Please check: Education
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
"Dictionnaire de l’espace politique", with Michel Bussi, Gérard Dussouy and André-Louis Sanguin, Armand Colin, 2008.
"Le nettoyage ethnique. Terreur et peuplement", Ellipse, 2006.
"Géographie politique et géopolitique. Une grammaire de l’espace politique", Ellipses, 2003 (second version: 2007).
Stéphane Rosière holds a PhD in Geography and is currently Professor at Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne (France).
Moreover, he is member of the Steering Committee of the Commission on Political Geography of the IGU/UGI and editor-in-chief of the online journal L'Espace Politique:
The "Geopolitical Passport" series aims to humanise geopolitics by offering geopolitical specialists an opportunity to give their views on this discipline. The interviews address issues such as the rational behind their decision to conduct geopolitical research, their favourite books and their expectations regarding the geopolitical future.
I discovered geopolitics when I was student (bachelor degree) in the geography departement of the University of Nantes. One of my teachers taught me Epistemology of geography and discussed various branches of the discipline. Among these branches was Geopolitics. I knew right away that this was my topic. As a matter of fact, as a child, I always drew imaginary maps full of borders and geopolitical tensions... and only this really interested me. Nonetheless, before the lectures on geopolitics, I had not known that this discipline existed. The lectures were some sort of epiphany: I found my future career in the time I need to "snap my fingers" (as we say in French).
Second fact, the geopolitics was nearly not teached at this time in France (the beginning of the 1980’s). Only Yves Lacoste did it in Paris. The luck was that one of my teacher (Nicole Sztokman) wrote me a recommandation letter for this famous Professor and he agreed me in his Master degree class during the next year. So the adventure started.
I have always worked on the topics of social and political violence, and justice. However, I have never used the expression "spatial justice" in my work.
The subject of my PhD thesis was "Hungarian minorities in Central Europe". I described the boundaries ‘game’ in this region using a classical approach of Geopolitics. Furthermore, the PhD addressed the related oppression of the peoples in nationalist states since the signature of the Trianon treaty (1920). The historical dimension was rather importantin this work. In fact, is it possible to deal with geopolitics forgetting time and social dynamics?
Later, during my specific research to get my "Habilitation à diriger les recherches" (accreditation to supervise research — in the French academic system this certicate aims to become full professor) I chose the topic "ethnic cleansing", a more evident kind of political violence. It was quite hard to get the stomach to work on this field but I discovered with interest the spatial logics of this politics.
Today, I am interested in "walls" and situations where boundaries function as barriers. "Walls" (or fences) are obvious forms of coercion against poor migrants and concrete proof that the idea of ‘free movement’ of people is a simplification if not a lie concerning the modalities of globalization.
Three points may be underlined:
I truly regret that none of these books have aroused an interest among Anglo-Saxon publishers as they have no equivalent in English. Of course there exist various (and good) handbooks of Geopolitics or Political Geography, so I understand that my own handbook remains untranslated. It is more difficult to understand why an original dictionary like the "Dictionnaire de l’espace politique " would not interest the Anglo-Saxon public. I would say that as a French author, it is rather hard to enter this market, it feels like hitting a wall!
Geopolitics "deals with space as an objective" — "considère l’espace comme un enjeu" (Rosière, 2003). This large definition allows to deal with various problems at any scale. Many definitions of Geopolitics focus too much on the upper (international) scale. This approach makes it hard to differentiate between geopolitics and International Relations. This is especiallly true for the realist ‘school’ if, indeed, it deals with states politics. In fact, as a geographer, I can underline the ‘multiscalar’ dimension of geopolitics. Land use planning or regional delimitations are for instance important geopolitical matters which are often underestimated.
The (unknown) French geographer Alain Reynaud. He has developed a wise theory of ‘socio-spatial classes’ which has influenced geographers such as Jacques Lévy (one of the most famous French geographers).
In the same field I can mention David Harvey, but also Immanuel Wallerstein who is not a geographer but set up a very useful geopolitical theory of domination. To my mind Wallerstein is the more important contemporary geopolitician (but I am not sure I would appreciate the compliment!).
Finally, I can suggest Kevin Cox whose theoretical work is ambitious and so friendly. We co-edited a book together: "Penser l’espace politique" (S. Rosière, K. Cox, C. Vacchiani-Marcuzzo, C. Dahlman, eds., Paris, Ellipse, 2009). This book has neither been translated into English...
"The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography" (Cox, Low, Robinson, 2008) is very useful for the teacher I am because of its clarity and wide range of topics.
I can further recommend "Critical geopolitics" by Gearoid O’Tuathail as it underlines the key-role of discourses and representations -an often underestimates side of Geopolitics.
The website of the journal L’espace Politique because...I have founded it! When you have a son it is natural to be proud of him. I dedicate a lot of work on it, and its content is entirely free. This free access dimension seems to me very important in a world dominated by the free-market logics and the profitability of thinking. Knowledge is not merchandise!
Probably in the direction of economical matters. Economy is a key dimension of imperialism and so a key dimension of Geopolitics. This does not mean that the physical violence will vanish. Economy "is a mere continuation of politics by other means" to paraphrase Clausewitz. Only casualties change: peasants, unskilled workers, temporary employees and all unnecessary human beings in neo-liberal logics... Today the concept of Third World is often considered as old-fashioned, I don’t agree. The Third World (as translation of "Tiers-État" in French: those who are not allowed to express) still exists and is growing up!
The growing number of poor people on earth, the impoverishment of the majority of the population, the lies of the so-called ‘liberal’ system, the endless fight against imperialism and domination logics. After all, we geopoliticians must not forget that we were the tools of imperialism (Haushofer, Spykman and so on). We have a debt vis-à-vis mankind, in this perspective we have to deconstruct the domination discourses and spatial logics to allow emancipation and spatial justice.
Mass poverty and the related crisis to come.