What is the role of geography in sociopolitics?

'North' and 'South' are simultaneously geographical and sociopolitical categories. Colonialism---a hierarchical relationship that is premised on the superordination of a metropole that is premised on the subordination of a periphery---is fundamentally involved in both dialectics: in the first case, because it is premised on a distinction that only geographical displacement makes possible; in the second case, because it is a relationship---it defines self and other as it embeds them in an inherently unequal relationship. Settler colonialism---a particular form of colonialism where the colonisers 'come to stay' and are founders of political orders that are endowed with a specific self-constituent sovereign capacity---is a manipulation of both these categories and their ordering; this is why it should feature in any South-South dialogue. Geographically, settler colonialism is premised on a displacement that is ultimately a non-displacement. Settlers transform geography and a capacity to do so is a measure of their success. As well as founders of political orders, therefore, they are destroyers of ecological ones (and therefore builders of new landscapes). Indeed, it is exactly because they are able to destroy existing ecosystems that they are so effective at establishing durable political regimes. As they consume places at a fierce rate and routinely dissolve distance, they Europeanise space. No wonder that the old term for settler colonialism was 'planting'; their countries look like the ones they have left behind.