Interventions: Bringing the decolonial to political geography

Political geographical perspectives on settler colonialism

“…But as Naylor et al () note, although political geography (and in particular feminist geopolitics) focuses on global inequalities, this work is still based in western paradigms of territory, land, and sovereignty. It is still, in other words, marked by the present absence of settler colonial and indigenous theorization.…”

“…While most literature in political geography has been focused on the role of geographical imaginations in underwriting forms of empire, violence, and dispossession, this work has long attended to the limits and contradictions within these forms of spatial reasoning (Gregory, , p. 475; Bonnett, , p. 61) as well as how patriarchal and racialized models of imagination might be undone (Closs Stephens, ; Rose, ) and how imagination opens up possibilities for radical emancipatory futures (Gieseking, , p. 2; Thomas, , p. 155). In spite of this engagement, few political geographers have analyzed the specific, ongoing influences of settler land appropriation and indigenous erasure on the consciousness of settlers or indigenous people (Daigle, ; Farrales, ; Hughes, ; Naylor et al, ), demonstrating the present absence of settler colonial frameworks in the field.…”

“…Despite this longstanding present absence, which endures in contemporary political geography, recent works by political geographers are engaging with the field of settler colonialism much more directly (Gentry et al, , Hawari, Plonski, & Weizman, , Hughes, , forthcoming; Machold, ; Naylor, Daigle, Zaragocin, Ramírez, & Gilmartin, ; De Leeuw & Hunt, ), focusing particularly on biopolitics, planning, urban geopolitics, and gendered and racialized foundations of settler colonialism (Farrales, ; Naylor et al, ). Indeed, Coleman and Agnew () argue that the settler colonial framework is of rising importance to the field of political geography.…”

Political geography and language: A reappraisal for a diverse discipline

“…This is also what Dodds identified as potentially missing from critical geopolitics at the time: "It is striking that much critical geopolitical writing on foreign policy and national identity has been concerned (perhaps excessively) with representation rather than the mass of textual and bodily practices which enable such expressions of geopower" (2001, p. 473; see also Neumann, 2002). Most recently, in political geography as elsewhere in the academy, calls for decolonisation have started important and much-overdue conversations that go to the very core of scholarly endeavours, taking to task the power/knowledge systems that both produce and are produced by academic work (e.g., Baldwin, 2017;de Leeuw & Hunt, 2018;Naylor et al, 2018; see also Tuck & Yang, 2012). Most recently, in political geography as elsewhere in the academy, calls for decolonisation have started important and much-overdue conversations that go to the very core of scholarly endeavours, taking to task the power/knowledge systems that both produce and are produced by academic work (e.g., Baldwin, 2017;de Leeuw & Hunt, 2018;Naylor et al, 2018; see also Tuck & Yang, 2012).…”

Audacity unchained: decolonizing variegated geographies. A commentary on Yvonne Underhill‐Sem's ‘The audacity of the ocean: Gendered politics of positionality in the Pacific’

“…As Reni Eddo‐Lodge (2018) so eloquently argues, intersectional anti‐racism has enough on its plate without taking into account privileged affect. Decolonizing geography and development studies likewise is inevitably unsettling, loosening bounds on the one hand, requiring difficult re‐orientation for some (de Leeuw & Hunt, 2017; Naylor et al ., 2018).…”