Poles, blocs, worlds, and civilisations : geopolitics beyond the State

Abstract

The efforts of Russian propagandists to portray the invasion of Ukraine as a conflict between "Eurasian" and "Atlantic" blocs signals the vitality of trans-state and super-state affiliations in the political imagination of intellectuals and activists in our times. In the past, empire was one way of extending power across space and cultural difference; today the nation-state, with its emphasis on cultural commonality and territorial fixity, is considered the standard unit of sovereignty. But political thinkers have for many centuries developed other kinds of projects for expanding political affiliation across large spaces. This talk explores different ways of conceptualising affinity and difference in a world that has been and remains connected and unequal.