Political Geography A Critical Introduction

Brings political geography to life—explores key concepts, critical debates, and contemporary research in the field. 

Political geography is the study of how power struggles both shape and are shaped by the places in which they occur—the spatial nature of political power. Political Geography: A Critical Introduction helps students understand how power is related to space, place, and territory, illustrating how everyday life and the world of global conflict and nation-states are inextricably intertwined. This timely, engaging textbook weaves critical, postcolonial, and feminist narratives throughout its exploration of key concepts in the discipline.

Accessible to students new to the field, this text offers critical approaches to political geography—including questions of gender, sexuality, race, and difference—and explains central political concepts such as citizenship, security, and territory in a geographic context. Case studies incorporate methodologies that illustrate how political geographers perform research, enabling students to develop a well-rounded critical approach rather than merely focusing on results. Chapters cover topics including the role of nationalism in shaping allegiances, the spatial aspects of social movements and urban politics, the relationship between international relations and security, the effects of non-human actors in politics, and more. Global in scope, this book:

• Highlights a diverse range of globally-oriented issues, such as global inequality, that demonstrate the need for critical political geography
• Demonstrates how critiques of political geography intersect with decolonial, feminist, and queer movements
• Covers the Eurocentric origins of many of the discipline’s key concepts
• Integrates advances in political geography theory and firsthand accounts of innovative research from rising scholars in the field
• Explores both intimate stories from everyday life and abstract concepts central to contemporary political geography

Political Geography: A Critical Introduction is an ideal resource for students in political and feminist geography, as well as graduate students and researchers seeking an overview of the discipline.

Sara Smith is Associate Professor of Geography at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (USA). She is a feminist political geographer interested in the relationship between territory, bodies, and the everyday. Her research seeks to understand how politics and geopolitics are constituted through intimate acts of love, friendship, and birth.

Acknowledgments vii

1 Introduction 1

Geographer at Work: Sara Smith 11

2 Citizenship Fails 15

3 Living the Nation 34

Geographer at Work: Michelle Daigle 49

4 Power/Territory 57

Geographer at Work: Azeezat Johnson 75

5 State/Borders 80

Geographer at Work: Ali Hamdan 90

6 Urban Politics 95

7 Social Movements 116

Geographer at Work: Willie Wright 133

8 Decolonizing Political Geography? 139

Geographer at Work: Deondre Smiles 148

9 Geopolitics 162

10 Security 179

Geographer at Work: Edgar Sandoval 194

vi Contents

11 Intimate Geopolitics 199

Geographer at Work: Pavithra Vasudevan 213

12 Biopolitics and Life Itself 218

13 Life in the Future, Among the Ruins 235

Geographer at Work: Mabel Gergan 249

References 254

Index 286

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