russia (Mitchnek, 2001) and over the form of the post-apartheid South African state
(Ramutsindela, 2001). Attention upon the stresses facing the Australian state concentrates upon the role of public racism and the spatiality of government anti-racism
programs (Dunn and McDonald, 2001; Dunn et al., 2001), noting the way that
governments can alter the creation of knowledge through the closure of research establishments (Fincher, 2001). The identification of multiple actors in state politics,
illustrates that political contests provide opportunities to inform multiple actors.
VI
Representation
102
Political geography
VI I
Narratives
Claims that the 'world changed' on 11 September 2001 are US-centric. Yet the violence
of that day and its aftermath do provide an opportunity for political geographers to
enhance their role and leverage within the discipline, in policy-making circles (broadly
defined) and in public education. Emphasizing that all politics are 'politics of space'
(Purcell, 2001a; 2001b) introduces the multicausality of geopolitical acts, while stressing
the particular contribution offered by the discipline of geography (Massey, 2001;
Schoenberger, 2001). Of course, the content of political geography is always open to
debate (Kirby, 2001; Youngs, 2001). However, this is not a call for a spatial fetishism, and
it is essential not to highlight the spatial to the detriment of the 'non-territorial'
(Gregson, 2001). What is required are geographies that engage a period of military
conflict (Hepple, 2001) without prioritizing the state and including other politics, such
as the role of cultural othering (Escobar, 2001) and racialized politics (Kobayashi and
Peake, 2000). Geography's global perspective defines a moral responsibility to portray
the predicament of peoples often struggling to be heard (Ahmad, 2000; Falah, 2001;
Wilson and Bauder, 2001). The time is ripe to illustrate the explanatory power of
geography by educating beyond the confines of formal educational and academic
arenas to provide a host of real political opportunities and alternatives (Hay, 2001).
References
Abu-Nimer, M. 2001: Another voice against the
war. The Arab World Geographer 4(2), 89-92.
Agnew, J. 2001a: Not the wretched of the Earth:
Osama Bin Laden and the 'Clash of
Civilizations'. The Arab World Geographer 4(2),
85-88.
2001b: Reinventing geopolitics: geographies of
modern statehood. Hettner-Lecture 2000.
Department of Geography, University of
Heidelberg.
2001c: How many Europes? The European
Union, eastward enlargement and uneven
development. European Journal of Urban and
Regional Studies 8(1), 29-38.
Ahmad, E. 2000: Confronting Empire: interviews
with David Barsamian. Cambridge, MA: South
End Press.
Aitken, S. 2001a: Schoolyard shootings: racism,
sexism, and moral panics over teen violence.
Antipode 33(4), 593-600.
2001b: Global crises of childhood: rights,
justice and the unchildlike child. Area 33(2),
119-27.
Armstrong, K. 2000: The battlefor God. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Arquilla, J. and Ronfeldt, D. 1997. In Athena's
camp. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.
Atkinson, D. 2001: Classics in human geography
revisited. Commentary 2. Progress in Human
591-614.
2001b: State theory in the political
conjuncture: Henri Lefebvre's "Comments on a
new state form." Antipode 33(5), 783-808.
Butler, D.L. 2001: Technogeopolitics and the
104
Political geography
NS 26, 25-41.
2001b: The contrasting geographies of
'Padania': the case of the Lega Nord in
Northern Italy. Area 33(1), 27-37.
Gregson, N. 2001: Missing voices/missing
spaces: reflections on a 'new Europe?' European
Journal of Urban and Regional Studies 8(1), 39-40.
106
Political geography