I – Chairman’s Column

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

In the course of the year 2006, the IGU Commission on Political Geography enjoyed three key international conferences : Chandigar (February 2006) on « Revisiting Euro-Asia : Cultures, Connections and Conceptualizations » ; El Paso/Ciudad Juarez/Las Cruces (March 2006) on « Lineae Terrarum » ; Trento (June 2006) on « Borderscapes: Spaces in Conflicts/Symbolic Places/Networks of Peace ». Within these three meetings, the huge number of participants and the quality of presented papers were, once more, the obvious evidence of the scientific vitality of political geography.

The end of the year 2006 was darkened by the passing, on 22 November, of the President of the International Geographical Union, Professor Adalberto Vallega (University of Genoa, Italy) after a long and brave struggle against the cancer. The IGU E-Newsletter 7 (January 2007) is fully devoted to a collection of obituaries in his memory (available at www.homeofgeography.org). Adalberto has been struck down in the middle of his 4-year mandate (2004-2008) as IGU President. The international community of geographers must be very grateful to him for the fantastic task he realized within 2 years in order to renew, to deepen and to enlarge the IGU but also and above all to significantly insert it in the new information and communication technologies. A touching tribute to a great geographer and a farewell to a great IGU President.

Vladimir Kolossov, previous Chair (1996-2004) of the IGU Commission on Political Geography, has been nominated Vice-President of the International Geographical Union in place of Nikita Glazovsky, deceased. Political geography significantly will be represented within the IGU Executive Committee by an authorized voice.

The year 2007 has begun with a very good new for political geography. For the fist time in the world, a free on-line journal of political geography and geopolitics has been officially launched on 20 January 2007. L'Espace Politique (The Political Space, in French) is the creation of the Commission on Political Geography and Geopolitics (French National Committee on Geography). Each issue and all papers are available at www.espacepolitique.org through free downloading in PDF format. The issue 1/2007 "New Stakes, New Approaches" is already online. Forthcoming issue: 2/2007 "The European Union's Peripheries". L'Espace Politique will publish three issues per year. With all best wishes for 2007 and beyond.

André-Louis Sanguin, Chair

---

II – Future Events Sponsored by the Commission

1. International Conference "Cities and Borders: Border Cities, Divided Cities, Borders in Cities". Macau, China, 3-5 August 2007. In connection with the meeting of the IGU Commission on Monitoring Cities of Tomorrow, an international conference is organized on the topic of "Cities and Borders". One aims to bring together urban and political geographers, as well as scholars from neighbouring disciplines and conceptualize borders and bounding processes and their impact on cities and the people in them.

The conference will be held on 3-5 August, 2007 and will take place in Macau, which is an exceptional case of a border city and has one of the busiest border checkpoints in the world. Additionally, this former Portuguese settlement in South China presents an exciting blend of Eastern and Western cultures and has recently been awarded the title of UNESCO World Heritage Site.

One invites everyone with an interest in cities and borders to join the conference. You are also invited to contribute a paper on a theoretical topic or relevant case study related to the conference theme. Please send in your abstract of maximum 400 words together with your registration. The best papers will be selected for subsequent publication in an edited volume.

Registration deadlines: 1/ Early-bird registration: 10 February 2007; 2/ Regular registration: 30 April 2007. For further information, please visit http://home.tiscalinet.ch/breitung/citiesansborders.htm or contact us at Pearlriverdelta@gmail.com

2. International Conference "European Multiculturalism as a Challenge – Policies, Successes and Fails". Lublin, Poland, 10-13 September 2007. The Department of Economic Geography, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University (Lublin, Poland) in association with the Polish Geographical Society (Lublin Section) is pleased to announce the first international conference on political geography in Lublin. The meeting will be open to policy-makers and academics from a wide range of disciplines, including sociology, international relations, political sciences, history and others.

The objective of the conference is to deepen the understanding of multicultural society by combining various approaches. Different disciplines apply different tools and methods of analysis which results in dispersion of research, so the task of integration of scientific examination of multiculturalism seems to be a challenge that needs to be faced. The organizers of the conference invite speakers to focus on the following issues: 

° Co-existence of multiple ethnic groups within the frame of united Europe 

° Internal borders within multicultural societies 

° International migrations as a factor increasing multiculturalism 

° Muslim communities and immigrants in Europe – a challenge for policy-makers? 

° Post-9/11 world as seen from multicultural Europe's perspective 

° Multicultural society – a reality, a goal or a myth?

