Key publications
Woodyer T, Carter S (2020). Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play.
Geopolitics,
25(5), 1050-1074.
Abstract:
Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play
In this paper, we take the emergence of the Her Majesty’s Armed Forces toy range in 2009 as a starting point for thinking through the domestication of geopolitics through practices of play. Empirically, the paper draws upon substantive, innovative and original research undertaken with children in their homes, via a series of play ethnographies; conceptually, the paper draws upon the notion of ‘domestication’ and argues that ideas from these literatures might be usefully adopted as a means of reconfiguring popular geopolitics. In so doing, we argue not only that toys, games and play warrant much greater attention as forms of popular geopolitics, but also that the idea of domestication has much to offer wider conceptions and framings around popular geopolitics itself. The paper thus advances claims for a significant reformulation of popular geopolitics as an encounter between texts, objects, bodies and practices. More specifically, the rich ambiguity of the observed practices emerging from our play-centred ethnographic approach speaks clearly to the need to avoid prioritising the public over the private, cultural producers over audience, and the discursive over the affective in our theorisations of domestication. While we should be attentive to the highly orchestrated practices of anticipating domesticity and the multiple sites of geographical production assembled though these practices, we should not ignore the excess inherent within the incomplete, experimental process of domestication.
Abstract.
Carter S, Woodyer T (2020). Introduction: Domesticating Geopolitics. Geopolitics, 25(5), 1045-1049.
Carter SR, Dodds K (2014). International Politics and Film: Space, Vision, Power., University of Columbia Press.
Carter SR, Dodds K (2011). Hollywood and the 'War on Terror': Genre-geopolitics and 'Jacksonianism' in the Kingdom.
Environment & Planning D: Society & Space,
29(1), 98-113.
Abstract:
Hollywood and the 'War on Terror': Genre-geopolitics and 'Jacksonianism' in the Kingdom
This paper explores the popular geopolitics of Hollywood cinema in the years since the terror attacks on New York & Washington on September 11th 2001. During this time there has been a surprisingly varied and wide-ranging output of mainstream US movies that take either 9/11, or the consequential ‘war on terror’, as their primary context. In the paper we look at one such film in particular, the 2007 film ‘The Kingdom’, directed by Peter Berg. Set in Saudi Arabia, the film centres around an FBI-led investigation into a terrorist attack on an American civilian compound. In discussing the narrative and discursive elements of the film, and their relationship to the geopolitics of the ‘war on terror’, we also seek to build upon recent conceptual developments in the field of popular geopolitics. In particular, we argue that a greater recognition and understanding of the visuality of the geopolitics of film is required. We do this in two main ways. First, we suggest that attention needs to be paid to the ways in which images in films are put together. Here we use the notion of montage to show how film produces imaginative maps of connectivity, that in this context bear relation to the production of a series of ‘extra-territorialities’ in the war on terror. Second, we contend that greater attention to the notion of genre (in this case the action-thriller) can provide productive forms of analysis. More specifically we argue that the action-thriller genre has certain political tendencies, especially towards what has been termed Jacksonianism.
Abstract.
Carter SR, McCormack DP (2010). Affectivity and Geopolitical Images. In Dodds, K, Hughes, R, McDonald, F (Eds.) Observant States: Geopolitics & Visual Culture, London: IB Tauris.
Carter SR, McCormack DP (2006). Film, Geopolitics and the Affective Logics of Intervention. Political Geography, 25(2), 228-245.
Publications by category
Books
Carter SR, Dodds K (2014). International Politics and Film: Space, Vision, Power., University of Columbia Press.
Brace C, Bailey AR, Harvey DC, Thomas N, Carter S (eds)(2011). Emerging Geographies of Belief. UK, Cambridge Scholars.
Journal articles
Featherstone D, Carter S, Sylvester C, Belcher O, Rogers A, Ingram A (2022). REVIEW FORUM Reading Alan Ingram’s Geopolitics and the Event: Rethinking Britain’s Iraq War Through Art, RGS-IBG Book Series 2019 Wiley Blackwell Chichester 224 bibliog.; index ISBN 9781119426059 £24.99. Political Geography, 95
Woodyer T, Carter S (2020). Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play.
Geopolitics,
25(5), 1050-1074.
Abstract:
Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play
In this paper, we take the emergence of the Her Majesty’s Armed Forces toy range in 2009 as a starting point for thinking through the domestication of geopolitics through practices of play. Empirically, the paper draws upon substantive, innovative and original research undertaken with children in their homes, via a series of play ethnographies; conceptually, the paper draws upon the notion of ‘domestication’ and argues that ideas from these literatures might be usefully adopted as a means of reconfiguring popular geopolitics. In so doing, we argue not only that toys, games and play warrant much greater attention as forms of popular geopolitics, but also that the idea of domestication has much to offer wider conceptions and framings around popular geopolitics itself. The paper thus advances claims for a significant reformulation of popular geopolitics as an encounter between texts, objects, bodies and practices. More specifically, the rich ambiguity of the observed practices emerging from our play-centred ethnographic approach speaks clearly to the need to avoid prioritising the public over the private, cultural producers over audience, and the discursive over the affective in our theorisations of domestication. While we should be attentive to the highly orchestrated practices of anticipating domesticity and the multiple sites of geographical production assembled though these practices, we should not ignore the excess inherent within the incomplete, experimental process of domestication.
