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RGS-IBG 2014 session: The co-production of technology and geopolitics
Session kindly sponsored by the Political Geography Research Group
Convenors: Mr Matthew Scott and Dr Alison J. Williams (both School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University)
Abstract:
In 2001 David Butler called for the recognition of a recursive relationship between technology and geopolitics. For too long, he argued, technology has been depicted as a unidirectional force in geopolitical scholarship, one that is marginalised as a simple tool rather than problematized as a vital component in the constitution and exercise of geopolitical power (Butler, 2001). Yet despite Butler’s call, we seem little closer to a more thorough understanding of this relationship. Technologies of movement and speed such as railways and aircraft featured strongly in classical geopolitical thought, but there has been little attempt to consider these connections critically (Ó Tuathail and Luke, 2000; Williams, 2010). Whilst sub-disciplines such as Political Ecology and Urban Studies have begun to engage fruitfully with Science and Technology Studies (STS), we are still to explore what it may offer to geopolitics. Some geographers have begun to explore how materials, artefacts, and ‘things’ matter in the exercise of state power (Meehan, Shaw, and Marston, 2013; Shaw and Meehan, 2013), yet there has been little indication as to whether or not geopolitics and technology could enter into these discussions. Even in considerations of the geopolitics of drone technologies, for example, there are few instances where the technology in question is explicitly conceptualised (cf. Williams, 2011). Technology remains a ‘black box’ in geopolitical scholarship, one that we seem hesitant to open and examine more closely.
This session therefore aims to facilitate an exploration of the relationships between technology and geopolitics. It seeks to re-position technology as a central geopolitical actor to encourage a deeper assessment of the ways in which technologies mediate, amplify, dilute, usurp, or otherwise transform the discourses and practices of geopolitics. It offers opportunities to examine ways in which geopolitical reasoning is intertwined with the conception, development, application, and usage of technologies in both contemporary and historical settings.
Possible paper topics could include, but are by no means restricted to:
References:
Meehan, K; Shaw, I.G.R. and
Ó Tuathail, G. and Luke, T. (2000) ‘Thinking geopolitical space: the spatiality of war, speed and vision in the work of Paul Virilio’, in Crang, M. and
Thrift, N; eds. (2000) Thinking Space.
Shaw, I.G.R. and Meehan K. (2013) ‘Force-full: power, politics
and object-orientated philosophy’, Area
45 (2): 216-222.
Williams, A.J. (2010) 'Flying the flag: Pan American Airways and the projection of US power across the interwar Pacific', in MacDonald, F; Hughes, R. and
Dodds, K; eds. (2010) Observant States: geopolitics and visual culture.
Williams, A.J. (2011) ‘Enabling persistent presence? Performing the embodied geopolitics of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle assemblage’,
Political Geography 30 (7): 381-390.
Please send abstracts of no more than 300 words to Matthew Scott ([log in to unmask]) and Alison J. Williams ([log in to unmask]), by no later than Friday 7th February 2014. Successful applicants will be notified no later than Friday 14th February 2014.
Best Wishes,
Matthew