Search

This report explores the history of Puerto Rico's relationship with the United States military and the resistance against militarization. Since the U.S. invasion in 1898, Puerto Rico has experienced the progressive takeover of land for military purposes, resulting in environmental damage and health repercussions. The resistance against militarism has taken various forms, including civil disobedience, marches, and armed struggle. The report showcases a collection of political propaganda, such as posters and pasquines, which were used to spread anti-militarist messages and mobilize people. These materials provide insight into the themes, styles, and campaigns of leftist propaganda between 1960 and 2000, highlighting the power imbalance between the armed forces and the common people. The report includes images and descriptions of selected propaganda pieces, demonstrating the diversity of styles and messages. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Index.Comunicación is the property of Index.comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While questioning the universalization, naturalization, neutralization, and idealization of sport and physical culture, this paper examines the ultimate mystification process of sport and physical culture by expanding upon two conceptual frameworks: Jules Boykoff's celebration capitalism and Lawrence Grossberg's affective landscape. It first analyzes the evolution of the Olympics into a corporatized, commercialized, spectacularized, and celebritized "Disneylimpics" that can consistently evoke an affective reverberation. It then introduces the idea of "affective neoliberalism" to highlight neoliberalism's affective and ideological aspects. With Grossberg's concept of affective landscape, this paper explores the internalization and intensification of anxiety and affective isolation within society. Additionally, the paper utilizes Karl Polanyi's analysis in his influential book, The Great Transformation, to investigate the historical expansion of affective neoliberalism. By highlighting the 11 September 2001, attacks in the United States, it points out provocative militarization and (re)organization of the soul into a fictitious commodity, in addition to labor, land, and money, which triggers the greatest transformation. Lastly, summarizing central arguments, this paper concludes with modest suggestions, mainly focusing on two questions: (1) where are we now? and (2) how can we more effectively respond to the present context? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on Debord's the society of the spectacle and Evans and Giroux's notion of the spectacle of violence, this paper argues that a discourse on war, organised violence, and global politics has been disseminated through a military-entertainment complex that has commodified militarism into a practice of consumption. Drawing on first-person shooter (FPS) video games as a context, the paper considers the market for these games, the conditions of their creation, and the way they are marketed. The paper discusses three ways in which FPS games function as part of a contemporary spectacle of violence: through their intertextual connections to other forms of military entertainment; through the immersive experience they offer; and through the geopolitical position they establish. The paper concludes by establishing FPS games as complex, sophisticated cultural artefacts that both draw on and shape wider discourses on war and the military, in the age of the spectacle of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how fiction can be used as an effective means to protest about social issues, taking the case of what can be called the militarization of education, and the stand one writer took against it through two of his postwar novels. It will analyze how, through plot and characterization, the writer shows what harm can befall a society if what is expected in militarized education, i.e. unquestioning obedience to power and authority, bears results. The point this paper makes is that fiction is an effective tool in protests, and just like this particular writer took part in the physical rallies that many Sri Lankan academics were involved in, in 2021, in opposing what they thought was the government's attempts to militarize the higher education system of Sri Lanka, he also put forth that resistance in his creative work, perhaps making deeper and more long-lasting inroads into the minds of the people about the harm such an education might bring to this country. In the two novels chosen here for analysis, two unconventional university students give their opinion quite ruthlessly about what is happening to the protagonists who are both involved in the media and being used for ends they themselves are unaware of. Through these plot structures, Amarakeerthi is able to explore the nexus between media, capitalism and nationalism in Sri Lanka, the awareness of which is crucial to Sri Lankans if they are to navigate the politics of post war Sri Lanka without harming themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Veteran soldiers who choose to confront a culture of militarism occupy a challenging subject position. They cannot rely on the institutional and public respect generally reserved for veterans who do not question their military service. The Combat Paper Project, a workshop that allows veterans to create paper artwork out of their pulped combat uniforms, is a unique medium of identity renegotiation for veterans. This essay analyzes how Combat Paper, as performance rhetoric, offers veterans a multilayered and open-ended script to enact and transform their complex relationships to the military and the war experiences they embody. The essay illuminates the tactical nature of the Combat Paper performance, highlighting the performance of metaphor and metonymy as rhetorical devices. Overall, the essay identifies three rhetorical functions of the Combat Paper performance, namely its transformative, critical, and community-building functions, and demonstrates how a performance-oriented approach can animate a rhetorical text and enrich rhetorical criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Militaries are distinct social institutions that significantly impact the environment. As militaries seek to satisfy institutional goals, they put unique pressure on industries that help supply vital materials. Operating under the