THE CHIMERA OF KANSAS: AN EXPLORATION OF PLACE, POLITICS, AND CULTURE

Abstract

This dissertation first examines the role of geography in Kansas state politics, focusing on the years 2005 to 2008. A "spatial dialectics" is seen in the politics and policy-making process. This insight drives a process-oriented, critical interpretation of the cultural geopolitics. Four legislative issues are stressed: school funding, immigration, gambling, and the Holcomb power plant. New insights are offered into each of these, as well as the prevailing discourses of Kansas that can be taken from such analysis. The second part of the dissertation uses the sense of place and representative qualities of legislators to construct a cultural geography of contemporary Kansas. In this, dialectical and oppositional dimensions could be seen in the perception of place. In particular, place-by-place differentiation and rivalry, and schools, were identified as central to the cultural construction of places in Kansas.