Political Geography最新文献

The paper investigates the phenomenon of ‘strategic disinterment’ in Cyprus, namely the purposeful and selective destruction of primary graves and removal of remains of missing persons to unknown secondary burial sites. Our examination of why violent actors invest valuable resources to exhume victims from the original burial location, even when they no longer pose a security threat, has significant theoretical and methodological implications. First, it pushes the boundaries of our understanding of violence by challenging the assumption that violent actors target only the living. Second, it innovates methodologically by introducing the use of forensic data to explain the strategic logic of selective removal of remains of victims from original grave sites in Cyprus. By exploring the interplay between temporal, spatial, demographic, and political considerations and analysing variables that may explain strategic disinterment, we make informed inferences about the possible drivers of grave selection. We argue the decision of armed groups to engage in strategic disinterment in Cyprus was shaped by a set of two factors. On the one hand, they were ‘pushed’ by the degree of perceived accountability associated with specific graves that concealed incriminatory evidence of heinous crimes. On the other hand, their capacity to organize sophisticated operations, such as mass-scale reburials, was crucial. Only actors with the capacity and attentive to (international) accountability norms were likely to engage in strategic disinterment.

Jurisdictional imaginaries, defined as constitutive and productive fictions with real world effects, serve a distinct purpose in the context of debates over Canadian environmental impact assessment. Metaphors are one way in which jurisdictional imaginaries are maintained and contested. In creating associations between entities, metaphors mark storytelling about jurisdiction with the imprints of history and place, and shape thinking about arrangements of authority within contested geographies. In Canadian reference cases (questions posed by governments to courts to seek advice on legislation), the judiciary settle conflicts over jurisdiction through case-by-case assessments based on interpretations of the Canadian constitution in which debates about federalism loom large. Our analysis of two reference cases on Canada's Impact Assessment Act (IAA) evidenced disagreements in court decisions about the scope and significance of provincial and federal authority, which hinged on metaphors of separation and conflict, and drew on two competing imaginaries: a classical imaginary which envisions dualist, hierarchical, and exclusionary orders of authority between provincial and federal governments; and a modern imaginary which emphasizes jurisdictional overlap and flexibility in constitutional interpretation. Reading these divergent imaginaries against a backdrop of legal pluralism and ongoing settler colonialism, we argue that both imaginaries normalize, rather than unsettle, colonial political logics predicated on the replacement of Indigenous sovereignty by European legal orders. The IAA reference cases, far from mere technical assessments of the constitutionality of legislation, highlight political questions about what kind of society Canada is and could become.

The spatial turn in peace and conflict studies and the geographies of peace research agendas have underscored the importance of space in (post-)conflict societies. These fields, despite recognising that space and time are inseparable dimensions, often pay more attention to the former compared to the latter. To address this gap, this article explains how space relates to temporality, a concept that delves into the lived experiences of time. More specifically, I analyse how understandings of the past, present, and future shape spatial narratives about war ruins in Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina), where buildings targeted during the 1990s wars remain unreconstructed. Drawing on spatial narratives gathered through walks and elite interviews, I show that temporality is a crucial element of space because lived experiences of time structure individuals' perspectives on war ruins in Mostar. Four temporalities were woven into participants’ narratives: (1) narratives shaped by trauma temporalities where war ruins remind people of wartime violence and collapse past and present; (2) narratives driven by temporalities of nostalgia and opportunities that invite reflections about the future of Mostar; (3) narratives building on a temporality of commodification that sees ruins as marketable attractions for tourists; and (4) narratives framing ruins as barriers to synchronising Mostar to a temporality of modernity, characterised by notions of progress and economic development. Through these findings, I demonstrate that temporalities are a key factor in how individuals perceive space and highlight the importance of temporalities in explaining heterogeneous attitudes toward space in areas affected by violence.

Studies on environmental governance have mainly focused on the relationship between local state, market, and community. However, how an environmental agenda is achieved by multi-scalar state actors and how these multi-scalar interventions reshape urban spatial politics have been understudied. This research investigates the protection of Erhai Lake in Dali, a third-tier city in Western China. Erhai Lake protection is a high-profile initiative proposed by the top leader. However, it is not only conducted through a top-down target-setting authoritarian system but has also invoked market and state interventions from various scales. Based on this case, we first reflect on statecraft in governing environmental sustainability in China, which manifested in mobilizing hybrid instruments to achieve the environmental goal. Second, environmental practices at the local scale do not municipalize environmental resources. Instead, the provincial-level state stands out in influencing local regulations and deploying state-owned enterprises to achieve environmental and economic ends. These actions peripheralize local city authorities in economic development, social management, and environmental assets management, undermining the entrepreneurial stance of the city government. This research contributes to understanding the co-evolution of urban spatial politics and environmental practices.

Since the announcement of Kenya's Vision 2030, infrastructure provision has been cast as a central part of Kenya's development strategy. A key component of this vision is the upgrading of the Port of Mombasa, the largest and busiest port in East Africa, to international logistics standards. Analyzing the implementation of the Mombasa Port Development Program (MPDP), this article argues that it reveals a transformation of the politics of ‘gatekeeping’ - understood as the political contests around the spatial and institutional sites that mediate the circulation of resources between domestic and international political-economic spheres. The controversies surrounding the management of the MPDP reveal how gatekeeping has undergone a process of decentralization, that results in arenas of gatekeeper competition multiplying at the intersection of new institutional and spatial sites of political contestation. The article demonstrates how gatekeeping now increasingly encompasses complex interactions between peripheral city-level actors and international state and non-state actors. Spatially, it emphasizes how gatekeeping contests crystallize around Mombasa's logistics sector, due to the port city's position as a crucial gateway linking the hinterland to global trade networks. This, I argue, is transforming Mombasa into a gatekeeper city understood as an urban space of transboundary logistical entanglements, where a variety of spatial practices encounter, and reconfigure the modalities of gatekeeping.