Actually existing frontierness and Indonesia's geothermal island | CU Experts

Korf and Watts seek to articulate a precise spatial theory of the frontier, to reign in the keyword's increasing conceptual elasticity. After noting an inattention to recent feminist geographical interventions conceptualizing frontiers as embodied in persons, I consider the complexities of bringing this theory of frontier - as a conjuncture of state time at the (re)birth of territory characterized by a state of exception – to actually existing frontiers. I then think with Korf and Watts' intervention in relation to the question of whether the island of Flores, Indonesia, declared to be a “Geothermal Island” in 2017, can be characterized as a “geothermal frontier.” Despite the minimal actual extraction of geothermal resources, Korf and Watts' argument about conjunctures of social space experiencing state territorialization suggests that geothermal extraction reveals and accelerates other frontier processes. “At the edge of the sword” productively identifies qualities of frontierness that open up new questions to ask but may not reign in the proliferation of frontiers in the literature.

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