Geopolitics Of Knowledge Research Articles

As teorias da integração regional

Este texto é uma resenha do livro “Las teorías de la Integración regional: más allá del eurocentrismo” escrito por Briceño Ruiz e publicado em 2018 pelo “Centro de Pensamiento Global”. O livro representa o coroamento da evolução das ideias desse autor, em que ele não só valoriza as práxis e as teorias do Sul Global, como também expressa a sua crítica às interpretações e aplicações acríticas da teoria europeia no entendimento de outras iniciativas de integração regional nos levando a crer que esta obra represente um ponto de interseção entre a disciplina de Regionalismo Internacional e o movimento vanguardista decolonial que também questiona o eurocentrismo a partir da Geopolítica do Conhecimento e Colonização do Saber.

Politics of the ‘South’: Discourses and praxis

The introduction ‘Politics of the “South”’ refers simultaneously to the thematic focus of the special issue on political discourse studies in the southern hemisphere as well as a theoretical focus on the geopolitics of academic knowledge production and exchange. In the first part, concerns regarding the geopolitics of knowledge in the social sciences generally and linguistics particularly, and the problematic nature of the conceptual categories of the Global ‘South’ and ‘North’ are discussed. Following this, the concept of the ‘South’ as ‘an ex-centric locus of enunciation and praxis’ is advanced, and explained in terms of critical reflexivity and transformation of epistemic attitudes and practices. In the second part, five studies on political discourse analysis from selected areas in the Global South (Taiwan, Thailand, Colombia, Ghana, and Cuba and Mexico) are described through a southern lens. The aim is to highlight what these studies reveal about political discourses and practices in and of the South, as well as how they contribute to the wider knowledge ecology of critical political discourse studies.

Geopolítica crítica: alcances, límites y aportes para los estudios internacionales en Sudamérica

Este artículo tiene por objetivo discutir, en términos epistemológicos, teóricos y metodológicos, el concepto de geopolítica crítica y su vinculación con los estudios internacionales. Así, se analizarán los alcances, límites y aportes del concepto, comparando entre los postulados clásicos y críticos de la geopolítica, y estableciendo un vínculo con la realidad sudamericana, región en la que el conocimiento geopolítico ha tenido un desarrollo relevante. Se concluye que es necesaria la vinculación entre la noción clásica y crítica de la geopolítica, con el objetivo de lograr una actualización de los postulados de la disciplina que priman en Sudamérica.

Poetics and the geopolitics of knowledge: From colonial to global

ABSTRACTThis article examines the critical operation proposed in the “Diaspolinks” project (supported by a number of institutions including the University of Edinburgh), and attempts to assess its original contribution, and the general conditions for critique, in the context of the globalized epistemic regime now governing contemporary academia. The concern is the praxis of scholarship required if a new modality of critique is to be re-imagined – especially in the case of the humanities, largely singled out for devitalization in the global university. The study argues for a powerful rehistoricization of “literature”, one of the humanities’ key objects, and helps to develop a new critical edge to the “normal science” of literary study, including the dominant paradigm of postcolonial studies. Taking its cue from the translational quality of colonial history, the argument suggests a comparative critique of postcolonial theory, and a reassessment of the prevalent analysis of power which postcolonial studies have provided in the humanities since the 1980s.

Historical reflections at the intersection of past and future: Celebrating 50 years of Management Learning

Management Learning marks its 50th anniversary in 2020. The journal has a long history of publishing critical, reflexive scholarship on organizational learning and knowledge. This Special Issue is a forum to celebrate and build on this history through critical and reflective engagement with the past, present and future of management learning, knowledge and education. In particular, the Special Issue guest editors reflect on the future of Management Learning and outline the importance of learning from the history of and history in management learning, on reflexivity, on the archive and on the geopolitics of knowledge.

The Geopolitical Production of Trust Discourses in Finland: Perspectives from the Finnish-Russian Border

ABSTRACTThis article investigates the formation of trust discourses in Finland towards the Finnish-Russian border. The concept of trust has been neglected in previous border studies literature although it is a significant factor in de- and re-bordering processes. Trust is conceptualized as a social practice which derives from actor relations over time. The article investigates the impact of the Ukrainian crisis on Finnish trust perceptions towards Russia and identifies key discourses of trust informing geopolitical knowledge production. The research material consists of newspaper articles and ten semi-structured interviews with Finnish cross-border cooperation actors who operate under the European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI) at the Finnish-Russian border in South and North Karelia. The material is analyzed using a critical geopolitics approach by identifying professional discourses of trust. The research suggests that trust in the local North and South Karelian border regions is based on a complex assemblage of discourses which derive from a geopolitical knowledge production informed by the shared border. This is a continuous practice of various actors negotiating the interlinkage of trust and threat.