logic of the treadmill of destruction, militaries generate specific forms of risk. This paper focuses on the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange during the American War in Vietnam as a markedly militarized form of risk. Through a historical case study, this paper demonstrates how the risks associated with military herbicide use differ from commercial, civilian use. Military demands and strategic goals influenced how Agent Orange was produced and used, leading to a more dangerous product used in greater quantities and at higher concentrations. This research underscores the importance of focusing on the institutional drivers of militarization, demonstrating how this can further develop our understanding of risk production and environmental degradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent political and economic crisis in Venezuela has given rise to an increase in Venezuelan migrants and refugees to Brazil. Situated in the northern state of Roraima, bordering Venezuela, this research explores the military-humanitarian response coordinated by the Brazilian government. Investigating the underpinning logic of such a humanitarian approach highlights the ways in which vulnerable mobile groups are offered support, while at the same time, are tightly governed for the protection of state security. I argue that Brazil's military-humanitarian approach to mobility governance reflects a logic of debility that works to control migrants. This logic emerges through subtle forms of violence and consequently reinforces migrant vulnerabilities, keeping them in a cyclical loop of exclusion. This paper addresses the militarisation of the response across the urban streetscape of the city of Boa Vista, including humanitarian spaces of care, to investigate processes of securitisation and hygienisation. By doing so, this paper contributes to timely discussions on military-humanitarianism and draws attention to South-South mobilities and the salient geographies of Brazil and Latin America more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study addresses the underexplored dimension of the relationship between military expenditures and gender inequality, drawing upon the insights of feminist security and international relations scholars. The influence of militarization on gender inequality is profound, manifesting itself significantly in both conflict and peacetime situations. The destruction of essential infrastructure further restricts women's access to vital resources. In peacetime, the convergence of militarization and patriarchy reinforces women's secondary roles in society, while higher military expenditures can divert resources from social spending, disproportionately affecting women and children reliant on public services. Despite extensive theoretical discussions, empirical studies on this nexus are limited. This paper contributes by presenting original evidence using a comprehensive dataset spanning 1991–2019, examining the Female Labor Income Share across over 100 countries. Findings reveal that militarization correlates with reduced the Female Labor Income Share, underscoring the urgency of addressing this critical linkage between militarization and gender inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As New Space rises, the gap between the actions of space powers and international space policy continues to widen. The identified theme is the continual break between the actions of actors in the use of the space domain and existing international policy and law that designates the use of space as a global commons and for peaceful uses. This paper concludes that it is increasingly dangerous to forgo developing a proper governance system for space amid the rising rates of militarization and weaponization in the domain, as well as privatization of space activities. While creating a new governance structure for outer space with collaborative efforts around the globe will be difficult, ignoring the problem is destabilizing to geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Estudios Internacionales is the property of Instituto de Estudios Internacionales de la Universidad de Chile and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies (JOLLAS) is the property of Journal of Latino-Latin American Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Over the last few years there has been growing attention to and discussion of the so-called militarization of policing. Unfortunately, much of this discussion poses the militarization of policing as a recent phenomenon. This paper examines policing in Canada within the context of an ongoing military practice. It shows that policing was founded on a military basis and continues to be carried out on a military basis as exemplified in the more recent developments that have raised alarm about militarization. It raises the need for a retheorization of policing within the context of capitalist social struggles and highlights some instructive recent theoretical developments toward that end. Properly understanding the police in Canada can help to contextualize and challenge current responses that are limited to reforms for police (de-militarization, de-escalation, improved training, non-lethal weaponry, etc.) or which even allow for the expansion of policing (community policing, drones, etc.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper emerged from a sore spot—the kind of sore spot that pulses with an ancient ache, refusing to find stillness. The pain caught me in a passionate unrest, turning my pages and engulfing me in a subdued fury. Re‐reading Freud's The Ego and the Id through a dialogical quest with my mother, it reveals the complexities of psychosocial troubles of identity, desires, and oppression—not solely of individuals but of an entire nation. Historical reiterations of dictatorial "thou shalt" (Freud, 1923, p. 55) echo resoundingly throughout contemporary Taiwan. If Japan stood as the foreign father—stern but devoid of the embrace of love—the subsequent rule of the Republic of China, the "biological" father of Taiwan, was characterized by militarization and violence. My inquiry repositions the father, the manifold "authoritarian fathers" of Taiwan, who fixed social relations into precise configurations of dominance and submission. Furthermore, whilst Freud primarily focused on the relationship between the ego and the super‐ego, this paper highlights instead