Vital Geopolitics is the study of international relations from the perspective of life itself. Colonialism and neoliberalism are not only economic forces, they shape social reproduction and the geography of labour power. Viewed in this way, demography and gender, famine and migration, intellectual property and extortion, suicide and capital punishment share a profound set of mutual determinants. Tracing marginality as a set of biological relations reveals some of the links between, for example, primitive accumulation and the Anthropocene.
Gerry Kearns is Professor of Human Geography at Maynooth University, Ireland, and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. His is the author of Geopolitics and Empire (Oxford University Press 2009) and co-editor of Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis (Royal Irish Academy 2014).
WHEN: Tuesday, 18 September 2018
TIME: 15:00 to 16:30
VENUE: Studio 3, Environmental and Geographical Science Building, Upper Campus, UCT