Suchergebnisse

AbstractThis article argues that in order to understand how bodily impressions shape ways of knowing and being, researchers need to enhance claims of positionality through a language of intercorporeality. The notion of positionality is used to indicate the inherent situatedness and partiality of knowledge, but positionality statements also risk affirming a hierarchical narrative structure, leaving out how knowledge is indelibly and dynamically impressed by bodily others, thereby reinscribing researcher authority. Strengthening attempts to resist mastery in doing research, this article theorizes the intercorporeality of research practice on the basis of the bodily experiences of being there, being moved, and being vulnerable. These insights into the intercorporeality of research practice emerge from fieldwork across the West Bank, the Naqab desert, and alongside the Gaza fence. This article argues that intercorporeal vulnerability is at the core of cultivating knowledge, which emerges not only through willful action, but also through nonintentional rapport with objects and (non)human others. Understanding this vulnerability restores a sense of openness and uncertainty by appreciating research practice as always "in excess" of established categories and always just beyond the researcher's positional mastery.

AbstractHuman capacity to explore and shape outer space will increase substantially over the next 50 years. Yet, International Relations (IR) theory still treats outer space as an isolated, unique, or inconsequential realm of political life. This paper moves IR beyond its 'terrestrial trap' by theorising planetary politics as inherently embedded in relations with environments and actors that are located beyond Earth. To face the momentous and often alarming political developments taking place in outer space, from space militarisation to space colonisation, we challenge two of IR's terrestrial biases. First, we confront the assumption that developments in international relations take place only or primarily on Earth. We show how the historically constituted ideologies and political economies of colonisation and domination are extended to – but also transformed within – outer space exploration and settlement. Second, we challenge the notion that developments in outer space form a logical extension of politics as it has emerged on the habitable surface of our planet. We move beyond zones of human habitation and explore how the material conditions of space intersect with situated histories of political governance and control. By analysing politics beyond Earth, we retool IR theory to confront an extraterrestrial political future.

AbstractElectoral violence is perpetrated by anti-systemic actors opposed to the democratic system, as well as by those vying for power through the electoral process. Even though the motivations for violent tactics are distinct, we do not know whether intra- and anti-systemic violence differ in their effects. Focusing on state-level elections in India – a country that combines nationwide elections with persistent political violence – we demonstrate that the distinction is crucial for understanding spatial patterns of electoral violence and effects on election outcomes. Based on an original dataset of violence in legislative assembly elections between 1985 and 2008, we show that both tactics depress turnout overall but that the effect is larger for anti-systemic violence. Intra-systemic violence not only appears to be more selectively targeted, as it is more likely to occur in constituencies where the incumbent belongs to the state-level opposition, but also generates electoral benefits for the party in control of state government.

International regimes govern how officials address specific issue areas in global politics. There is a deep and unresolved debate as to whether we can speak of an international migration regime. This article seeks to develop the theoretical language to resolve this debate. We introduce the concept of a 'distributive regime': a structure that coordinates movement and settlement control practices in ways that engender ideal distributions of populations across space. The paper demonstrates the discriminatory power of this concept by using it to shed light on analogous forms of movement and settlement control in the study of slavery and incarceration. We then suggest that we could resolve the extant debate about the status of the international migration regime by further exploring the hypothesis that contemporary migration control practices are coordinated in ways that achieve a distributive effect.