Rogan Collins

University of Warwick, Politics and International Studies, PAIS, Graduate Student

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I am a first-year PhD candidate in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. I hold a First-Class BA (Hons) in History and Politics from the University of Exeter (2008-2011) and an MA with Distinction in International Security from the University of Warwick (2011-12).

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Islands of Exception: Forbidden Spaces and the (Geo)Politics of Extraterritoriality

Forbidden zones and extraterritorial spaces represent an important but still relatively untapped ... more Forbidden zones and extraterritorial spaces represent an important but still relatively untapped area of research for International Relations. This dissertation aims to correct this shortfall by using poststructuralist theory to analyse two particularly significant forbidden spaces: the exclusion zone surrounding the infamous Chernobyl nuclear reactor in Ukraine and the top-secret Area 51 military testing complex in Nevada, USA. Both of these 'spaces' have been constructed as ‘forbidden,’ ‘secret,’ ‘dangerous’ and ‘exceptional’ places, supposedly set apart from the rest of the world around them. Through an exploration of three concepts, namely The Heterotopia, The Exception and The Island, this dissertation focuses on the inside/outside logic that extraterritorial spaces reflect and reinforce, illustrating the implications this logic has for understandings of security, spatiality and geopolitics. The dissertation argues that today, both Chernobyl and Area 51 work as indeterminate exceptional sites at the limit of the political imaginary, constituting part of a crucial archipelago of Islands that bring into question the traditional view of an international order consisting of homogenous nation states separated by clear spatial borders. The extreme production of indeterminacy seen on these islands of exception, the production of space as both somewhere and nowhere, feeds a particular understanding of sovereignty that is then reproduced elsewhere throughout global politics. As such, Chernobyl and Area 51 are more than simply physically located geographic areas, but instead form part of an important heterotopic political space that provides significant insight into discourses of international politics. However, as well as being dangerous exclusionary sites of sovereign power, potentialities for contestation and resistance are also to be found in such spaces, offering hope for some critical reflection, which this paper argues can be explored most productively through the concept of the ‘Heterotopic-Island-of-Exception.’

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Islands of Exception: Forbidden Spaces and the (Geo)Politics of Extraterritoriality

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Rogan Collins

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