Progressive Geographies

Radical Philosophy has recently been the venue for a short exchange of views on the topic of resilience. Let’s see what was said.

Mark Neocleous led off with a piece on “resisting resilience.” In his view, “resilience is by definition against resistance. Resilience wants acquiescence.” He is, therefore, against resilience. In response, David Chandler, who is editor of a new journal called Resilienceargues that critique is not best served by equating resilience to neoliberalism. And in response to that, Neocleous says that Chandler didn’t engage with his critique and only wants to defend his new journal and that resilience blunts socialist and feminist thought (p. 59).

Not much of this helps us get anywhere. If the agenda is to make something useful from resilience (eg., by critiquing its support for the production of neoliberalism) then we need to use the concept to get at the primary question of ensuring…

by Marijn Nieuwenhuis, University of Warwick

Introduction

The idea of nationhood rests on the claim of a specific territorial area. The cartographic demarcating of territory automatically exposes, however, the contingent nature of borders. Modern borders are the product of a world system composed of nation states which are not organic unities but socially constructed entities in need of constant affirmation. Nationalism, the modus operandi for that affirmation, often takes a cartographic form. Cartographic nationalism is of all ages but seems in East Asia to have become especially important in post-Mao China.

This short article wishes to offer some insight into the ways in which maps are increasingly being used to arouse nationalist sentiments in East Asia. I do not aspire to explain the reasons for the trend of a rise in nationalism, but instead wish to engage with the manner in which this has become apparent by looking at…

On the heels of my last post, I now turn to a second geography of drones: how much do drones matter in Israel?

Last Tuesday  (April 30) the Israeli Defense Force targeted and killed Hitham Masshal, a twenty-four year old described by the IDF Spokesperson as a “global jihad-affiliated terrorist”. It was the first targeted killing of a Palestinian in 2013. As many Israeli friends have been quick to point out to me over the last week, an Israeli settler was also killed on that day, stabbed while waiting for a bus near the Palestinian town of Nablus. There are a number of differences between these killings, not least the weapons which were used, but I want to use this as an opportunity to reflect on a state-policy that has been publicly acknowledged for over a decade (see here).

Since September 29th 2000, Israel has killed 438 Palestinians using the method of targeted killing…