Subject, Silence, Narrative, Humor, Family, No Borders: Six Openings to Critical Political Geography Kirsi Pauliina Kallio

Abstract

Critical political geography is not best described as a subfield but, rather, a multi-dimensional discussion where human geographers and scholars from neighboring disciplines debate politically and geographically relevant topical issues, approaches and theories with a critical attitude. Hence, in principle, a singular ‘proper’ critical political geography does not exist. However, like in every research area, certain conventions and threads of discussion have become established in time, leaving others more marginal. This means that if not explicitly discussed, the meanings of ‘critical’, ‘political’ and ‘geographical’ run the risk of becoming stagnant and new openings will be even harder to make. This series of interventions sets out to enliven the debate on the scope of critical political geography by introducing six themes that the authors find missing or on the sidelines in the current research. These include the political subject as an analytical starting point; socio-cultural silence and its situated nature in transcultural belonging; narrative methodologies in the study of everyday politics; humor as social practice and coping strategy; family as a theoretical and empirical allocation of biopolitical government; and the legitimacy of border control in the politics of mobility and migration. We hope that the series will inspire scholarship on these and other emerging themes that are significant to the present and future study of critical political geography.