Geosophy

In this interdisciplinary work, “geosophy” will be discussed
as a concept that links philosophy, politics and space. The
focus of the article will be on the development of possible
geosophical approaches both in Turkey and worldwide. This
article argues that geosophical understanding hybridized with
the historical approach, would release a new discussion how
politics, human and space are interconnected. This is how the
concept “imagined geographies” makes sense in
understanding different nationalisms, “exceptionalisms” or
geopolitical roles / identitifications assumed by various
political actors. Along with the analysis of the rising power
of spatiality in the social sciences, this article will evaluate
the possible geosophical approaches in Turkish context
mostly arising from the emerging critical literature on
geopolitics.

The study of the past still is a privilege of the Global North (Benavides 2019). The chronological structure and knowledge production in fields like Archaeology or Geography are often only questioned at its fridges, for instance through Feminist or Marxist approaches, but the majority of those disciplines continues to consider the empirical analysis of material remains and ‘hard-science’-based research such as Isotope Analysis, aDNA studies or GIS, as their core purpose and actual way to reproduce a factual past, that is, producing the truth. Geo­sophical thinking might provide a contribution to remedy those paradigmatic limitations. It offers a critical introduction of multiple historical narratives that question the often monolithic tempo-spatial ordering and Othering of things. In my paper, I will grapple both with theoretical implications of the concept and present shortly one possible way, in how to conduct a geosophi­cally informed archaeological research.