Beyond the binaries: towards a relational approach to peacebuilding

The spatial turn, reification and relational epistemologies in ‘knowing about’ security and peace

“…Binaries can operate lightly, as a way of navigating a broader pattern of interconnection (Holquist, 1990). When reified, however, binaries override nuance and relational interplay and navigate difference through essentialised, compartmentalised entities locked in polarised relations with each other (Hunt, 2017). As Derrida (1976) has argued, polarised binaries articulate hierarchical relations, where one pole is privileged in relation to the other – self/other; human/nature; civilised/savage; man/woman; reason/emotion; state/society; universal/local.…”

“…., but their very being is constituted through relationships that are constantly re-generated’ (Country et al, 2016: 456). In the complex terrain of violence and peace, recognising an ecology of relations is an encouragement to look and listen expansively to include the many elements in play, but it also enables a more attentive orientation to these varied interconnected elements – one that facilitates different voices or presences and is alert to the varying factors that can support destructive relations to shift or new patterns of political order to emerge (Hunt, 2017; Lederach, 2005).…”

“…Thus, complex conflict dynamics might be grasped as chaotic savagery rather than a differentiated interplay of efforts to survive, to seek revenge or control, to pursue particular goals, to create spaces of peace, and so forth. The binary becomes a polarisation of knowing subject and object that works to assert the status and superiority of the knowing subject and inoculate it against the unruly other, rather than to generate productive avenues for understanding and engagement (Hunt, 2017).…”

“…If taken seriously, such orientations can unsettle the almost invisible habits shaping much knowledge production in security studies. The unexpected quality of starting with space and place (at least for non-geographers) and methodologies grounded in geography can help make strange a burden of unexamined assumptions and core explanatory categories, so assisting more careful observation and engagements better turned to working with ‘the empirical reality of emergent order after violent conflict’ (Hunt, 2017: 226). Many of the insights offered by space and place are often not in themselves new in their application to questions of peace and conflict; the spatial turn is part of a spectrum of efforts to go beyond the narrow constructions of security and insecurity which define reality for much security and development studies (e.g.…”

“…Many of the insights offered by space and place are often not in themselves new in their application to questions of peace and conflict; the spatial turn is part of a spectrum of efforts to go beyond the narrow constructions of security and insecurity which define reality for much security and development studies (e.g. Bleiker and Hutchinson, 2015; Boege, 2013; Brigg, 2016; Brown, 2017; De Leon, 2020; Hunt, 2017; Kinnvall and Mitzen, 2018; Mac Ginty, 2011; Richmond, 2020 among others). Nevertheless, the inclusive, complex scope offered by a focus on space and place brings these critical perspectives into conversation with each other, potentially enriching and extending them.…”