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Natalie Koch
Syracuse University
Occupation
Professor
Contact
ABOUT
I am a political geographer focusing on the territorial state system, nationalism, citizenship, and the geopolitics of authoritarianism. With a regional on the Arabian Peninsula, I examine how people (re)produce state-based spatial affinities and identities, and in so doing, produce normative maps of liberalism and illiberalism. I am particularly interested in alternative sites of geopolitical analysis, including sport, spectacle, higher education, urban development, and other ostensibly positive discourses that enact differential forms of geo-power and constitute individuals as political subjects.
Discipline
Geography
Sub Areas
Education
Energy Studies
Environment
Foreign Relations
Gulf Studies
Modernization
Nationalism
State Formation
Geographic Areas of Interest
Gulf
Oman
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
UAE
Specialties
Authoritarianism
Nationalism & Identity Politics
Energy & The Environment
Languages
English (native)
Russian (advanced)
German (advanced)
Spanish (advanced)
Education
PhD | 2012 | Geography | U of Colorado, Boulder
MA | 2009 | Geography | U of Colorado, Boulder
BA | 2006 | Geography & Russian | Dartmouth College
Abstracts
“Building glass refrigerators in the desert”: Urban sustainability and nationalism in Qatar Sporting cities: Geopolitical encounters and elite sport initiatives in the Arabian Peninsula Laboratories of liberalism: American higher education in the Arabian Peninsula and the discursive production of authoritarianism Cultures of Arid Empire: US-Gulf Imperial Entanglements and Their Desert Imaginaries