Rashid's Blog: A Place for Inquisitive Souls

The Dutch have a complex, inescapable relationship with water, which makes them virtual experts in water management, said Chase Rynd, head of the National Building Museum. The ambassador from the Netherlands, Rudolf Bekink, agreed that water has played a huge part in shaping the culture and institutions of his country. Interestingly, though, for a people who are so deeply confident about their system of dykes and sea walls that there is no flood insurance or evacuation plans in place, New Orleans really scared the country. Bekink asked, “Are we as safe as we believe?” To see if they are, the Dutch government recently formed a new Delta Commission. The first was put in place after a flood in the early 50s, which killed nearly 2,000 people. The new commission has found that “with a modest amount of investment, the Dutch don’t have to move to Germany,” as Al Gore once…

My paper “Secure the Volume: Vertical Geopolitics and the Depth of Power” has now been published by Political Geography in their ‘articles in press’ section [open access here]. They’ve not yet posted the responses by Peter Adey and Gavin Bridge but my reply “Bodies, Books, Beneath” is also available. The journal requires a subscription, but if you are having difficulties, please contact me.

Abstract

We all-too-often think of the spaces of geography as areas, not volumes. Territories are bordered, divided and demarcated, but not understood in terms of height and depth. ‘Secure the area’ is a common expression for the military and police, but what happens if another dimension is taken into account and we think what it means to ‘secure the volume’? This article draws on the emergent literature on vertical geopolitics and Peter Sloterdijk’s work on spheres, but also looks at what happens…