Abstract.
Carter S, Woodyer T (2020). Introduction: Domesticating Geopolitics. Geopolitics, 25(5), 1045-1049.
Kirby P, Carter SR, Woodyer T (2014). More than Child's Play?. History Today, 64(12), 20-27.
Carter SR, Dodds K (2011). Hollywood and the 'War on Terror': Genre-geopolitics and 'Jacksonianism' in the Kingdom.
Environment & Planning D: Society & Space,
29(1), 98-113.
Abstract:
Hollywood and the 'War on Terror': Genre-geopolitics and 'Jacksonianism' in the Kingdom
This paper explores the popular geopolitics of Hollywood cinema in the years since the terror attacks on New York & Washington on September 11th 2001. During this time there has been a surprisingly varied and wide-ranging output of mainstream US movies that take either 9/11, or the consequential ‘war on terror’, as their primary context. In the paper we look at one such film in particular, the 2007 film ‘The Kingdom’, directed by Peter Berg. Set in Saudi Arabia, the film centres around an FBI-led investigation into a terrorist attack on an American civilian compound. In discussing the narrative and discursive elements of the film, and their relationship to the geopolitics of the ‘war on terror’, we also seek to build upon recent conceptual developments in the field of popular geopolitics. In particular, we argue that a greater recognition and understanding of the visuality of the geopolitics of film is required. We do this in two main ways. First, we suggest that attention needs to be paid to the ways in which images in films are put together. Here we use the notion of montage to show how film produces imaginative maps of connectivity, that in this context bear relation to the production of a series of ‘extra-territorialities’ in the war on terror. Second, we contend that greater attention to the notion of genre (in this case the action-thriller) can provide productive forms of analysis. More specifically we argue that the action-thriller genre has certain political tendencies, especially towards what has been termed Jacksonianism.
Abstract.
Carter SR, Obrador P (2010). Art, politics, memory: 'Tactical Tourisme' and the Route of Anarchy in Barcelona. Cultural Geographies
Carter SR (2009). Geopolitics and the Screen: Film, bodies, violence. Geopolitics, 14(4).
Carter SR (2007). Mobilising generosity, framing geopolitics: Narrating crisis in the homeland through diasporic media. Geoforum, 36(8), 1102-1112.
Carter SR, McCormack DP (2006). Film, Geopolitics and the Affective Logics of Intervention. Political Geography, 25(2), 228-245.
Carter SR (2005). The Geopolitics of Diaspora. Area, 37(1), 54-63.
Chapters
Carter S, Woodyer T (2023). Childhood, playing war, and militarism: beyond discourses of domination/resistance and towards an ethics of encounter. In Beier JM, Berents H (Eds.) Children, Childhoods, and Global Politics, Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Woodyer T, Carter S (2023). Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play. In (Ed) Domesticating Geopolitics, 6-30.
Woodyer T, Martin D, Carter S (2016). Ludic Geographies. In (Ed) Play and Recreation, Health and Wellbeing, 17-33.
Carter SR, Kirby P, Woodyer T (2015). Ludic - or playful - geopolitics. In Benwell M, Hopkins P (Eds.) Children, Young People and Critical Geopolitics, Ashgate.
Woodyer T, Martin D, Carter SR (2015). Ludic Geographies. In Horton J, Evans B (Eds.) Geographies of Children and Young People, Springer.
Carter SR, McCormack DP (2010). Affectivity and Geopolitical Images. In Dodds, K, Hughes, R, McDonald, F (Eds.) Observant States: Geopolitics & Visual Culture, London: IB Tauris.
Carter SR (2009). Popular Geopolitics: Seeing, Feeling, Knowing. In Drobik T, Sumberova M (Eds.) Chapters of Modern Human Geographical Thought, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 63-78.
Carter SR (2004). Mobilising Hrvatsko: Tourism and Politics in the Croatian Diaspora. In Coles TE, Timothy DJ (Eds.) Tourism, Diasporas and Space: travels to promised lands, Routledge, 188-201.
Publications by year
2023
Carter S, Woodyer T (2023). Childhood, playing war, and militarism: beyond discourses of domination/resistance and towards an ethics of encounter. In Beier JM, Berents H (Eds.) Children, Childhoods, and Global Politics, Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Woodyer T, Carter S (2023). Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play. In (Ed) Domesticating Geopolitics, 6-30.
2022
Featherstone D, Carter S, Sylvester C, Belcher O, Rogers A, Ingram A (2022). REVIEW FORUM Reading Alan Ingram’s Geopolitics and the Event: Rethinking Britain’s Iraq War Through Art, RGS-IBG Book Series 2019 Wiley Blackwell Chichester 224 bibliog.; index ISBN 9781119426059 £24.99. Political Geography, 95
2020
Woodyer T, Carter S (2020). Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play.
Geopolitics,
25(5), 1050-1074.
