ABSTRACT
The formal academic history of geopolitics from the early twentieth century onwards is one characterised by a number of trends. Over the last two decades, geopolitics has undergone a substantive transformation, and a new academic field called "critical geopolitics" has consolidated itself. Critical geopolitics, furthermore, identified geopolitical ideas and practices as multi-faceted, using the designation "formal, practical and popular geopolitics" to convey how the worlds of the universities, governments, policy making and popular culture co-existed. In this chapter, the author examines the role of visual culture and associated representations. Focusing on film depictions of the British super-spy James Bond, the author shows how representational practices portray the British agent and his American allies as operating in a dangerous political world characterised by permeable borders, mobile threats and a perpetual danger that needs to be addressed quickly and violently lest it affect the capital cities such as London.
