This thesis analyzes the construction of geopolitical imaginations of Turkey in the post-September 11 era on the basis of critical geopolitics and in the frame of a center (the United States and the European Union)-margin (Turkey) relationship. The dissolving of the relatively stable concepts of the Cold War era by globalization and the demise of the Soviet Union -such as state integrity, sovereignty, inside/outside dichotomy and state identity- has created deterritorialization in the global space of territorial states. However, territorial states have continued to exist via reterritorialization on the basis of new enemies/others/boundaries borrowed from old concepts, narratives and dramas. Following the September 11 attacks, the attempts to construct self/other dichotomy based on the geopolitical imaginations of the globe and Turkey in the US and the EU political circles have changed geopolitical imaginations of Turkey. Their discourses over Turkey have encountered counter-discourse of Turkish policymakers presenting Turkey as a &ldquo / bridge&rdquo / between civilizations to increase the &ldquo / strategic&rdquo / value of Turkey. In this study, taking into consideration the geography as a product of a specific power/knowledge alignment rather than something naturally given to determine foreign policy, the geopolitical (geocultural) imaginations of Turkey are being examined and the power-knowledge relationship is exposed.

The main objective of this dissertation is to analyze Turkish-American relationship from critical perspective. In this study critical geopolitics is used to examine the US policymakers&lsquo / discourses over representations of Turkey. Drawing on the theoretical literature, this dissertation took geopolitics as a deeply ideological concept and analyzed the ways in which US geopolitical discourse has shaped the Turkish-American relationship over time. The study outlined the historical evolution of the concept of the geopolitics since the end of the 19th century in order to reveal the limits of the classical geopolitical understanding, and to provide a theoretical framework against which the modern geopolitical imagination of the US has been formulated. Second, it revealed the ideological roots and the main characteristics of American geopolitical discourse. And third, the study applied critical geopolitics to the case of Turkish-American relations with respect to how the imagined geography of Turkey and the alliance have been shaped by the foreign and security policies of the US. Cold War, post-Cold War and post-September 11 periods are analyzed in separate chapters of this study. It is also argued in this dissertation that Turkey generally fits the geopolitical design of the United States and that these two countries have cooperated on numerous efforts in different parts of the world both during and after the Cold War. However, in this period the two allies also experienced several problems that display the limits of US geopolitical discourse.

The Arctic—warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet—is a source of striking imagery of amplified environmental change in our time, and has come to serve as a spatial setting for climate crisis discourse. The recent alterations in the Arctic environment have also been perceived by some observers as an opportunity to expand economic exploitation. Heightened geopolitical interest in the region and its resources, contradicted by calls for the protection of fragile Far North ecosystems, has rendered the Arctic an arena for negotiating human interactions with nature, and for reflecting upon the planetary risks and possibilities associated with the advent and expansion of the Anthropocene—the proposed new epoch in Earth history in which humankind is said to have gained geological agency and become the dominant force over the Earth system. With the Arctic serving as a nexus of crosscutting analytical themes spanning contemporary history (the late twentieth and the early twenty-first century until 2015), this dissertation examines defining characteristics of the Anthropocene and how the concept, which emerged from the Earth system science community, impacts ideas and assumptions in historiography, social sciences and the environmental humanities, including the fields of environmental history, crisis management and security studies, political geography, and science and technology studies (STS). The primary areas of empirical analysis and theoretical investigation encompass constructivist perspectives and temporal conceptions of environmental and climate crisis; the role of science and expertise in performing politics and shaping social discourse; the geopolitical significance of telecoupling—a concept that reflects the interconnectedness of the Anthropocene and supports stakeholder claims across wide spatial scales; and implications of the recent transformation in humankind’s long duration relationship with the natural world. Several dissertation themes were observed in practice at the international science community of Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard, where global change is made visible through a concentration of scientific activity. Ny-Ålesund is furthermore a place of geopolitics, where extra-regional states attempt to enhance their legitimacy as Arctic stakeholders through the performance of scientific research undertakings, participation in governance institutions, and by establishing a physical presence in the Far North. This dissertation concludes that this small and remote community represents an Anthropocene node of global environmental change, Earth system science, emergent global governance, geopolitics, and stakeholder construction in an increasingly telecoupled world. / <p>QC 20151211</p>

This thesis is concerned with the relationship between geopolitics and the emergence of a "nationalizing Canadian state" at the beginning of the twentieth century. Previous constitutional approaches and economic accounts are not sufficient to explain the emergence of a nationalizing Canadian state. All of these have been insightful, but like economic accounts of nationalism they ignore the larger realm of geopolitics. The literature on state formation has demonstrated that many factors stimulate state formation, but perhaps no other is as important as geopolitics. Geopolitics is concerned with diplomacy, arms, and territory. Such things are seldom discussed when writing about Canada. Canadians dislike being perceived as a military people. Yet geopolitical events have been central to the development of a distinct nationalizing Canadian state. During this period Canadian state elites took steps to gain further control of diplomacy, develop the military arm of the state so as to protect its sovereignty, and consolidate its territory. Additionally, all of these developments increased the scope of the state's functions. Moreover, under the leadership of Prime minister Wilfrid Laurier, the liberal nature of its regime meant that the national identity that began to develop had strong leanings towards civic nationalism. This thesis will attempt to integrate a sociological theory of nation-state building with the already established literature on the geopolitical relations between Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. Through the application of historical sociology, it illustrates the validity of exploring Canadian nation and state building in a geopolitical context and adds to the literature on state formation.

