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geopolitics & Justice RESEARCH cluster

The Geopolitics and Justice Research Cluster is concerned with interrogating the multiple practices of interventionism, development and securitization in our contemporary world and their consequent contested forms of governmentality and justice. Running through much of the cluster's research is a focus on the intricate interconnections between discursive and material productions of space. In critiquing abstract geopolitical, geoeconomic and developmental forms of interventionism, a common concern lies in theorising and insisting upon more humane, nuanced and critical human geographies, and in considering the urgent issues of economic, environmental and social justice in our contemporary world.

Environmental Change
Geopolitics and Justice
Planning and Sustainability
Rural Studies

Geopolitics & Justice Symposium
Friday, March 22nd, 2013

Cluster Leader: John Morrissey

Faculty Members
Graduate Students
Research Projects
Funding Success
Events
Publications

faculty Members

- Patrick Collins
- Valerie Ledwith
- Lorraine McIlrath
- John Morrissey
- Niall Ó Dochartaigh
- Kevin O'Sullivan
- Kathy Reilly
- Anna Stanley
- Ulf Strohmayer

Graduate students

PhD

- Diego Andreucci 'Green neoliberalism: development, free-market environmentalism & indigenous peoples in Peru'
- Lisa Hallinan 'The différance of dance: a critical deconstruction of the performing arts in Galway City'
- Nikki James 'Transnational identity and a sense of place amongst immigrant youth in Ireland'
- Tony Johnston 'Commodification of dark tourism space in the Balkans'

MLitt

- Joseph Dollard, 'Iconography, national identity and church architecture in Ireland, 1880-2010'
- Stephanie Egan, 'The Irish-Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and the production of knowledge'

MA

- MA in Environment, Society and Development

research projects

CENTCOM and US Geopolitical Grand Strategy in the Middle East,
1983-2003 ( IRCHSS )

War and American Identity ( Clinton Institute )

Participatory Development: Bridging Academic Critique and Civic Engagement in Sarajevo, Bosnia ( CKI )

Creative Edge: Creating a platform for Creative Industries in the Periphery ( Northern Periphery Programme )

Non-State Humanitarianism: From Colonialism to Human Rights
( British Arts and Humanities Research Council )

Transnational Ireland International Research Network
( Transnational Ireland )

Recent funding success

Dr John Morrissey and Dr Kathy Reilly have won an NUIG Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI) research grant in support of the Field-Based Learning module of the MA in Environment, Society and Development. The module brings together the overall vision of the MA programme by civically engaging students on fieldwork in Bosnia, where they intersect with the work of the European Union, NGOs and United Nations agencies such as the UNDP Bosnia. Funding will be used to extend civic engagement initiatives there with a view to bridging what has been oft-highlighted in development studies as the disconnect between academic and practitioner work. Collaborative initiatives between the academy, international development practitioners and communities may be rarely embarked upon, but both the pedagogic and community gains in seeking to facilitate more critical, informed and participatory forms of development are considerable and indeed inspiring.

Events

Conflict, Rights and Security Research Cluster

Professor Gerry Kearns (Department of Geography, NUI Maynooth)

Geopolitics and Geographical Fate

SAC Room (CA110), Cairnes Building, 1.00pm, 15th May 2013

In his recent book, the Revenge of Geography: What the map tells us about coming conflicts and the battle against fate (Random House, 2012), Robert Kaplan returns to the classical geopolitical works of Halford Mackinder to explain the constraints that geography places upon foreign policy choices. His argument is that conflict in Eurasia is governed by land allocation, average temperature, and the distribution of minerals. The book is announced as ’A brilliant rebuttal to thinkers who suggest that globalism will trump geography.’ Instead ’timeless truths and natural facts’ overwhelm political economy or foreign policy. In this talk, I will examine Kaplan’s arguments and develop an alternative historical geography of globalism that suggests very different policy choices than those encouraged by Kaplan.

Organised by the Conflict, Rights and Security Research Cluster of the Whitaker Institute.

Geopolitics & Justice 50th Anniversary Symposium

Friday, March 22nd, 9.15am–4.30pm

The Geopolitics and Justice Research Cluster hosted a hugely successful symposium on Friday, March 22nd, in the Moore Institute, which was fantastic to see full on the day. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Geography at NUI Galway, the day’s proceedings were opened by Prof. Charlotte Damm, as Acting Head of Geography and Archaeology, and Dr John Morrissey, the cluster leader. The symposium included overviews of current cluster research which spans key global issues respecting geopolitics and security, structural injustices and poverty, humanitarianism and human rights, environmental and social justice, and hunger and food security. The cluster’s broader public academic concerns of civic engagement, field-based learning, and public critical geographies also featured strongly. To this end, the day set out to combine academic speakers from Geography, History and Politics with development practitioners from Irish Aid, Christian Aid, the UK’s Overseas Development Institute, the Peace Research Institute Oslo and NUI Galway’s Community Knowledge Initiative (see here for the symposium schedule).