The Strange Geographies of the ‘New State Capitalism’

The recent polymorphism of state intervention and attendant political geographies have been interpreted as a return of state capitalism. While commentators across the social sciences have offered competing characterizations of the new state capitalism, little attention has been dedicated to how narratives and geographical imaginaries of the new state capitalism operate as a form of geopolitical knowledge and practice. Drawing upon critical geopolitics, we make three main arguments. First, we examine the context of wider geopolitical and geo-economic shifts in which the social construction of the geo-category has happened. We contend that the emerging new spatiality of the global economy has prompted the need for new discursive frames and geopolitical lines of reasoning. Second, we argue that this need is fulfilled by the geo-category state capitalism, which acts as a powerful tool in categorizing and hierarchizing the spaces of world politics. It does so by reinstituting a simple narrative of competition between two easily identifiable protagonists – (Western) democratic free-market capitalism and its deviant ‘other’, (Eastern) authoritarian state capitalism – and by reactivating older geopolitical grand narratives. Third, the geo-category state capitalism allows Western business and state actors to justify tougher policy stances in three areas: foreign policy; trade, technology, and investment regulation; and international development.

La organización del conocimiento como proceso: la movilización del conocimiento | A organização do conhecimento de uma perspectiva sistêmica e a mobilização do conhecimento | Knowledge organization as a process: mobilization of knowledge

ABSTRACT The text presents a grading exercise of the organization of knowledge in four perspectives: its organization as an object, as a structure, as a system or as a process. Some characteristics are described and some strengths and weaknesses of the first three are analyzed to present the category of knowledge mobilization as a proposal for the development of the fourth perspective related to the organization of the Knowledge as a process. The potential of this category is argued, leaning on complex thinking, to link the dynamic nature of knowledge with its practical application aimed at social transformation. Keywords : Knowledge Organization; Knowledge Mobilization; Complex Thought; Geopolitics of Knowledge.

Maritime Commercial Empires and Land Territorial Empires in the Black Sea Region

The research I conduct is focused on establishing and describing the major patterns of international interaction in the Black Sea region which have repeatedly occurred throughout history, based on two main criteria: the major players acting in the region (extra-Pontic maritime commercial empires; northern Pontic land territorial empires; southern Pontic land territorial empires) and the relations developed between them (confrontation; cooperation). For achieving this goal of enhancing the historical and geopolitical knowledge of the Black Sea region, a preceding analysis of its geographical position and its key physical features (the ‘board’), of its geoeconomic and geopolitical characteristics (the ‘stake’), as well as of its key strategic points (the ‘trump cards’) is needed. This analysis is carried out in the present paper, while the description of the patterns and the comparison with the current situation and developments in the region shall be tackled in a subsequent paper.
 Key words:Black Sea, geopolitics, history, empires, land, maritime

Pashto Border Literature as Geopolitical Knowledge

ABSTRACTIn this article I read a selection of Pashto literatures against the grain of world history, as critical thought about geopolitics. Drawing on Michael Shapiro’s concept of aesthetic subjects, as well as on border theory, I argue that the authors, the content, and the literary networks of these works all critically comment on global relations of power, ranging from the local bordering effects of geopolitics, to systems of knowledge embedded in the spatiality and temporality of empire. I argue that past and current imperial processes have led to fragmenting effects in Afghan society, and literature both reflects and analyses this. More than that, though, I argue – using the lives of authors as well as their work – that literary activity in Pashto has actively negotiated such processes throughout its recent history, and offers strategies for different notions of global connectivity. The decentralized and multiperspective images of life in these works sit in counterpoint not only to the systems-oriented views that drive military and other policy in Afghanistan during the on-going US moment, but also to universalist perspectives upon which disciplines like world history and geopolitics have traditionally relied. This contributes to the aesthetic turn in IR by arguing that it is not only the aesthetic vision in works that can challenge dominant forms of knowledge: the shape of the Pashto literary formation itself, organic with its contents, is an alternate form of knowledge-in-practice about the contemporary world.

Decoloniality and Phenomenology: The Geopolitics of Knowing and Epistemic/Ontological Colonial Differences

ABSTRACT I attempt a dialogue between phenomenology (Husserl) and decoloniality (Quijano), understanding that both are theoretical frames by means of which transcendental phenomenology and the lifeworld, on the one hand, and modernity/coloniality, on the other, came into being. Phenomenology and transcendental consciousness/lifeworld are mutually constitutive. One cannot exist without the other; and so it is for the mutual constitution of decoloniality and modernity/coloniality. There cannot be modernity/coloniality without decoloniality, and vice versa. The axis around which the dialogue I attempt here turns is the geopolitics of knowledge and colonial difference, structuring and ranking all spheres of life.

