Two important overarching ideas will be conveyed in this lesson:
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
Please see your Canvas course space for a complete listing of this lesson's required readings, assignments, and due dates.
If you have any general course questions, please post them to our Course Questions Discussion located in the General Information Module in Canvas. I will check that discussion forum regularly to respond as appropriate. While you are there, feel free to post your own responses and comments if you are able to help out a classmate.
Please begin by reading the Prologue and Chapter 1 of Flint, C. (2016). Introduction to Geopolitics (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Whether you are new to the discipline of geography or not, most people were introduced to the field through looking at maps or elementary school exercises where you were made to memorize capital cities. While these activities are indeed fundamental to geography, the discipline expands well beyond the confines of maps and capital cities. In this course, you will be introduced to a subset of Human Geography, called Political Geography, or Geopolitics.
Our study of Geopolitics will guide us through the process of situating events within a particular context. That is, through our work in this lesson, and throughout the semester, we will try to better understand how and why things unfold in certain ways in specific places. And, while we may still be quite perplexed at the various impasses we see on the global geopolitical stage, we will, at the very least, better understand the complexity involved in some of these seemingly intractable situations.
In this first lesson, all of our activities ask you to think about your hometown and the various characteristics that make it a place you are intimately connected to - indeed, for many of us, it shapes various aspects of our identity and perspective on the world around us. So, we will begin the discussion of geography and politics by utilizing the example of State College, home of Penn State University!
Until I was in the 4th grade, my family moved around quite a bit. My father was in the US Army, so I was born in Germany, then we moved to North Carolina, then back to Germany, then to Texas, all before I started the 4th grade and he retired and we finally moved to State College, PA. So, while I can identify with being an "Army brat", I also consider State College, PA my hometown. Thus, I will use State College, PA (including University Park) as my hometown example.
Below is a screenshot of State College, PA taken from Google maps.
University Park, or Penn State, is located centrally and is the tannish-brown portion of the map. The grey portions of the map constitute the town of State College and its surrounding villages. The map below zooms in to better view downtown State College, PA and the central part of the University Park campus.
Both the size and close spatial relationship of the University are certainly of note when we think about the relationship between the University community and State College residents. Looking at the two maps above, we could gather some information about the “spatial organization of human activity” (Flint, 2016, p. 22) in State College. But, as Flint noted, “the term space is more abstract than place...(and) gives greater weight to functional issues such as the control of territory, an inventory of objects... within particular areas, or hierarchies and distances between objects” (Flint, 2016, p. 22).
But, if we are to understand State College, PA to a greater degree - if we want to understand how and why State College, PA is a unique, historied, and dynamic place - we must investigate the situated characteristics embedded within the town's social and physical geography.
Flint explains, “(t)he economic, political, and social relationships that we enjoy and suffer are mediated by different roles for different spaces” (2016, p. 22). The spaces of the University and the town, and their corresponding roles are apparent in the maps above. However, the people who occupy the spaces - as students, residents, University employees - flow through and occupy these spaces in various roles throughout the day. As such, University life (i.e., academics, sports, social events, etc.) flow into (State College) residential spaces; and local residents, in turn, go on to campus to listen to an evening community lecture, watch a sporting event, or get an ice cream cone at the PSU Berkey Creamery.
One of the reasons that State College is an interesting place to begin thinking about Geopolitics is because of the ways in which not only place and identity but also the politics of inclusion and exclusion (and the regulation of these categories) are enforced and/or contested by individuals or groups occupying “different roles” with regards to “different spaces”.
To give you an “embodied perspective” (Flint, 2016, p. 6) into one of the points of contention between University and local residential life, listen to the Prologue in this episode (396) of This American Life: #1 Party School [1].
As you listen to the episode, think about:
Likewise, to give you greater insight into the history behind the maps (Figure 1.1) featured in Flint (2016), p. 23, watch Africa: A Voyage of Discovery, Part 6 (of 8) "The Magnificent African Cake".
