Unconventional Classroom: Critical Work with Special Operations Forces Officers

Shannon O'Lear

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2016, vol. 106, issue 3, 536-542

Abstract: As part of a discussion on geography and militarism, this article describes my work with midlevel officers in the Army Special Operations Forces who enroll in a graduate-level course I teach on environmental geopolitics. The theoretical framework for the course is critical geopolitics, a highly relevant subfield for these students but one to which most of them have never been exposed. Here, I draw from critical security studies and discuss what I teach to these students before providing examples of how they demonstrate what they learn in the class. Throughout the article, I consider how this work in some ways destabilizes an academic–military binary and how, at other times, the dividing line is clear. I suggest that critical scholarship might usefully continue to engage with groups beyond the academy.

Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2016.1145512

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