Geopolitics & Anti-Geopolitics

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Geopolitics: Geopolitics from Above

Flint (2006) describes Geopolitics as a component of human geography. Therefore, understanding Geopolitics requires an understanding of human geography, he then argues that human geography is concerned with two systems.

The first system studies the relationship between geography and place; that is the study of what makes a place unique and the connection and interaction between other places. Which means it looks at the characteristics of a place in relation to other places.

The other system studies the relationship between geography and space; that is the study of spatially organized human activity. This emphasis of space gives greater weight to functional issues such as the control of territory. The spatial organization of human activity is so embedded in the human perceptions that people act within subconscious geographical imaginations. This spatial aspect as well reflects power relationships which is at the crux of Geopolitics (Flint, 2006).

Geopolitics was first coined by the Swedish political scientist Rudolf Kjellen in 1899 to signify a concern with geography and power. However, as Tuathail (2003) argues it is not easy to give a specific definition to such a term because the meaning of geopolitics tends to change as historical periods and structures of world order change. Hence, Tuathail (2003) develops what he defines as Critical Geopolitics which defines geopolitics as a discourse avoiding the pitfalls of a static and rigid definition.

The most crucial and defining element of any discourse is the power/knowledge relation existing and dominant in a given discourse. Power/knowledge relation in a discourse document how structures of power in society create structures of knowledge that justify their own power and authority over subject populations. Maintaining a discourse requires monopolizing the right to speak authoritatively which is at the crux of the practice of power.

Intellectuals, Institutions and Ideologies also play a major role in shaping a discourse, for the production of knowledge is a production done by intellectuals who are influenced by the interests of the institutions they are part of and also by their ideologies. Those intellectuals present themselves as being objective and scientific while in reality they were the opposite.

Anti-Geopolitics: Geopolitics from Below

In response to the dominant power/knowledge discourses of Geopolitics, there emerged dissidence to these discourses creating a challenge to the hegemony of the state and its elites. These dissident discourses are known as "Anti-Geopolitics" the hyphen symbolizes the relationship between these challenging discourses and the state-favoured discourses. “Geopolitics” is mostly understood as state-favoured/sponsored geopolitical discourses, while on the other hand any political or intellectual resistance to these discourses is to be understood as being “Anti-Geopolitical”. The same elements of discourse that exist in “Geopolitics” also exist in Anti-Geopolitics, the main difference however is that in the latter, power is not in its favour therefore these discourses are not sponsored as would be the case with what preceded above. 

The emergence of such discourses challenges the notion that the interests of the state and society are one, and there are many forms of Anti-Geopolitics, ranging from individual intellectual efforts to social movements. In international relations, it is not necessarily the case that the emergence of such resistance is limited to the state in which such moves take place, instead, these discourses may be challenging a wider international phenomenon that goes beyond the boundaries of the state in which they emerged, and in such case the limits of such discourses are more dependent on the limits of the targeted phenomenon.

References

Flint, C. (2006). Intorduction to Geopolitics. New York: Routledge.
Ó Tuathail, G., Dably, S., & Routledge, P. (2003). The Geopolitical Reader. London: Routledge.


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