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An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including emphasis of public space and production of publicity, frameworks of public space, and interactional approach use for public space.

The study of conviviality explores how everyday interactions and encounters mitigate or ameliorate sociocultural differences. This literature must address the critique that conviviality is a superficial phenomenon, which proves irrelevant in contexts where intergroup differences are deep, complex and punctuated by violent exchanges. This article addresses this criticism by attempting to define the meaning and purpose of convivial exchanges in a context characterized by high levels of violence: policing culture in Johannesburg, South Africa. Using ethnographic methods, the study illustrates how convivial practices often stem from individuals’ sense of insecurity and the search for protection in public settings. The article uses these findings to rethink the extent to which convivial practices might resolve social differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organised violence strongly shapes political boundaries. The modern state's monopoly on legitimate violence has made national borders the primary dividing line between peaceful and violent places. However, governments that are unable to achieve such a monopoly may opt for the more modest goal of moderating the distribution of violent behaviour across their jurisdiction. This paper explores how this latter approach redefines the contours of political space through a grounded ethnography of crime control strategies in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the postapartheid era, South African police and vigilantes have synthesised statistically oriented policing logics with the racial policing tactics of the past to anticipate, locate, isolate, and redistribute patterns of violent crime. In so doing, they have created forms of territorial power and violence that are neither new nor old, but undeniably postsovereign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we explore the relationship between past and present international relations (IR) scholarship, paying particular attention to the way in which various representations, interpretations and classifications of past works can collectively influence how modern scholars ask and answer questions. This serves two main purposes. On the one hand, we seek to contribute to a growing literature interrogating misleading and simplistic depictions of past authors and eras. On the other, we explore how the history of ideas can be utilized as a critical resource, which offers a compelling platform from which to refine and re-evaluate prevailing notions of the purposes of intellectual inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]