the significance of the often‐overlooked relationship between the ego and id. This nuanced perspective allows us to perceive the id as a living archive of the oppressed, preserving what has been repressed but never truly forgotten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the form, function and impact of previous Olympic security arrangements and their intersection with planning practice. Drawing from prior and ongoing empirical research investigating the security practices at summer Olympic Games, the paper argues that wider shifts towards 'total' security models comprising continually reproduced security motifs can be observed that are increasingly standardized, mobile, globalized and planned-in. For most Olympic organizers, preparations now necessarily include attempts to equate spectacle with safety and to 'design-out' terrorism by relying on highly militarized tactics and expensive and detailed contingency planning. Such securitizing practices have intensified in form and scale since 9/11, with such intensification set to continue at the XXXIII Olympiad in Paris, where a vast security infrastructure is being embedded into the large-scale and long-term master-plans for the central city. This represents a high point in spatial planning practice through embracing principles of security-by-design where Games-time security infrastructure, whilst providing effective protection, becomes a less visible but permanent, physical legacy that can also contribute to local programmes of regeneration, climate resilience and crime prevention. The paper concludes by reflecting upon what the continual evolution of security infrastructure means for the balancing of planned-in security and spectacle at future Olympiads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the architectural and demographic dynamics of Jerusalem, examining public discourse to determine the presence of neo-colonial ethnic segregation and socio-spatial divisions. Furthermore, it aims to discern the underlying motivations influencing urban architecture and to identify challenges within Jerusalem's demographic and architectural frameworks. Approach of the study encompasses an extensive review of academic publications, news articles, and both qualitative and quantitative data. The study includes documentation and archival research published in both international and national journals. Significant focus is placed on studies from global and regional organizations such as UNESCO, ICOMOS, the UN, IPCC, the EU, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), UNICEF in the State of Palestine, and various urban delineation and conservation projects by TİKA across the Jerusalem (al-Quds) metropolitan region. The paper critically assesses the city's evolution into a space characterized by ethnonational divisions, heightened militarization, and increasing violence, which suggest a shift from an 'ethnocracy' to an 'urban apartheid.' Finally, this paper proposes transitioning from 'ethnocracy' to 'democracy' as a solution for achieving a truly modern and democratic Jerusalem metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawn from research conducted with the families of child victims of a terrorist attack (on Army Public School) in Pakistan, this paper examines how these victim families make sense of contingencies of loss, suffering, and victimhood in their struggle for equal compensation and benefits of care and compassion. Compensating lives in warfare has not received attention in the discussion on the social life of militarism in anthropology. Monetary compensation and benefits of care have fueled modern military conflicts and effective preparation for them, mobilized civilian populations, and justified civilian deaths as collateral loss. This paper suggests that attention to differential grievability of life and restitution shows how biopolitical modes of inclusion and exclusion define citizenship. If militarization pervades the social life of modern states, a study of the politics of compassion and compensation and of the psychic violence of the pecuniary value of human life shows how victims of war do not remain passive subjects but challenge disparity in values accorded to their lives. Uneven compensation of lives lost in war and the masking of this unevenness in the language of debt and willing sacrifice also reflect an unequal citizenship in life, however, providing a way to demand care and justice and disrupting the monetization of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Political Science Studies / Studia Politologiczne is the property of University of Warsaw and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawn from research conducted with the families of child victims of a terrorist attack (on Army Public School) in Pakistan, this paper examines how these victim families make sense of contingencies of loss, suffering, and victimhood in their struggle for equal compensation and benefits of care and compassion. Compensating lives in warfare has not received attention in the discussion on the social life of militarism in anthropology. Monetary compensation and benefits of care have fueled modern military conflicts and effective preparation for them, mobilized civilian populations, and justified civilian deaths as collateral loss. This paper suggests that attention to differential grievability of life and restitution shows how biopolitical modes of inclusion and exclusion define citizenship. If militarization pervades the social life of modern states, a study of the politics of compassion and compensation and of the psychic violence of the pecuniary value of human life shows how victims of war do not remain passive subjects but challenge disparity in values accorded to their lives. Uneven compensation of lives lost in war and the masking of this unevenness in the language of debt and willing sacrifice also reflect an unequal citizenship in life, however, providing a way to demand care and justice and disrupting the monetization of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to highlight the issue of the changed nature of warfare in the last few decades of the 20th and 21st centuries, with a special emphasis on ethical aspects and the problem of using an increasing number of child soldiers. The main thesis of the paper is that the practice of using and recruiting children in armed conflicts around the world is the least recognized and most