Edited by
Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France.
Anne-Cécile Ott, CNRS within the Mixtapes LabCom laboratory, France.
ISBN : 9781789452396
Publication Date : November 2026
Hardcover 266 pp
170 USD
Co-publisher
The world, a geographical object produced by globalization, has attracted relatively little attention in French geography, beyond the work of the pioneers who analyzed its emergence.
This book tackles the construction of the world as a genuine geographical object. It brings together contributions examining the ways geographers have conceptualized and employed the notion of the world in different geographical and historical contexts. It offers analyses of the place of the world in vernacular individual representations (those of ordinary people), as well as in the practices and imaginaries of a wide range of scientific and political actors.
The World and Its Possibilities identifies the major theoretical and methodological issues raised by the analysis of the world as a spatial entity. Together, these issues constitute a series of research questions that warrant further consolidation and exploration in the years ahead.
1. The Worlds of French Geography, Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau and Nolwenn Azilis Rigollet.
2. Planetarization, a Planetary Shift in a Globalized World, Magali Reghezza-Zitt.
3. Representing the World: Vernacular Representations of Global Space, Anne-Cécile Ott and Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau.
4. The Origins of the Modern Atlas: How to Divide the World and Organize It?, Jean-Marc Besse.
5. Describing, Appropriating and Dividing the Political World (around 1890–1945), Hugo Cupri.
6. Development and the North–South Divide: A Division between Disruption and Continuity, Géraud Magrin.
7. Five Hundred Years of Circumnavigations and the Imaginary of the World, Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau.
8. The Digital Space and the Emergence of a Pluralistic World, Amaël Cattaruzza.
9. In Search of Brave New Worlds: Geoethical Ideas and Global Geopolitics, Arnaud Brennetot.
10. A Global Scale of Political Processes and Action, Thomas Rosenthal.
Clarisse Didelon-Loiseau is Professor of Geography at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, France, and a member of the Géographie-cités research unit. Her research focuses on the world, with particular emphasis on the analysis of cognitive representations of global space.
Anne-Cécile Ott is a postdoctoral researcher at the CNRS within the Mixtapes LabCom laboratory, France, and is affiliated with the Géographie-cités research unit. Her work lies at the intersection of geography and sociology, and examines socialization to and through space, particularly among young people.
