The last decade has witnessed a convergence

between political and cultural geography. The

effect of the ‘cultural turn’ on political geography

has generated a turn toward non-traditional geo-

graphical knowledges and a concern with the

everyday as a valid space of political analysis.

The development of ‘critical geopolitics’ has

been of particular significance in these changes.

This has facilitated the breaking down of bound-

aries within the discipline of political geography –

‘a geopolitical perspective on the field of

geopolitics’ (Ashley, 1987: 407), as one com-

mentator put it – to examine those relationships

that were previously taken for granted.

Less territorial but no less spatialized divisions

have also been examined so that the political

geographies of gender relations have begun to

emerge as important areas of study. Both the

themes and the values of feminist geography can

be seen in critical geopolitics, although not

necessarily with reference to their feminist heri-

tage. This chapter will consider the direction and

strengths of the cultural turn on political geography.

It will examine the extent to which feminist

issues have emerged strongly as a result of these

changes and look to the future research direc-

tions that might emerge.

A CRITICAL GEOPOLITICS OF

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

One of the most significant impacts of the conver-

gence between cultural and political geography

has come in ‘critical geopolitics’. A conventional

geopolitics is an approach to the practice and

analysis of statecraft and international relations

more generally which considers geography and

spatial relations to play a significant role in the

constitution of international politics (Smith,

1994: 228). The spaces analysed by geopoliti-

cians were those of the state, region and globe

and provided the backdrop to the playing out of

global politics. Various laws could be created,

whether of the relationship of distance to politi-

cal threat or the effect of particular environments

on the construction of particular political cultures.

Those who made geopolitics were the statesmen

and leaders of powerful countries and their

advisers.

More recent engagements with the political

world have a close link to some of the main char-

acteristics of the cultural turn. One aspect in parti-

cular which dominates is the recognition of the

power of language and discourse in the construc-

tion of the world around us. ‘All language,’

states Eagleton, ‘is ineradicably metaphorical,

working by tropes and figures; it is a mistake to

believe that any language is literally literal’

(1983: 145). For critical geopolitics, this atten-

tion to language is key and explains the ways in

which global space and geography have been

constructed and interpreted as being of importance

to political process.

Critical geopolitics seeks to broaden our

understanding of the relationships between geo-

graphy and politics via a number of engagements.

The first is a rethinking of the meaning of space

itself. Rather than the common-sense under-

standing of space as a simple container or back-

drop to international politics, a more culturally

and historically specific understanding is offered.

This critique of the dominant modernist

Cartesian conceptualization of space as an empty

framework sees space as power. Rather than an

unchanging backdrop, space has a history and

has changed as it is written and rewritten by

25

Gender in a Political and Patriarchal World

Joanne P. Sharp

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