4. What is Geography?
Includes physical and human geography as well as GIS
Human geography focuses on understanding spatial relationships: why the
‘where’ matters
Geographers study the spatiality of different things and processes
Everything has a spatial dimension
5. What is Political Geography?
Political geography focuses on how politics and power are spatial
“Political geography is the study of how power is spatial: how power struggles
both subtle and spectacular are shaped by and shape the places in which they
occur” (Smith, 2020: p. 2)
Political geography includes territory, the state and governments, the nation,
identity and citizenship, elections ,the environment, and geopolitics
Political geography gives us the tools to understand geopolitics as more than
something that ‘just happens’
7. Geopolitics is…
“The geographical dimensions of power” (Storey, 2009)
“The struggle over the control of geographical entities with an international
and global dimension, and the use of such geographical entities for political
advantage” (Flint, 2006)
8. Overview of the History of Geopolitics
Friederich Ratzel (1897): The state is a living organism
States must expand their territory in order to expand their population and power
Halford Mackinder (Britain) and Alfred Mahon (U.S.) also making arguments for
ways to increase their respective country’s power
1990s: Theorists begin asking “How do geographic categories and constructs
write the world?”
Geopolitics is not only about relationships between states, but also includes other
actors and takes place at global, national, local, and other scales
The global is not outside the local
