5. Identities

‘Identities’ discusses identity politics, because geopolitics is at its heart about imagining and articulating differences between selves and others. What binds the two together is emotion and affect: the powerful forces of feeling that shape how we feel about others. Emotion and affect can also be manipulated; media reporting can inflame, political leaders can and do distort and exaggerate, and publics may be eager to engage with emotions such as fear, dread, hope, and peace. Identity narratives are not restricted to the level of the nation state, but can and do operate at a variety of geographical scales, from the individual and subnational to the pan-regional and finally to the global.