No description available.

<p>The study focuses on the political and economic geographies of pharmaceutical delivery. In 1997 the South African government passed the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act, sparking outrage from both the local and international pharmaceutical industry, and resulting in court action in 2001. The industry believed that South Africa was in breach of its obligations under international intellectual property law. Those fighting for pharmaceutical security hoped the court case would be a &lsquo / landmark&rsquo / in the global campaign for equitable access to medicines. This investigation seeks to analyse the domestic and international legacy of the court action. The inquiry takes its significance from the high prevalence rates of treatable diseases and the need for pharmaceutical security in South Africa and its neighbouring African countries. The absence of a sustainable international medicines delivery system is a global political, economic and moral failure. A solution is required that balances the positive productive forces of the market with a philosophy of justice and equity.</p>

This thesis is concerned with the lived experience of placemaking in Argentina’s Antarctic gateway port Ushuaia. Based on 12 months ethnographic fieldwork, it explores the relations between tourism, urban development, and socio-economic difference. As such, it investigates how agents from across the social spectrum conceive of, and construct their sense of place “at the end of the world”. As the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia is attractive to tourists for its stunning landscapes, unique location, and strategic proximity to Antarctica. However, the image of a friendly tourist destination crucial to everyday life in this Patagonian city is contested by its stakeholders. This thesis looks beyond the image presented to tourists to explore frictions among residents, the city council, and touristic enterprises. Ushuaia is revealed as an urban location beset by growing unrest due to issues of population growth and social polarization. This is analyzed in relation to its geopolitical significance for the Argentine state, territorial struggles with Chile, and economic incentives for in-migration. Consequently, this thesis considers the dynamic and shifting character of the city’s population through an engagement with economic and lifestyle migrants, including those dwelling in non-legal settlements, and tourists who occupy Ushuaian space alongside more longstanding citizens. The thesis demonstrates how conflicting views collide regarding issues of urbanization, industrialization, tourism, and environmental conservation, analyzed in relation to the interests and concerns of different social constituencies. Through extensive interviewing with a diverse array of social actors, this thesis also explores the different levels of economic and socio-cultural attachment to Antarctica, suggesting a schism between Ushuaia’s touristic representation, Antarctic alignment, and the needs and interests of its inhabitants. This thesis, then, explains the diverging place-based ideas and aspirations of different social groups in relation to the governmental, socio-economic, and socio-cultural forces implicated in placemaking.

This thesis examines how and under what influences communities of Islamic faith have developed in post-Soviet Russia. My arguments are based on research conducted in Astrakhan, Russia in the summer of 2009. Astrakhan is the capital of Astrakhan Oblast in southwest Russia and has a reputation for being a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic city. Astrakhan is home to Russians, Tatars, Kazakhs, Kalmyks, and many other nationalities. I draw from interviews and newspaper analysis to examine what the local landscape of Islam looks like in Astrakhan, how has it changed since the collapse of the USSR, and what future trends are emerging. Mosque renovations and demolitions are the center of my analysis. Drawing on scholarship in critical geopolitics and critical geographies of religion, this paper seeks to understand how the Kremlin and other levels of government influence the development of Islam locally within Astrakhan. Interviews are used to study local understandings of the changing forms of Islam in Astrakhan, and to see if locals believe that the state has been supportive to the Islamic community. My research contributes to wider scholarship on the importance of the relationship between the state and local Islamic communities for Islamic nation-building in the Russian Federation.

This thesis is about the relationship between place, memory and geopolitics. It examines public memorial sites in Cambodia dedicated to the victims of the genocide of 1975 to 1979. Scant attention has been paid to the geographies of Cambodia’s post-1979 reconstruction period. Where commentators have noted the existence of Cambodia’s dedicated spaces of memory they have characterised these sites as culturally and politically inauthentic or marginal (as ersatz religious monuments, or as political ‘propaganda’). Against these accounts, I contend that Cambodia’ s memorials are central to, and productive of, cultural, national and transnational politics of the past and present. Like many other late twentieth-century contexts, the Cambodian case demonstrates the link between the texts and practices of geopolitics and discourses of traumatic memory. The dissertation examines how various tropes of memory enact an imaginative topography of Cambodia, both locally and transnationally. I do this by analysing four memorial sites and practices: the development of the Choeung Ek ‘killing field’ site (Phnom Penh); tourism to Cambodia’s genocide sites as a popular geopolitical practice; and the global circulation and reception of photographs of Khmer Rouge victims. It is argued that these sites and practices of memory have been central to Cambodia’s redevelopment as well as constitutive of the geopolitics of Cambodia’s e-entry into an international state system.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 296-320.