neglected form of child abuse in modern society, and that it is less a matter of culture and the lack of society's attitude towards the values of the child, and more a matter of pragmatism and generally socioeconomic phenomenon. Several key events on the world scene played a crucial role in recognizing the problem of the existence and recruitment of children in armed conflicts around the world. But what is significant is that even in these cases it is nowhere clear and visible where the girls are in armed conflicts, what is happening to them and what are their rights? By revealing the militarization of girls' everyday lives in armed conflicts and their role, girls must first and foremost become visible. The expected contribution of the paper will therefore move in the direction of highlighting and recognizing the ethical aspects of conflict-related sexual violence, of grave violations against children and ethical aspects of most severe forms of child abuse and the consequences of abuse, such as poor health outcomes and the destruction of their lives, and highlight the possible solutions to the mentioned problem within theoretical but also practical framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that a ‘political economy’ approach to conflict has far-reaching implications for relief work. In war there are both ‘winners’ and ‘losers. The vulnerability of losers needs to be understood as a consequence of their powerlessness. A state of war provides and justifies the use of violent means to create or sustain economic profits and political power. A war may have clear ‘winners’ in the sense that they profit from the war without the war itself being ‘won’ in the traditional sense. For the losers, such a war is the never-ending accumulation of abuses, fear and frustration. The paper aims to find out how the political economy approach to conflict between peace and conflict. Descriptive method with qualitative approach was used in the study. The paper proposes that by understanding the political economy of war, relief agencies can better assess the, forms of economic violence which threaten livelihoods during wars. Second, analyzing the context and implications of relief work is crucial so as to minimize its negative impact – given that belligerents and foreign states may seek to manipulate a humanitarian presence and misdirect the resources provided by relief. Its further analysis methods of understanding the course of a conflict in terms of political economy can help to identify political and economic interests which impede a transition to peace, and so help avoid the reconstruction of a pre-war economy that may have had much to do with the origin of the conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to seek to and understand how civil conflict and international claims inform one another. Does the existence of ongoing civil and international conflicts affect how a government addresses an international claim? The paper builds on existing literature that link international and domestic conflict. However, it suggests that the logic behind civil conflicts may be different from that for international ones as states decide how to deal with any one claim. Design/methodology/approach: The paper posits that states faced with domestic conflicts and additional international claims are more likely to seek to resolve an international claim than those without similar conflicts. It develops a series of hypotheses about the likelihood of claim escalation and peaceful settlement attempts and proceed to test them quantitatively using the Issue Correlates of War data combined with the uppsala conflict data program/peace research institute oslo Armed Conflict Data. Findings: On the one hand, the paper finds support for the argument regarding the difficulty states are faced with when seeking to resolve multiple international claims. On the other hand, it finds that the presence of civil conflicts incentivizes states to resolve international claims either by force or peacefully, suggesting internal violence can both lead to diversionary behavior and attempts at conflict resolution. Research limitations/implications: The findings have important implications for work considering the complexity of domestic and international conflict linkages. Originality/value: While many studies of claim militarization and peaceful attempts focus on dyadic and international characteristics, this paper creates a more nuanced understanding of the complexities of this foreign policy decision process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of the 1990s, there existed a belief that a growing Canadian military involvement in the Caribbean region was unlikely if it was not associated with Canada's interest in Latin America (Klepak 1996). This view had such a large impact that today there is a dearth of information on Canada's military involvement in the Caribbean region. Lacking systematic investigation, two myths have perpetuated: first that Canada has no stake or interest in Caribbean security, insofar as those interests cannot be tied to Canada's interests in Latin America; and second, that all expressions of Canada's involvement in Caribbean security are simply extensions of US security interests in the region. Looking at Canada as part of the Anglosphere, this paper analyzes Canada's ongoing commitment in the Caribbean to preserving and expanding the political, social, economic, and ecological system that benefits Anglospheric capitalist accumulation and security objectives. Today, Jamaica is the host site for the Canadian Armed Forces Operation Support Hub in Latin America and the Caribbean (OSH-LAC), as Canada aims to position its long-term security partner as a regional sub-policeman of the region. OSH-LACs proximity to states like Haiti, a frequent site of Canadian intervention, should worry those concerned with Canada's increased global militarism and imperialism in the world more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does militarism impact the natural environment? There is a growing body of scholarly work interrogating the intersection of environmental impacts and military activities from what can be referred to as a "footprint" perspective, which documents the tangible environmental impacts. Further, this paper introduces an alternative perspective on militarism's environmental impacts, which emphasizes Indigenous people's relationship to the