Political Geography最新文献

Testing the liberal borders of the EU: (De)Constructing the right of asylum through informality 对欧盟自由边界的考验：（二）通过非正式形式构建庇护权

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-29 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103499

Francesca Fortarezza

Along the Balkan route, pushback practices are systematically used to obstruct asylum seekers' access to EU countries and their protection systems. This style of governance is characterised by widespread unaccountability and impunity, with human rights being systematically violated and justice rarely achieved. Focusing on the Italian-Slovenian border and the 'informal readmissions' that took place between 2020 and 2021, the article explores how state actors resort to informal methods to circumvent legal and procedural constraints on their sovereignty and evade their obligations towards asylum seekers and refugees. Concurrently, it shows how independent solidarity networks not only compensate for institutional negligence in providing reception services to asylum seekers but also assume a ‘pseudo-judicial’ role when the rights of these people are denied, monitoring and analysing systemic human rights violations and border violence for legal action against the perpetrators. In this way, the study sheds light on the relational dynamics between state and solidarity actors in border zones and how both strategically engage in and leverage in/formal practices to either deny or uphold the right of asylum. It demonstrates the pervasive role of informality in asylum governance and highlights how, within illiberal regimes, operating on the margins of official norms and institutions is as much a technique of power ‘from above’ as it is a strategy of resistance ‘from below’.

在巴尔干路线上，有系统地使用推回做法来阻止寻求庇护者进入欧盟国家及其保护系统。这种治理方式的特点是普遍不负责任和有罪不罚，有系统地侵犯人权，很少实现正义。本文以意大利-斯洛文尼亚边境以及2020年至2021年间的“非正式再接纳”为重点，探讨了国家行为体如何采用非正式方法规避对其主权的法律和程序限制，并逃避对寻求庇护者和难民的义务。同时，它显示了独立的团结网络如何不仅弥补向寻求庇护者提供接待服务方面的机构疏忽，而且在这些人的权利被剥夺时承担“伪司法”作用，监测和分析系统性侵犯人权和边境暴力行为，以便对肇事者采取法律行动。通过这种方式，该研究揭示了边境地区国家和团结行动者之间的关系动态，以及两者如何战略性地参与和利用正式实践来拒绝或维护庇护权。它展示了非正式性在庇护治理中的普遍作用，并强调了在不自由的政权中，在官方规范和制度的边缘运作，既是一种“自上而下”的权力技巧，也是一种“自下而上”的抵抗策略。

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引用次数: 0

Pursuing accountability under authoritarian rule: Thailand's National Human Rights Commission and community struggles for justice 在独裁统治下追求问责：泰国国家人权委员会和社区为正义而斗争

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103478

Zali Fung

Rising authoritarianism in Southeast Asia and globally underscores the need for geographers to critically interrogate this concept, its uneven effects, and how it is negotiated and challenged. Following Glasius, I understand authoritarianism as a set of practices that sabotage accountability and disable access to information and voice. Civil society actors and residents have long appealed to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT) to press for accountability. However, Thailand's 2014 coup and subsequent military rule restricted the NHRCT's capacity to conduct incisive investigations into human rights violations. Drawing on empirical fieldwork, I examine the state-led Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the proposed Yuam River water diversion in Northwest Thailand. The NHRCT is investigating affected residents' claims that the EIA lacked meaningful participation. Alongside diminishing political space under military rule, I show how a series of legislative, constitutional, and policy changes curtailed civil society participation in NHRCT investigations. In this way, authoritarianism not only erodes civil and political rights, but the organisations designed to protect those rights and hold state and corporate actors accountable. Nevertheless, civil society actors and residents continue to appeal to the NHRCT in struggles over rights and resources, alongside diverse strategies including counter-knowledge production. In this case, the NHRCT investigation strategically delayed development and enabled residents to demand accountability from state actors in ways that were occluded during the EIA. This paper shows how struggles against authoritarianism are at once struggles for accountability, access to information, and inclusion in development decision-making.

