John Agnew's Making Political Geography

Words: 1034
Pages: 5

In the introduction of “Making Political Geography” by John Agnew, John explains what political geography is and how it is changing with the times. He talks about how geography was once only thought of as the study the actual geography but has developed into “the selection and ranking of certain themes and issues... rather than a set of objective facts beyond dispute”. Also how politics has broadened over the time to explore more areas of life which includes geography. To support these claims John uses several small examples ranging from events as large as the 11 September 2001 attacks to a small town in Montana that is suffering from asbestos poisoning. By exploring such a large array of examples he shows that geography affects basically all …show more content…
In power and knowledge he explains that the field was dominated by upper class Europeans and Americans as they were the only people to get into universities. This gave those countries more power as they had an advanced understanding of how territory and borders worked, also the political geographers would be working for their own nations interests. Political geography also led to radical thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin and Elisèe Reclus although because of the political climate their works did not catch on. Also Feminist have led political geography from its “problem solving focus” and turned it to how emotion and masculine national public are the source of discourse. In the perspective of “the history and language of political geography” John talks …show more content…
The first vignette is about drug traffics and their lack of boundaries. This vignette explains that trying to stop the flow of illegal drug into the U.S.A is futile and even though they have put these defences in place drugs are still “a lot easier to get than alcohol”. This is caused by how the drug cartels have little regard for the defences and have immense supply chains that are impossible to eradicate. The second vignette talks about the situation in Israel between them and Palestine. The problem is that the Palestinians want their own country but Israel is not willing to give them any territory so they cannot become a recognized state. The vignette goes into the history of the area that shows that before the Jews took power they were heavily discriminated against. Since the Jews have taken power they split the Palestinians territory into three areas which are controlled by the Israeli Defense Force. The Palestinians right to movement has been severally restricted. It is said in the text that it is not in Israel’s best interest to concede to the Palestinians request for territory of their own as it would put their own national security at risk, as well as Israel being “ill-disposed to give them [territory]”.The third vignette is about Ruthenia, a nation that wants more autonomy from Ukraine. Ruthenia is split by some of the biggest dividing factors in Europe such as religious (western