Geophilosophy is a spatial concept that will be applied as a supplement to the geographical method, with the aim of better understanding the historical-geographical conditionality in the Central Balkans, its political-geographical evolution and the variability of regional-geographical forms. As a philosophical concept, geophilosophy was created by Deleuze and Guattari (1995) at the end of their scientific careers. From their philosophical point of view, Tampio (2014), Protevi (2010), Parr (2010), and others wrote about their work. This concept also has its geographical dimension, and significant results have been written about it by Woodward (2017), Bonta (2010), Peet (1998), and others. All these authors emphasize the importance of the book A Thousand Plateaus (2013). A form of new materialism with a politicized “philosophy of differences” was successfully developed, and in which the meaning of geophilosophy is created through the superposition of layers of thought. Although indications of geophilosophy can be recognized in Nietzsche’s works, and the whole concept can be interpreted as a philosophical aspect of geographical (geological) processes, this concept has a far more complex meaning (poststructuralism). This paper aims to apply geophilosophy as a method in interpreting complex historical-geographical processes, which, in addition to their complexity and long duration, can also indicate their certain regularity. The theoretical basis for this approach is sought through Deleuze’s and Guattari’s (1995: 121) view of the importance of the milieu, the notion through which they show that “philosophy is a certain geophilosophy just as, in Braudel’s view, history is a certain geohistory” and that to present through ancient Greece (allusion to the past of philosophy), modern Europe (present philosophy), while the process of emergence represents the future of philosophy. Lundy (2011: 116) interprets this so that exceptional geographical circumstances determine the nature of thought and that the nature of each milieu is as historical as it is geographical. In this paper, the miles of ancient Greece will be transposed to the neighboring Balkans and then explained through three processes (territorialization, deterritorialization, and reterritorialization) that will produce recognizable historical and geographical narratives.

This paper emphasizes the consequences of economic inequality, the roots of which lie at the heart of capitalism. It was explained by Marx (1867), and a modern interpretation was offered by Harvey (1982, 1985, 1987, 2013b) through the term spatial fix, which connects the development of capitalism and urbanization. In this global process, inequalities arise that can be illustrated numerically: the net worth of the world’s 358 wealthiest people in 1996 was equal to the total income of the poorest, which makes up 45% of the world’s population or 2.3 billion people. This fact of economic inequality, most convincingly written about by Piketty (2016) and Chancel (2020), became even more critical during the Covid-19 pandemic. The gap between the richest and the poorest widened. The period in which several significant changes in global economic policy took place was called neoliberalism (Harvey, 1989, 2013a; Dušanić, 2016) and led to the establishment of a new economic system that significantly determined the further directions of geography. Understanding these processes implies an interactive approach to their study because the capital/labor relationship defines the global framework for developing urbanization and demography, and thus geography (Mutabdžija, 2020, 2021).

This paper emphasizes Lefebvre’s interpretation of relational space as a social construct that enabled a “spatial turn” in the social sciences in the late 1960s. This is evidenced by his most important essays and books (1968, 1991, 2003) on space, the results of which have been transposed into other disciplines, as evidenced by works from a wide range of social sciences, from geography (Harvey, 1973; Soja, 1989; Peet, 1998; Dear, 2000; Elden, 2004; Castree, 2004; Shields, 2011; Gregory, 2015), spatial planning, urbanism and urban studies (Kipfer, 2008; Goonewardena, 2008) to economics (Berend, 2009; Nijkamp, ​​2012, Capello, 2016, Suwala, 2021). This led to theoretical bases for new disciplinary directions in geography (radical and postmodern geography) and regional economy by introducing a new classification of relational space (diverse-stylized and diverse-relational). Understanding this epistemological transition is possible through different concepts of space and absolute, relative, relational. Broader ontological reasoning is needed, and this has been provided by numerous theorists, such as sociologists (Blaas and Foster, 1992; Schmidt, 2008) to philosophers and social theorists (Bachelard, 1969; Foucault, 1984; Prigge, 2008; Cusset, 2015; Knoblauch and Löw, 2017). In this way, the theory of the social production of space became widely accepted. Still, the ideological component of that concept (material social practice as a Marxist thesis) became the antithesis of the emerging poststructuralist antithesis (fragmentation of socio-cultural issue of nations, through cultural studies, into numerous identity micro groups) led to a neoliberal synthesis (privatization and deregulation of the market, to strengthen the role of financial capital in socio-economic relations).

This work analyzes Foucault’s contribution to the development of geographic thinking through emphasis on its interpretation of space and elements of its epistemology. To understand this, it will start from two directions, from the geographer’s interest in Foucault’s geography, as well as his reference works for this discipline. These disciplinary issues are best marked by his notions of geoepistemology and spatial turn in social and humanities, which are important because two issues we will address in this work. First, it refers to more precise definitions of the boundaries of modern, for which there is a consensus among geographers and is related to the establishment of scientific geography (Humboldt and Ritter), but the end of this epoch is interpreted differently. Some geographers link this to: identifying three key principles for the construction of postmodernism, which are: style, epoch and method (Dear, 1988); an increased attack on history in modern thought (Soja, 1989); infuriatingly difficult to define (Cloke et al., 1991) or with the emergence of neoliberalism (Peet, 1998). Another issue concerns the possibility of applying post-structural methods to deconstruct major cultural and geographical changes in the Western Balkans at the end of the 20th century. This will be achieved through indications of genealogical analysis in the interpretation of contemporary historical-geographical and political-geographical issues in the example of Sarajevo (1992-1995).

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) established a turning point between the epochs of the premodern and the modern with his dialectic. It was a period of enlightenment in which religion lost the significance of the only factor of social integration, thus diminishing (disappearing) its cohesive power. There was a “certain gap” that needed to be filled, that is. define a new form (mind, power, practices) that will provide new meaning and content to the coming epoch of modernity. Hegel and his students believed in the dialectic of the Enlightenment, in which the mind should replace the power of religion, and its principle of subjectivity essentially determines the new (modern) age. We can now return to the elements of Hegel’s geographical thought, which is best represented by the term “geographical basis” (geographische Grundlage). It forms the basis for understanding Hegel’s geographical thought, within which three notions exist: space, territory, and a set of regional-geographical questions, including geographical determinism, that best reflects Ritter’s notion of Erdindividuum. The common denominator of various contemporary critical reviews of Hegel’s geographical work is the denial of the dialectic of idealism (absolute idea), while individual specifics can be grouped in two directions. One consists of the successors of the Left Hegelians (Marxists and critical geographers) such as Harvey (1981), Anuchin (1987), Lefebvre (1991), Massey (1995), Peet (1998), Elden (2001), Timár (2003) and Soja (2013). Their general criticisms relate to issues of capitalism (unequal distribution of capital) and imperialism; relativization of “moral climatology” and geohistory. The second champion is the successor to the ideas of right-wing Hegelians (liberals and neoconservatives), who do not consider Hegel relevant to contemporary Anglo-American geographical thought (Glacken, 1967), emphasize his Eurocentrism (Unwin, 1992; Gregory, 1998) or emphasize his racist views. 1992).