Peripheries emerge as a result of shifts in economic and political decision-making at various scales. Therefore peripheral spaces are not a "natural" phenomenon but an outcome of the intrinsic logic of uneven geographical development in capitalist societies. Discussing examples from Germany, Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan, Pakistan, India and Brazil, the volume describes the social production of peripheries from different theoretical and methodological perspectives. In so doing, it argues in favour of a re-politicization of the recent debate on peripheralization.

This volume looks at spaces such as reservations, model villages, and collective towns as spatial and disciplinary techniques - implemented in order to disempower and radically alter the behavior of people who were perceived as ill-suited to fit into the hegemonic concept of "the nation" from the 19th century onwards. Comparing examples from the Americas, Australia, Eastern Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, the book considers the acts and legitimizing narratives of the powerful alongside the agency of the subaltern, who are often misrepresented as passive victims of violent...