In order to better understand decolonization and contemporary geopolitics on the African continent, a history of colonization is critical. Thus, as you watch the sixth installment of Africa (hosted by Basil Davidson), I want you to again consider the politics of place and identity.
As you watch "The Magnificent African Cake", think about
In the sixth installment of Africa: The Story of a Continent, Africa is divided into areas under colonial rule. After the 1880s, Europeans set about exploiting Africans in every conceivable way, forcing them to pay taxes, plant cash crops instead of food crops grown for survival, and work for low pay, all the while looking upon them with contempt. Host Basil Davidson documents this "passification" of Africa, giving viewers a clear look at this unfortunate period of development that is a part of the continent's harsh history. ~ Alice Day, Rovi, from NY Times Review Summary [2]
This section introduces you to the ways in which geographers think about place. Flint (2016) refers us to John Agnew’s (1987) definition as a combination of three related aspects: location, locale, and sense of place.
An alternative view of society’s connection to place, or rather lack of attachment to place, is highlighted through a discussion of globalization. Contemporary globalization has facilitated the creation of a relatively small, and often privileged, class of people sometimes referred to as “global citizens” who crisscross the globe for business, political work, and/or leisure.
In contrast to privileged global citizens who feel at home anywhere they venture to, are diaspora populations – “networks of migrants who establish connections between places across the globe” (Flint, 2016, p. 28). Diaspora populations move from their home country for a variety of reasons. When discussing factors that impact human migration, human geographers often talk about “push” and “pull” factors. Push factors can include phenomena like poverty, natural disaster, civil war or violence, famine, political instability, and so forth. Pull factors might include economic opportunity, educational opportunity, safe haven from civil war or violence, family support, and political stability, to name a few. Diaspora populations often move because of a combination of push and pull factors. As such, they may feel attached to a number of places (their new country of residence, but also their home country). This can result in a feeling of not being completely “at home” anywhere.
This discussion of globalization and its role in defining a sense of place and belonging for various citizens lends itself to Doreen Massey’s (1994) definition of place: “(P)laces are networks of social relations" which have over time been constructed, laid down, interacted with one another, decayed and renewed.” The three aspects highlighted in Massey’s definition are:
The concept of scale as used in human geography is a bit different than that used on a map. The scale of a map is the ratio of a distance on the map to the corresponding distance on the ground. For example, one inch on a map is equal to one mile on the ground. The concept of scale in human geography is somewhat less straightforward.
Within human geography, we think of scale as a “form of hierarchy” that is not separate or discrete but interconnected. You can see this hierarchy when we discuss the local, the national, or the global economy. They may seem discrete because we can bound them politically. The State College municipality has political boundaries. The United States has its borders. And, well, the globe seemingly includes everywhere. While we can see their bounded territory on a map, the reality is much less spatially fragmented. In fact, movement of economic flows, of people or animals (migration), disease or natural disaster, and so forth, spreads across, and negotiates around, scale.
As mentioned in Introduction to Geopolitics (Flint, 2016), localized acts of personal defiance or protest (individual scale) can be motivated by national campaigns geared towards influencing national legislative processes (national scale). There is sometimes a fluidity of movement across scale, while at other times we may observe a jumping of scale (local ► global, may bypass national scales). Flint highlights the contested nature of scales—pointing out that “we need to move further away from the idea of a clear and distinct hierarchy of scales” because scales are interconnected and multiple scales may be implicated in any particular event or action. Flint uses the example of a suicide bombing of certain hotels in Kabul, Afghanistan. In particular, hotels that may host international or Western governmental and aid organization workers may become a local target as a geopolitical statement against the foreign presence in the country. As such, a local act (bombing of a hotel in Kabul) is intimately connected to the global scale (as embedded in the geopolitical struggle for state sovereignty within the context of a US-led global anti-terrorism effort).