Suggestions for additional themes are also welcome. Abstracts of the proposed papers (in English) should not exceed 500 words and are expected by 15 April 2007. You can submit your proposal via our webform. All abstracts will be published before the conference on the conference website.

Full versions of conference papers should be handed to organizers during the conference. All papers submitted will be considered for reviewed publication in a special post-conference edition. Technical details of layout will be sent in the second circular. All presentations and papers will be prepared in English. For more information visit our conference website at www.politicalgeography.pl or mail your questions to the main organizer Dr. Wojciech Janicki at wjanicki@biotop.umcs.lublin.pl

3. International Conference "Spatial Restructuring of Slovenia and the Neighbouring Regions since EU Membership: Advantages for Border Regions,, Koper/Capodistria, Slovenia, 30 November-2 December 2007. The conference will be organized by the University of Primorska (Koper) and will include an excursion in the region on the last day. The conference will be held in the new premisses of the Faculty of Humanities in the town center. Calls for papers will be distributed. Colleagues interested to participate should contact Prof. Anton Gosar at the following E-mail address: anton.gosar@fhs.upr.si

4. IGU 2008 International Congress "Collaboratively Building Our Territories", Tunis, Tunisia, 10-15 August 2008. The IGU Commission on Political Geography will organize on the occasion of the Tunis International Congress many papers sessions:

° Geopolitical Trends of the Mediterranean in a 21st Century Globalized World (1 session)
° The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (1 session)
° The Maritime Boundaries of the Mediterranean: Assessments and Outlooks (1 session)
° Conflicts and Conflict Resolultions in the Mediterranean World (1 session)
° Current Issues on Political Geography Outside the Mediterranean World (several sessions)

People interested in attending these sessions and submiting papers have to contact the Commission's Chair at: alsanguin@wanadoo.fr

---

III – Past Events Sponsored by the Commission

1. International Conference "Revisiting Euro-Asia: Cultures, Connections and Conceptualizations" , Panjab University, Chandigar, India, 13-15 February 2006. The conference was jointly organized by the Center for the Study of Mid-West and Central Asia (Panjab University) and the Jean Monnet Center of European Excellence (University of Tampere, Finland). The issue-areas of the conference straddled both Europe and Asia. The main emphasis was on geopolitics, and special attention was drawn to energy security. Regionally the focus was on Central Asia, which has become increasingly important in recent years due to its energy resources. Attention was also drawn to Northern Eurasia and the Indian Ocean Region and their still largely untapped energy resources. In addition to the material dimension, the role of ideas and imaginations was highlightened in connection with Euro-Asian geopolitics. A wide range of other issues were also discussed, including the themes of democracy, citizenship, migration and women's rights, which were analyzed mostly in connection with South Asia. Conference was successful in providing an opportunity to scholars gathered from Austria, Switzerland, Malaysia, Finland and India for not only scrutinizing the existing geostrategic narratives on Eurasia but also seeking alternative geopolitical visions that might provide resistance to self-fulfulling hypotheses about clashes of cultures and civilizations.

Dr. Sanjay Chaturvedi (Conference Convener and Member of the Commission's Steering Committee) is equally pleased to report that Chandigar Conference was followed by another International Symposium at Tampere University (4-5 September 2006) jointly organized by the Jean Monnet Center of European Excellence (Tampere), the Finnish International Studies Association (FISA) and the Center for the Study of Mid-West and Central Asia (Chandigar). This symposium (attented by scholars from Japan, China, Singapore, Russia, India, UK, Finland and India) marks the next step in the development of the "Euro-Asian Research Work" which was launched at the Conference held in Chandigar. Dr. Chaturvedi would like to place on record sincere appreciation for the partnership and participation of the University of Tampere, Finland, especially Professor Jyrki Kakonen and his Research Assistant Miss Tytti Erasto, in this worthwhile adventure. 

2. International Borders Conference "Lineae Terrarum", El Paso (Texas, USA)/Ciudad Juarez (Chihuahua, Mexico)/Las Cruces (New Mexico, USA), 27-30 March 2006. Organizer: Dr. Tony Payan, University of Texas at El Paso. After an opening statement and introduction by Prof. Irasema Coronado, Chair of the Department of Political Science at the same university, the conference Lineae Terrarum was divided into 22 panels. A first plenary session was devoted to "Three Decades in the Making: The Development of Border Studies" while the second one scrutinized the topic "Border Security". A round table emphasized on "Opening Up the Border European Style: Can the Social and Personal Contacts Across the Border Be Improved?".

