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Title: Planetary Illiberal Geographies: Territories, Space and Power
Organizers: Jason Luger (UC-Berkeley) and Sarah Tynen (University of Colorado-Boulder)
Sponsored by: Political Geography Specialty Group and Urban Geography Specialty Group
Welcome to the illiberal age.
Writing about liberal democratic contexts, Lefebvre (2009 [1978]) argues that state territorial control facilitates capital accumulation. But what happens in the relationship between the state, territory, and capital in illiberal political contexts? While some scholarship in geography has addressed the relationship between sovereignty and territory (Yeh 2013), such as in the context of violence (Elden 2009) and state power (Jessop 2007), more scholarship is needed to address the implications of authoritarian governance on multiple scales in relationship to territory and economic development. Furthermore, political geographers like Koch (2013, 2016) have stressed the importance of moving beyond 'territorial traps' and 'moral geographies' to better understand the relational nature of illiberalism and the circular, rather than hierarchal, flows of power (Foucault 2007) in and across various scales.
Meanwhile, theorists such as Brenner and Schmid (2015) propose that urban processes are planetary in nature, multi-scalar, hybrid and relational in nature. Given the surge in illiberalism around the world, it is crucial to explore both fixed territories and the ways in which these territories combine via global circuits and flows. Furthermore, illiberalism is not limited to particular places, global regions, or physical territory at all. Various forms of illiberalism, from authoritarian state-society relations to religious fundamentalism, show up in 'East and West', 'North and South', in cyberspace and in urban neighborhoods.
Thus, this paper session seeks to further explore diverse terrains of 'illiberal' geographies, specifically how illiberal regimes articulate territory and space at scales both global and local, through lenses such as city planning, policy, surveillance, or economic development. This paper session seeks a full range of theoretical and methodological approaches to examine territory, space and power in the new global illiberal paradigm, from China and East Asia through the Middle East to Africa and Trump's America (and all the interstices in between). We welcome theoretical and empirical debates, as well as papers dealing with the methodological challenges in approaching illiberal geographies.
Interested applicants should send an abstract of no more than 250 words to Jason Luger ([log in to unmask]) and Sarah Tynen ([log in to unmask]) by October 4th. Accepted applicants will be notified by October 11th.
Papers may focus on, but are not limited to:
-Urban development, planning and design as a mechanism of multi-scalar development and control
-Methodological and ethical challenges for researchers operating in / approaching illiberal contexts
-Illiberal encounters in urban space and cyberspace
-Urban planning and environment design as a mode of territorial control
-Borders, mobility, and state territorial control through border policing
-Settler colonialism and militarization of disputed territory
-Geographies of law and law enforcement
-Everyday dimensions of territorial policing, securitization, surveillance, and violence
-Resistance to state territorial control
-Policing of the body and resistance to it
-Neighborhood governance and state surveillance tactics
References
Brenner, N. and Schmid, C., 2015. Towards a new epistemology of the urban?. City, 19(2-3),
pp.151-182.
Elden, Stuart. 2009. Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press
Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France
1977--1978. New York: Picador.
Jessop, B. 2007. State Power. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Koch, N. (2013) Introduction: field methods in 'closed contexts': Undertaking research in
authoritarian states and places. Area, 45(4), 390-395.
Koch, N. (2016) We entrepreneurial academics: governing globalized higher education in
'illiberal' states, Territory, Politics, Governance, 4(4), 433-452.
Lefebvre, Henri. 2009 [1978]. Space and the State. In State, Space, World: Selected Essays, N.
Brenner and S. Elden, eds., 95-123. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Yeh, Emily. 2013. Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese
Development. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
CALL FOR PAPERSAmerican Association of Geographers (AAG) Annual MeetingNew Orleans, Louisiana, April 10-14, 2018
Title: Planetary Illiberal Geographies: Territories, Space and Power
Organizers: Jason Luger (UC-Berkeley) and Sarah Tynen (University of Colorado-Boulder)
Sponsored by: Political Geography Specialty Group and Urban Geography Specialty Group
Welcome to the illiberal age.
Writing about liberal democratic contexts, Lefebvre (2009 [1978]) argues that state territorial control facilitates capital accumulation. But what happens in the relationship between the state, territory, and capital in illiberal political contexts? While some scholarship in geography has addressed the relationship between sovereignty and territory (Yeh 2013), such as in the context of violence (Elden 2009) and state power (Jessop 2007), more scholarship is needed to address the implications of authoritarian governance on multiple scales in relationship to territory and economic development. Furthermore, political geographers like Koch (2013, 2016) have stressed the importance of moving beyond 'territorial traps' and 'moral geographies' to better understand the relational nature of illiberalism and the circular, rather than hierarchal, flows of power (Foucault 2007) in and across various scales.
Meanwhile, theorists such as Brenner and Schmid (2015) propose that urban processes are planetary in nature, multi-scalar, hybrid and relational in nature. Given the surge in illiberalism around the world, it is crucial to explore both fixed territories and the ways in which these territories combine via global circuits and flows. Furthermore, illiberalism is not limited to particular places, global regions, or physical territory at all. Various forms of illiberalism, from authoritarian state-society relations to religious fundamentalism, show up in 'East and West', 'North and South', in cyberspace and in urban neighborhoods.
Thus, this paper session seeks to further explore diverse terrains of 'illiberal' geographies, specifically how illiberal regimes articulate territory and space at scales both global and local, through lenses such as city planning, policy, surveillance, or economic development. This paper session seeks a full range of theoretical and methodological approaches to examine territory, space and power in the new global illiberal paradigm, from China and East Asia through the Middle East to Africa and Trump's America (and all the interstices in between). We welcome theoretical and empirical debates, as well as papers dealing with the methodological challenges in approaching illiberal geographies.
Interested applicants should send an abstract of no more than 250 words to Jason Luger ([log in to unmask]) and Sarah Tynen ([log in to unmask]) by October 4th. Accepted applicants will be notified by October 11th.
Papers may focus on, but are not limited to:
-Urban development, planning and design as a mechanism of multi-scalar development and control
-Methodological and ethical challenges for researchers operating in / approaching illiberal contexts
-Illiberal encounters in urban space and cyberspace
-Urban planning and environment design as a mode of territorial control
-Borders, mobility, and state territorial control through border policing
-Settler colonialism and militarization of disputed territory
-Geographies of law and law enforcement
-Everyday dimensions of territorial policing, securitization, surveillance, and violence-Resistance to state territorial control
-Policing of the body and resistance to it
-Neighborhood governance and state surveillance tactics
References
Brenner, N. and Schmid, C., 2015. Towards a new epistemology of the urban?. City, 19(2-3),
pp.151-182.
Elden, Stuart. 2009. Terror and Territory: The Spatial Extent of Sovereignty. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press
Foucault, Michel. 2007. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France
1977--1978. New York: Picador.
Jessop, B. 2007. State Power. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Koch, N. (2013) Introduction: field methods in 'closed contexts': Undertaking research in
authoritarian states and places. Area, 45(4), 390-395.
Koch, N. (2016) We entrepreneurial academics: governing globalized higher education in
'illiberal' states, Territory, Politics, Governance, 4(4), 433-452.
Lefebvre, Henri. 2009 [1978]. Space and the State. In State, Space, World: Selected Essays, N.
Brenner and S. Elden, eds., 95-123. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Yeh, Emily. 2013. Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese
Development. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.