Nick Megoran - Böcker

Nick Megoran explores the process of building independent nation-states in post-Soviet Central Asia through the lens of the disputed border territory between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. In his rich "biography" of the boundary, he employs a combination of political, cultural, historical, ethnographic, and geographic frames to shed new light on nation-building process in this volatile and geopolitically significant region. Megoran draws on twenty years of extensive research in the borderlands via interviews, observations, participation, and newspaper analysis. He considers the problems of nationalist discourse versus local vernacular, elite struggles versus borderland solidarities, boundary delimitation versus everyday experience, border control versus resistance, and mass violence in 2010, all of which have exacerbated territorial anxieties. Megoran also revisits theories of causation, such as the loss of Soviet control, poorly defined boundaries, natural resource disputes, and historic ethnic clashes, to show that while these all contribute to heightened tensions, political actors and their agendas have clearly driven territorial aspirations and are the overriding source of conflict. As this compelling case study shows, the boundaries of the The Ferghana Valley put in succinct focus larger global and moral questions of what defines a good border.

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.

The collapse of the USSR wrought dramatic changes in Eurasia, both in terms of the structure of state power within the region, and the ways in which Western states and international organisations engaged with it. Analyses of conflict in this region remain rooted in supposed ‘global models’, often assuming that patterns of state failure are due to resistance to the liberal model of peacebuilding. This book sets out a challenge to these assumptions and framings. It not only questions but resolutely dismisses the notion that the peacebuilding methods favoured by Western states remain the most salient in Eurasia. Instead, it develops a framework that seeks to conceptualise the ways in which non-liberal actors contest or transform globally promoted norms of conflict management and promote alternative ones in their place. Authoritarian Conflict Management (ACM) consists of an ensemble of norms and practices in which non-liberal actors attempt to exert sustained hegemonic control over the local discursive, economic and spatial realms in a given territory. With case studies ranging from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, Xinjiang to the Caucasus, the chapters shed light on the ways in which local and regional actors enact practice of ACM in order to impose stability in conflict-prone localities, thereby challenging the Western-led consensus known as the ‘liberal peace’.

The collapse of the USSR wrought dramatic changes in Eurasia, both in terms of the structure of state power within the region, and the ways in which Western states and international organisations engaged with it. Analyses of conflict in this region remain rooted in supposed ‘global models’, often assuming that patterns of state failure are due to resistance to the liberal model of peacebuilding. This book sets out a challenge to these assumptions and framings. It not only questions but resolutely dismisses the notion that the peacebuilding methods favoured by Western states remain the most salient in Eurasia. Instead, it develops a framework that seeks to conceptualise the ways in which non-liberal actors contest or transform globally promoted norms of conflict management and promote alternative ones in their place. Authoritarian Conflict Management (ACM) consists of an ensemble of norms and practices in which non-liberal actors attempt to exert sustained hegemonic control over the local discursive, economic and spatial realms in a given territory. With case studies ranging from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, Xinjiang to the Caucasus, the chapters shed light on the ways in which local and regional actors enact practice of ACM in order to impose stability in conflict-prone localities, thereby challenging the Western-led consensus known as the ‘liberal peace’.