在东南亚和全球范围内崛起的威权主义强调了地理学家需要批判性地质疑这一概念，其不平衡的影响，以及它是如何谈判和挑战的。按照格拉西乌斯的观点，我认为威权主义是一套破坏问责制、禁止获取信息和发表意见的做法。民间社会活动者和居民长期以来一直呼吁泰国国家人权委员会（NHRCT）追究责任。然而，泰国2014年的政变和随后的军事统治限制了国家人权委员会对侵犯人权行为进行深入调查的能力。借鉴实证实地调查，我检查了国家主导的环境影响评估（EIA），为拟议的源岩河调水在泰国西北部。国家人权委员会正在调查受影响居民关于环评缺乏有意义参与的申诉。除了军事统治下政治空间的减少，我还展示了一系列立法、宪法和政策变化如何限制公民社会参与国家人权委员会的调查。这样一来，威权主义不仅侵蚀了公民权利和政治权利，也侵蚀了旨在保护这些权利、让国家和企业行为者承担责任的组织。然而，民间社会行动者和居民在争取权利和资源的斗争中，以及包括反知识生产在内的各种战略中，继续向国家人权委员会提出呼吁。在这种情况下，NHRCT的调查战略性地推迟了开发，并使居民能够以环境影响评估期间被封锁的方式要求国家行为者承担责任。本文表明，反对威权主义的斗争同时也是争取问责制、获取信息和参与发展决策的斗争。

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引用次数: 0

Civilian militia formation and protection against rebel violence: Evidence from Nigeria 平民民兵组织和对叛军暴力的保护：来自尼日利亚的证据

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103497

Imrana Buba, Jana Krause

Why do some civilian defense militias effectively protect civilians while others fail and seem to only exacerbate rebel violence against civilians? Many irregular civil wars involve civilian defense militias, i.e., informal civilian groups that cooperate with the state military to protect their communities. Despite a burgeoning literature on militias in civil wars, research on variation in militia emergence and protective effects remains limited. Drawing on field research in northeastern Nigeria's Boko Haram conflict, we explain how local variation in militia formation shapes militias' protective effects against rebel violence. We argue that when repressive conflict conditions in state-dominated areas create incentives for civilian violent resistance, a community's collective action capacity, defined by local leadership and social cohesion, determines whether militias are community-initiated or imposed by state forces. Communities with high-capacity form community-initiated militias and maintain social control over their activities, which enables militias to effectively protect civilians against rebel violence. By contrast, communities with low capacity often host state-initiated militias and struggle to establish social control over their members, which renders them ineffective against rebels. Our findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of civilian protective agency by showing that the capacities enabling neutrality and nonviolent resistance can also empower communities to form militias that effectively resist rebel violence.

为什么一些民防民兵有效地保护了平民，而另一些却失败了，似乎只会加剧反对派对平民的暴力？许多非正规内战都涉及到民防民兵，即与国家军队合作保护其社区的非正式民间团体。尽管关于内战中民兵的文献越来越多，但对民兵出现的变化及其保护作用的研究仍然有限。根据对尼日利亚东北部博科圣地冲突的实地研究，我们解释了民兵组织的地方差异如何影响民兵对反叛暴力的保护作用。我们认为，当国家主导地区的镇压性冲突条件为平民暴力抵抗创造动机时，由地方领导和社会凝聚力定义的社区集体行动能力决定了民兵是由社区发起还是由国家部队强加的。能力强的社区形成由社区发起的民兵，并保持对其活动的社会控制，使民兵能够有效地保护平民免受反叛暴力侵害。相比之下，能力低下的社区往往拥有国家发起的民兵，并努力建立对其成员的社会控制，这使得他们对叛乱分子无能为力。我们的研究结果表明，保持中立和非暴力抵抗的能力也可以使社区形成有效抵抗反叛暴力的民兵，从而有助于更细致地了解平民保护机构。

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引用次数: 0

Geonarratives of outer space: How astronaut memoirs narrate conquest 外太空的地理叙事：宇航员回忆录如何叙述征服

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103493

Darshan Vigneswaran , Enrike van Wingerden

This article examines astronaut memoirs as geonarratives - historically charged narratives that shape and are shaped by geographic order and world-making. As outer space exploration gains momentum, these memoirs construct relationships between Earth and space and reinforce distinctions between “home” and the extreme, unfamiliar environment beyond. We situate astronaut memoirs within the longer tradition of exploration narratives by highlighting their continuities with and distinctions from colonial-era accounts. These memoirs employ similar geonarrative techniques to position astronauts as authoritative figures who mediate knowledge of faraway spaces. However, they also reveal new modes of relating to space's materiality, as survival depends more on technological mediation and extensive institutional structures. We identify three characterizations of the astronaut - as model, soldier, and pioneer - which shape the imagination and material reality of space travel. While these astronaut memoirs reinforce visions of human expansionism, we also explore moments of rupture and divergence that offer alternative ways of narrating relations to outer space.

