Understanding Geography and War

Misperceptions, Foundations, and Prospects

verfasst von: Steve Pickering

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" , Springer Professional "Technik"

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Über dieses Buch

By delving into the history of geopolitics and bringing us up to date with cutting-edge case studies looking at infrastructure, terrain, and maps, this book will dispel simplistic and misleading notions about the nature of how humans interact with the environment. Stops on the way will include critical geopolitics, religious geopolitics, popular geopolitics, feminist geopolitics, and, newest of all, critical quantitative geopolitics. More importantly, it uncovers new areas of research for the next generation of researchers, showing how critical and quantitative methods can be applied to look at how geography and war relate to diverse areas such as disease, sport, dispossession, and immigration.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. History

Abstract

This chapter will take a tour through the history of geography and war. To do so, it will engage with the notion of ‘geopolitics’ which has meant different things to different people at different times. Authors such as Mackinder are a traditional place to start and while this chapter will acknowledge the need of looking at such work, it will make a more novel focus on the history of geopolitics in Japan and France. In so doing, it will contextualise geopolitics and demonstrate the dangers of focusing on a simple deterministic geopolitics. To illustrate the problems of determinism, a case study will be presented: the case of geography, mountains, and war.

Steve Pickering

2. Critical Approaches

Abstract

The development of critical geopolitics will be analysed and key authors in the Francophone and anglophone world will be discussed. The work of Yves Lacoste will be studied and his influence on the journal Hérodote. Ó Tuathail’s contribution to the field will also be analysed. A case study will be presented applying the tools of critical cartography. The case study will look at the relationship of borders and maps, and how maps have been used as tools of power. The history of the development of map borders will be presented, from Westphalia to the present day.

Steve Pickering

3. Feminist Approaches to Geopolitics: Beyond the Geopolitics of Gender

Abstract

While feminism has a long history with international relations and has made significant contributions to our understandings of war, its use of geography to do so has been relatively slow to develop. This chapter will look at this issue, and ask why it has been so difficult to develop the field of feminist geopolitics. It will argue that feminist geopolitics has indeed emerged, but not a single feminist geopolitics; it might be better expressed that there are multiple feminist approaches to geopolitics. However, most of these approaches agree that the function of a feminist geopolitics is a normative one, and that the frameworks should be based on ‘peopling.’

Steve Pickering

4. Popular Geopolitics

Abstract

Long derided as an inferior form of geography, there is now a recognition that if we want to understand geography and war, we can no longer depend on elite texts and elite actors. There has been an acceptance and expectation that there is some form of relationship between civil society and policy formation (and therefore decisions over war and peace) but the exact nature of this relationship has been difficult to determine. A summary of attempts to better understand this through television, cinema, cartoons and comics will be presented. However, the case will be made that this does not go far enough. Accordingly, new work from Japan will be presented, as will a case study on the use of Twitter to show how modern social media break down the traditional elite/pluralist divides.

Steve Pickering

5. Religious Geopolitics and the Geopolitics of Religion

Abstract

Geographers have long had difficulty in writing about religion as there are few researchers who have the methodological background to cross these disciplines. Nevertheless, to understand geography and war, we need to know the importance of religion. Examples from the USA, Russia and Vatican City will be presented. However, it will be argued that the literature as it stands suffers from two biases: a focus on religion in the USA and a focus on extremes. Suggestions will be made as to how future research can move away from these biases and focus research on elite feedbacks.

Steve Pickering

6. Critical Quantitative Geo-Spatial Methods and War

Abstract

Perhaps one of the most surprising arguments in this book, this chapter will make the case that quantitative researchers need to adopt critical methods (and vice versa). To understand geography and war, we need empirical analysis. But we cannot do this blindly: existing research has depended on data that do not meet the needs of conflict research. Two case studies will be presented: measuring mountains to study war and measuring levels of infrastructure development to study war. There are two reasons for choosing these case studies. First, they will demonstrate how we can move from critique to empirical analysis. Second, they will highlight two prominent areas of conflict research, which have depended on two fundamentally misleading geospatial variables.

Steve Pickering

7. Conclusion

Abstract

Outside of academia geopolitics is widely imagined as (depending on your generation) chess, the board game Risk, or the Total War video games. Big men moving big guns across a big playing field. The world divided into clear sides. It’s all on the map, as little figurines. Put a fort in here, a uranium mine there. They’ve blown up the runway. Hold the port. Why do all of this? Oh, right, for security. To avoid, or win, the war. To keep the people safe. Or just, maybe, to keep the investments safe, to build an empire (Koopman 2011, 274).

Steve Pickering

Backmatter

Titel: Understanding Geography and War
verfasst von: Steve Pickering
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-52217-7
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-52216-0
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52217-7