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A genealogy of military geographies: Complicities, entanglements, and legacies
Author(s) -
Forsyth Isla
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
geography compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.587
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 1749-8198
DOI - 10.1111/gec3.12422
Subject(s) - discipline , biopower , politics , historical geography , critical geography , sociology , human geography , geography , environmental ethics , social science , political science , law , philosophy
This paper argues that historical geography is particularly well positioned to make insightful contributions to military geographies and critical military studies more broadly because of its commitment to critically exploring the genealogies and consequences of military violence, which are too often seen as a given or historically non‐contingent. This is demonstrated by a review of existing literature which variously acknowledges the emergence of disciplinary geography in concert with the modern military, traces the contributions of geographers to and their entanglements with the military, and accounts for the complicities, consequences, and legacies of military activities and violence through a historical lens. The paper reveals how historical geography exposes the knowledges, technologies, and lives that produce and are shaped by military activities as being spatially and temporally specific. Further, it suggests future directions for historical geography that would extend and expand the discipline's attempts to more fully acknowledge the place of military geographies in our histories, politics, spatialities, cultures, and everyday lives.