Space and the Geopolitical

Abstract

The paper argues that the dominant geopolitical analysis draws from a tradition of thought that privileges a geographical approach to space. The process that extends such impetus most compellingly can be found in security intervention. Interventionism, specifically under the War on Terrorism (WoT) thinking projects a cartography of (in)security and threat that disrupts on the one hand existing dynamics of space production and on another redefines space as geography with violent consequences for a variety of life-forms. The question that guides my endeavor is the following: how does a rethinking of the geographical question in international relations (IR), particularly with regards to intervention and the WoT enable us to expand an understanding of geopolitics beyond power struggles over space? Thinking from the Sahel-Sahara region, I wish to offer an alternative view of space where life, government, intellectual representations, commerce, culture, landscape, and belief lead to different kinds of relationships. This view is meant to suggest the beginning of the sketching of different systems of thought and morals through which to apprehend more productively a notion of space in IR.