The return of Geo-Politics?! On the actualization of geopolitical representations of East and West in the print media coverage of the conflicts in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Paul Reuber
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 320388986

Looking at the print media coverage of the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine one might say that geopolitics is back in the news. Geopolitical representations are experiencing an amazing revival framing international power constellations in Europe. Such a renaissance of old East-West antagonisms under new conditions is having a serious impact on discourses and conflict representations in international politics. Against this background our project examines the current geopolitical representations and Leitmotifs in the coverage of selected print media on the conflicts in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine in particular. Starting from a critical geopolitics perspective and introducing Foucaults discourse analytical concept of the archive, the study aims at understanding the dynamics of the corresponding discoursive changes since the end of the Cold War up to the present conflicts. From a theoretical perspective, the project examines how historical geopolitical representations (e.g. natural determinism, spatial determinism, imperialism, Cold War dialectics) are being reactivated to serve as a discursive framing for present political conflicts. It follows the thesis that such a rearticulation (Laclau & Mouffe 1985) does not leave the meaning of the representations unchanged. Instead, some keywords of the resurrecting historic geopolitical imaginations become floating signifiers (ibid.) changing both parts of their semantic meanings and their underlying geographical imaginations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants