Gerry Kearns

Vital Geographies: Life, Luck, and the Human Condition

Life has been problematized anew by recent social change and scientific innovation. There are important and little studied geographical dimensions to any such understanding of “the politics of life itself,” however. A geographical perspective involves, first, highlighting the spatial aspects of both states and capital, two rather neglected dimensions of vital politics. Elaborating the geographical constitution of vital politics entails further describing the related powers of knowledges and practices. Reflecting on the geographical dimensions of longevity and health leads directly to a recognition of the ethical implications of the geographical luck of birth and residence. Taking up this ethical challenge requires specifying at least six components of geographical justice: culpability, fairness, care, state failure, human rights, and solidarity with environmental and social justice.

The Virtuous Circle of Facts and Values in the New Western History

The relations between facts and values in the writing of historical geography need to be mutual and reinforcing. I explore this point by examining the work of a group of historians who have foregrounded the relations between facts and values. These New Western Historians take up themes such as social justice, regionalism, and environmentalism that have been central to the concerns of historical geographers, but they are more explicit than many historical geographers about both the political motivations behind the questions they ask and their choice of subjects to study. I consider the work of two historians, William Cronon and Donald Worster, who have made environmentalism the core of their historical writing, and two others, Richard White and Patricia Limerick, for whom questions of social justice inform historical interpretation. I conclude by exploring how attention to the interplay between facts and values might rekindle the utopian dimension of explicitly political historical geographies.

Closed Space and Political Practice: Frederick Jackson Turner and Halford Mackinder

Turners frontier thesis and Mackinders heartland thesis are examples of closed-space thinking, Closed-space theories were current at the beginning of this century when public debate was penetrated both by biology and by geography. This conjuncture allowed spatial concepts to form the basis for the theoretical arguments advanced for political positions. The internal structure of closed-space theories allowed them to promote political conclusions, because the three central terms of those theories (environment, history, recent fundamental changes) were ‘essentially contestable1 and capable of interpretations which supported particular political arguments. The specific political arguments promoted by Turner and Mackinder dictated the interpretations they chose and thus the internal structure of their theories. The political significance of their work was tied to the existence of two inherently unstable political alliances riven with economic contradictions, This emphasis on the internal structure of these theories enables one to appreciate how they could convince, and both the content and the logic of these approaches are amenable to contextual interpretation.

“Educate that holy hatred”: place, trauma and identity in the Irish nationalism of John Mitchel

Many anti-colonial nationalisms incorporate a historical justification for independence. In the case of Irish nationalism, this historical argument has often drawn attention to traumatic historical events of conquest and famine. These traumas are blamed on the English colonisers. In this article, I explore some of the consequences of this particular way of tying together place and history in the service of nationalism. I argue that it can serve to deflect nationalists from detailed consideration of alternative futures towards a purely manichean critique of the past.

Private property and public health reform in England 1830-1870

British cities of the mid-nineteenth century were unsanitary. In many cases lack of street paving, insufficient water, proliferating cesspools and open sewers turned them into cloying, degrading and offensive mires. Many of the urban workers, too poor to pay rent sufficient to meet the costs of these environmental services, were shuffled among damp dingy rooms into which the sun shone feebly and in which their physical odours were confined against any draughts. The relations between landlord and tenant were circumscribed by the indebtedness of the former and the penury of the latter. Water, sewerage and housing standards were left to the sway of the market while the effective demand for them was limited by low real wages. In the largest cities this filth was dangerous as well as offensive and public health reforms became ever more pressing. Yet the form in which this legislation was secured and the manner in which it was implemented were not as straightforward as this sketch of their crying necessity might suggest.

Naturalising Empire: Echoes of Mackinder for the Next American Century?

At the start of the twentieth century, Halford Mackinders geopolitical writings provided a powerful justification for British imperialism. He presented imperialism as a force of nature by emphasising historical rupture, essential conflict and geopolitical strategy. A century later, these same themes re-appear in contemporary accounts of our new world order and serve now to naturalise the imperial mission of the United States. A critical examination of the theses of Mackinder can aid in challenging the presumptions of the new imperialists.

The territory of colonialism

ABSTRACT The territory of colonialism. Territory, Politics, Governance. Stuart Elden writes of territory as a specific form of sovereignty, and has provided its genealogy through a study of European texts. These texts drew upon a Roman legacy and engaged the practical issue of the relations between papal and monarchical powers. This paper argues that colonialism was at least as important a context for the elaboration of territory as a strategy of sovereignty. Furthermore, and as the example of Ireland shows, this colonial practice was not only a matter external to Europe.

Geopolitical Regression and The American Empire

When Kaplan (2009) published “The Revenge of Geography” in Foreign Policy, Karen Hooper sent the article to fellow analysts at the private intelligence firm Stratfor (Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), prompting one of them, Mark Schroeder, to wonder, “[d]id this dude steal from us?” George Friedman, the founder and CEO of Stratfor, reassured his colleagues that “Kaplan is a real smart guy,” and Bayless Parsley, Middle East analyst at Stratfor, specialist among other things in “proofreading, geopolitical analysis” (Parsley 2013a), urged them to “read ‘[B]alkan [G]hosts.’ [T]hat’s the reason I went to the [B]alkans,” before noting with admiration that “[K]aplan was also writing about the [C]aucasus before anyone knew how to spell it. [E]ither called it ‘[O]nward to [T]atary [sic]’ or ‘[E]astward to [T]atary [sic]’ (Parsley 2013b; cf. Kaplan 2000b). Friedman viewed Kaplan’s work as symptomatic of a pressing need: “When geopolitics is required, it shows itself in many places” (Parsley 2013b). Kaplan is now chief geopolitical analyst for Stratfor after Friedman identified him for his colleagues as someone he “would trust with my legacy” and who could “mentor the analysts” at Stratfor (Friedman 2012). Cometh the hour, then.

Death in the time of cholera

The study of urban health and its determinants contributes to work on the costs of industrialisation, the growth of the modern state and the place of medical metaphors and medical power in society. The links between these questions present intriguing challenges for interdisciplinary studies. The works reviewed here take up many such challenges.

Reading Gerry Kearns¿ Geopolitics and Empire: The Legacy of Halford Mackinder

List of Figures and Tables Introduction: A Return to Empire 1. Geopolitics and Empire 2. An Imperial Subject 3. Making Space for Darwin 4. Manly Endeavours 5. Theorising Imperialism 6. Teaching Imperialism 7. Practising Imperialism 8. Conservative Geopolitics 9. Progressive Geopolitics Bibliography Index