Mercenaries in/and history: the problem of ahistoricism and contextualism in mercenary scholarship

Riemann, Malte

doi:10.1080/09592318.2021.1999679

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 69 publications

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“…Contingent approaches' concern with 'context and indeterminacy' 32 risks throwing the historical baby out with its bathwater: engendering 'a sovereign politics of time' by inscribing 'temporal borders' 33 between periods. In stressing past times' 'radical "otherness"' , 34 contingent approaches institute artificial barriers between them. Scholarship operationalising the past in terms of 'discontinuity, contingency, and particularity' 35 ends up 'cutting' 36 history into a series of disconnected chunks: a 'butterfly of contingent hiccoughs' , 37 rather than an intricate and interpellated whole.…”

Section: Security Studies' Dual Problem With the Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing the ‘conceptual archive’: A genealogy of counterterrorism in 1970s Britain

Livesey

2023

Eur. j. of int. secur.

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This article contributes to an ‘historical turn’ in security scholarship. It addresses imbalance in security studies’ attention to historical empirics, and argues against notions of temporal disjunct prevalent within the discipline. I employ a genealogical framework to clarify the interpellation of past and present; and I introduce the ‘conceptual archive’ as a lens for pursuing that interpellation in research. My thesis on the ‘conceptual archive’ represents a twofold contribution. Firstly, a conceptual contribution: I advance the ‘conceptual archive’ as a way of thinking about past-present interpellation (specifically, existing conceptual logics’ remodelling in arguments justifying new practice). Secondly, an analytical contribution: I propose the ‘conceptual archive’ as a tool for doing genealogy (a research programme with historicising promise, but one suffering nebulous operationalisation at present). I use the field of terrorism studies as an entry-point to these contributions: adopting a mixed-methods research design to trace British counterterrorism practices’ roots within an ‘archive’ of logics on Northern Ireland. I find 1970s British governments remodelled long-standing ‘archival’ vocabularies in their arguments for new security provisions: framing exceptional practices according to an accepted fabric of concepts.

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Section: Security Studies' Dual Problem With the Pastmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introducing the ‘conceptual archive’: A genealogy of counterterrorism in 1970s Britain

Livesey

2023

Eur. j. of int. secur.

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Optimization Method of Urban Square Public Space from the Perspective of Contextualism

Zhang

Lee

2022

Scientific Programming

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In the era of rapid development of science and technology, in order to attract the public's attention, many architectural designs unilaterally pursue nonmainstream design, completely ignoring the surrounding environment and historical context. The original spatial features and scales have disappeared, and the root cause is that the spatial shaping is separated from the urban context. Urban design that continues the urban context is not only a method to solve specific urban space problems and contradictions but also an important means to build a beautiful urban space and achieve sustainable development. The urban design of the two banks of the Pinghe River in the east of Foshan is based on the sorting and analysis of the material and spiritual elements of the context of the base. This article will go back to the trend of Western architectural contexts and discuss how to design new buildings while respecting the historical context of the city through rational speculation on the two dimensions of contextualism architectural theory, space and time, combined with architectural cases.

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The mercenary concepts conditions of possibility: effeminacy, modernity and the international

Riemann

2024

European Journal of International Relations

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The 19th-century disappearance of mercenary forces within Europe is generally regarded as a cornerstone in the historical sociology of the international as it provided important conditions of possibility for the historical consolidation of the state’s monopoly on violence. Contrary to the claim that mercenaries disappeared in this time frame, this article argues that the mercenary concept was constituted within it. The argument unfolds in three steps. First, it revisits a central dichotomy within this narrative, the soldier/mercenary dualism, exposing the conceptual ambiguity surrounding these terms before the 19th century. Second, drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, it turns to an overlooked dimension of the 19th-century transformation in military force, namely a change in the conditions of knowledge and the constitution of the modern subject grounded in the modern state. Last, by investigating 19th-century discourses on ‘effeminacy’ and the formation of the social, it exposes how the mercenary enters into reflective practice as an actor threatening to undo the compact between man and state, by being simultaneously a symptomatic expression of, as well as cause for, the erosion of the masculine principle upon which this compact rests.

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Mercenaries in/and history: the problem of ahistoricism and contextualism in mercenary scholarship

Cited by 5 publications

References 69 publications

Introducing the ‘conceptual archive’: A genealogy of counterterrorism in 1970s Britain

Introducing the ‘conceptual archive’: A genealogy of counterterrorism in 1970s Britain

Optimization Method of Urban Square Public Space from the Perspective of Contextualism

The mercenary concepts conditions of possibility: effeminacy, modernity and the international

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