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The Zone of Smyrna: Greco-Turkish Border Delineations and the Geographic Imagination
(University of Oregon, 2022-10-04) Abbott, Cy; Murphy, Alexander
The 1920 Treaty of Sèvres that partitioned the Ottoman Empire after the First World War included precise provisions for the creation of a “Zone of Smyrna,” a territory to be administered by Greece centred around the modern Turkish city of İzmir. The process of boundary delineation was not simply the result of military outcomes or zones of influence that characterised much of the rest of the post-war partitioning. It owed more to a new paradigm of spatial sovereignty that was influenced by American academic geographers’ involvement in the peace process. The preserved archival records of these experts reveal a moment that influences the trajectory of the Greek and Turkish nation-state projects to this day while also providing insight into the development of the discipline of Geography in America. The study draws attention to the role of the geographic imagination as it reflects particular world views and shapes concrete outcomes.