Student presentations from Geography’s MA in Environment, Society and Development on the theme of 'transformative geopolitics and justice' also formed a key element of the proceedings, and signalled the importance of a vibrant graduate research community integrally feeding into the enterprise and ongoing development of our research cluster. Finally, we were delighted to have as plenary speaker from the School of Geography and the Centre for the Study of Global Security and Development at Queen Mary, University of London, Dr Simon Reid-Henry, who gave a brilliant keynote paper to conclude the day on the theme of 'Global Inequality and Political Responsibility'.

Simon Reid-Henry addresses the issue of 'global inequality and political responsibility'

MA in Environment, Society and Development Students at the GJ Symposium, 2013

Geography at NUI Galway 50th Anniversary Seminar:

Prof. John O’Loughlin (University of Colorado, Boulder)
Climate Change and Armed Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

Geography Seminar Room
Thursday, 1 November 2012, 4.00pm

Prof. John O’Loughlin is a College Professor of Distinction at the Institute of Behavioral Science and Department of Geography, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. A leading figure in the field of political geography, his research interests are in the spatial analysis of conflict, including the relationship between climate/environmental change and conflict as well as in the political geography of the post-Soviet Union, including Russian and Ukrainian geopolitics, Eurasian quasi-states, and ethno-territorial nationalisms. He is editor-in-chief of Political Geography and editor of Eurasian Geography and Economics.

For further information, see: http://www.colorado.edu/IBS/PEC/johno

3rd Annual Symposium on Environment, Society and Development

'Critical Perspectives on Resource Justice: Lessons from the Field'

Geography, National University of Ireland, Galway

August 28, 2012

This one-day symposium culminates the MA in Environment, Society and Development at NUI Galway each year. The aim of this year's event is to examine pathways to merge critical perspectives on resource justice with research based practice. Dimensions of food, housing, and energy-resource justice will be explored alongside a critique of existing ideologies and politics of the everyday. Speakers include Yves Cabannes (UCL), urban planner and activist specialising in international urban and municipal governance, and Michael McCaughan, researcher, writer and activist based in the Burren, Co. Clare. In addition, an array of national and international panelists, including Jon Hallé (Share Energy UK), Gerry Kearns (NUIM), Anna Ryan (UL), Anne Schiffer (designer and campaigner) and Neil Smith (CUNY), will discuss how spaces and processes can be created to develop alternative politics for a more just distribution and sustainable use of resources. Invited participants represent both academic, activist and practitioner perspectives, spanning the disciplines of geography, politics, planning, architecture and design. Cross-cutting themes will include the ethics and politics of public and professional responsibility and action, and avenues for merging critical geography and research based practice.

There is no fee to attend, and the preliminary programme can be found here.

Publications

P. Collins (2012) 'Dualistic Policy Approaches: Ireland’s Industrial Past and Future', Transnational Corporations (forthcoming)

P. Collins (2011) 'Cost Competitive Places: The Shifting Competitiveness of Dell’s Irish Operations', European Urban and Regional Studies, Vol. 18 (4): 406-426

P. Collins and F. Fahy (2011) 'Culture and Creativity: A Case Study from the West of Ireland', Cities, Vol. 28 (1): 28-35

D. Pontikakis and P. Collins (2010) 'Geographically Differentiated Competition as Determinant of the Diffusion of Broadband: Evidence from Irish SMEs', Telecommunications Policy, Vol. 34 (3): 117-184

V. Ledwith (2010) 'The Influence of Open Enrollment on Scholastic Achievement among Public School Students in Los Angeles', American Journal of Education Vol. 116 (2): 243-262

V. Ledwith (2009) 'Open Enrolment and Student Sorting in Public Schools: Evidence from Los Angeles County', Environment and Planning A, Vol. 41 (5): 1109-1128

V. Ledwith and W.A.V. Clark (2007) 'The Effect of the Residential Mosaic and "White flight" on Public School Composition: Evidence from Los Angeles County', Urban Geography, Vol. 28 (2): 160-180

W. Clark and V. Ledwith (2007) 'How Much Does Income Matter in Neighborhood Choice?' Population Research and Policy Review, Vol. 26 (2): 145-161

