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Drew Foxall

Academic Profile

Originally from the Black Country, Drew gained a First Class BSc(Hons) in Geography from the University of Plymouth in 2006, and completed an MSc at the University of Birmingham in 2007. He is studying for a D.Phil., funded by a CEELBAS (Central and Eastern European Language Based Area Studies) Scholarship, at Christ Church.

Drew is a postgraduate fellow of the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) and a member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG). He is also a member of the British Association of South and East European Studies (BASEES). He is the postgraduate representative of the Political Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG (PolGRG), a member of the Graduate Board of the European Research Institute, University of Birmingham, and co-convener (with Justin van der Merwe) of the Political Geography Postgraduate Research Group here at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. Drew is the holder of numerous awards and prizes for his work across political geography. He is also the President of Christ Church GCR.

In Autumn 2008 and Summer 2009 Drew was a visiting student at Stavropol' State University, Russia. During this time he was interviewed by Russian State Television about his doctoral research in the North Caucasus.

Drew is a book reviewer for Geopolitics, Europe-Asia Studies and Central Asian Survey, a referee for Political Geography, and is on the editorial board of Affect. He is also a regular contributor to Oxford Analytica.

Research Interests

My research focuses on two main areas: Political Geography and Geopolitics (informed by post-structuralist philosophy and concerned with questioning representation, identity, and space) and Russia (its language, history, and politics).

In a thematic sense my interests can be abridged as the following:

• Geographies of nationalism and ethnic identity;
• The role of space and territory in Russian (geo)political ideology;
• Geopolitics and energy security; and
• Critical Geopolitics.

Entitled 'Mapping Ethnic Relations: cartography, geopolitics, and security in the North Caucasus', my D.Phil. is influenced by the work of Vitali Belozerov (2000: 2005) and Nick Megoran (2002) in exploring ethnic relations in the North Caucasus region of Russia. My research details competing 'geopolitical visions' or 'imagined geographies' of the region in the context of post-Soviet ethnic animosities and questions the b/ordering of space in the North Caucasus. It is informed by literature on critical geopolitics and will contribute to the development of theory in this area.

In questioning contemporary understandings of geopolitical space, my research applies qualitative social research methods, including (critical) content analysis of English and Russian-language documents, interviews, and the observations of the researcher, to examine geographical aspects of ethnic relations in Stavropol' krai. I question whether the multi-ethnic North Caucasus can be better conceptualised when the construction of geopolitical 'space' is understood as being increasingly detached from fixed territory – as existing literature holds -, and rather as multi scalar and significantly influenced by 'localised' geopolitical 'imaginations' or 'visions'. To do this I focus on the ethnic geography of the region as key to understanding local territoriality. I examine the border drawing practices contained within daily discourse and, in investigating politico-administrative discourses on the region, explore the way in which the North Caucasus is written into global space as the object of multiple and intersecting formal, practical and popular geopolitical discourses. These discourses imagine and inscribe the region as a particular locus of danger to the wider world.

There are two main points to be highlighted by my research. First, I address the theoretical and empirical gap between geography and ethnicity by illustrating how geopolitics can be used to reframe ethnic conflict. Second, I seek to answer the question what is 'space' in the North Caucasus and address how it is constructed by different ethnic groups.

Geopolitics has long been characterised by contested territoriality, ethnic conflict, and conflicting representations of space. As a subject for detailed geographical research this nexus has been curiously neglected. Although not exhaustive, my research on the North Caucasus at least represents a start.

Hobbies

Because the old proverb reminds us that 'all work and no play can make Jack a dull boy', away from academia I enjoy travelling; I have travelled throughout Southeast Asia, on the Indian subcontinent, and in Russia in recent years. In a vain attempt to maintain something which could loosely be described as 'physical fitness' I play football and enjoy running, swimming and golf. To counter this, I take great pleasure in drinking all types of alcohol, and in sleeping.

Papers presented at Seminars and Conferences

• 2009 - 'A New Cold War or a New Great Game? Voices from the Caucasus', 20 Years After: Post-Socialism and Political Geography session, RGS-IBG Annual Conference, University of Manchester, August 2009
• 2009 - 'Discourses of Demonisation: Chechens, Putin, and the Stavropol' riots of 2007', Geopolitics and Governance session, RGS-IBG Postgraduate Mid-Term Conference, University of Plymouth, March 2009.
• 2008 - 'The Ethno-Political Situation in the North Caucasus: an outsiders view', Regional Conference discussing Ethno-Political Change in the Russian Southern Federal Okrug, Pyatigorsk (Russia), October 2008.
• 2008 - 'What is 'Critical' about Critical Geopolitics?', Stavropol' State University, Russia, October 2008.
• 2008 - 'Writing/Righting the North Caucasus: nationalism and cartography in Russia', paper presented at Conference on 'The Russian National Idea', St Anthony's College, University of Oxford, June 2008
• 2008 - 'Scripting Terrorism: the "banal geopolitics" of Beslan', paper presented at Conference on 'The Borders of Europe', University of Birmingham, April 2008
• 2007 - 'Derzhavnost' and Demographic Decline: Russia's Great Power Status and Russian Population Decline', paper presented at Conference on 'The Future of Europe: Identity, History, Politics', University of Birmingham, April 2007

Publications

• Foxall, A. (under review, 2009) Discourses of Demonisation: Chechens, Russians, and the Stavropol' riots of 2007. Geopolitics.
• Howarth, N.A.A. and Foxall, A. (forthcoming, 2009) The Veil of Kyoto: the Politics of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation in Australia. Oxford University Centre for Work, Employment and Finance Working Paper Series, School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford University. Submitted to Political Geography.
• Foxall, A. (under review, 2009) Book Review of Kolsto, P. (ed.) (2009) Media Discourse and the Yugoslav Conflict: Representations of Self and Other, National Identities.
• Foxall, A. (forthcoming, 2009) A 'New Cold War': Re-drawing the MAP/map of Europe. Political Geography.
• Bezloerov, V.S. and Foxall, A. (2009) Россия и Великобритания: Общие и региональные особенности этнодемографических и миграционных процессов [Russia and Great Britain: General and regional peculiarities of ethno-demographic and migration processes], Occasional Papers, Stavropol' State University.
• Foxall, A. (2008) Book Review of Russell, J. (2007) Chechnya - Russia's 'War on Terror', Central Asian Survey.
• Foxall, A. (2008) Book Review of Balabanova, E. (2007) Media, Wars and Politics: Comparing the Incomparable in Western and Eastern Europe. Europe-Asia Studies, 60(8): 1452-3.

Working Papers

• Beyond Chechnya: 'Other' geopolitical discourses of the North Caucasus.
• For an 'everyday geopolitics' of ethnicity: the example of Stavropol' Krai.

Working papers are available upon request.