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dc.contributor.authorBurton, Kerryen_GB
dc.date.accessioned2012-06-20T16:32:50Zen_GB
dc.date.accessioned2013-03-21T10:39:23Z
dc.date.issued2012-03-08en_GB
dc.description.abstractThis thesis starts from the premise that Geopolitics is performative, an iterative discourse “of visualising global space…reproduced in the governing principles of geographic thought and through the practices of statecraft” (Agnew 1998:11). During the last decade, two dominant discourses have shaped the contemporary geopolitical imagination – the ‘war on terror’ and ‘climate change’. These have steered conceptualisations of security and insecurity - performative iterations of who, where, and what poses a threat. The resulting geopolitical picture of the world has enabled the legitimisation of human and geographical domination – an acceptance of geographical norms that enable the continuation of uneven geographies. The research is concerned with the performative spaces of alternative geopolitics; spaces that emerge where nonviolent social movement activism and geopolitics intersect and the sites through which these are practiced and mediated. The motivations are twofold. The first is a desire to intervene in a critical geopolitical discourse that remains biased toward engagement with violent geographies. The second is to take seriously ‘geopolitics from below’, alternative geographical imaginations. I address the first of these through research that is concerned primarily with the spacing of nonviolence – the performed and performative spaces of nonviolent geographies shaped through a politics of the act. The second is approached through substantial empirical engagement with social movement activists and sites of contention and creation in opposition to dominant environmental geopolitics. ‘Militant’ ethnographic research took place over six months in 2009. It traced the journeys of two groups as they organised for, and took part in, large counter-summit mobilisations. The first was a UK based social movement, the Camp for Climate Action (UK). The second was an intercontinental caravan, the Trade to Climate Caravan. Both groups shared a common aim – to converge on the 16th of December in a mass demonstration of nonviolent confrontation; the ‘People’s Assembly’, to contest dominant discourses being performed inside the intergovernmental United Nations Conference of the Parties 15. Social movement groups from around the world would present alternative narratives of insecurity and offer ‘alternative solutions’ garnered through non-hierarchical forms of decision-making. The research followed the route each group took to the People’s Assembly and the articulations (narrative and practices) of nonviolent action.en_GB
dc.description.sponsorshipUniversity of Exeteren_GB
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10036/3607en_GB
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherUniversity of Exeteren_GB
dc.subjectGeopoliticsen_GB
dc.subjectSecurityen_GB
dc.subjectSurveillanceen_GB
dc.subjectPolicing Dissenten_GB
dc.subjectNonviolenceen_GB
dc.subjectSocial Movementsen_GB
dc.subjectClimate Justiceen_GB
dc.subjectTransnational Solidarityen_GB
dc.subjectMilitant Ethnographyen_GB
dc.subjectEthnographyen_GB
dc.subjectProgressive Geopoliticsen_GB
dc.subjectAlter-geopoliticsen_GB
dc.subjectProtesten_GB
dc.titleRe-presenting Geopolitics: ethnography, social movement activism, and nonviolent geographiesen_GB
dc.typeThesis or dissertationen_GB
dc.date.available2012-06-20T16:32:50Zen_GB
dc.date.available2013-03-21T10:39:23Z
dc.contributor.advisorCloke, Paulen_GB
dc.contributor.advisorCarter, Seanen_GB
dc.publisher.departmentGeographyen_GB
dc.type.degreetitlePhD in Geographyen_GB
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen_GB
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_GB


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