Please find below a call for papers on "the geography of war and peace",
sponsored by the Political Geography Research Group, for the RGS-IBG
2014 conference in London.
Best, 

Craig


RGS-IBG 2014 Paper Session Proposal

The geography of war and peace

Conveners: Derek Gregory (UBC), Craig Jones (UBC), Benedikt Korf
(University of Zurich), Timothy Raeymaekers (University of Zurich)

Research Group Affiliation: Political Geography Research Group (PolGRG):

Abstract:

"War and peace -- what's the difference?" asked David Keen (2000) some
time ago. And indeed, war is a slippery concept. Where does war end and
peace start? What is war and what is "only" a riot, violence, struggle
or uprising? And what does war tell us about peace? Or politics? It was
Michel Foucault who once asked the question: isn't politics the
continuation of war by other means -- putting Clausewitz on his head (or
on his feet). Foucault alerts us to the entanglement of state making and
war making (Tilly) and to the many facets of political power, violence
and warfare. This panel approaches the problematique of war as a present
condition not through a philological reading of Foucault's lectures,
though, but through an empirical, ethnographic, contextual exploration
of the spatial configurations of technologies, conduct, experiences and
practices of war in its military, political, economic and social
conditions. Such "warscapes" are multi-local, transnational, entangled
landscapes of violence, destruction, coercion, suppression, fear,
suffering and of excitement, enrichment, opportunity, technological
advancement and social transformation. If we look at war in this way,
the question about the difference of war and peace has to be re-phrased:
what is it about war that is not peace, not politics? In other words: we
arrive at understanding the geography of war and peace by looking at the
spectacle of war in its full military might as much as at its unraveling
and fuzzy boundaries and transitions to "post-war" conditions and the
intricate relations between the main theatre of war, its spectacular and
hidden spaces and the continuation of the "social condition" of the
non-military world in the shadow of the war. We encourage paper
submissions that engage with these questions by looking at 1)
contemporary or historical wars, 2) different varieties of wars in the
present, or 3) with processes of post-war transitions.

References:

Keen, D. (2000) 'War and peace: What's the difference?', International
Peacekeeping, 7 (4), 1-22.

Instructions for submission of paper proposals:

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words by 7 February 2014 to

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Deadline for paper submission:

7 February 2014

The conference:

http://www.rgs.org/WhatsOn/ConferencesAndSeminars/Annual+International+Conference/Annual+international+conference.htm