Foucault’s geography: Spatial turn and genealogy of a wedding
in
Sarajevo
Abstract: This work analyzes Foucault’s contribution to the
development of geographic thinking through emphasis on its
interpretation of space and elements of its epistemology. To understand
this, it will start from two directions, from the geographer’s interest
in Foucault’s geography, as well as his reference works for this
discipline. These disciplinary issues are best marked by his notions of
geoepistemology and spatial turn in social and humanities, which are
important because two issues we will address in this work. First, it
refers to more precise definitions of the boundaries of modern, for
which there is a consensus among geographers and is related to the
establishment of scientific geography (Humboldt and Ritter), but the end
of this epoch is interpreted differently. Some geographers link this to:
identifying three key principles for the construction of postmodernism,
which are: style, epoch and method (Dear, 1988); an increased attack on
history in modern thought (Soja, 1989); infuriatingly difficult to
define (Cloke et al., 1991) or with the emergence of neoliberalism
(Peet, 1998). Another issue concerns the possibility of applying
post-structural methods to deconstruct major cultural and geographical
changes in the Western Balkans at the end of the 20th century. This will
be achieved through indications of genealogical analysis in the
interpretation of contemporary historical-geographical and
political-geographical issues in the example of Sarajevo (1992-1995).
Keywords : Foucault, spatial turn, modern, genealogy, Sarajevo.