Abstract:
Domesticating the Geopolitical: Rethinking Popular Geopolitics through Play
In this paper, we take the emergence of the Her Majesty’s Armed Forces toy range in 2009 as a starting point for thinking through the domestication of geopolitics through practices of play. Empirically, the paper draws upon substantive, innovative and original research undertaken with children in their homes, via a series of play ethnographies; conceptually, the paper draws upon the notion of ‘domestication’ and argues that ideas from these literatures might be usefully adopted as a means of reconfiguring popular geopolitics. In so doing, we argue not only that toys, games and play warrant much greater attention as forms of popular geopolitics, but also that the idea of domestication has much to offer wider conceptions and framings around popular geopolitics itself. The paper thus advances claims for a significant reformulation of popular geopolitics as an encounter between texts, objects, bodies and practices. More specifically, the rich ambiguity of the observed practices emerging from our play-centred ethnographic approach speaks clearly to the need to avoid prioritising the public over the private, cultural producers over audience, and the discursive over the affective in our theorisations of domestication. While we should be attentive to the highly orchestrated practices of anticipating domesticity and the multiple sites of geographical production assembled though these practices, we should not ignore the excess inherent within the incomplete, experimental process of domestication.
Abstract.
Carter S, Woodyer T (2020). Introduction: Domesticating Geopolitics. Geopolitics, 25(5), 1045-1049.
2016
Woodyer T, Martin D, Carter S (2016). Ludic Geographies. In (Ed) Play and Recreation, Health and Wellbeing, 17-33.
2015
Carter SR, Kirby P, Woodyer T (2015). Ludic - or playful - geopolitics. In Benwell M, Hopkins P (Eds.) Children, Young People and Critical Geopolitics, Ashgate.
Woodyer T, Martin D, Carter SR (2015). Ludic Geographies. In Horton J, Evans B (Eds.) Geographies of Children and Young People, Springer.
2014
Carter SR, Dodds K (2014). International Politics and Film: Space, Vision, Power., University of Columbia Press.
Kirby P, Carter SR, Woodyer T (2014). More than Child's Play?. History Today, 64(12), 20-27.
2011
Brace C, Bailey AR, Harvey DC, Thomas N, Carter S (eds)(2011). Emerging Geographies of Belief. UK, Cambridge Scholars.
Carter SR, Dodds K (2011). Hollywood and the 'War on Terror': Genre-geopolitics and 'Jacksonianism' in the Kingdom.
Environment & Planning D: Society & Space,
29(1), 98-113.
Abstract:
Hollywood and the 'War on Terror': Genre-geopolitics and 'Jacksonianism' in the Kingdom
This paper explores the popular geopolitics of Hollywood cinema in the years since the terror attacks on New York & Washington on September 11th 2001. During this time there has been a surprisingly varied and wide-ranging output of mainstream US movies that take either 9/11, or the consequential ‘war on terror’, as their primary context. In the paper we look at one such film in particular, the 2007 film ‘The Kingdom’, directed by Peter Berg. Set in Saudi Arabia, the film centres around an FBI-led investigation into a terrorist attack on an American civilian compound. In discussing the narrative and discursive elements of the film, and their relationship to the geopolitics of the ‘war on terror’, we also seek to build upon recent conceptual developments in the field of popular geopolitics. In particular, we argue that a greater recognition and understanding of the visuality of the geopolitics of film is required. We do this in two main ways. First, we suggest that attention needs to be paid to the ways in which images in films are put together. Here we use the notion of montage to show how film produces imaginative maps of connectivity, that in this context bear relation to the production of a series of ‘extra-territorialities’ in the war on terror. Second, we contend that greater attention to the notion of genre (in this case the action-thriller) can provide productive forms of analysis. More specifically we argue that the action-thriller genre has certain political tendencies, especially towards what has been termed Jacksonianism.
Abstract.
2010
Carter SR, McCormack DP (2010). Affectivity and Geopolitical Images. In Dodds, K, Hughes, R, McDonald, F (Eds.) Observant States: Geopolitics & Visual Culture, London: IB Tauris.
Carter SR, Obrador P (2010). Art, politics, memory: 'Tactical Tourisme' and the Route of Anarchy in Barcelona. Cultural Geographies
2009
Carter SR (2009). Geopolitics and the Screen: Film, bodies, violence. Geopolitics, 14(4).
Carter SR (2009). Popular Geopolitics: Seeing, Feeling, Knowing. In Drobik T, Sumberova M (Eds.) Chapters of Modern Human Geographical Thought, Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 63-78.
2007
Carter SR (2007). Mobilising generosity, framing geopolitics: Narrating crisis in the homeland through diasporic media. Geoforum, 36(8), 1102-1112.
2006
Carter SR, McCormack DP (2006). Film, Geopolitics and the Affective Logics of Intervention. Political Geography, 25(2), 228-245.
2005
Carter SR (2005). The Geopolitics of Diaspora. Area, 37(1), 54-63.
2004
Carter SR (2004). Mobilising Hrvatsko: Tourism and Politics in the Croatian Diaspora. In Coles TE, Timothy DJ (Eds.) Tourism, Diasporas and Space: travels to promised lands, Routledge, 188-201.