Keeping Disaster at Bay: Securing the Climate Threat in “America’s Mediterranean”
The contours of what we refer to as the Caribbean have been indelibly shaped by US empire: fault-lines inscribed in the landscape, as in the Panama Canal; in more classically colonial articulations as US commonwealths; a reach extended through bases, bananas and business. Adopting the analytical lens of ‘securityscape’, I explore 21st century US empire in relation to the construction of a Caribbean climate threat. Taking inspiration from Arjun Appadurai’s notion of ‘scapes’, the suffix ‘scape’ accounts for the multi-perspectival and historically contingent global flows of security: security is neither a fixed nor fundamentally good relation, rather encompassing a shifting constellation of peoples, institutions, and ideas which define, perceive, and govern threat.[1] The relations of coloniality and climate change in the Caribbean are not only embedded in past and present extractions and racist dispossessions, but also in the assumptions guiding the management of climate change. Through the prism of environmental […]
Continue ReadingSpaces of Empire: Two Early Modern Views from both sides of the Atlantic
In order to understand the relationship between empire and space in American history, it is necessary to address the historiographical tendencies and myths of the past four hundred years.[i] Retrospective historiographical myths of the nascent United States, as it sought to establish its own history in the shadow of the mother country, England, need to be distinguished from ideas and practices of empire prior to US independence. The importance of this break between early and late modernity in the history of US nation building and nascent imperial aspirations becomes clear once the historical and theological details are taken into consideration. Two histories of empire from both sides of the early eighteenth-century Atlantic reveal diverging aspirations and conceptions of space and empire at work in the mother country and in early modern New England. It is now widely recognized that early modernity is significant for understanding the later imperial aspirations of […]
Continue ReadingThe Un/Incorporated, Continental, Overseas, Global States of America: The Grammar of Jurisdictional Incongruence in US Imperialism
The notion of the United States as a (and eventually the sole) global power of the 20th and 21st century is a shorthand that seeks to reconcile the United States’ self-fashioned identity as an alleged vanguard of democracy, a proliferator of universal human rights, and an exceptional nation of liberty and peace with the way that this identity is projected and affirmed via violent imperial campaigns and colonial practices across the globe.[1] The fact that Thomas Jefferson foreshadowed this paradoxical identity in his vision of the United States as an “empire of liberty” (cf. Thomas 89) as early as the 1790s, suggests a historical dimension that has shaped the present narrative of a global and benevolent US empire. A thorough and critical reading of contemporary US imperialism necessarily needs to capture this historical dimension of the narrative of US imperialism (cf. Kaplan, “Where is Guantánamo?” 832-34). This longer historical narrative […]
Continue ReadingSummer Camps and US Empire
Imagine the excitement of the more than two hundred adolescent boys, each about to enter the biggest stage of their lives. Selected to represent the Boy Scouts of America abroad, they had crossed the Atlantic in July 1929 to participate in the largest summer camp held at the time: the World Scout Jamboree at Birkenhead, England. Dressed up as native warriors, Spanish conquistadors, gold rush adventurers, and hardy cowboys, the youngsters walked out into a roar of recognition, egged on by the cheers of an estimated twenty thousand spectators, among them diplomats, statesmen, and a flurry of foreign correspondents. The US Scouts’ pageant was the high point of the jamboree ceremonies. As their carnival of cultures narrated America’s rise from humble beginnings to modern greatness, the Scouts mingled joyfully in the grand arena, performing tribal dances, lasso tricks, and feats of horsemanship in an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation. The […]
Continue ReadingSpaces and Spatialities of Empire – An Introduction
As the United States expanded, first across the continent, and later, overseas at the beginning of the 20th century—expounding an anti-imperialist rhetoric that rejected European models of colonialism—it nonetheless colonized minds, mines, and markets.[i] And yet, despite currency in contemporary discourses that grapple with the many manifestations of US global power and its practices at home and across the globe, few other concepts in US history have proven as impossible as “empire.” In what has turned out to be an enduring war of words, the term continues to elude attempts at mapping it onto the course the United States has taken politically, economically, and culturally. As the American economist Scott Nearing contended ninety-nine years ago, “Many minds will refuse to accept the term ‘empire’ as applied to a republic (1921, 7).” A main outcome of this political duality and the ensuing historical conundrum has been that the intellectual idée fixe […]
Continue ReadingThe Alt Right: Trump, Terrorism and the Digital Age: Part Two
