Young people, and in particular children, have typically been marginalised in geopolitical research, positioned as too young to understand or relate to the adult-dominated world of international relations. Integrating current debates in critical geopolitics and political geography with research in children's geographies, childhood studies and youth research, this book sets out an agenda for the field of children's and young people's critical geopolitics. It considers diverse practices such as play, activism, media consumption and diplomacy to show how children's and young people's lives relate to wider regional and global geopolitical processes. Engaging with contemporary concepts in human geography including ludic geopolitics, affect, emotional geographies, intergenerationality, creative diplomacy, popular geopolitics and citizenship, the authors draw on geopolitical research with children and young people from Europe, Asia, Australasia, Africa and the Americas. The chapters highlight the ways in which young people can be enrolled, ignored, dismissed, empowered and represented by the state for geopolitical ends. Notwithstanding this state power, the research presented also shows how young people have agency and make decisions about their lives which are influenced by wider geopolitical processes. The focus on the lives of children and young people problematises and extends what it is we think of when considering 'the geopolitical' which enriches as well as advances critical geopolitical enquiry and deserves to be taken seriously by political geographies more broadly.

About the Author
Matthew C. Benwell is Lecturer in Human Geography and Peter Hopkins is Professor of Social Geography, both in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newcastle University, UK.

Reviews
'For those considering how everyday life is imbricated in geopolitics, this volume is a must-have. While its most obvious contribution can be found in foregrounding the role of children and young people in geopolitics, I think it more broadly pushes us to think carefully about the spaces and times in which geopolitical agency emerges in unexpected ways.' Jason Dittmer, University College London, UK 'How do children see and respond to prevailing geopolitical imaginaries in their everyday lives? Benwell and Hopkins have assembled an outstanding volume that advances both critical geopolitics and children's geographies by probing their subjectivities and the quotidian ways in which they are militarised. Children should be seen, heard, and understood as actors who are not merely the humanitarian victims of violent wars, but brokers and makers of geopolitical knowledge. Drawing on emotional, feminist, and other intimate geopolitics, the authors in this collection mobilise rich original research to foreground the agency and relationships of young people to geopolitics, from Laos to London, India to Cyprus, Australia to the Falkland Islands, and more.' Jennifer Hyndman, York University, Canada



Book Information
ISBN 9781138308480
Author Matthew C. Benwell
Format Paperback
Page Count 216
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g