War: Critical Perspectives
Notes on Lecture by Dr Noam Leshem, University of Durham.
Modern War
• War is more than just an event
• Modernity ushered in a set of ways of seeing and understanding the
world. Applying scientific knowledge to what would otherwise be a fluid
space. Institutions made space the object of experts such as
cartographers.
• Re-imagination of space is never divorced from other changes which are
taking place at the time e.g. industrialisation
• Redesign of Paris: structural, scientific and efficient way of looking at
space, superimposed onto the city. Rooted in the application of power.
• The way in which war emerges in modernity is catastrophic — linear,
industrial way of thinking produces the font line.
• Late modern war — takes straight lines and removes this structural way
of thinking, now fragmented way of imagining space. Introduction of
new ways of thinking about the world and space in it.
• Juxtaposed ways of imaging space: modern = fractal, repeating and
multiple rather than linear
Argument
• War remains Eurocentric and masculine. — Theorisations of war-space
are rooted in Western traditions: produced in the west, by the west, for
the west— Theorisations of war space are saturated with masculinity.
Patriarchy produces war and produces violent conflict — How is the
space of war conceived and experiences in most of the world? Need to
actively extract ourselves from colonial confinements.
Decolonising War
• The problem: “warfare is a cosmopolitan experience, a shared bane of
humanity. Yet somehow, in social and political enquiry, war as a concept
is imagined primarily in provincial terms, those of the west and its major
wars” Barkawi 2016 pp. 199
Notes on Lecture by Dr Noam Leshem, University of Durham.
Modern War
• War is more than just an event
• Modernity ushered in a set of ways of seeing and understanding the
world. Applying scientific knowledge to what would otherwise be a fluid
space. Institutions made space the object of experts such as
cartographers.
• Re-imagination of space is never divorced from other changes which are
taking place at the time e.g. industrialisation
• Redesign of Paris: structural, scientific and efficient way of looking at
space, superimposed onto the city. Rooted in the application of power.
• The way in which war emerges in modernity is catastrophic — linear,
industrial way of thinking produces the font line.
• Late modern war — takes straight lines and removes this structural way
of thinking, now fragmented way of imagining space. Introduction of
new ways of thinking about the world and space in it.
• Juxtaposed ways of imaging space: modern = fractal, repeating and
multiple rather than linear
Argument
• War remains Eurocentric and masculine. — Theorisations of war-space
are rooted in Western traditions: produced in the west, by the west, for
the west— Theorisations of war space are saturated with masculinity.
Patriarchy produces war and produces violent conflict — How is the
space of war conceived and experiences in most of the world? Need to
actively extract ourselves from colonial confinements.
Decolonising War
• The problem: “warfare is a cosmopolitan experience, a shared bane of
humanity. Yet somehow, in social and political enquiry, war as a concept
is imagined primarily in provincial terms, those of the west and its major
wars” Barkawi 2016 pp. 199