The globalizing effect of the internet and its influence in contemporary politics has undoubtedly contributed to the rise of the Alt-Right in the 21st century. Abetted by this influence, Donald Trump initially appeared as a joke candidate – his lack of political experience and penchant for scandal are well-documented – so it seemed he stood little chance against Clinton’s lengthy political career. However, when Trump embraced extreme right-wing sentiments – denouncing immigration, feminism, and instead addressing what some white Americans considered their critical concerns (including elevating and maintaining the economic position of white people) , the Alt-Right embraced him. Alt-Right forums, as will be explored, rallied support for Trump, and in return, prominent Alt-Right figures like Steve Bannon have since had significant impact on the first term of his administration . The result has been the mainstreaming of the Alt-Right in civil and political discourse. The further digitalisation of white […]
Continue ReadingThe Alt Right: Trump and Terrorism in the Digital Age (Part One)
In November 2016, former real-estate millionaire and reality television personality Donald J. Trump was announced as the 45th President of the United States. During the Presidential campaign, Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton, the intended Democrat successor to Barack Obama. However, Trump usurped Clinton after an unexpected surge of support came from what Clinton termed “…the basket of deplorables—the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it” [1]. In acknowledging, and denouncing, the emerging Alternate Right – Clinton unknowingly bolstered their campaigns in support of Trump, as scholar Niko Heikkilä writes: “Rather than serve as a nail in the ideology’s coffin, Clinton’s speech instead catapulted the Alt-Right from obscurity into the national spotlight and its supporters could not have been more thrilled” [2]. Only a year later, in August of 2017, it became clear that Trump’s Presidency had legitimised the growing faction of ‘deplorables’; the Unite the Right rally in […]
Continue ReadingThe Dragon’s Back: China, US Foreign Policy and the 2020 Election
Foreign policy is often said to be something that does not win elections, but in certain scenarios it can help lose them. Both Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joseph Biden have focused on presenting different visions in relation to domestic policy, but they also have both made points to outline divergent foreign policy concerns. Biden has made it clear that he wishes the United States to return to Obama-era diplomacy and Trump’s rhetoric against Iran and others has not cooled.[1] However, there is one aspect of foreign policy that both share some similarity in: namely in how to respond to China economically, militarily and culturally. Signs point to both candidates having negative views of China’s emergence as a world power with Vice President Mike Pence declaring, “ But our message to China’s rulers is this: This President will not back down” and Biden remarking how “the South and […]
Continue ReadingOld Dog, Old Tricks: America’s Exhaustion with Donald Trump’s Divisive Rhetoric
In an interview with the journalist Bob Woodward during his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump admitted that he inspired rage in the American people. “I don’t know if that’s an asset or a liability,” he claimed, “but whatever it is, I do.”[i] Trump possessed—and continues to possess—a power unlike many previous candidates to influence and change the news cycle simply by Tweeting.[ii] He used this uncanny ability to manipulate media attention to secure the Republican nomination and push his agenda through outlets such as Fox News during the last election cycle. However, Mr Trump’s shock victory in 2016 was achieved using methods that were an exercise in short-term strategy, which may ultimately help lead to his defeat in 2020. In 2016, Trump used partisan language to engender a siege mentality among his supporters and divide the electorate. This same language, coupled with continued smear campaigns and empty promises, now […]
Continue ReadingFrom Trinity to Trump: The Politics of Nuclear Memory in the 2020 Election
The 75th anniversaries of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings in 2020, while having low-key, in-person gatherings on account of COVID-19, still resonated through a range of electronic and broadcast media, as did the controversies surrounding them, whether historic or current, including reflections on ongoing nuclear policies.[i] Existing academic studies have explored memorialisation and politics around the bombings, but only briefly discussed these in relation to US elections.[ii] However, Hiroshima and Nagasaki have become intertwined with the 2020 US presidential election, mobilised by presidential candidates in arguments over nuclear policies. President Donald Trump has avoided reference to the bombings, but used other WW2 nuclear anniversaries to indicate support for such weapons, embodying his wider approach to nuclear diplomacy (descriptions of which range from negotiating through strength to some variation of a ‘big stick approach’ or ‘Madman Strategy’).[iii] By contrast, Democrat Presidential Candidate Joe Biden used the Hiroshima anniversary to reiterate […]
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