Category Archives: Law

Off-Shore Data Havens?

What’s flat, has two legs, and is capable of stirring international intrigue on the high seas? If you’re thinking “unmanned wave-powered ocean robots,” then you’re close, but (sadly) wrong. No, I’m thinking of the 120-foot by 50-foot platform seven miles … Continue reading

Posted in Illegality, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Networks, Pirates, Science & Tech., Sovereignty, Territory, The Sea, The State | 2 Comments

Robin Hood: Cultural Politics of the Law

An article at Yes! Magazine traces some pop-cultural coordinates around the always-evolving Robin Hood myth. Written by Paul Buhle, the somewhat meandering article is based on his recently published book, Robin Hood: People’s Outlaw and Forest Hero (2011, PM Press). … Continue reading

Posted in Bandits, Forests, Illegality, Law, Pirates | Comments Off on Robin Hood: Cultural Politics of the Law

Salty Geographies

A recent post by Andy Davies over at the Antipode Foundation’s blog raises some interesting geographical questions, particularly around labor, in light of the recent Costa Concordia shipwreck. On this blog we’ve noted some of the tricky problems the sea … Continue reading

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Historical-Geographies, Law, Pirates, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, The Sea, The State | Comments Off on Salty Geographies

Arendt, Foucault, Benjamin: On Violence, State, Law

This post discusses some scattered points raised about violence  by Hannah Arendt’s On Violence, Walter Benjamin’s “Critique of Violence,” and Michel Foucault’s Society Must be Defended. Arendt makes a worthwhile distinction between power and violence, while recognizing that the two rarely … Continue reading

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Critique, Illegality, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Meow: The Politics of Anonymous

Quinn Norton, a writer with Wired, has published a fascinating three-part series titled, “Anonymous: Beyond the Mask” (Part I, Part II, Part III). She tracks the progressive politicization of Anonymous from its diaper days chatting on 4Chan to #Occupy by … Continue reading

Posted in #Occupy, Art, Bandits, Critique, Everyday Life, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Networks, Pirates, Science & Tech., Spectacle | 1 Comment

The Mask of ‘Anarchy’

An article by Jonathan Jones in the Guardian has been making the rounds and offers some interesting commentary on the proliferation of the V for Vendetta mask at recent #Occupy protests. Coming on the heels of the Oakland General Strike, … Continue reading

Posted in #Occupy, Bandits, City, Everyday Life, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Networks, Pirates, Power, Spectacle, The State, Violence | 5 Comments

Geographies of the Outlaw

The word “outlaw”—outside of the law—implicitly articulates the intimate relationship between geography and the law. From the perspective of state-makers and capitalists, the groups of outlaws I’m collectively labeling “Motley Crews” (as a shorthand) pose a grave ideological and spatial … Continue reading

Posted in Bandits, Carl Schmitt, Drugs, Elites, Forests, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Karl Marx, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Networks, Pirates, Post-Colonial, Power, Primitive Accumulation, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Body, The Sea, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Geographies of the Outlaw

Spatiality & Power

“A stupid despot may constrain his slaves with iron chains; but a true politician binds them even more strongly by the chain of their own ideas… on the soft fibers of the brain is founded the unshakable base of the … Continue reading

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Assemblages, Carl Schmitt, Dialectics, Everyday Life, Governmentality, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Illegality, Karl Marx, Law, Michel Foucault, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

A Genealogy of Sovereignty

Bartelson, Jens. 1995. A Genealogy of Sovereignty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This was a difficult book so I tried outlining it chapter by chapter: Ch. 1 – Bartelson proposes a genealogy of “sovereignty” and lays out the arguments and methods for … Continue reading

Posted in Boundaries, Frontiers, Historical-Geographies, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Niccolo Machiavelli, Power, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State | Comments Off on A Genealogy of Sovereignty

Cartographic Mexico

Craib, Raymond. 2004. Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. I remember my social studies teacher in elementary school using the peel of an orange to show us why most world maps … Continue reading

Posted in Boundaries, Land, Law, Maps, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Post-Colonial, Power, Science & Tech., Spatiality, Territory, The State | Comments Off on Cartographic Mexico