Feeling Everyday IR: Embodied, affective, militarising movement as choreography of war

Abstract

This article explores affective, embodied encounters between military and civilian bodies in the everyday as choreography of war. It argues that by paying attention to the intersecting political sphere of bodies, affect and movement – through the metaphor of ‘dance’ – we are not only able to understand how security operates as a logic reproducing the militarisation of the everyday, but also able to identify a representational gap, an aesthetic politics, potentially useful for resistance to such practices normalising war in the everyday. It draws on two British examples of where military moves disrupt civilian spaces in the everyday: an arts project commemorating the Battle of the Somme, and a football game taking place during Remembrance week. Through embodied choreographies of war in the everyday, dance is used as a metaphor to understand militarisation as an example of feeling Everyday IR. Thus, dance is useful to ‘see’ the politics of Everyday IR, but also to understand, to feel and possibly to resist the politics of normalisation of war in the everyday. This is one example of how feeling Everyday IR offers alternative openings into political puzzles of security logics informing war as practice.

Preserving the everyday: Pre-political agency in peacebuilding theory

“…Indeed, I would agree that the everyday (the mundane, quotidian getting on with life) is always already a product of power previously applied (historical, social, economic, cultural and political). However, while Åhäll (2019) and Väyrynen (2019) argue that the everyday must always be considered a site of politics – of competition over the distribution of power and authority – and be analysed as such, I would resist the temptation to give in to this false dichotomy which assumes that all phenomena within the realm of ‘the everyday’ either are or are not political. This choice provides no real place for organic, emergent creativity, or for innovation or tactics as are discussed by others as the stuff of the mundane, quotidian everyday and which provide a conceptual anchor for alternative ideas of agency, action and peace.…”

“…Indeed, in the effort to bring together critical peacebuilding and urban studies scholarship, Björkdahl (2013) emphasizes primarily the many ways in which social and physical structures together make manifest the everyday free of explicitly political motives. However, she nonetheless argues that it is necessary also to ‘acknowledge political actions that would not traditionally be considered political, to uncover the workings of power relations in both conflict and peace processes’ (2013: 220), and in this step she joins other feminist scholars such as Åhäll (2019) and Väyrynen (2019) who see the everyday as embodying invisibly political structures which have problematically become normalized (Åhäll, 2019: 152). While such scholars recognize the lived and embodied nature of the everyday as a site where action may occur without conscious political intent (Väyrynen, 2019: 20), it is for this very reason, they argue, that the everyday is a site of such political importance and why it must be actively re-politicized (Åhäll, 2019: 152).…”

“…This perspective connects usefully to various interpretations of the everyday outside political science and IR, from scholars such as Bourdieu (1977), Vaneigem (1983) or De Certeau (1984), and opens for consideration a realm of quotidian activity outside the scope of politics; or, at least, outside the scope of conscious political motivation. But in arguing that ‘the everyday’ must be re-politicized , there is the concern that analysis such as that proposed by Åhäll (2019) or Väyrynen (2019) may inadvertently strip the everyday of this organic, emergent creativity; characteristics which provide valuable means by which individuals act, survive, cope, endure, flourish, struggle or express themselves in conflict-affected or post-conflict contexts.…”

Popular culture, the body and world politics

“…This research foregrounds ‘deeply political bodies, constituted in reference to historical political conditions while at the same time acting upon the world’ (Wilcox, 2015: 3). What emerges is a body that is fleshy, corporeal and precarious; entangled with discourses and materials and other bodies; alive with emotions, affects, drives, impulses and habits (see, e.g., Åhäll, 2018a; Davies and Chisolm, 2018; Fishel, 2017; Wilcox, 2015). As I have indicated already, sites of popular cultural production like sport, literature, the cinema and television are often drawn into politics not simply rhetorically, but with deep bodily force.…”

Studying Emotions in Security and Diplomacy: Where We Are Now and Challenges Ahead

“…An increasing number of IR studies examine emotions as a way of delving into “micropolitics” or “everyday IR” (Beattie et al, ; see also, Åhäll, ). Others focus on state‐level emotions, the institutionalization of emotions, and/or the study of emotional dynamics of and between decision‐makers (Crawford, ; Pace & Bilgic, ).…”