The Geography Of The Peace

How and why war and peace occur cannot be understood without realizing that those who make war and peace must negotiate a complex world political map of sovereign spaces, borders, networks, and scales. This book takes advantage of a diversity of perspectives as it analyzes the political processes of war and their spatial expression. Topics include terrorism, nationalism, religion, drug wars, water conflicts, diplomacy, peace movements, and post-war reconstruction.

From handshakes on the White House lawn to Picasso's iconic dove of peace, the images and stereotypes of peace are powerful, widespread and easily recognizable. Yet if we try to offer a concise definition of peace it is altogether a more complicated exercise. Not only is peace an emotive and value-laden concept, it is also abstract, ambiguous and seemingly inextricably tied to its antithesis: war. And it is war and violence that have been so compellingly studied within critical geography in recent years. This volume offers an attempt to redress that balance, and to think more expansively and critically about what peace means and what geographies of peace may entail. The editors begin with an examination of critical approaches to peace in other disciplines and a helpful genealogy of peace studies within geography. The book is then divided into three sections. The opening section examines how the idea of peace may be variously constructed and interpreted according to different sites and scales. The chapters in the second section explore a remarkably wide range of techniques of peacemaking.This widens the discussion from the archetypical image of top-down, diplomatic state-led initiatives to imperial boundary making practices, grassroots cultural identity assertion, boycotts, self-immolation, ex-paramilitary community activism, and 'protective accompaniment'. The final section shifts the scale and focus to everyday personal relations and a range of practices around the concept of coexistence. In their concluding chapter the editors spell out some of the key questions that they believe a geography of peace must address: What spatial factors have facilitated the success or precipitated the failure of some peace movements or diplomatic negotiations? Why are some ideologies productive of violence in some places but co-operation in others? How have some communities been better able to deal with religious, racial, cultural and class conflict than others? How have creative approaches to sharing sovereignty mitigated or transformed territorial disputes that once seemed intractable? Geographies of Peace is the first book wholly devoted to exploring the geography of peace.Drawing on both recent advances in social and political theory and detailed empirical research covering four continents, it makes a significant intervention into current debates about peace and violence.

This collection addresses the impact of armed conflict and explores pathways to peace across the world. Topics range from geopolitics to the effects of armed conflict on the environment, resources, health, children, and transnational migration. Others explore the social processes involved in post-conflict situations, and others still the lessons for achieving effective peace. The geographical concepts addressed include the notion of "conflict space," landscapes of terror, the relationship between violence and justice, the conditions for peace, and the dynamics of post-conflict. Methods include landscape analysis, interviews with a range of citizens, mapping and geographic information science, and policy analysis. Several papers address the situation of children in conflict zones, the impact of conflict on patterns of migration, the role of gender in achieving peace, the concept of territory as a basis for conflict and for negotiation of peace, as well as the economic impact of conflict. The studies cover several world regions, including Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and eastern Europe. This book was originally published as a special issue of Annals of the Association of American Geographers.