Anthropocene Geopolitics: Globalization, Security, Sustainability

238 Pages·2020·2.066 MB·English

by  Simon Dalby

Anthropocene
Geopolitics
Globalization, Security,
Sustainability
Simon Dalby
University of Ottawa Press
ANTHROPOCENE GEOPOLITICS

ANTHROPOCENE GEOPOLITICS:
Globalization, Security,
Sustainability
Simon Dalby
University of Ottawa Press
2020
The University of Ottawa Press (UOP) is proud to be the oldest of the francophone
university presses in Canada and the oldest bilingual university publisher in North
America. Since 1936, UOP has been “enriching intellectual and cultural discourse”
by producing peer-reviewed and award-winning books in the humanities and social
sciences, in French or in English.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Anthropocene geopolitics : globalization, security, sustainability / Simon Dalby,
Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University.
Names: Dalby, Simon, author.
Series: Politics and public policy (University of Ottawa Press)
Description: Series statement: Politics and public policy | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190238933 | Canadiana (ebook) 2019023895X |
ISBN 9780776628899 (softcover) | ISBN 9780776628882 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9780776631172 (PDF) | ISBN 9780776631189 (EPUB) |
ISBN 9780776631196 (Kindle)
Subjects: LCSH: Geopolitics. | LCSH: Boundaries. | LCSH: Globalization. |
LCSH: Sustainability.
Classification: LCC JC319 .D35 2020 | DDC 320.1/2–dc23
Legal Deposit: First Quarter 2020
Library and Archives Canada
© University of Ottawa Press 2020
Printed and bound in Canada
Copy editing Robert Ferguson
Proofreading Heather Lang
Typesetting Counterpunch Inc.
Cover design Steve Kress
Cover image Oil Fields #1, Belridge, California, USA 2002. photo(s)
© Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.
The University of Ottawa Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its pub-
lishing list by the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario
Arts Council, and the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences through the
Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, and by the University of Ottawa.
In memory of Neil Smith,
geographer, activist, scholar, friend, and inspiration

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ........................................................... ix
1 Geopolitics Revisited ......................................................... 1
2 Scaling up the Human Niche ........................................... 19
3 Planetary Boundaries ........................................................ 33
4 Territory, Security, Mobility ............................................. 55
5 Bordering Sustainability ................................................... 71
6 Securing the Global Economy .......................................... 95
7 Environmental Insecurity .............................................. 115
8 Geopolitics and Globalization ....................................... 131
9 Anthropocene Discourse ................................................ 151
10 Political Geoecology ........................................................ 169
References ......................................................................... 189

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The dedication for this book is to the memory of Neil Smith, a
geographer, activist, and scholar whose critiques of the ideology
of nature in the 1980s first peaked my intellectual curiosity on the
themes that, three decades later, appear throughout this volume. I
wish he had lived so that we could have had further discussions of all
these themes, but nonetheless here, very belatedly, is acknowledge-
ment of my intellectual debt.
In working out the arguments in this book I have benefited
greatly from the Borders in Globalization partnership grant funded
by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
(grant number 895-2012-1022). My thanks to Emmanuel Brunet-
Jailly, the director of the program; Victor Konrad, the associate
director; and Nicole Bates-Eamer, the ever efficient administrator
who coordinated our various diverse investigations of contempo-
rary bordering practices.
The Research Council has provided support to fund graduate
student assistants who have helped in assembling the material that
has gone into this volume. Thanks in particular to Alex Szaflarska,
Derek Orocz, Masaya Llavaneras-Blanco, Clay DaSilva, Rupinder
Mangat, and Alex Suen, graduate students at Wilfrid Laurier, and
at the University of Waterloo for much useful research assistance in
assiduously tracking down key sources in diverse scholarly literatures
and, in Alex Suen’s case, helping compile the bibliography and index.
ix