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Focusing on Pakistan we address the human geography of politics and violence to argue that organized political violence is not only about death and destruction but also, more importantly, about the control of the public sphere, and vitally, the reorganization of space. To make this argument we also extend Arendt's thesis on totalitarianism and the human condition. Our argument is grounded in a review of the activities of Tehrik-e-Taliban, Pakistan's (TTP) during their brief control of the Swat valley in Pakistan. We argue that TTP's spectacular violence eliminates "worldliness", plurality and life, so that spontaneous action is denied and the public sphere is destroyed through the universalization of terror. The practical implication of our argument is that, in significant contrast to state and military actions to date, productive measures to resist violence should protect the performance of politics in an extended public sphere.

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This article conceptualises a mode of geopolitical ‘action’ based on the writings of Hannah Arendt. It does so to issue challenges to a hegemonic ‘artificial’ geopolitics characterised by the logics of ‘work’, and the material relations mistrusted by Arendt, which has marginalised ‘action’ as a basis for politics. While recognising that action and work are entwined, we draw attention to action-based geopolitical alternatives and the possibilities for new geopolitical publics to emerge which may defend speech, deeds and the places of human lives against the depredations of a geopolitics steeped in the material.

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