Politics of Difference: Epistemologies of Peace

ISBN-13: 9780415742214 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 184 str.

Hartmut Behr

Opis

This book develops a notion of differences and 'otherness' beyond hegemonic and hierarchical thinking as represented by the legacies of Western philosophical and political thought. In doing so, it relates to the phenomenological discourse of the twentieth century, especially to Georg Simmel, Alfred Schutz, Emmanual Levinas, and Jacques Derrida, and drafts our understanding of difference as a genuine human experience of a social and political world that is in motion and transformative, rather than static and predictable. On this basis of temporalized ontology and its normative consequences, differences are drafted as a positive social and political force and as powerful capacities of transformation and change. In practical terms, this understanding is most important for our theorizing and acting upon peace, peace-building, and conflict solution. Differences now appear not as obstacle to peace and reconciliation, but as lively and constructive articulations of 'otherness' and as a positive power of transformation, emancipation, and change. This book will be of interest to students of international relations, philosophy and political theory."

Spis treści

Preface; Acknowledgements; Glossary; Introduction; 1 In Defence of Ontology, 1.1 Introduction, 1.2 From relativism to relationism: on reading and normativity, 1.3 Ontology is not (necessarily) essentialism: on temporality; 2 The Problem of "Otherness" and Modes of Temporality, 2.1 Introduction, 2.2 Western ontologies and the construction of "otherness", 2.3 Searching for thinking difference beyond; 3 Phenomenologies of "Otherness", 3.1 Introduction, 3.2 Being-in-time, transformativity, and sociability; 3.3 ‘Crisis’/’trauma’, the question of beginning, and the permanence of critical exegesis; 4 From E Pluribus unum to Fatemini Pluribus Pluribum, 4.1 Introduction, 4.2 Non-silence and the embrace of differences, 4.3 Western narratives of ‘peace’: a critique, 4.4 Peace as living towards differences; Conclusions: Conditions of the Possibility of Peace; Bibliography; Index

O autorze

Hartmut Behr is Professor of International Politics at Newcastle University (UK) and specializes in political theory, sociology of knowledge of the discipline of IR, and critical European studies. He is the author of A History of International Political Theory (2010), Entterritoriale Politik (2004), and Einwanderungspolitik im Nationalstaat (1998).