Category Archives: Place

The Birth of Territory

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 on The Birth of Territory

Roberto Bolaño & Geopolitics

David Kurnick published an interesting piece about Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño on Public Books,  which I just discovered and is a partner site of the journal Public Culture. Like many others, I’ve noted the “discovery” of Bolaño by the Anglo literary … Continue reading

Posted in Art, Everyday Life, Historical-Geographies, Jester, Place | 4 Comments

The Country and the City

Williams, Raymond. 1973. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford University Press. At the end of The Country and the City, Raymond Williams offers the reader an appendix on the origins of the keyword “country.” The word, he writes, “is … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, City, Critique, Land, Marxism, Place | Comments Off on The Country and the City

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

Insurgent Collective Action

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 on Insurgent Collective Action

Fighting for the Rain Forest

Richards, Paul. 1996. Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey. Paul Richards main aim in Fighting for the Rain Forest is to argue against what he calls the “New Barbarism” thesis, which presents … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Bandits, Boundaries, Drugs, Everyday Life, Forests, Frontiers, Historical-Geographies, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Land, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Peace, Place, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Primitive Accumulation, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Body, 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

Formations of Violence

Feldman, Allen. 1991. Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Formations of Violence came highly recommended, and I was not disappointed. The overly dense theoretical introduction and Allen … Continue reading

Posted in Boundaries, City, Everyday Life, Frontiers, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Peace, Place, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Terror, The Body, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

Understories in Northern New Mexico

Kosek, Jake. 2006. Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press. Jake Kosek’s Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico is a solid model for the presentation of research. He brilliantly … Continue reading

Posted in Agriculture, Everyday Life, Forests, Frontiers, Governmentality, Historical-Geographies, Land, Law, Michel Foucault, Nation/Nationalism, Place, Political Ecology, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Science & Tech., Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

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