J. Morrissey (2011) 'Architects of Empire: The Military-Strategic Studies Complex and the Scripting of US National Security', Antipode, Vol. 43 (2): 435-470 ( DOI )

J. Morrissey (2011) 'Liberal Lawfare and Biopolitics: US Juridical Warfare in the War on Terror', Geopolitics, Vol. 16 (2): 280-305 ( DOI )

J. Morrissey (2011) 'Closing the Neoliberal Gap: Risk and Regulation in the Long War of Securitization', Antipode, Vol. 43 (3): 874-900 ( DOI )

J. Morrissey (2009) 'The Geoeconomic Pivot of the Global War on Terror: US Central Command and the War in Iraq', in D. Ryan and P. Kiely (eds) America and Iraq: Policy-Making, Intervention and Regional Politics, Routledge, New York, pp. 103-122 ( PDF )

N. Ó Dochartaigh (2013) 'Bounded by Violence: Institutionalizing Local Territories in the North of Ireland', Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 19 (1) (forthcoming)

N. Ó Dochartaigh (2011) 'Together in the Middle: Back-Channel Negotiation in the Irish Peace Process', Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 48 (6): 767-780 ( DOI )

S. Maleševic and N. Ó Dochartaigh (2011) 'Secession and Political Violence', in S. Pavkovic and P. Radan (eds) Research Companion on Secession, Ashgate, Basingstoke, pp. 227-250

N. Ó Dochartaigh and L. Bosi (2010) 'Territoriality and Mobilization: The Civil Rights Campaign in Northern Ireland', Mobilization: : An International Quarterly, Vol. 15 (4): 405-424 ( URL )

K. O'Sullivan (2013) Ireland, Africa and the End of Empire: Small State Identity in the Cold War, 1955-75, Manchester University Press, Manchester

K. O'Sullivan (2013) 'A global nervous system: the rise and rise of humanitarian NGOs', in M. Frey, S. Kunkel and C. Unger (eds), International organisations and development, 1945-1990, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (forthcoming)

K. O'Sullivan (2013) '"Ah, Ireland. The caring nation." Foreign aid and Irish state identity in the long 1970s', Irish Historical Studies (forthcoming)

K. O'Sullivan (2011) 'History and the development aid debate in the Republic of Ireland', Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review, Vol. 12: 110-23

K. Reilly and V. Ledwith (2013) 'Two Tiers Emerging? School Choice and Educational Achievement Disparities among Migrant and Non-Migrant Youth in Galway City’, Population, Space and Place (forthcoming)

K. Reilly (2013) 'Aspired Transitions: Exploring Youth Perceptions of Opportunity', Children's Geographies (forthcoming)

K. Reilly (2013) 'Habitus, Capital and Field: What use for Bourdieu in Geography?', Geography Compass (forthcoming)

K. Reilly (2006) 'Cultural Theory and Educational Practice: A Focus on Bourdieu’s Habitus, Bernstein’s Discourse and the Canvey Island Region', Chimera, Vol. 21

A. Stanley and A. Baldwin (2013) 'Natures of Risk: Introduction to the Special Issue', Geoforum (forthcoming)

A. Stanley (2012) 'Natures of Risk: Capital, Rule, and Production of Difference', Geoforum (early view) ( DOI )

A. Stanley (2012) 'Labours of Land: Domesticity, Wilderness and Dispossession in the Development of Canadian Uranium Markets, Gender Place and Culture (early view) ( DOI )

M. Chazan, L. Helps, A. Stanley and S. Thakkar (eds) (2011) Home and Native Land: Unsettling Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines Press

U. Strohmayer (2013) Key Concepts in Historical Geography, Sage, London (co-written with J. Morrissey, D. Nally and Y. Whelan)

U. Strohmayer (2010) ' Bridges. Different Conditions of Mobile Possibilities', in: T. Cresswell and P. Merriman (eds) Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects, Ashgate, Farnham, pp. 119-136

U. Strohmayer (2007) 'Engineering Vision: the Pont-Neuf in Paris and Modernity', in: A. Cowan and J. Steward (eds) The City and the Senses: Urban Culture since 150, Ashgate, Basingstoke, pp. 75-92

U. Strohmayer (2007) 'Ireland as a Civil Society: Public Space, the Common Good and Private Desires in Galway', in: T. McDonough et al. (eds) Re-thinking Irish Democracy, Arlen House, Galway, pp. 17-58

Discipline of Geography
National University of Ireland, Galway, University Road, Galway, Ireland
Tel.: +353 (0)91 49 2643
This page was last updated Monday, May 13, 2013