Category Archives: Sovereignty

How the Indians Lost their Land

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Banner, Stuart. 2005. How the Indians Lost their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Stuart Banner’s main thesis is that the loss of U.S. Indian land cannot be reduced to a story of violent dispossession. … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Boundaries, Frontiers, Land, Law, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State, Violence | 1 Comment

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 on Elements for a Theory of the Frontier

Lefebvre: State, Space, World

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Lefebvre, Henri. 2009. State, Space, World: Selected Essays. Edited by Neil Brenner and Stuart Elden. Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press. [Intro, Ch. 1, 2, 3, 11] So far, as this particular reading confirmed, no other thinker seems better equipped than … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Carl Schmitt, Critique, GWF Hegel, Henri Lefebvre, Historical Materialism, Historical-Geographies, Karl Marx, Law, Marxism, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Power, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, Violence | 3 Comments

The Colonial Present

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Gregory, Derek. 2004. The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq. Oxford: Blackwell. [Ch. 1-3] I won’t go into a whole lot of detail. I just wanted to read these chapters to get a sense of how Derek Gregory is using and … Continue reading →

Posted in Historical-Geographies, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Nation/Nationalism, Post-Colonial, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory | Comments Off on The Colonial Present

Boundaries, Sovereignty, Necropolitics

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Mbembe, Achille. 2000. “At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa.” Public Culture 12(1): 259-284. ———. 2003. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15(1): 11-40. In these two articles, Achille Mbembe explores changing territorial arrangements and configurations of sovereignty. … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Nation/Nationalism, Political Economy, Post-Colonial, Power, Race & Ethnicity, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Body, The State, Violence | 2 Comments

State of Exception

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Agamben explores how the state of exception, building from Schmitt as the suspension of law for the preservation of the juridical order, produces and is indeed predicated on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Boundaries, Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Law, Power, Sovereignty, The State, Violence | 4 Comments

Political Theology

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Schmitt, Carl. 2005. Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schmitt defines the essence of sovereignty as the decision over what is an exception and decide the measures taken to eliminate such an … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Law, Power, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The State | 3 Comments

Nomos of the Earth

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Schmitt, Carl. 2006. The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. New York: Telos Press Publishing. Carl Schmitt’s Nomos of the Earth could be called legal genealogy of the territorial spatial ordering of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Carl Schmitt, Illegality, Law, Nation/Nationalism, Power, Scale, Sovereignty, Spatiality, Territory, The Sea, The State, Violence | 3 Comments