Category Archives: Maps

The Birth of Territory

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

Stuart Elden has announced the publication of his much anticipated book, The Birth of Territory. At this blog—not least because of its name—we’ve followed the progress of this work very closely. As I said back then: “We’ve admired this work—the royal … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical-Geographies, Land, Law, Maps, Place, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State | Comments Off

Mapping the Global Arms Trade

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

The global trade in small arms is booming. This is particularly the case in the developing world. The developing world continues to be the primary focus of arms sales, comprising almost 84% of the dollar value of arms transfer agreements … Continue reading →

Posted in Maps, Media, Networks, Peace, Security, Violence | Comments Off

Visualizing Space and Injustice in Palestine

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

In an old post about the potential political capacities of the infographic, I wrote: “If Guy Debord was right in highlighting that social relations between people are increasingly mediated by images and representations, then can the infographic be a popular … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Boundaries, City, Critique, Everyday Life, Guy Debord, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Maps, Media, Primitive Accumulation, Scale, Security, Spatiality, Spectacle, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Interweb Motley # 13

Posted on January 5, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

Because I can, I am still on vacation. But ever wonder about why The Netherlands is not Holland? This piece by Jina Moore about the “White Correspondent’s Burden” on representations of Africa reminds me of the Granta essay “How to … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Interweb Motley, Maps | Comments Off

Critchley Against Escapism

Posted on June 5, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Simon Critchley’s “Mystical Anarchism” article in Adbusters argues against the escapism of communal utopian projects old and new: Perhaps such experiments lacked an understanding of politics as a constant and concrete process of mediation. That is, the mediation between a … Continue reading →

Posted in Guy Debord, Hegemony, Maps, Spatiality, Spectacle, Violence | Comments Off

1000 Pesos and Fidel Castro

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I couldn’t pass this up. It turns out that the artist commissioned to design Colombia’s 1,000-peso bill slyly included a portrait of a young Fidel Castro in the background of the bill. It took eight years for anyone to notice … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Maps, Nation/Nationalism, Spatiality | 1 Comment

Cartographic Mexico

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

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

Insurgent Collective Action

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Wood, Elisabeth J. 2003. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elisabeth Jean Wood’s book explores why some Salvadoran peasants decided to collectively thrust themselves toward that country’s insurgency in the 1970s-1990s. Through a … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Maps, Nation/Nationalism, Peace, Place, Political Ecology, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Terror, The State, Violence | Comments Off

Taking the Jungle Out of the Forest

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Peluso, Nancy and Peter Vandergeest. 2011. “Taking the Jungle out of the Forest: Counter-Insurgency and the Making of National Natures.” In Global Political Ecology edited by Richard Peet, Paul Robbins, and Michael Watts. New York: Routledge. What are the interconnected … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, Forests, Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Maps, Nation/Nationalism, Political Ecology, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Scale, Science & Tech., Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | Comments Off

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