environment, which this paper calls the relational perspective. This review paper argues that the emerging research concerning the environmental impacts of the US military bases in Okinawa employs the relational perspective, which echoes insights from Indigenous studies that see land as a field of the relationship of things to each other. Overall, this paper acknowledges that there is a reciprocal relationship that bridges humans and nonhuman subjectivity, including the natural environment, animals, and plants, and some places, like Okinawa, prioritize this perspective, which gives us a different angle on how we see the natural environment, the long‐lasting impacts of militarism, and countermeasures to the climate crisis. Military bases necessitate natural resources to exist. However, it is not only those material resources that get affected. Relationships with the natural environment, an essential aspect of Indigenous epistemology, are also impacted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This anthropological-historical paper explores the oft-neglected inner connotations of morality and history as embedded in China's historic landscape. Situated in the heritage city of Kaifeng, it reveals how local gardens not only are architectural imitations of this ancient capital, but also are connected to the nation's past and mediate moral lessons. A deeper textual dimension is further exposed, with an examination of a dynastic record, as well as the rich historiographical corpus lying behind it, to which garden designers refer. The arguments appearing in such a textual and intellectual dimension are then explicated with regard to the city's old walls. The walls, which are supposed to be formidable defensive facilities, now are viewed as the symbols of learning, virtue and civilisation in contrast to sheer militarism. A further discussion about pertinent ideas in Chinese thought finally discloses the richness of this historical-moral aspect of the city's landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Militarization and organized violence are the primary causes of environmental degradation today. Informed by recent studies in political theory, environmental science, and art history, this paper argues that the war enterprise—rooted in the history of colonialism, slavery, and genocide, and sustained by extractive capitalism—is a force that has structured and continues to shape much of the world. Arab geographies, and specifically the region known as the "Middle East," are highlighted here as the fulcrum of prolonged conflicts and frequent international intervention, largely motivated by a desire to control fossil fuels. From regular testing of new intelligent weapons and frequent deployment of lethal drones to armed factions waging guerrilla attacks on governments and civilians alike, violence in all of its contemporary manifestations cripples the region and has an environmental ripple effect globally. Ongoing warfare serves to obfuscate pressing issues such as rising temperatures, water scarcity, and deteriorating air quality, which are in turn exacerbating existing economic disparities and other sociopolitical predicaments that have plagued the region for decades. The paper surveys works by contemporary artists who interrogate the impact of conflict—Mona Hatoum, Abbas Akhavan, Thomas Hirschhorn, Shona Illingworth, and Ali Eyal—shedding light on issues that geopolitics constantly attempts to suppress. Beyond critique, these artists rethink the environment in ways that transcend the customary focus on natural habitats or climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One criticism of revisionist just war thought is often called the "contingent pacifism" objection. According to this objection, revisionist just war theory fails because it requires combatants on the just side to evaluate the moral responsibility for wrongful harm of each combatant on the unjust side to determine liability to defensive harming in each case. Combatants on the just side are epistemically barred from making these determinations. Moreover, many combatants on the unjust side (e.g., cooks and administrative soldiers) fail to meet the threshold of responsibility for wrongful harm to make them liable to lethal defensive harm. Therefore, ex hypothesi, combatants on the just side will inevitably target enemy combatants who are not liable to be killed. In this paper, I offer a novel response to the contingent pacifism objection. I argue that, even on the revisionist account, participation in a military engaged in an unjust war is sufficient for liability to lethal defensive harm. First, I show merely signaling a threat of unjust harm—even if one lacks the means to actualize the threat—is sufficient for liability to defensive harm. Second, I argue that almost all participants in military activity signal a threat. Finally, I conclude that, in general, combatants on the unjust side of a conflict signal threats of unjust harm and are therefore liable to lethal defensive harming. This novel account of signaling-as-threatening disarms the contingent pacifist objection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last few years, trans inclusion in the military has become the focal point for much of trans activism in the US. Advocates seeking inclusion highlight how participation in the military is often a means of socioeconomic mobility and access to trans-friendly healthcare. Such advocacy hinges upon notions of "good citizenship," which buttresses US exceptionalism, and concretizes the US empire vis-à-vis militarism. In this paper, we examine a popular documentary, TransMilitary (2018), released in the context of the US–led War on Terror. This documentary serves as a cultural artifact that showcases the deployment of trans service members to Iraq and Afghanistan as a form of inclusion advocacy. Against the backdrop of US imperialism in Asia and Oceania, we extend Asian/American and Pacific Islander feminist analytics to bring into conversation a trans of color abolitionist praxis that centers demilitarization and abolition of the military. In conclusion, we formulate Asian and Pacific Islander trans feminist abolitionist critiques of US trans militarism. A trans abolitionist framework unsettles ideas of liberal inclusion and, instead, centers abolishment of the military for collective trans liberation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]