3. International Conference "Borderscapes: Spaces in Conflict/Symbolic Places/Networks of Peace", Trento, Italy, 11-14 June 2006. Organizers: University of Milano-Bicocca, University of Trento and University of Innsbrück. President: Elena Dell'Agnese. Participants from 14 different countries attended the meeting. Of the 40 and more papers submitted, several are now available on the official website of the conference at www.unitn.it/events/borderscapes/index.htm (download is free). After the opening lectures dedicated to "Borderscapes and Political Geography", parallel sessions were organized in order to focuse such topics as: National and international boundaries in Western and Eastern Europe; Identities and sociolinguistic boundaries; Symbolic borders between inclusion and exclusion; Revision of classical models, especially the myth of natural boundaries and the cartographic invention of borderlines. And, finally, the linkage between boundaries and environmental questions.

The city of Trento, chosen by the Organizing Committee because of its symbolic importance in the past of Italian irredentism and because of its central function in the present of the Euroregion Trento-Bozen-Innsbrück, offered to the participants a good example of a borderscape with many historical meanings. Two scientific excursions were organized, the first (13 June) in the province of Trento, crossing the sociolinguistic border between Italian-speaking Trentino and old German-speaking "Mochèni" valley. The second one (14-17 June) took place in the province of Bozen/Bolzano (South Tyrol), a land of many cultural complexities and peculiar political lanscapes.

---

IV – Some New Titles in Political Geography

AMILHAT-SZARY, Anne-Laure & Marie-Christine FOURNY (Editors), Après les frontières, avec la frontière. Nouvelles dynamiques transfrontalières en Europe, La Tour d'Aigues, Editions de l'Aube, 2006.

BARNETT, Thomas P.M., The Pentagon's New Map, War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century, New York, Penguin Books, 2006.

BERG, Eiki & Julia BOMAN (Editors), Cross-Border Cooperation in Focus: What Are the Lessons to Be Learned in the Estonian-Russian and Romanian-Moldovan Borderland?, Tartu, Tartu University Press, 2005.

BRETON, Roland, Peuples et Etats, l'impossible équation?, Marseille, Editions Le Mot et le Reste, 2006.

BRUGGMEIER, Franz-Josef, CLOC, Marc & Thomas ZELLER, How Green Were the Nazis? Nature, Environment and Nation in the Third Reich, Athens, Ohio University Press, 2005.

BRUNEAU, Michel, Diasporas et espaces trans-nationaux, Paris, Anthropos, 2004.

BUFON, Milan, GOSAR, Anton, NURKOVIC, Safet & André-Louis SANGUIN (Editors), The Western Balkans – The European Challenge, Koper, Publishing House Annales-Science and Research, 2006.

CAMILLERI, Joseph A., MARSHALL, Larry, MICHAEL, Michalis S. & Michael T. STEIGER (Editors), Asia-Pacific Geopolitics, Hegemony versus Security, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007.

DELL'AGNESE, Elena & Enrico SQUARCINA (Editors), Europa. Vecchi confine e nuove frontiere, Turin, Utet, 2005.

FLINT, Colin, Introduction to Geopolitics, New York, Routledge, 2006.

FOURNIS, Yann, Les régionalismes en Bretagne. La région et l'Etat (1950-2000), Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

GHEBREWEBET, Helen, Identifying Units of Statehood and Determining International Boundaries. A Revised Look at the Doctrine of Uti Posidetis and the Principle of Self-Determination, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

GOSAR, Anton (Editor), Globalizirana Evropa/Globalized Europe, Koper, Zalozba Annales, 2005.

GREGORY, Derek & Allan PRED (Editors), Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror and Political Violence, London, Routledge, 2007.

HANNESON, Rognvaldur, Privatization of the Oceans, Cambridge (Massachusetts), MIT Press, 2006.

HAYOS, Nicolas & Andrej N. LUSHNYCKY (Editors), Ukraine at a Crossroads, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

HULBERT, François (Editor), Villes du Nord, villes du Sud. Géopolitique urbaine, acteurs et enjeux, Paris, Editions L'Harmattan, 2006.

JACOB, Christian & Tom CONLEY (Editors), The Sovereign Map: Theoretical Approaches in Cartography Throughout History, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006.

KAHLER, Krevin M. & Barbara F. WALTER (Editors), Territoriality and Conflict in an Era of Globalization, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2006.