这篇文章将宇航员回忆录作为一种地理叙事——一种充满历史色彩的叙事，它塑造了地理秩序和世界的形成，也被地理秩序和世界的形成所塑造。随着外太空探索的势头日益强劲，这些回忆录构建了地球与太空之间的关系，并强化了“家”与外面极端、陌生环境之间的区别。我们通过强调宇航员回忆录与殖民时代叙述的连续性和区别，将其置于更悠久的探索叙事传统中。这些回忆录采用了类似的地理叙事技巧，将宇航员定位为权威人物，调解遥远空间的知识。然而，它们也揭示了与空间物质性相关的新模式，因为生存更多地依赖于技术调解和广泛的制度结构。我们确定了宇航员的三种特征——模特、士兵和先锋——它们塑造了太空旅行的想象和物质现实。虽然这些宇航员回忆录强化了人类扩张主义的愿景，但我们也探索了破裂和分歧的时刻，为叙述与外太空的关系提供了另一种方式。

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引用次数: 0

The spatial politics of green hydrogen: Speculative enactments, contested dynamics and alternative pathways in southern Chile 绿色氢的空间政治：智利南部的投机立法、竞争动态和替代途径

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-22 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103498

Cristián Flores Fernández

This article examines the spatial politics of green hydrogen development in Chile's Magallanes region. In this southernmost territory -disconnected energetically and territorially from mainland Chile-export-oriented megaprojects advance despite growing global skepticism about the sector's viability. Studying this yet underexplored case and employing an adapted “5Es” framework, the article captures the speculative, multidimensional, and contested political geographies surrounding this energy vector, offering empirical and theoretical contributions to debates on green hydrogen and new resource frontiers. The framework reveals mutually reinforcing processes where multilevel and transnational coalitions drive regional reconfigurations through technical projections and evolving governance arrangements. The analysis shows how, even amid profound uncertainties about their materialization, the green hydrogen hype is reshaping regional dynamics: enabling new forms of wind, land, coast, and maritime appropriation; exposing power asymmetries where scientific networks challenge environmental assessments; and intensifying debates about regional development trajectories. Magallanes' particular characteristics—history as a “productive colony,” territorial isolation, and critical biodiversity corridors—generate particular tensions, while also comparable lessons for other peripheral regions. Understanding site-specific dynamics during the speculative window—the critical period between hype and materialization or failure—proves crucial for regions seeking to reconcile global climate goals with territorial justice and ecological integrity. The case illustrates how emerging hydrogen pathways remain contested, unsettled and fundamentally open, a condition reinforced by the sector's current loss of momentum.

本文探讨了智利麦哲伦地区绿色氢发展的空间政治。尽管全球对出口导向型大型项目的可行性持越来越多的怀疑态度，但在这个与智利大陆在能源和领土上都不相连的最南端地区，出口导向型大型项目仍在推进。本文研究了这一尚未充分探索的案例，并采用了一个经过调整的“5e”框架，捕捉了围绕这一能源矢量的投机、多维和有争议的政治地理，为绿色氢和新资源前沿的辩论提供了实证和理论贡献。该框架揭示了多层次和跨国联盟通过技术预测和不断发展的治理安排推动区域重新配置的相互加强的过程。分析表明，即使在其实现的深刻不确定性中，绿色氢炒作如何重塑区域动态：实现新形式的风能，陆地，海岸和海洋占用；揭露科学网络挑战环境评估的权力不对称；关于区域发展轨迹的争论也在加剧。麦哲伦岛的特殊特征——作为“多产殖民地”的历史、领土隔离和关键的生物多样性走廊——产生了特殊的紧张局势，同时也为其他周边地区提供了可比较的教训。在投机窗口（炒作与实现或失败之间的关键时期），了解特定地点的动态对于寻求协调全球气候目标与领土正义和生态完整性的地区至关重要。该案例表明，新兴的氢途径仍然存在争议、不稳定和基本开放，而该行业目前失去动力则加剧了这种情况。

