Rituals of world politics

On (Visual) Practices Disordering Things

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5682437
AutoresTanja Aalberts (0000-0002-4948-825X, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), X Kurowska (0000-0002-0182-7638, Central European University, autor de correspondencia), A Leander (0000-0002-0237-9507, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Maria Mälksoo (0000-0002-7110-2050, Brussels School of International Studies), Charlotte Heath-Kelly (0000-0002-5237-4691, University of Warwick), Luisa Cruz Lobato (0000-0003-2192-6243, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro), Ted Svensson (0000-0002-9281-1956, Lund University)
Año2020
Volumen8
Número3
Páginas240-264
Fecha de publicación2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCritical Studies on Security (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 2162-4887 • E-ISSN: 2162-4909
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21624887.2020.1792734
OpenAlexW3033963123
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas25
Referencias citadas81

Rituals are customarily muted into predictable routines aimed to stabilise social orders and limit conflict. As a result, their magic lure recedes into the background, and the unexpected and disruptive elements are downplayed. Our collaborative contribution counters this move by foregrounding rituals of world politics as social practices with notable disordering effects. We engage a series of ‘world pictures’ to show the worlding and disruptive work enacted in rituals designed to sustain the sovereign exercise of violence and war, here colonial treatymaking, state commemoration, military/service dog training, cyber-security podcasts, algorithmically generated maps, the visit of Prince Harry to a joint NATO exercise and border ceremonies in India, respectively. We do so highlighting rituals’ immanent potential for disruption of existing orders, the fissures, failures and unforeseen repercussions. Reappraising the disordering role of ritual practices sheds light on the place of rituals in rearticulating the boundaries of the political. Rituals can generate dissensus and re-divisions of the sensible rather than only impose a consensus by policing the boundaries of the political, as Rancière might phrase it. Our images are essential to the account. They help disinterring the fundamentals and ambiguities of the current worldings of security, capturing the affective atmosphere of rituals

Aesthetics · Art · Foregrounding · Literature · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts · Political Theology and Sovereignty