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ID:
162266
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| Summary/Abstract |
The human control of fire is a relatively neglected part of the discussion of the contemporary transformation of the planet. Thinking about it in terms of geopolitics is a way to link climate adaptation, extinction and the possibilities of extending traditional analyses of political ecology to the global scale. Such thinking is explicitly rejected as the appropriate premises for foreign policy action by the Trump administration which poses American greatness in terms of traditional understandings of firepower. This clash of geopolitical cultures is now key to global politics, where dramatic landscape transformation, related species extinctions as well as climate change results directly and indirectly from human control of combustion. Firepower is a matter of military technology as well as, in the form of fossil fuel combustion, the essential energy source that fuels the global economy. Focusing on combustion as a key geophysical force in contemporary geopolitics offers useful insights into the Anthropocene discussion and, in particular, the two planetary boundaries of climate change and biodiversity loss, which are key to contemporary efforts at global environmental governance.
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| 2 |
ID:
153525
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper identifies and critically examines the British Interplanetary Society’s geopolitics of outer space from 1933 to 1965, presenting a critical astropolitics of outer space in contributing to the critique of neo-classical astropolitics. The paper identifies three distinct periods in the changing geopolitical outlook of the BIS, the first being the idealist internationalism of the early years of the Society, the second concerning narratives surrounding the formation of the International Astronautical Federation, and the third articulating Commonwealth collaborations in promoting British-led spaceflight research. The paper concludes by suggesting that the early idealism of internationalism in spaceflight research became diminished and contingent by the mid-1960s in the context of the changing geopolitical realities of the post-war period, and argues for increased academic engagement with geopolitical cultures of outer space.
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| 3 |
ID:
178061
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper addresses geopolitical cultures of outer space by examining the selected life and works of Arthur C. Clarke (1918–2008), one of the leading space technology advocates of the twentieth century, in the specific context of his adopted home of Ceylon/Sri Lanka. Within the framework of studies that have connected critical geopolitics and science, further discussions concerning the interface between imperialism, technology and tropicality help demonstrate the relevance of Clarke’s geographical imagination to understanding geopolitical cultures of outer space. Three aspects of Clarke’s life and works are examined: First, his underwater exploration activities in Ceylon from the late 1950s to the early 1970s; second, his 1979 Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel The Fountains of Paradise; and finally, his promotion of Sri Lanka as a future hub of outer space technologies in the early 1980s. The paper suggests that geopolitical readings of outer space can be understood through investigating diverse aspects of place, landscape and identity.
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