Montage space: Borderlands, micronations, terra nullius, and the imperialism of the geographical imagination

This article extends work in human geography on thinking space relationally and topological space, arguing for a relational conceptualization of space that employs montage in small seemingly confined spaces to tell big relational stories. Empirically it explores a micronation projected onto watery w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDialogues in human geography Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 278 - 301
Main Authors Riding, James, Dahlman, Carl T.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.07.2022
Subjects
montage
geographical imagination
micronation
relationality
new cultural geography
Border
representation
terra nullius
imperialism
more-than-human
space
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Summary:This article extends work in human geography on thinking space relationally and topological space, arguing for a relational conceptualization of space that employs montage in small seemingly confined spaces to tell big relational stories. Empirically it explores a micronation projected onto watery western Balkan no-man's [sic] land and reveals an exploitation of Balkan history and geography that underpins perceptions of the southeast European peninsula. Liberland is a new right-libertarian unofficial country that claims a disputed tract of middle Danube riverbank in a contested riverine borderscape between Croatia and Serbia, where the fantasy geography of emptiness and terra nullius reappears in a new imperial present. The hackneyed performances that self-proclaimed micronations undertake to legitimize themselves are placed alongside a relational story of regional cultural landscape and more-than-human geographies in this fluvial political–ecological borderland in order to undermine alt-right libertarianism, Balkanism, and imperialism.
ISSN:2043-8206
2043-8214
DOI:10.1177/20438206221102597