Geopolitics and geopower: rethinking the links between space and life in the anthropocene

Geopolitics and geopower: rethinking the links between space and life in the anthropocene

Brice Perombelon (University of Oxford)

Climate change has transformed the nature of the relationships between the environment and human security. Here, geopolitics is being rekindled into a system of political practices that aim to control geophysical processes. It has become as such a narrative that enable the use of nature against and for peoples. It is indeed now not only an instrument of domination (epitomised in the debate which identifies climate change as a security threat) but also a medium for future emancipation (as underpinned by the literature on ecological-postcolonial geopolitics). For some, geopower, has thus become a trademark of the anthropocene, embodying the ability of the earth to influence societies but also to be shaped and transformed by human activities. This papers’ session will seek to understand this new reality. Drawing from an interdisciplinary approach, It seeks to bring together scholars in political, social, environmental and anthropological geography to investigate how geopolitics can be thought in terms that better suit and respond to the challenges brought by environmental change. Presentations that offer alternative understandings of geopolitics, particularly from post/de/anti-colonial and non-western epistemologies, are encouraged.