Suchergebnisse

For decades, scholars and policy-makers have disputed whether environmental degradation caused by human-induced climate change needs to be addressed and reversed in order to prevent conflict, or whether the instabilities generated by such degradation (resource scarcity, reduction of arable land, mass migration of so-called environmental refugees, etc.) provides a compelling new rationale for preparing militarily to fight the "climate change conflicts" of the future. Exploring the tension between these perspectives, the paper argues that any effective practical response implies and requires a change in the conceptual climate of the debate sufficient to discredit a literally devastating circular argument: that environmental problems, caused in part by the multiple impacts of industrial militarism, can be adequately addressed by new military strategies and spending, a "war reflex" only serving to exacerbate political tensions, widen and deepen already chronic inequalities, and inflict further ecological harm. The paper contrasts the state-centric status quo with the human-centric agenda of sustainable peace, a concept with the potential – if defined with sufficiently radical, transnational rigor – to disrupt and transform the sovereignty paradigm. The paper concludes by drawing on both Western and Indigenous political theory to ask what we think we mean by – or have come to accept as – "peace" and "power."

This article revisits volume 1 of International Journal to illustrate the power of "critical remembrance" to deepen the discourse about and sharpen the debate over contemporary global issues and Canada's potential as a force for peace and progress. Setting the origins of the journal in historical context, the article considers the immediate postwar mood of its contributors and their myriad suggestions for Canada's appropriate role. The article concludes with a plea for "historical literacy" as an indispensable starting point for reimagining the world in which we live.

Inspired by the publication of a book celebrating the role of the women in the Manhattan Project, this paper seeks to demonstrate that such an effort – to the extent it accepts and endorses the historical, political and scientific legitimacy of the Project – is both misguided and dangerous. An alternative feminist critique is presented: one respecting the views of those scientists (men and women) who refused to participate or who have sought to challenge the reductionist Western scientific paradigm from which the Bomb emerged. Illumination of the repressive and hierarchal structures requisite for the "birth" of the nuclear age is undertaken and views excised by the official narrative – the voices of wives, daughters and victims – are recalled. In constructing this "counter-narrative", critical stress is laid on the multiple negative legacies of the Project and the positive requirement for humane, sustainable alternatives to the poisonous technologies often spawned by current forms of scientific inquiry.