Category Archives: Boundaries

Thread of Blood on the Frontier

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Alonso, Ana María. 1995. Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico’s Northern Frontier. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Ana María Alonso traces the “thread of blood” that links frontier settlers’ warfare in Chihuahua against indigenous groups to … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Gender, Hegemony, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

How the Indians Lost their Land

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Banner, Stuart. 2005. How the Indians Lost their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Stuart Banner’s main thesis is that the loss of U.S. Indian land cannot be reduced to a story of violent dispossession. … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, Frontiers, Land, Law, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

The Frontier Theses

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Turner, Frederick Jackson. 2009. The Significance of the Frontier in American History. New York: Penguin. Fredrick Jackson Turner writes his famous essay (“The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” 1893) on the frontier just as the census bureau proclaimed … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Frontiers, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Spatiality | 1 Comment

Elements for a Theory of the Frontier

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

I had planned on discussing some texts on what I like to call “actually existing primitive accumulation,” but due to the exigencies of something I’m writing, I’m first going to plow through some stuff on frontiers—slippery little things. Raffestin, Claude. … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Frontiers, Land, Law, Maps, Power, Primitive Accumulation, Sovereignty, Spatiality, The State | Comments Off

Boundaries, Sovereignty, Necropolitics

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Mbembe, Achille. 2000. “At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa.” Public Culture 12(1): 259-284. ———. 2003. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15(1): 11-40. In these two articles, Achille Mbembe explores changing territorial arrangements and configurations of sovereignty. … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

State of Exception

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Agamben explores how the state of exception, building from Schmitt as the suspension of law for the preservation of the juridical order, produces and is indeed predicated on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Law, Power, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 4 Comments

In the Space of Theory

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Sparke’s aptly titled book interrogates how contemporary global affairs have stretched, unglued, glued, reconfigured, and (re)invented the presumed ties between states and their “respective” nations both within their putative borders and across/beyond them. He builds each chapter of the book … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Historical-Geographies, Maps, Nation/Nationalism, Post-Colonial, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 1 Comment

Human Territoriality

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Sack, Robert D. 1986. Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Intro and Ch. 1] Sack describes human territoriality as a specifically strategic process, departing instantly from the notion of territoriality as a biological human drive. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Place, Power, Spatiality, Territory, The State | Comments Off

Paasi on Boundaries as Processes

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Paasi, Ansi. 1999. “Boundaries as Social Processes: Territoriality in the World of Flows.” Geopolitics 3(1): 669-680. Paasi attempts to think the changing strategies, meanings, and identities produced by boundaries (by which he mainly means national borders) in the context of … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Nation/Nationalism, Power, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 1 Comment

Production of Territory

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Brenner, Neil, and Stuart Elden. 2009. “Henri Lefebvre on State, Space and Territory.” International Political Sociology 3(4): 353-377. I have read this incredibly important article enough times that I hardly need to be writing notes on it. It’s pretty engrained … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Henri Lefebvre, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Power, Scale, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 1 Comment