Regions within geopolitics are social constructs that reflect certain perspectives and judgments in making particular groupings. Flint highlights that there are regional groupings that are determined by physical proximity to each other—i.e., the desert region of Africa or the mountainous region of South America. Or we may also think of geopolitical groupings like Western Europe or the Middle East. In some ways, this categorization helps us to try to group like things together, but such simplification tends to assume a homogeneity that isn’t actually there. The physical geography, as well as the cultural, religious, political, economic, and social aspects of the communities and citizens within each Western European or Middle Eastern country is actually quite diverse and not properly represented in a singular identity. Furthermore, as Flint explains, “Regions should be seen not only as a form of labeling or classification but also as the result of the construction of political institutions.” Here, he is referring to the creation of functional regions such as the European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to name a few.
To understand regional groupings is to understand what is going on geopolitically at that time. For example, a reference to the “First World” or “Third World” is a reference to geopolitical categories created during the Cold War when the West (the First World) was battling major Communist powers (the Second World) for influence over non-aligned countries (the Third World).
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), this terminology is no longer quite as meaningful – though we certainly see its use in various settings. Nonetheless, it’s important to know the origins of such terminology and groupings.
The concept of the Global North and the Global South is also an important one to think about geographically and geopolitically. Also an extension of Cold War geopolitics, the Brandt line (essentially the line that separates blue and red) shows the north-south divide. The Brandt line image below has been updated to include countries like South Africa, Singapore, and Taiwan. The Brandt line shows the more economically developed countries (MEDCs) in blue and the less economically developed countries (LEDCs) in red.
If you compare the two maps above, you’ll notice that the First and Second World comprise the Global North, while the non-aligned or the Third World countries comprise the Global South. The competition between the First and Second Worlds was not just ideological, but one that vied for non-aligned countries to choose their economic development trajectory: Capitalism or Communism.
Two related ideas that connect to territory as political space:
As Flint explains, territoriality is the power exercised through the construction and management of territory.
The film clip “The Magnificent African Cake” you watched in the first section (Geography & Politics) of this lesson, illustrates the messiness of sovereignty claims that highlight the tensions around the concept of territory (and territoriality) on the African continent.
Lesson 5 will explore the geopolitics of territory more fully, but, for now, it’s important to understand that “(t)erritory is both a fundamental building-block of geopolitics and something that is fluid over time and varies across space.” (Flint, 2016, p. 34)
Perhaps one of the most common ways people these days understand the concept of networks is to think of the many often-used social networks, like Facebook. While our book doesn't necessarily cover or include social networks in our discussion of geopolitics, it is interesting to think of the ways virtual spaces such as the Facebook networking platform facilitate the organization of individuals into groups of similar interests, political beliefs, etc. Furthermore, it is also interesting to observe the ways in which various terrorist organizations have recently used social networking practices such as hashtagging (#) to draw attention to their cause and intimidate.
Please read the following article before completing the blog assignment.
This article examines the role of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS's) beheading videos in the United Kingdom and the United States. These videos are highly illustrative demonstrations of the importance of visual imagery and visual media in contemporary warfare. By functioning as evidence in a political discourse constituting ISIS as an imminent, exceptional threat to the West, the videos have played an important role in the re-framing of the conflict in Iraq and Syria from a humanitarian crisis requiring a humanitarian response to a national security issue requiring a military response and intensified counterterrorism efforts. However, this article seeks to problematize the role and status of ISIS's beheadings in American and British security discourses by highlighting the depoliticizing aspects of reducing a complicated conflict to a fragmented visual icon. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for further attention to how the visibility of war, and the constitution of boundaries between which acts of violence are rendered visible and which are not, shape the political terrain in which decisions about war and peace are produced and legitimized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
We will go into further details on the politics of networks, but it is important to start thinking about the power of networks in your life and at multiple scales. Indeed, our political, social, cultural, religious, and economic networks fill (and perhaps fulfill) our daily interactions.