Digital Humanities and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

In this article I briefly discuss the connections between the geopolitical scenario emerging from the creation of the BRICS New Development Bank, and the digitization of languages and cultures carried out in a substantially Anglophone-driven economic and technological context. The appearance of the new BRICS bank, and especially the plan for an “independent Internet” are not only challenging the financial system, but in the long-run could also affect the current digital knowledge monopolies, activating new ways to encode and decode cultural objects, and challenge present digital standards. Digital Humanists, on all levels, are called upon to react to this developing geopolitical scenario, asking themselves questions about political representation and cultural diversity, encoding standards, digital infrastructures and linguistic hegemonies. An old equilibrium based on unequal power relationships is perhaps close to an end, and this is a unique time and opportunity to create a genuinely democratic and international scholarly community. Dans cet article, je discute brievement des liens entre le scenario geopolitique qui emerge de la creation de la nouvelle banque de developpement des pays du BRICS, et la numerisation des langues et des cultures realisee dans un contexte economique et technologique essentiellement anglophone. L’apparition de la nouvelle banque des BRICS et en particulier le projet d’un « internet independant », remet en question non seulement le systeme financier, mais a long terme pourrait aussi toucher les monopoles de connaissances numeriques actuelles, en mettant en oeuvre de nouveaux moyens d’encoder de decoder les objets culturels, et remettre en cause les normes numeriques actuelles. Les humanistes numeriques, a tous les niveaux, sont invites a reagir au sujet de ce scenario geopolitique emergent, et a se poser des questions au sujet de la representation politique et la diversite culturelle, les normes d’encodage, les infrastructures numeriques et les hegemonies linguistiques. Un ancien equilibre fonde sur des relations de pouvoir inegales est peut-etre pres de prendre fin, et il s’agit d’une periode et d’une occasion unique de creer une communaute erudite veritablement democratique et internationale. Mots-cles: geopolitique (de connaissances); BRICS; dialogue sud–sud; diversite technologique et culturelle; fiscalite linguistique

INTERCULTURALIDADE CRÍTICA E DECOLONIALIDADE DA EDUCAÇÃO SUPERIOR

Pretende-se, no presente texto, refletir e promover um debate sobre a decolonialidade da educaçãosuperior numa relação estreita com a problemática da interculturalidade critica. Muitas propostas de uma "educação decolonizadora" pretendem substituir a natureza da educação ocidental pela educação indígena nativa, substituindo a língua oficial por línguas nativas. Embora louvável, esse esforço fica aquém quando se trata da tarefa de uma decolonialidade profunda e estrutural. Os educadores são formados para reproduzir fielmente a epistemologia dominante, numa matriz institucional e curriculardada e herdada da época colonial, com o desejo de "produzir" cidadãos que respondam ao projeto nacional dominante, ele próprio submetido ao projeto internacional dominante. Uma educação decolonial implica a consciência dos etnocentrismos, androcentrismos e antropocentrismos em praticamente todos os sistemas de educação e modelos epistêmicos. Conferir dignidade ontológica aos povos originários e dignidade epistemológica aos seus saberes contribuirá para a construção de uma nova geopolítica do conhecimento.

Reframing the public sociology debate: Towards collaborative and decolonial praxis

This article presents a critical analysis of Michael Burawoy’s model of public sociology, discussing several of its epistemic and methodological limitations. First, the author focuses on the ambiguity of Burawoy’s proposal, problematizing the absence of a clear delimitation of the concept of ‘public sociology’. Second, the author links the academic success of the category of public sociology to the global division of sociological labour, emphasizing the ‘geopolitics of knowledge’ involved in Burawoy’s work and calling for the decolonization of social science. Then, the author expounds his concerns regarding the hierarchy of the different types of sociology proposed by Burawoy, who privileges professional sociology over other types of sociological praxis. Reflecting upon these elements will provide a good opportunity to observe how our discipline works, advancing also suggestions for its transformation. Along these lines, in the last section of the article the author elaborates on the need to go beyond a dissemination model of public sociology – the unidirectional diffusion of ‘expert knowledge’ to extra-academic audiences – and towards a more collaborative understanding of knowledge production.

