Geopol, Koopman et al 2021

Critical Geopolitics/critical geopolitics 25 years on

What was the original purpose of the Ordnance Survey?

The Ordnance Survey was originally created to produce detailed topographic maps to better control territories and wage war.

Who is Gerard Ó Tuathail?

Gerard Ó Tuathail was a key founder of critical geopolitics who aimed to decolonise inherited geographical imaginations.

Why did critical geopolitics emerge?

It emerged in response to the revival of classical geopolitical thinking during the late Cold War and post-Cold War Eurasia.

What is the main aim of critical geopolitics?

Critical geopolitics challenges the idea that geopolitics is objective or neutral and instead examines how power, discourse, and ideology shape geopolitical knowledge.

How does Jo Sharp criticise critical geopolitics?

She argues that critical geopolitics often reproduces masculinist assumptions by privileging elite political texts and ignoring everyday spaces.

What does feminist geopolitics add to critical geopolitics?

Feminist geopolitics places bodies, emotions, and everyday experiences at the centre of geopolitical analysis.

What does Dalby (2010) criticise about critical geopolitics?

Dalby argued that critical geopolitics had shifted too far away from analysing the global ambitions and material realities of geopolitics.

How did Halford Mackinder influence geopolitical thinking?

Mackinder promoted imperialist ways of seeing the world and believed British children should adopt an imperial perspective.

What contradiction does Gerry Kearns identify in imperial geopolitics?

Imperial powers claimed violence was needed both to build a better future and to defend that future through continued violence.

What does Ó Tuathail argue about geopolitics?

He argues geopolitics is shaped by ideology, language, and political ambition rather than objective truth.

What does “desire preceding prescription” mean?

Political ambitions and desires shape how the world is described before policies are justified.

How does Foucault influence critical geopolitics?

Foucault argued that power exists everywhere and that knowledge and power are deeply interconnected.

What criticism does Rachel Squire make of critical geopolitics?

She argues critical geopolitics needs to include animals and non-human life and account for violence affecting them.

Why does Squire call for “rewilding” critical geopolitics?

To better understand how power, violence, and space intersect with non-human life and environments.

How does casualisation affect academia according to Squire?

Insecure academic labour disproportionately affects BAME, women, and LGBTQ+ scholars, limiting participation in critical geopolitics.

How did misinformation shape views of the Bosnian War?

The war was imagined either as a dangerous quagmire like Vietnam or as a genocide requiring moral intervention.

What was contradictory about the Dayton Peace Accords?

The accords divided Bosnia into ethnic territories while simultaneously trying to preserve Bosnia as a multicultural state.

What does Vicki Squire criticise about critical geopolitics?

She argues it overemphasised discourse and representation while neglecting material forces, bodies, and technologies.

What is post-truth politics?

A political culture where emotions, identity, and repeated narratives influence opinion more than objective facts.

What is the key conclusion of contemporary critical geopolitics?

Critical geopolitics must combine discourse, political economy, material realities, and ethical alternatives to understand modern global issues like climate change and settler colonialism.