There has been no sustained inquiry into the relationship linking peace and conflict with space and place. This innovative edited volume explores conflict and peace through spatial approaches, and proposes a new research agenda investigating where peace and conflict take place. All chapters employ space as an analytic category and develop strong theoretical contributions alongside new empirical insights. From battlefields to memorials, places of encounter shape how agents relate to each other and how their actions are enabled or constrained. Moreover, spaces such as the international peacekeepers camps or sites of atrocity would not exist if it were not for the conflict. Drawing on concepts such as spatial governmentality, scalar politics, relational spatial theory and spatial narratives the authors investigate case studies reaching from divided cities such as Belfast, Dili and Jerusalem, via rape camps and karaoke bars, to war-torn countries.
This volume brings to the fore the spatial dimension of specific places and sites, and assesses how they condition – and are conditioned by – conflict and peace processes. By marrying spatial theories with theories of peace and conflict, the contributors propose a new research agenda to investigate where peace and conflict take place.
Annika Bjorkdahl
Peace peace and conflict studies conflict territory spatialisation scalar politics peacebuilding borders cities agency violence Bosnia Herzegovina geopolitics Armed conflict
“Spaitalizing Peace and Conflict is a timely and impressive volume that explores the complex and co-constitutive relations between peace and conflict, and space and place. ... The volume brings together scholars from an impressively wide range of disciplines who draw on diverse methods and methodologies, from quantitative analysis of large data sets to narrative analysis and ethnography. This is a refreshing and productive approach which balances diversity with coherence ... . In sum, this is an innovative, informative and engaging volume that will be an excellent resource for researchers and students of peace from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds.” (Dr Fiona McConnell, University of Oxford)