BRICS: an explanation in critical geography

International Relations Theory

“…Lefebvre's concept of relative space challenges the absolute view of space. This concept involves thinking about space in a way that views the international space not 'as an "empty container" or fixed space, but one filled with objects and interconnecting relationships' (Meena 2013). Furthermore, a relative view of space views the existence of this space as a result of the relationships between the objects within this space.…”

“…For example, the majority of the scholarly analyses of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Copenhagen in Denmark in 2009 described how opinions of state representatives regarding action on climate change and emission on greenhouse gases fell into three camps that consisted of: 1) North America and Europe, whose past industrial activities contributed to most of the problems of climate change, 2) industrialising countries such as the BRICS nations, which tended to see no alternative to carbon emissions as a means to fuel economic growth, and 3) poorer countries, which were more likely to disagree to changes on the basis that development and poverty alleviation represented more pressing goals (Meena 2013). However, this mode of analysis is based on divisions of territory defined by tiers of industrial development and ignores differences in influential capacities across and within nations grouped within each tier -for example, between Brazil and China, or between large segments of the South African population.…”

Critical geographic inquiry: teaching AP Human Geography by examining space and place

“…In the remaining sections of this paper, I lay out two ways a teacher could go about incorporating critical geography into their classroom. The incorporation of critical geography into the AP curriculum is worthwhile for educators because it exposes students to relational space allowing them to try and decipher the way that space is, “actively produced” (Meena, 2016, p. 574) instead of treating space solely as something in which to observe phenomena. This is not meant to discredit concepts of space, such as absolute space, that focuses on observation (Meena, 2016, p. 568) or relative space that focuses on comparing different spaces (Meena, 2016, p. 571), but seeks to give students another lens for which to examine their world, and thus is important for geography educators.…”