Michel Foucault's work is rich with implications and insights concerning spatiality, and has inspired many geographers and social scientists to develop these ideas in their own research. This book, the first to engage Foucault's geographies in detail from a wide range of perspectives, is framed around his discussions with the French geography journal Herodote in the mid 1970s. The opening third of the book comprises some of Foucault's previously untranslated work on questions of space, a range of responses from French and English language commentators, and a newly translated essay by Claude Raffestin, a leading Swiss geographer. The rest of the book presents specially commissioned essays which examine the remarkable reception of Foucault's work in English and French language geography; situate Foucault's project historically; and provide a series of developments of his work in the contemporary contexts of power, biopolitics, governmentality and war. Contributors include a number of key figures in social/spatial theory such as David Harvey, Chris Philo, Sara Mills, Nigel Thrift, John Agnew, Thomas Flynn and Matthew Hannah. Written in an open and engaging tone, the contributors discuss just what they find valuable - and frustrating - about Foucault's geographies. This is a book which will both surprise and challenge.

Michel Foucault's work is rich with implications and insights concerning spatiality, and has inspired many geographers and social scientists to develop these ideas in their own research. This book, the first to engage Foucault's geographies in detail from a wide range of perspectives, is framed around his discussions with the French geography journal Herodote in the mid 1970s. The opening third of the book comprises some of Foucault's previously untranslated work on questions of space, a range of responses from French and English language commentators, and a newly translated essay by Claude Raffestin, a leading Swiss geographer. The rest of the book presents specially commissioned essays which examine the remarkable reception of Foucault's work in English and French language geography; situate Foucault's project historically; and provide a series of developments of his work in the contemporary contexts of power, biopolitics, governmentality and war. Contributors include a number of key figures in social/spatial theory such as David Harvey, Chris Philo, Sara Mills, Nigel Thrift, John Agnew, Thomas Flynn and Matthew Hannah. Written in an open and engaging tone, the contributors discuss just what they find valuable - and frustrating - about Foucault's geographies. This is a book which will both surprise and challenge.

This book is about the politics of cyberspace. It shows that cyberspace is no mere virtual reality but a rich geography of practices and power relations. Using concepts and methods derived from the work of Michel Foucault, Jeremy Crampton explores the construction of digital subjectivity, web identity and authenticity, as well as the nature and consequences of the digital divide between the connected and those abandoned in limbo. He demonstrates that it is by processes of mapping that we understand cyberspace and in doing so delineates the critical role maps play in constructing cyberspace as an object of knowledge. Maps, he argues, shape political thinking about cyberspace, and he deploys in-depth case studies of crime mapping, security and geo-surveillance to show how we map ourselves onto cyberspace, inexorably and indelibly. Clearly argued and vigorously written, this book offers a powerful reinterpretation of cyberspace, politics and contemporary life.

This book is about the politics of cyberspace. It shows that cyberspace is no mere virtual reality but a rich geography of practices and power relations. Using concepts and methods derived from the work of Michel Foucault, Jeremy Crampton explores the construction of digital subjectivity, web identity and authenticity, as well as the nature and consequences of the digital divide between the connected and those abandoned in limbo. He demonstrates that it is by processes of mapping that we understand cyberspace and in doing so delineates the critical role maps play in constructing cyberspace as an object of knowledge. Maps, he argues, shape political thinking about cyberspace, and he deploys in-depth case studies of crime mapping, security and geo-surveillance to show how we map ourselves onto cyberspace, inexorably and indelibly. Clearly argued and vigorously written, this book offers a powerful reinterpretation of cyberspace, politics and contemporary life.

As inherently spatial beings, our sense of space in cyberspace challenges all that is familiar in terms of our ability to define, organize, govern, and map social places. In "The Political Mapping of Cyberspace, " Jeremy Crampton shows that cyberspace is not the virtual reality we think it to be, but instead a rich geography of political practices and power relations.
Using concepts and methods derived from the work of Michel Foucault, Crampton outlines a new mapping of cyberspace to help define the role of space in virtual worlds and to provide constructive ways in which humans can exist in another spatial dimension. He delineates the critical role maps play in constructing the medium as an object of knowledge and demonstrates that by processes of mapping we come to understand cyberspace. Maps, he argues, shape political thinking about cyberspace, and he deploys in-depth case studies of crime mapping, security maintenance, and geo-surveillance to show how we map ourselves onto cyberspace, inexorably, and indelibly.
Offering a powerful reinterpretation of technology and contemporary life, this innovative book will be an essential touchstone for the study of cartography and cyberspace in the twenty-first century.