Category Archives: Gender

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

Agrarian Political Economy & Ecology

  My path into agrarian political economy and ecology partly picks up where Marx left off. In culminating his magnum opus, Marx departs from his more dualistic model of the capitalist mode of production, which emphasizes the dialectic of labor-and-capital, … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Antonio Gramsci, David Harvey, Forests, Frontiers, Gender, Karl Marx, Land, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, Violence | 1 Comment

States of Violence

Coronil, Fernando and Julie Skurski, eds. 2006. States of Violence. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. [Ch. 1-3] This brilliant collection edited by Fernando Coronil and Julie Skurski critiques one of the main stories that modernity likes to tell … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Bandits, Boundaries, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Gender, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Post-Colonial, Sovereignty, Spatiality, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Shattering Silence

Aretxaga, Begoña. 1997. Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism, and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Begoña Aretxaga explores the problems and promise of feminist change in Northern Ireland with the start of the “Troubles” in the wake … Continue reading

Posted in Boundaries, City, Everyday Life, Gender, Hegemony, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Terror, The Body, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

Villains of All Nations

Rediker, Marcus. 2004. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press. The dialectics of violence on the eighteenth century Atlantic were spurred by three sources of terror: pirates, violent state repression against piracy, and the … Continue reading

Posted in Boundaries, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Pirates, Political Economy, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Sea, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

The Enemy of All

Heller-Rozen, Daniel. 2009. The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations. Boston: Zone Books. Daniel Heller-Rozen’s The Enemy of All departs from a deceptively simple question: How is it that the pirate came to be the original enemy … Continue reading

Posted in Boundaries, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Pirates, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Sea, The State | 4 Comments

Engendering Everyday Resistance

Hart, Gillian. 1991. “Engendering Everyday Resistance.” Journal of Peasant Studies. 19(1): 93-121. Gillian Hart’s much-cited article “Engendering Everyday Resistance” seeks to answer why women in the Muda region of Malaysia came “to define and prosecute their interests as workers, whereas … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Everyday Life, Gender, Land, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, The State | Comments Off on Engendering Everyday Resistance

Intimate Enemies in Chiapas

Bobrow-Strain, Aaron. 2007. Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Power, and Violence in Chiapas. Durham: Duke University Press. This book has a perfect hook: What about the vilified landowners on the receiving end of the January 1, 1994, uprising by the Zapatista rebels … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Antonio Gramsci, Boundaries, Frontiers, Gender, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Historical-Geographies, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Scale, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

Marxism, Culture, and Political Ecology

Moore, Donald. 1996. “Marxism, Culture, and Political Ecology: Environmental Struggles in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands.” In Liberation Ecologies: Environment, Development, Social Movements. London: Routledge. Donald Moore sets out to critique what he sees as political ecology’s emphasis on macro-structural dynamics whereby … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Antonio Gramsci, Dialectics, Frontiers, Gender, Historical-Geographies, Land, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off on Marxism, Culture, and Political Ecology

Political Ecology, I

Robbins, Paul. 2004. Political Ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Paul Robbins’ Political Ecology offers a sweeping and surprisingly complete overview to this exciting body of work and practice. I like the way Robbins bills it as, more than a body of … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Gender, Governmentality, Historical-Geographies, Land, Networks, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Science & Tech., The State, Violence | 3 Comments