Browse results
Abstract
This article critically assesses the influence of Heidegger on the “dialogical” school of comparative political theory, and in particular the writings of Fred Dallmayr. In response to dialogical cpt’s employment of Heidegger in service of democratic, egalitarian, and cosmopolitan ends, this article reconstructs Heidegger’s own projects of intercultural dialogue as attempts to awaken the inegalitarian political-spiritual potential of elect nations, such as the Germans, Greeks, and Japanese against the tide of liberal modernity. Contra Dallmayr, the article analyzes the political unity of Heidegger’s treatment of “authentic” intercultural dialogues in his speeches and lectures from 1933–34, his 1941–2 lecture courses on Hölderlin, and his semi-fictional dialogue between a German “Inquirer” and “Japanese” in the 1950s. It outlines the existence of an illiberal Heideggerian cpt and concludes that dialogical cpt scholars should reconceive of their dialogue with Heidegger as one with an “other” to the egalitarian pluralism that they seek to promote.
Abstract
In the United States, the criminal justice system comprises a multitude of complex social structures and policies that directly impact the lives of every citizen. The prison policy initiative reports nearly one out of every 100 citizens in the United States is incarcerated in a prison or jail. Scholars also note that the control mechanisms and sanctions associated with incarceration extend to an incarcerated individuals’ family members and social network. As studies demonstrate how underfunded schools and communities, punitive school disciplinary practices, violent social policies, and failed safety measures contribute to arrest and incarceration, the lived experiences of those who have navigated these challenges should be explored. In this article, I describe how I established a “resistance pedagogical framework” in my undergraduate and graduate courses. Rather than relying solely on traditional textbooks, I created panel engagement opportunities, field trips, and other activities that allow marginalized and system-impacted individuals to challenge existing narratives of inferiority that are perpetuated by white supremacy. This article provides an overview of the shortcomings that are associated with traditional pedagogy, examples of resistance pedagogy in undergraduate and graduate classrooms, students’ perceptions of the panel engagement activities, and future implications.
Abstract
Despite their personal commitment to peace, anthropologists have an ambivalent relationship to pacifism and nonviolence. This is partly because violence is pervasive at all levels of interpersonal, intergroup, and international relations anthropologists routinely study. Ethnographic records show that violence of all kinds is part and parcel of human relationality. While there are many fine-grained analyses of conflicts, disputes, injustices, and inequalities, and their complex, and often long-term, consequences, pacifism and nonviolence have not been among the discipline’s explicit ethnographic or theoretical concerns. In this article I discuss the concept of “peace resources,” recently introduced by Japanese anthropologist Oda Hiroshi, as a possible starting point for more ethnographic and practical engagement with pacifism and nonviolence. I use my ethnographic observations of various activities aimed at the abolition of nuclear weapons taking place alongside the annual commemoration of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9th to examine the concept’s promise.
Abstract
This reflection explores some of the reasons why the current historical moment provides an ideal opportunity to launch a new journal on pacifism and nonviolence. It goes on to argue that there are a number of compelling analytical and normative reasons for taking pacifism and nonviolence seriously, such as the failure of just war theory to regulate international violence, the power-resistance cycle, and the insights from social theory about the connection between the means and ends of social action. The reflection concludes with a warning about some of the key challenges facing the field, including the inevitable resistance from the vested interests in war and militarism, the challenge of decolonising Eurocentric social science, and the challenge of living up to the radicality of pacifist values.
Abstract
Pacifism and nonviolence are ethical, political, and practical policy/strategy arguments that articulate alternative visions of politics, security, and social relations. They bring different perspectives to the problem of aggression and resistance to it, such as in the Ukraine war, and to the longer term climate crisis. Because pacifism and the potential efficacy of nonviolent action challenge militarist assertions about the morality and effectiveness of military force, they provide tools for an effective critique of the war system, not only at the fringes where one is debating policy alternatives, but at the core. Research should explore the spectrum of pacifism and nonviolence—from peaceful societies to nonviolent direct action and defensive defense. The non-participation of US soldiers in the Sand Creek Massacre illustrates both the bravery and limits of non-participation and the potential importance of the philosophical links between pacifism and cognate movements in shaping the motivation to resist violence.
Abstract
The shared materiality of all living entities on the planet and their connectivity becomes an invitation to rethink pacifism to explore new forms of being in the world. This paper asks how we can think about the environment, violence, and pacifism when the older conceptions of violence do not capture all of its complex and interrelational features in the Anthropocene. Feminist new materialism moves away from anthropocentrism and offers an alternative trajectory for thinking about the environment and practicing pacifism in light of environmental, slow, and epistemic violence. It emphasises that since we are always already part of the world and thereby ethically responsible for the intra-actions we share with all beings, we bear a ‘response-ability’ (, 206–207). As a radical theory and practice, feminist environmental pacifism makes visible the violent socio-political complexities of human – nature connections and suggests caring about earthly co-existence with all beings.
Abstract
The question to which we have been asked to respond frames pacifism and non-violence as timely – it implies that there are reasons to study them more seriously now. Thinking about this question from the point of view of traditions and practices of feminist pacifism and non-violence, it is their untimeliness that has most often been at the forefront of their reception. The paper makes the paradoxical case that it is this untimeliness that is key to why we should take feminist pacifism seriously.
Abstract
Pacifism and nonviolence have separable foci and origins, yet also share important similarities, and their respective histories are mutually imbricated. Both have, furthermore, been attracting growing scholarly interest. However, that scholarship has so far been scattered in disparate sub-disciplinary debates and specialist publications. The time has come for an ambitious multidisciplinary agenda to coordinate research on topics including: the varieties of approaches to nonviolence and pacifism; accusations against pacifism; tensions between pacifism and nonviolence; theories and practices outside the Global North; the multiple consequences of violence; violence and nonviolence in political thought; the relationship between violence/nonviolence and gender, race, and other social identities; the religious roots of pacifism and nonviolence; the place of violence and nonviolence in popular culture; practical nonviolent policies of governance; predominant assumptions concerning violence in ir; the threshold characteristics of ‘violence’; and methodological challenges in the study and pedagogy of nonviolence and pacifism.