Category Archives: Nation/Nationalism

Awkward Seas and Exclusive Economic Zones

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

New Left Review‘s new issue has an article by Peter Nolan that surveys the national “territorial” claims over the world’s oceans: “Imperial Archipelagos.” The sea as an awkward political space is one of those hobby interests of mine that may … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Frontiers, Historical-Geographies, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Pirates, Post-Colonial, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Sea, The State | 1 Comment

Althusser, Gramsci and Machiavelli – Us and Us

Posted on February 28, 2013 by Teo Ballvé

Debate in the geograsphere. Jon Beasley-Murray published a riff on Louis Althusser’s Machiavelli and Us saying he detects a post-hegemonic streak in Althusser’s take on Machiavelli with an emphasis on the aleatory, contingent, and the conjunctural rather than a “telos of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Dialectics, Hegemony, Historical Materialism, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Niccolo Machiavelli, Power, The State | 6 Comments

In Conversation: E.P. Thompson and C.L.R. James

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

An interesting conversation recorded sometime around 1982 between two of my favorite historians: EP Thompson and CLR James. The most fascinating part of the 50-minute conversation/interview comes toward the end, beginning at about minute 43′ in which they start talking … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical Materialism, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Post-Colonial, Race & Ethnicity | Comments Off

Off-Shore Data Havens?

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

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

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

A Genealogy of Sovereignty

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

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

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

States of Violence

Posted on August 7, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

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

Guevara: Guerrilla Warfare

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Che Guevara’s manual for guerrilla warfare was published a year after his bearded rebels marched triumphantly into Havana. Rebels across the world have thumbed its pages for tactics and strategies aimed at defeating their much more powerful foes. Unfortunately, it … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, City, Forests, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Political Ecology, Territory, Violence | Comments Off

On the Postcolony

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley: University of California Press. [Intro, Ch. 1-2] In On the Postcolony, Achille Mbembe writes against the making of Africa (and Africans) as a monstrous place, a timeless netherworld suspended from the forward march … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, City, Drugs, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | 2 Comments