The Cartographic Assemblage of the Globe

It is common practice to consider global space a coherent entity that naturally contains social practices and provides the stage for actors of global politics. Yet, such a view ignores the social process of establishing a global space as a framework for other social practices. This paper suggests that an analysis of cartographic practices is key to understand the historical formation of spaces. Drawing on Bruno Latour, I show how the globe has been assembled through cartographic practices in Europe from 1450-1650. I trace how the emerging discipline of cosmography transformed knowledge of the world, and how the Spanish attempts to map the world during the 16th century put in place a system to cartographically establish a new reality of global space. Finally, the paper focuses on how the world was published by Dutch map makers which disseminated this novel global reality and, in effect, made it mobile. This leads to the conclusion that the global map preceded, and assembled, the globe as a unified abstract space enabling the expansion of European political and economic practices

World of Warcraft™ and the State of Territory in International Relations

According to conventional knowledge, the realist tradition in International Relations has maintained the world of International Politics in a perpetual state of ‘warcraft’ between sovereign territorial states. Since the early 1990s arguments associated with Historical Sociology have sought to counter such a timeless image of states and politics. Yet, while this has done much to historicise state institutions and the international system, one of the fundamental features of the modern state remains poorly understood: that of territory. This is because, I argue, that the concept of space remains absent from the historical analyses. Historical Sociology proper usually treat territory as an unproblematic transhistorical concept and Constructivist approaches tend to focus on how perceptions of space interrelate with historical developments of institutions. Both tend to leave space as unhistorically accepted, conceptually assumed and philosophically unexamined. The solution I propose in this paper is to expand what we do historical sociology about; that is a historical sociology of space formation which investigates how space historically has been established as real, and hereby, had a conditioning and transformative effect on the political role of territory. This is key to understand to spatial nature of the modern state and thus, also, the transformative possibilities within international relation

Geopolitik, naturlige grænser og „kartopolitik“ i Arktis

Drawing on insights from Critical Geopolitics and the science studies of Bruno Latour, this article argues that geopolitics in the Arctic today is not only a question of interstate competition but also a struggle about how to define space. If we challenge the notion of geography as being something given or natural, geographical space itself becomes a contested phenomenon. With such a perspective, it appears that there is a more profound geopolitical struggle taking place between indigenous people, represented in this article by the Inuit Circumpolar Council, and states, than there is between states. I introduce the term ‘cartopolitics’ to describe the way in which cartography and measurement establish a particular spatial reality that is necessary for international law to function in relation to sovereignty claims made by Arctic states. In contrast to this scientific rationality of space, the Inuit have laid claim to a different spatiality characterized by shared use and movement across ice. By implication we must recognise this contest over spatiality as a geopolitical struggle that is as important for life in the Arctic as the one that takes place between states only.

Desecuritization as Displacement of Controversy: geopolitics, law and sovereign rights in the Arctic

By signing the Ilulissat Declaration of May 2008, the five littoral states of the Arctic Ocean pre-emptively desecuritized potential geopolitical controversies in the Arctic Ocean by confirming that international law and geo-science are the defining factors underlying the future delimitation. This happened in response to a rising securitization discourse fueled by commentators and the media in the wake of the 2007 Russian flag planting on the geographical North Pole seabed, which also triggered harder interstate rhetoric and dramatic headlines. This case, however, challenges some established conventions within securitization theory. It was state elites that initiated desecuritization and they did so by shifting issues in danger of being securitized from security to other techniques of government. Contrary to the democratic ethos of the theory, these shifts do not necessarily represent more democratic procedures. Instead, each of these techniques are populated by their own experts and technocrats operating according to logics of right (law) and accuracy (science). While shifting techniques of government might diminish the danger of securitized relations between states, the shift generates a displacement of controversy. Within international law we have seen controversy over its ontological foundations and within science we have seen controversy over standards of science. Each of these are amplified and take a particularly political significance when an issue is securitized via relocation to another technique. While the Ilulissat Declaration has been successful in minimizing the horizontal conflict potential between states it has simultaneously given way for vertical disputes between the signatory states on the one hand and the Indigenous peoples of the Arctic on the other

Introduktion

Introduktio

Introduktion

Introduktio

Cartography and geopolitics in the Arctic region

This paper discusses the relationship between geography and politics; and more specifically, the relationship between sovereign claims and cartography. I introduce the term 'cartopolitics' to describe a particular way of making space real and corresponding with politics that defines contemporary bordering practices in the Arctic region. The paper argues that too often boundary studies assume that socio-political space arises as a result of boundary practices. In contrast, this paper proceeds from a notion that space should precede boundaries in the analysis because, unless space is taken as a natural given and constant background, its 'construction' conditions how boundaries can be established in the first place. In sequence, I argue how the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea builds on - and requires - a particular spatiality epitomised by so-called modern cartography. This has implications for the way in which sovereignty over space is transferred from a political to a scientific domain, and essentially, it tends to mask the constructed nature of the spatiality given objectivity through the law of the sea