Baghdad”: Space, Representation, and the Colonial Present
Wandering the Streets of “Baghdad”: Space, Representation, and the Colonial Present by Wesley Attewell B.A. (hon.), The University of British Columbia, 2007 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Geography) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) October 2009 © Wesley Attewell, 2009 ii Abstract In this thesis, I will explore the triangular relationship between space, representational practices, and the colonial present. I will grapple with a few key research questions: how do we, as Westerners, represent the “other”? How, in turn, do we represent “ourselves”? How have these representational practices shaped the conduct of the War on Terror? And finally, how are (neo)colonial struggles over the politics of representation intricately bound up with questions of geography? By focusing my attention upon the recent invasion, and subsequent occupation of Iraq, I hope to offer a historico-geographically responsible, as well as anti-essentialist, reading of three distinct “digital spaces”: two blogs (Riverbend’s Baghdad Burning and Colby Buzzell’s My War: Killing Time in Iraq ) and Multi-National Force Iraq’s YouTube channel. Here, I will argue that, to paraphrase Edward Said, broader geographical struggles, over forms, over images, and over imaginings are not only being dispersed around the globe, they are also being fractured and subsequently contested on a more micro-scale in these new digital battlegrounds. As I hope to demonstrate over the course of this thesis, social media websites such as blogs and YouTube must conceptualized not only as political, but also as antipolitical spaces, in that they both encourage and stifle critical debate on issues pertaining to late modern warfare.
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