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引用次数: 0

Enduring crises, dynamic border work: Migration governance in Ventimiglia since COVID-19 持续的危机，动态的边境工作：自COVID-19以来文蒂米利亚的移民治理

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-14 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103485

Silvia Aru

In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Roja migrant camp in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia, near France, was closed on health grounds. This was a critical moment for border management at Ventimiglia, which has been a strategic area in the EU's internal border regime since 2015, when France reintroduced systematic border controls. This article takes its cue from this event to explore the interplay between institutional border work and crisis in Ventimiglia in recent years. Critically drawing on existing literature on border and crisis, this study identifies three key analytical dimensions: 1. The national authority's narrative use of the ‘pandemic crisis’ to legitimise closing the camp; 2. The subsequent institutional political crisis at the urban level that has led to a greater securitisation of migrants' presence in the city; 3. The social and material crisis faced by migrants in the city as a consequence of worsening bordering practices. Based on extensive fieldwork and document analysis, this study contends that ‘crises’, far from being solely moments of disruption, offer a particularly productive lens for examining the transformations currently reshaping border regimes. By placing the crisis and its articulations at the centre of the investigation, this work advances the theoretical debate by highlighting the violence of institutional border work, both by deconstructing the narrative surrounding crisis and its strategic use by authorities, and by addressing the socio-material crisis experienced by migrants, which is often omitted, concealed, or disregarded.

在2019冠状病毒病大流行期间，位于法国附近的意大利边境城镇文蒂米利亚的Roja难民营因卫生原因被关闭。对于文蒂米利亚的边境管理来说，这是一个关键时刻。自2015年法国重新引入系统性边境管制以来，文蒂米利亚一直是欧盟内部边境制度的战略区域。本文以这一事件为线索，探讨文蒂米利亚近年来机构边界工作与危机之间的相互作用。批判性地借鉴现有文献的边界和危机，本研究确定了三个关键的分析维度：1。国家当局利用“流行病危机”作为关闭难民营的借口；2. 随后在城市层面发生的制度性政治危机，导致移民在城市的存在更加证券化；3. 由于边界做法的恶化，城市移民面临社会和物质危机。基于广泛的实地调查和文献分析，本研究认为，“危机”远非仅仅是中断的时刻，而是为审视当前重塑边境制度的变革提供了一个特别富有成效的视角。通过将危机及其表达置于调查的中心，这项工作通过强调机构边境工作的暴力来推进理论辩论，通过解构围绕危机的叙事及其当局的战略利用，并通过解决移民所经历的社会物质危机，这往往被忽略、隐藏或忽视。

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引用次数: 0

Rethinking environmental governance for development: the blue œconomy dispositif 为发展而重新思考环境治理：蓝色œconomy配置

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-14 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2026.103494

Alex Midlen

The Blue Economy is a recent development paradigm, created in response to a refocusing of sustainable development during preparations for the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 2012 in which the ‘green economy’ was proposed. Coastal and island states called for a ‘blue’ equivalent in recognition of the importance of oceans to their economic futures. In the years since, the ‘blue economy’ has been enthusiastically received by many, but its exact nature remains uncertain and contested. In this paper I examine in more detail the practices, the technologies, and the materialities of the BE ‘dispositif’ to address the question of ‘place’, as it is only in the context of place, I argue, that we can really understand how the Blue Economy is enacted. In doing so, I make the argument that the Blue Economy is a ‘security dispositif’ (referencing Michel Foucault) and that to govern Blue Economy places well we need to pay attention to the emergent space-time relations of the dispositif ‘in place’. Finally, I argue for a rethinking of economy and of blue economy governance, drawing on relational analysis of empirical cases in Kenya to call for a blue economy that is more sensitive to communities and the places they inhabit – a blue œconomy.

