Suchergebnisse

The encoding of female bodies as symbols of the nation is a multifaceted process where some female bodies are uplifted to represent the nation and its honour, but others are abjected. I examine in this article Finnish women who fraternized with German soldiers during the Second World War. The bodies of these women carry historical and political content that could not be reconciled with the Finnish post-war national identity narrative that sought closure. The Finnish national subject came into being through the establishment of 'Hitler's brides' as others, and a variety of state-initiated disciplinary mechanisms were used to silence them. The taboo of speech became a lifelong condition that was broken just before the biological deaths of these women. When the taboo was broken their corporeal representations and voices were not simple representations of a past event, but political performances and utterances which intervened in a past and present national context. I show how the agentative figure that emerged was not that of a superstite (survivor) witness with confessional tendencies but that of a parrhesiastes, the one who speaks the truth. Adapted from the source document.

Negotiation & conflict resolution theories do little to shed light on the role of understanding in resolving violent political conflicts. A useful complement is Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. The question addressed in the essay is this: How is a shared understanding reached in a negotiation process aimed at resolving conflicting issues? In Gadamer's view, understanding is important, because conflict resolution engages the parties to a conflict in a dialogue of interpreting meaning & values. Any mediators involved will also take part in the interpretation of meaning: theirs is a job of a translator; that is, they will interpret & transfer meaning between the language games the parties in conflict play. The Gadamerian model is, however, limited because it does not tackle the issue of asymmetry & power in international conflict resolution. Despite its limitations, the theoretical model can be translated into practical policy implications, which suggest that an outside party cannot force the parties into a dialogue. Attempts at conflict settlement that rely on force are unlikely to be successful. 27 References. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright 2005.]

Although ethnicity is a way to form a community, ethnic conflicts can emerge as a result of closed-off ethnic narratives & ethnocraft practices through which a coherent identity of the ethnic group is maintained. Conflict resolution in dialogic communities offers a means of addressing interethnic problems, because the dialogic community conducts a constructive shared search for knowledge of the conflict in question through conversation. Further, conflict resolution in dialogic communities with the help of a third party provides a means for individuals to become involved in projecting & imagining alternative communities & new ways to unite people. 45 References. Adapted from the source document.

In this article we write a narrative of the emergence & decline of Peace Research (PR), reflecting especially on its relationship to neighboring disciplines. In writing this narrative we play critically with medical metaphors, which are often used in PR. We begin with an analysis of the development of PR as it has been practiced in the two main journals, Journal of Conflict Resolution & Journal of Peace Research, & show how the initial critical & creative spirit of PR has turned into a 'normal science' that does not reflect on its basic categories or its role in society. Then we show how PR could learn from the critical research agendas developed in Security Studies. In the last section we move beyond the academic critical research to a more reflexive & participatory agenda. The article concludes with an idea of Critical Peace Research as an epistemic community that can house a variety of approaches with a shared understanding of the importance of critical reflection, dialogue & creativity. Adapted from the source document.