The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0761943277 ISBN 13: 9780761943273

Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2007

Synopsis

The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography provides students of the sub-discipline with a highly contextualized and systematic overview of the latest thinking and research. Edited by key scholars, with international contributions from acknowledged authorities on the relevant research, The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography is divided into six sections:Scope and Development of Political Geography; Geographies of the State; Participation and Representation; Political Geographies of Difference; Geography, Policy, and Governance; and Global Political Geographies.

About this title

About the Author:

Murray Low′s research focuses on relationships between geography and democracy including institutional and spatial aspects of elections, changing practices of accountability and legitimacy in cities, and the geography of political party organisations and social movements. His work has dealt with the relationships between global networks and democracy, constructions of globalization and states in geography, and geographical aspects of political representation. He has recently completed research funded by the Leverhulme Foundation into city democratisation in South Africa. He is co-editor of Spaces of Democracy: Geographical Perspectives on Citizenship, Participation and Representation (Sage, 2004), and of The Sage Handbook of Political Geography (Sage, 2008)

Current research builds on my book, Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development (Routledge, 2006) which develops a postcolonial critique of urban studies, presenting resources for cutting across the thinking which has divided understandings of Western and Third World Cities. I argue against perspectives which categorize cities as Global, Third World, Mega, African etc. and suggest instead an attentiveness to the diverse trajectories of ′ordinary cities′. This work has strong implications for the practices of urban studies internationally, and invites a regrounding of comparative urbanism in rigorous practices able to encompass both wealthier and poorer cities so as to generate approaches to understanding cities which are properly international. Future plans include an empirical project to exemplify comparative methods incorporating wealthier and poorer cities, taking as the object of study the ubiquitous technology of developing city strategies and visions. This will also enable an investigation of the international circulation of urban policy to understand how policy arrives in and is adopted or adapted in different localities. The research will press an engagement with analyses of neoliberalism in urban studies to incorporate perspectives from cities in poorer contexts. It contributes to conceptualisations of the spatialities of circulation, reflecting my wider interests in general theoretical accounts of space. Previous research has centred on the relationship between power and space, specifically in cities and mostly in relation to South African politics. For example, I have written on the 1936 Empire Exhibition in Johannesburg to explore spaces of racial interaction in South African cities. I have also written on issues in feminist politics, including questions of difference and methodology, and more recently on the implications of Julia Kristeva′s psychoanalytic writing for feminist theorizations of space. More broadly, I have explored ways of postcolonializing the theoretical and empirical practices of Geography.

Review:

′A thorough and absorbing tour of the sub-discipline... An essential acquisition for any scholar or teacher interested in geographical perspectives on political process, this Handbook is sure to become the major reference work in anglophone political geography′ - Sallie Marston, University of Arizona

′This unique book is a true encyclopedia of political geography... The volume is a result of cooperation between a big international team of well known geographers, including scholars beyond the Anglo-American world′ - Vladimir Kolossov, Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and Vice President of the International Geographical Union

About this edition

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0761943277
• ISBN 13: 9780761943273
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 640
• Editor: COX KEVIN, Low Murray, Robinson Jennifer