蓝色经济是最近的一种发展模式，是为了响应2012年联合国环境与发展大会筹备期间对可持续发展的重新关注而创建的，该会议提出了“绿色经济”。沿海和岛屿国家呼吁制定“蓝色”等号，以承认海洋对其经济未来的重要性。从那以后的几年里，“蓝色经济”受到了许多人的热烈欢迎，但它的确切性质仍然不确定，也存在争议。在本文中，我更详细地研究了BE“处置”的实践、技术和材料，以解决“地点”问题，因为我认为，只有在地点的背景下，我们才能真正理解蓝色经济是如何实施的。在此过程中，我提出了这样的论点：蓝色经济是一种“安全配置”（引用米歇尔·福柯），为了治理好蓝色经济，我们需要注意配置“到位”的紧急时空关系。最后，我主张重新思考经济和蓝色经济治理，借鉴肯尼亚经验案例的相关分析，呼吁建立一个对社区和他们居住的地方更敏感的蓝色经济-蓝色œconomy。

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引用次数: 0

Maritime security technologies and coastal neo-fortification 海上安全技术和沿海新防御工事

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-08 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103483

Alexandra E.J. Hall

Data technologies promise new ways of tackling maritime security challenges - from trafficking and smuggling, to environmental crime and terrorism. This is particularly the case at coastlines, where global security threats manifest as local maritime issues, and where general maritime traffic conceals small vessel landings, drug drops and clandestine movements. Coastlines are increasingly sites of technological neo-fortification, the prime aim of which is the detection and tracking of seaborne movement. This article draws on qualitative fieldwork with volunteers monitoring the British coast and research on global maritime security technologies. It gains critical traction on new technologies by placing them within a history of littoral fortification, which I show has always been concerned with discerning movement at sea. I make two contributions. First, I show that the machine learning technologies govern maritime movement through movement, weaponising the ocean's materiality in the pursuit of so-called dark targets. Second, I argue that the techno neo-fortification of coastlines is underpinned by algorithmic spatialities and differentiations that seek to render wider ocean movement controllable. Bordering and security practice - from launching life-saving search and rescue missions, to targeting 'small boats', countering illegal fishing and disrupting smuggling - is re-ordered via these spatialities and differentiations. Contemporary maritime security technologies do not enhance existing practice: rather, they are reorganising sea borders, reconfiguring the relationship between territorial and global waters, and altering how life is governed at sea.

数据技术为应对海上安全挑战——从贩运和走私到环境犯罪和恐怖主义——提供了新的途径。在海岸线尤其如此，在那里，全球安全威胁表现为当地的海事问题，在那里，一般的海上交通掩盖了小型船只登陆、毒品投放和秘密行动。海岸线日益成为新技术防御工事的场所，其主要目的是探测和跟踪海上活动。本文借鉴了与志愿者监测英国海岸和研究全球海上安全技术定性实地考察。通过将新技术置于沿海防御工事的历史中，它获得了关键的牵引力，我展示了这一直与海上的辨别运动有关。我有两个贡献。首先，我展示了机器学习技术通过运动来控制海洋运动，将海洋的物质性武器化，以追求所谓的黑暗目标。其次，我认为海岸线的技术新防御是以算法的空间性和差异性为基础的，这些算法寻求使更广泛的海洋运动变得可控。边境和安全实践——从开展救生搜索和救援任务，到瞄准“小船”，打击非法捕鱼和破坏走私——通过这些空间和差异重新排序。当代海上安全技术并没有加强现有的实践：相反，它们正在重新组织海上边界，重新配置领海和全球水域之间的关系，并改变海上生活的管理方式。

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引用次数: 0

Polar projections: Political geographies of Arctic mapping 极地投影：北极制图的政治地理学

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103391

Ingrid A. Medby , Berit Kristoffersen , Philip Steinberg , Klaus Dodds , Mia M. Bennett , Johanne M. Bruun , Danai-Maria Kontou

引用次数: 0

Energy transitions, settler colonialism, and the politics of place 能源转型、定居者殖民主义和地方政治

IF 4.9 1区社会学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Political Geography

Pub Date : 2026-01-01 DOI: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2025.103409

Conor Harrison (Associate Professor)

引用次数: 0