Geopolitics (broadly the mutual construction of space and power relations) is both a matter of practice (doing) and representation (justifying the doing). - Colin Flint, Interview [6]
What is geopolitics?
As Flint explains (p. 43), there is an intellectual debate within the social sciences around the ideas of structure and agency. The textbook discusses some foundational definitions of agency and structure (pp. 43-44). If you need a refresher, please do re-read that section. Also, as a reminder, Flint provides some key rules to aid in our discussion of structure and agency. I repeat them below (p. 43):
Agency is the actions behind trying to achieve a particular goal. Individuals or groups act, or have agency. Sometimes we can talk about states or a social movement having agency, but at other times it is more appropriate to think of groups or individuals at a lower scale (i.e., the President and the Pentagon acting differently to negotiate the defense budget). Agency is related to geopolitics in that it creates spaces (i.e., a nationalist group tries to create a nation-state) while actions are framed or situated within spaces.
Geopolitics, as the struggle over the control of spaces and places, focuses on power, or the ability to achieve particular goals in the face of opposition or alternatives. - (Flint, 2016, p. 45)
Flint reviews three forms of power important to the understanding of historic and contemporary geopolitical thinking: material, relational, and ideological power. In 19th and early 20th century geopolitical practices, power was seen as the relative power of countries in foreign affairs. In the 19th century, power was based on the size of a country, whereas in the 20th century, the study of geopolitical power became more academic as scholars created numerous indices of power focused on country-specific capabilities such as industrial strength, size, education level of the citizenry, as well as military capabilities. Power was based on a country’s material power or capacity to wage war.
Towards the latter half of the 20th century, discussions of power became more nuanced, sophisticated, and critical of seeing power as a thing that can be possessed. Rather, a relational sense of power came to greater prominence. As such, the “strong” power of one state was understood in relation to the “weak” position of another within a political network (i.e., the United Nations Security Council). In sum, geopolitical social relations create a framework that enables some actors to “force, cajole, or convince another actor to do what is wanted, or for that ‘acted-upon’ actor to resist, to varying degrees” (Flint, 2016, p.46).
Lastly, ideological power is “the ability or need not to force others to do what you want, but to make them follow your agenda willingly without considering alternatives” (Flint, 2016, p. 46). This analysis stems from Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s writing which observed that a ruling class rarely has to exert force to control the working class. Instead, the normative structure which frames our everyday lives incentivizes the working class to behave in a certain “acceptable” or “normal” way while marginalizing and belittling alternative behaviors or structures as “radical”, “abnormal”, or “unnatural.”
Please visit the Lesson 1 Module in Canvas for a full description, including due date and submission instructions.
Now that you've gone through Lesson 1 and completed the associated activities, you should be able to discuss the basic concepts of place, scale, structure, and agency. After completing the assignments for this lesson, you should now also better understand how places in the world (i.e., your hometown) are both unique and interconnected. Furthermore, current events (happening in your hometown and elsewhere) are not territorially isolated events, but occur within an interconnected set of scales. Lastly, you should be able to discuss how these current events are performed by geopolitical agents, as well as how the actions of these agents happen within various interconnected and overlapping structures. And, of course, you should be able to articulate the multiple forms of power that underlie geopolitics.
You have reached the end of Lesson 1! Double-check the Lesson 1 module in Canvas to make sure you have completed all of the activities listed there before you begin Lesson 2.
Links
[1] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/396/1-party-school?act=0#play
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/225473/Africa-The-Story-of-a-Continent-Program-6-This-Magnificent-African-Cake/overview
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-World_Model
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide
[5] https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/jlia/vol5/iss1/1/
[6] http://www.exploringgeopolitics.org/interview_flint_colin_structure_agency_identity_peace_networks_geopolitical_codes_visions_agents_actors_representations_practices_spaces_powers_environmental_geopolitics/