“No es sólo una cuestión de lenguaje”: lo inaudible de los estudios feministas latino-americanos en el mundo académico anglosajón

The central thesis of this paper is that feminist studies produced in Latin America are inaudible to Anglo Saxon feminists. In dialogue with the voices of academics from Argentina, Mexico and Colombia, this thesis is elaborated from three perspectives. First, a geopolitics of knowledge that builds singular forms of systematic ignorance versus what happens in Latin America by Anglo-Saxon scholars. Second, the mechanisms by which this systematic ignorance is co-confi gured, on the one hand, by the monetization of the academy in Latin America, particularly through the generation of integrated informational systems to measure knowledge production, and, on the other hand, by the views adopted by some feminist scholars in the region who seek to resist this power relationship to which they are subjected. Third, a diff erent resistance to not listen to the Anglo-Saxon feminist scholars, expressed in the will of weaving cross dialogues, to negotiate, and thus to reconfi gure the exclusion from the canon; a search that is not free of diffi culties and frustrations

Contributors

Contributors

Tourists’ Perception of Dark Tourism and its Impact on their Emotional Experience and Geopolitical Knowledge: A Comparative Study of Local and Non-local Tourist

This study aims to understand the causal relationships between tourists’ perception of dark tourism and its impact on their emotional experience and geopolitical knowledge. This study conducts questionnaire survey at two war museums on Kinmen Island and was able to collect 413 usable responses. The result indicates that tourists who visited a dark tourism site are capable to develop positive emotions and strong geopolitical disposition. They are also more likely to develop empathy. Dark tourism is therefore a wonderful tool for education.

The City Multiple and the Global East (Presentation Slides)

Carving up the world into Global North and Global South has become an established way of thinking about global difference since the end of the Cold War. This binary, however, erases what this paper calls the Global East – those countries and societies that occupy an interstitial position between North and South. This paper problematizes the geopolitics of knowledge that has resulted in the exclusion of the Global East, not just from the Global North and South, but from notions of globality in general. It argues that we need to adopt a strategic essentialism to recover the Global East for scholarship. To that end, it traces the global relations of IKEA’s bevelled drinking glass to demonstrate the urgency of rethinking the Global East at the heart of global connections, rather than separate from them. Thinking such a Global East as a liminal space complicates the notions of North and South towards more inclusive but also more uncertain theorising.

Reading Brand Africa Geopolitically: Nation Branding, Subaltern Geopolitics and the Persistence of Politics

ABSTRACTIn 2010, the ‘Brand Africa’ initiative was launched with the mission to transform perceptions of Africa from a continent of calamities into one of promising economic prospects and entrepreneurial populations. This transformation, ‘Brand Africa’ claims, is one where Africans take their representation from the hands of foreigners and make, through a new image, their own (hi)story. In this respect Brand Africa can be interpreted as a form of subaltern geopolitics seeking to subvert dominant geopolitical knowledge and to fight established structures of domination. However, the article argues its subversive elements are limited, especially when compared to the historical discourses of decolonial pan-Africanism upon which it draws for legitimacy. Indeed, while appropriating this legacy Brand Africa offers up a very different geopolitical vision of possible/desirable African futures. It is argued that this may be accounted for by understanding the extent to which the Brand Africa initiative appears embedded within a South African national context and its own geopolitical ambitions evident within its own nation branding project. What this highlights in turn is that the emancipatory potential and assumed synergies between national and supranational branding central to the Brand Africa initiative are not as unproblematic or uncontested as claimed.

Science and International Relations: Brazil and the Geopolitics of Knowledge

The article seeks to present a new approach to analyse Science and International Relations. Three areas of social theory ought to be examined before a useful synthesis can be made. The article proceeds to study how the disciplines of International Relations, Science and Technology Studies and Critical Geopolitics could be deployed to provide a unique approach to the understanding of the Science and International Relations nexus. Each discipline has unique advantages but also serious limitations when it comes to the provision of a holistic understanding of the issue. For instance, International Relations tends to relate questions on science to the notion of sovereignty, thus limiting research to the effect that science has on the ability of States to act. Science and Technology Studies tend to neglect the role of International Relations in the development of scientific endeavours, whilst Critical Geopolitics has not yet embraced the symbolic power that knowledge generation and deployment techniques have on the successful exploitation of strategic resources. Following this analysis a synthesis entitled "The Geopolitics of Knowledge" will be introduced. This study makes substantial use of Actor-Network Theory as a methodology to analyse the Science and International Relations link from a new perspective. Finally, the article will introduce Brazil as a case study for this multidisciplinary approach.Keywords: Science; Brazil; International Relations; Geopolitics of Knowledge.