KERSHNER, Isabel, Barrier. The Seam of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

LABRECQUE, Georges, Les frontières maritimes internationales. Géopolitique de la délimitation en mer, Paris, Editions L'Harmattan, 2004.

LANGENOHL, Andreas & Kirsten WESTPHAL (Editors), Conflicts in a Transnational World. Lessons from Nations and States in Transformation, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

LIVINGSTONE, David N. & Charles W.J. WHITHERS, Geography and Revolution, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2005.

MATTINGLY, Doreen & Ellen R. HANSEN Women and Change at the US-Mexico Border, Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 2006.

McEWEN, Nicola, Nationalism and the State. Welfare and Identity in Scotland and Quebec, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

O'TUATHAIL, Gearoid, DALBY, Simon & Paul ROUTLEDGE (Editors), The Geopolitics Reader, New York, Routledge, 2006.

RIEMER, Andrea K., Geopolitik und Strategie am Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Theoretische Überlegungen, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

ROSIERE, Stéphane, Le nettoyage ethnique. Terreur et peuplement, Paris, Editions Ellipses, 2006.

ROSS, Jeffrey Ian, Political Terrorism. An Interdisciplinary Approach, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

RUMLEY, D., FORBES, V.L. & C. GRIFFIN, Australia's Arc of Instability. The Political and Cultural Dynamics of Regional Security, Heidelberg, Springer, 2006.

SCHWARTZ, Katrina Z.S., Nature and National Identity after Communism: Globalizing the Ethnoscape, Pittsburg, University of Pittsburg Press, 2006.

SOLIOZ, Christophe, Turning Points in Post-War Bosnia. Ownership Process and European Integration, Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2005.

SMITH, Dan (Compiler), The State of the Middle East: An Atlas of Conflict and Resolution, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2006.

STURGEON, Janet C., Border Landscapes: the Politics of Akka Land Use in China and Thailand, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 2005.

SYSSNER, Josefina, What Kind of Regionalism? Regionalism and Region Building in Northern European Peripheries, Berne, Peter Lang, 2006.

WACHOWIAK, Helmut (Editor), Tourism and Borders, Contemporary Issues, Policies and International Research, Oxon, Ashgate, 2006.

---

V – A Non-Exhaustive World List of Reviews on Political Geography and Geopolitics

° Political Geography. Founded in 1981, Political Geography is the most well-known and the most distributed review of political geography in the world. PG has become the flagship journal of the resurgence of political geography studies in recent years. Editor-in-Chief: John O'Loughlin (University of Colorado at Boulder) Publisher: Elsevier (Amsterdam, The Netherlands). 8 issues per year. Volume 26 in 2007. Website:

www.politicalgeography.com

° Revista Romana de Geografie Politica. After the fall of communism which created a favorable environment in Romania, political geography and geopolitics reapperaed as fields of research and as subjects in the Romanian universitary system. The Revista Romana de Geografie Politica (Romanian Review on Political Geography) was founded in 1999. Year 2007 is the ninth year of regular publishing of RRPG and coincides with its position in the top of the geographical publications in Romania (corresponding to the criteria of the CNCSIS – National Commission of Scientific Research for Higher Education). Editors-in-Chief: Alexandru Ilies (University of Oradea) and Voicu Bodocan (Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca). Publisher: University of Oradea Press. Two issues per year in English. Email: ilies@uoradea.ro; ioanajosan@yahoo.co.uk

° L'Espace Politique. Founded in 2007, L'Espace Politique (The Political Space) is the single free online review of political geography and geopolitics in the world, and also the single French-speaking review of political geography. Leaded by the Commission on Political Geography and Geopolitics (French National Committee on Geography), the EP is hosted by the Department of Geography of the University of Reims-Champagne. Editor-in-Chief: Stéphane Rosière (University of Reims-Champagne). Three issues per year. Free downloading of each issue and of all papers. Website: www.espacepolitique.org

° Space and Polity. Founded in 1996, Space & Polity is a fully refereed scholarly international journal devoted to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the changing relationships between the state, and regional and local forms of governance. Editor-in-Chief: Ronan Paddison, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Glasgow). Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group. Volume 11 in the year 2007. Three issues per year. Website: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13562576.asp

