Geopol, Clark 2017

Feminist geopolitics and the Middle East: Refuge, belief, and peace

What is feminist geopolitics?

An approach that recenters political inquiry from the state to the body, focusing on fleshy, lived and embodied experiences of politics.

What is corporeal geopolitics?

The idea that bodies have geopolitical agency and act as material foundations of political life.

How does feminist geopolitics differ from critical geopolitics?

Critical geopolitics deconstructs political “truths,” while feminist geopolitics also reconstructs more just political worlds.

What is Rawiya?

The first women’s photography collective in the Middle East, created to challenge male-dominated news imagery.

What critique does Rawiya respond to?

Male-dominated war photography reinforcing colonial stereotypes of the Middle East as violent, exotic, and “Orientalist.”

What is critical place theory (Middle East)?

The Middle East is understood as produced through representation, identity, memory, and human relations rather than a fixed region.

How is the Middle East defined geopolitically?

As a construct shaped by colonial cartographies and symbolic mappings that continue to produce orientalist narratives.

What does Alan Kurdi represent in feminist geopolitics?

His body became a global symbol of the refugee crisis, showing how bodies shape geopolitical visibility and ethics.

What does “bodies as epistemological scale” mean?

Bodies are used as a key scale for understanding political life, especially for marginalized and disenfranchised people.

What is intimate geopolitics?

The idea that state borders are produced and contested through embodied experiences of violence and everyday life.

What is counter-topography?

A method linking bodies across places through shared vulnerabilities under common social, economic, and political conditions.

What are key displacement figures in the early 21st century Middle East region?

Nearly 5 million Syrians and 2.7 million Afghans were forcibly displaced.

What is “campscale” in refugee studies?

The blending of camp and city spaces, where refugee camps like Shatila merge with urban life and blur categories.

What does EU “offshoring migrants” involve?

Shifting migration control beyond Europe into detention centers, islands, and third countries to manage borders remotely.

Why are detention and border spaces important?

They reveal “violent skips” and waiting periods that structure migrant journeys and lived bodily suffering.

How is religion used geopolitically after events like 2015 Paris attacks?

Policies and discourse sort and police bodies by religion, e.g., proposals to restrict refugee admission by faith.

What is the politics of the hijab and niqab?

The hijab is contested as oppression or agency; bans on niqab in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands show bodily regulation.

How is religion experienced in feminist geopolitics?

As embodied practice shaped by clothing, gender, public space, and everyday life rather than abstract belief.

What is alter-geopolitics of peace?

How bodies and public spaces (e.g., Tahrir Square 2011) create alternative politics through protest, care, and collective action.

What is a key feminist methodological concern in geopolitics?

Who can speak and be heard; feminist research emphasizes listening, noting only 17% of news experts were women in 2005.