radical geography

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radical geography

• part four Myths and Metageography

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geographic mythmaking

• What does this sign say about the myth/ mystique
  some people in New York would like to create
  about the place?
• How might the sign make the people there feel?

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geographic mythmaking

• Sense of place differs from geographic
  mythmaking when there is an effort on the part of
  people/ states/ corporations to create a specific
  narrative about a place.
• This effort isnt always put forth by one entity
  as a conscious calculation California has been
  a mythic place in the U.S. imagination, but not
  because of one specific effort (panning for gold
  in the 1800s, a land of sunshine and growth
  during the 1930s, LA fitness and 1980s sneakers,
  beaches and bikinis, etc.) the edge of Western
  civilization, the American Dream in its most
  concentrated form it has multiple narratives,
  but perhaps a central theme

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geographic mythmaking

• The recent history of the Asia-Pacific region
  has been converted into a myth, or sacred
  narrative, which invites the fulfillment of a
  certain kind of future, rather than just
  explaining and justifying one version of an
  ideologically contested past. Alexander
  Woodside

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geographic mythmaking

• Pacific Rim as Euro-American construct
• At the turn of the century, then Secretary of
  State John Hay declared that the Mediterranean
  was the "ocean" of the past, the Atlantic the
  ocean of the present, and the Pacific the ocean
  of the future. The Pacific future is imminent. We
  hear daily reports of increased trade,
  immigration, and cultural exchange with Pacific
  Rim nations, especially those in the Asian
  sector. -- Linda Wojtan
• The Pacific Rim prophetic culture in its
  current form could probably not survive an abrupt
  cataclysmic termination of the extraordinary
  prolonged boom global capitalism has enjoyed
  since World War II. -- Woodside

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geographic mythmaking

• When Space becomes Time
• When the supporters of todays form of
  globalisation are questioned about why, if it is
  such a progressive force, there is still so much
  poverty and inequality in the world you ask
  about Mozambique, say, or Honduras, they are
  likely to reply Do not worry, they are behind,
  give us time, they will catch up.
• The whole variegated and unequal geography of
  the world is being reorganised into a historical
  queue.
• Geography is being turned into history, space is
  being turned into time.
• Whats more, there is only one historical queue
  - one model of development.
• And it is one defined by those in the lead,
  the most powerful voices (the ones who designed
  the queue in the first place).
• Doreen Massey, Is the World Really Shrinking?

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geographic mythmaking

• However, its not just corporate interests that
  engage in geographic mythmaking. Anyone can
  engage with geographic imagination. In
  Auroville, India, people from around the world
  are creating a city of human unity.

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states and non-states

What is a state? Are states a kind of geographic
myth? They each have their narrative, their
story. Right now, there are192 UN member-states,
and possibly about 203 sovereign states
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states and non-states

Clearly, we didnt have these states thousands of
years ago, when humans were migrating across the
land
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states and non-states

Clearly, states could have formed much
differently than they did (this vodka ad ran in
Mexico)
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states and non-states

Freddy Heineken (beer tycoon) proposed this
layout of 75 European states because he thought
everyone would work well together with smaller
states
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states and non-states

States have been around for several centuries
the modern European state system was established
with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Scholars
argue (though with some contention) that this
treaty established 1. The principle of the
sovereignty of states and the fundamental right
of political self determination 2. The
principle of (legal) equality between states
3. The principle of non-intervention of one state
in the internal affairs of another state (yes,
from wikipedia)
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example Iraq

• History of Iraq (obviously an ancient
  civilization) during WWI, the British French
  divided West Asia in a 1916 agreement

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example Iraq

T.E. Lawrences proposed divisions of the Middle
East/ West Asia
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example Iraq

• the modern Iraqi territorial boundaries were
  determined in the 1920s
• Britain granted Iraq independence in 1932
• Britain continued to invade / occupy it during
  the 1930s
• if U.S. military commanders had paid attention
  to the cultural geography of Iraq, they might
  have had better luck with their invasion

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example Kosovo

• had been living as a UN-administered zone since
  1999
• declared independence from Serbia in Feb. 2008
• currently recognized as a state by 62 out of 192
  countries

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example Kosovo

The green countries are those that recognize
Kosovo. Is there a pattern here?
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non-states

There are also numerous unrecognized states
lands in limbo.
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transdniestria

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states and non-states

Recognising the limitations of states, some
geographers have looked at the world in terms of
World Cities
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metageography

• What are some other ways of looking at the
  world?
• Metageography the set of spatial structures
  through which people order their knowledge of the
  world the often unconscious frameworks that
  organize studies of history, sociology,
  anthropology, economics, political science, or
  even natural history.
• If states may not really exist, what about
  continents? Are they cultural constructs? World
  regions? Is the way in which we look at the
  world totally flawed? How can we improve it?

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metageography

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metageography

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metageography

• Issues with the nation-state / continent /
  supra-continental block paradigm

• Jigsaw-puzzle view of the world
• Assumption that geographic phenomena are
  necessarily and neatly hierarchically ordered

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conceptualizing the world
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conceptualizing the world
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conceptualizing the world

• How do you see the world?