° Journal of Borderlands Studies Founded in 1986, the Journal of Borderlands Studies is sponsored by the Association for Borderland Studies (University of San Diego, California). The JBS has for more than two decades distinguished itself as a leading forum for borderlands research. The JBS is a truly multi-disciplinary journal. Contributions focus in a substantive way on the border-related aspects of social science, humanities, economics, business disciplines and so forth. Editors-in-Chief: J.Michael Patrick (Texas A&M International University, Laredo), Henk Van Houtoum & Martin Van Der Welde (University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands). Publisher: Texas A&M International University Press. Two issues per year. Website: www.absborderlands.org

° Borderlines is the newsletter of the IBRU (International Boundaries Research Unit), University of Durham, UK. Borderlines provides an update on the activities of the IBRU and information on developments in the wider boundary community around the world. This annual newsletter has a readership of more than 3000 boundary scholars. B is keen to include information on boundary-related events. Editor-in-Chief: Michelle Speaks (IBRU, Durham). Website: www-ibru.dur.ac.uk

° National Identities. Founded in 2001, NI explores the formation and expression of national identity from Antiquity to the present day. It examines the role of forging identity of cultural and political factors, by examining the ways in which these have been shaped and changed over time. Editor-in-Chief: Peter Catterall (University of London). Publisher: Taylor & Francis. Volume 9 in the year 2007. Three issues per year. Website: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14608944.asp

° Nationalism and Ethnic Politics. Founded in 1994, NEP explores the varied political aspects of nationalim and ethnicity in order to develop more constructive inter-group relations. The journal publishes case studies and comparative and theoretical analyses. Editor-in-Chief: William Safran (University of Colorado at Boulder). Publisher: Frank Cass, a part of Taylor & Francis Group. Volume 13 for the year 2007. Quarterly. Website: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/13537113.asp

° Geopolitics. Founded in 1995, Geopolitics seeks to explore the theoretical implications of contemporary geopolitics and geopolitical change with particular reference to territorial problems and issues of state sovereignty. Multidiciplinary in its scope, Geopolitics includes all aspects of the social sciences with particular emphasis on political geography, international relations, the territorial aspects of political science, and international law. The journal seeks to maintain a healthy balance between systemic and regional analysis. Editors-in-Chief: David Newman (Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheva) and John Agnew (University of California at Los Angeles). Publisher: Frank Cas, a part of Taylor & Francis Group. Volume 12 in the year 2007. Quarterly. Website: www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/ 14650045.asp

° Hérodote. Founded in 1976, Hérodote is the single French review on geopolitics which is totally managed by geographers. Each issue of this quaterly journal is based upon a special thematic. No abstracts.Hérodote is mainly the work of its founder, Yves Lacoste (University of Paris VIII). Editor-in-Chief: Yves Lacoste. Publisher: Editions Masson (Paris). Volume 31 in the year 2007. Website: www.herodote.org

° Electoral Studies. Founded in 1981, ES is an international journal covering all aspects of voting, the central act in democratic process. Political scientists, economists, sociologists, game theorists, geographers, contemporary historians and lawyers have common, and overlapping interests in what causes voters to act as they do, and the consequences. Editors-in-Chief: Harold D. Clarke (University of Texas at Dallas), G. Evans (University of Oxford), E. Scarborough (University of Essex). Publisher: Elsevier (Amsterdam). Volume 26 for the year 2007. Quarterly. Website: www.utdallas.edu/dept/socsci/hclarke/es

° Limes, rivista italiana di geopolitica. Founded in 1993, Limes is the Italian review of geopolitics. It's a 300page bimonthly review. Every issue is devoted to one topic, which is developed through news analysis, round tables, interviews. Beside the main topic, there is a dossier regarding some previous or different stories. Limes declares itself to be radically anti-academic in its approach. The aim of Limes is to analyse conflicts (political, cultural or military) in specific spaces. Editor-in-Chief: Luca Caracciolo (Rome). Publisher: Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (Rome). Website: www.limesonline.com

° Heartland, Eurasian Review of Geopolitics. Founded in 2000, Heartland is the sister publication of Limes and a journal of geopolitics originally created in China and Italy, which aims to construct a forum for discussion based on three pillars: Asia, Europe and America. Until 2004, Heartland was published and distributed in printed form. Since March 2005, Heartland has become a website. This choice is intended to promote circulation, knowledge, and the exchange of often remote and disparate points of view. Editors-in-Chief: Luca Caracciolo & Francesco Sisci (Rome). Publisher: Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso (Rome). Website: www.heartland.it

This newsletter has been produced and published at the Sorbonne (Paris) by André-Louis SANGUIN, Commission's Chair with the assistance of Caroline MOUMANEIX, PhD candidate in political geography.

---