Agonism, critical political geography, and the new geographies of peace

Abstract

Why does critical political geography struggle to address, and research, peace? Recent efforts in geography do seek positive accounts of peace, but we argue that critical geographies remain problematically reliant on social agonism. Dominant theoretical lenses used to address critical politics reproduce dissension as the causal grammar of critical sociality and the constitutive effect of difference. We seek an alternative account of peace and sociality. The first half of the paper diagnoses how prevailing conceptual approaches to critique privilege agonism. The second half advances a positive account of peace, without losing the critical tenor of post-foundationalist or relational political insights.

Towards just production of tourism space via dialogical everyday politics in destination communities

“…The notion of absolute space is linked to the work of Bregazzi and Jackson (2018) and their call for 'a positive ontology of being alive in the everyday sociality of human and nonhuman interaction' (p. 3). To achieve this, they mention that it is important to seek out everyday conditions that can enable ethical relationality.…”

“…The research gap addressed in the current study in the context of tourism politics has been recognized in other sub-fields of research. In the field of geopolitics and the study of peace, Bregazzi and Jackson (2018) have recently pointed out that critical geography research has taken the notion of social agonism as a given. In agonistic politics, recognizing and embracing difference is viewed as sufficient means to allow conflicts to exist and, in this way, to achieve social justice (cf.…”

Towards a constructive critical geopolitics – Inspirations from the Frankfurt School of critical theory

“…Critical geopolitical commentaries have identified the exclusionary geographical imaginaries of both (see, for instance Bachmann and Sidaway, 2016; Ingram, 2017), yet have done little to contribute to different outcomes before the votes were held. In a call for a critical political geography and for positive accounts of peace, Bregazzi and Jackson (2018) argue, critical geopolitics exposes damaging ideas by ‘identifying the ways in which geographical imaginaries exclude the “other” and justify use of violence’ (85). Referring to Sharp (2011a) they add ‘to this the need to recognize and foster enabling ideas’ and lay out how the ‘renaturalization of ideology is not a replacement for deconstruction or discourse analysis, but instead demonstrates how critique is only one part of the political undertaking if we want to try and reduce harmful ideas and promote enabling ideas’ (Bregazzi and Jackson, 2018: 85–86).…”

Exploring Prospects for Agonistic Encounters in Conflict Zones: Investigating Dual Narrative Tourism in Israel/Palestine

“…The literature on agonistic peace as it has developed following the works by Shinko (2008) and Mouffe (2013) referred to above thus latches on to ideas of how conflict can be transformed in constructive ways, paving way for more peaceful relations between parties (cf. Little, 2010, p. 8; Maddison, 2016, p. 1623; Rumelili & Celik, 2017, p. 282, Bregazzi & Jacksson, 2016). This theoretical linkage between peace and agonistic elements in tourism is further elaborated below.…”