Podcast Episodes
What happens when we academically change our vantage point and start looking at the geopolitical margins? In this introductory episode, our podcast examines the margins of diplomacy and the edges of geopolitics. Our guest, Fiona McConnell, sheds light on the emergence of critical geopolitics and political geography in shifting perspectives from state-centrism and widely publicized international conflicts towards decolonial struggles and the margins of global politics. Together with Fiona we address sovereignty beyond territory and self-determination beyond statehood, as well as liminal spaces of diplomacies. One of the cases we discuss is Tibet with its government-in-exile. How to think about this case in terms of diplomacy, especially when it is disciplinarily positioned at the edges of the predominant area studies of China and Southeast Asia? Join us for this thought-provoking episode hosted by Vadim Romashov and Hanna Laako.
Fiona McConnell is a professor of political geography at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the practices and pedagogy of diplomacy in the margins, geographies of peace and mediation, and legal geographies. She also sits on the Board of Directors of the Tibet Justice Center and the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. Among others, she is the author of the titles Diplomatic Cultures and International Politics; The Political Practices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile and Geographies of Peace.
Listen Episode 1: Margins of Diplomacy and the Edges of Geopolitics
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- Transcript of episode 1
- Date of recording: 14 May 2024
How is biodiversity conservation related to geopolitics in the Earth’s critical edges? This episode discusses the challenges related to transboundary conservation and research in the Korean peninsula and its Demilitarized Zone, a strip of land that divides North and South Korea. Our guest, Joshua Elves-Powell, talks about his research related to large carnivores, with a focus on the endangered Amur Tiger. The episode dives deep into research and practice, addressing the critical edge of planetary boundaries, global biodiversity loss, and accelerating climate change, which threaten our planet’s essential processes and Earth’s safe operating space. Several transdisciplinary methods help to explore and conserve biodiversity in the context of high political sensitivity. Join us for this fascinating episode hosted by Eleonoora Karttunen and Katherine Hall.
Joshua Elves-Powell is a conservation biologist, postdoctoral researcher at the University College London and a visiting researcher in the Tiger and Leopard Conservation Fund in Korea and the ZSL Institute of Zoology. He is the founder and expedition leader of Rangers Without Borders, a program that supports wildlife rangers across Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe. Joshua is also a National Geographic Explorer. Among others, he is the author of “Integrating local ecological knowledge and remote sensing reveals patterns and drivers of forest cover change: North-Korea as a case study”, published in Regional Environmental Change.
Listen Episode 2: Wildlife Conservation in the Korean Peninsula
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- Date of recording: 31 January 2025
If margins can become sites of resistance, what are the dynamics that can create change in the critical edges they form? This episode addresses the dynamics of margins created and sustained in the multicultural Antakya borderlands in Turkey’s Hatay region. Our guest, Şule Can, discusses everyday experiences of displacement, borders, disasters, tourism, community-building and cultural heritage in her hometown of Antakya, a border city with rich history and complex current developments. In particular, the episode delves into activist research, anthropology, and grassroots movements that are deeply involved in community work and reconstruction following devastating earthquakes. In 2023, earthquakes hit southern Turkey and northwest Syria, killing at least 60,000 people and destroying much of Antakya. Join us for this insightful episode hosted by Katherine Hall.
Şule Can is an outreach coordinator, lecturer and socio-cultural anthropologist at Binghamton University Center for Middle East and North Africa Studies. Her research focuses on the anthropology of the Middle East, urban politics, borders and displacement, disasters and cultural heritage. Her latest research addresses the politics of solidarity among Syrian women in Turkey. As an activist researcher, she is deeply engaged in community-building in her hometown of Antakya. Among others, she is the author of the title Refugee Encounters at the Turkish-Syrian Border: Antakya at the Crossroads.
Listen Episode 3: Dynamics of Margins in the Antakya Borderlands
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- Date of recording: 10 February 2025
Is Latin America a lonely periphery of geopolitics? How does Indigenous people’s resistance change our thinking of geopolitics? And how do railways relate to all this? This episode explores the positioning of Latin America in the broader geopolitical landscape, the communication routes, canals and connectivities between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Our guest, Ana Esther Ceceña, draws our attention to the Americas as an island-continent seeking routes for transportation, extraction and control as well as the land of Indigenous peoples with different ways of life and resistance. By addressing complex systems, the episode dives deep in the complicated geopolitics and resistance related to the Interoceanic or Transisthmian Train in the Tehuantepec, and the Maya Train in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Join us for this intriguing episode hosted by Hanna Laako.
Ana Esther Ceceña is a professor of geopolitics and economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). She is the founder and coordinator of the Latin American Observatory of Geopolitics. Her research is particularly focused on natural resources, social movements, militarization and hegemonies. She has been engaged with various social and Indigenous movements. Ana has published extensively during her career. Her recent articles deal with the geopolitics of trains, including the book chapter “Looking south: megaprojects, borders and human (in)mobilities”, published in the Handbook on Critical Political Economy and Public Policy.
Listen Episode 4: Latin America and Geopolitics of Trains
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- Transcript of episode 4
- Date of recording: 19 March 2025
What are the struggles of Indigenous people today? What happens when international borders are drawn on water in Indigenous lands? This episode addresses the dynamics in the Sápmi, the transboundary Sami homelands. Our guest, Rauna Kuokkanen, discusses the Deatnu Agreements on the Finnish–Norwegian border. In 1751, the Deatnu River was made to be a borderline on a map. During the past decades, border agreements have increasingly sought to control fishing in the river, thus, affecting Sami traditions, and rights to exercise them. This gave rise to Ellos Deatnu!-activist initiative that opposes the current fishing regulations while demanding Sami self-determination over the natural resources. In addition, the episode dives deep in the emergence of Indigenous studies, the effects of climate change in the Indigenous Arctic and Nordic settler colonialism. It also covers the situation in Greenland as an emerging critical edge of current geopolitics. Join us for this captivating episode hosted by Vadim Romashov and Hanna Laako.
Rauna Kuokkanen (Fierranjot Kirstte Rávdná) is a research professor of Arctic Indigenous politics at the University of Lapland and an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto. She is from Ohcejohka, Sápmi. Her research delves into comparative Indigenous politics and law, Indigenous feminism and gender, Sámi governance, and settler colonialism in the Nordic countries. She is a member of the Standing Committee on Indigenous Involvement of the International Arctic Science Committee and editor of Settler Colonial Studies. Rauna is the author of the books Reshaping the University and Restructuring Relations.
Listen Episode 5: Resisting Border-Walls in the Sápmi and the Indigenous Arctic
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- Transcript of episode 5
- Date of recording: 4 April 2025