Nikolas Kosmatopoulos
Biographic Data
| ID | 648884 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nikolas Kosmatopoulos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nikolas |
| FAMILY NAME | Kosmatopoulos |
| SIGNATURE | KOSMATOPOULOS N |
| AFFILIATIONS | American University of Beirut, Lebanon |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1846-6610 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Free Mediterranean
How does Palestine solidarity alter thinking from the sea? How does the anticolonial insurgency in Palestine connect to and enhance international solidarity movements and other struggles against neocolonial formations at sea? Can we think of a solidarity-induced insurgency in saltwater, and can this insurgency take us beyond a focus on dry land, its material resources, and its cosmological meanings? Drawing on years of active involvement in and r…
A People’s Sea
This article draws on fieldwork, interviews, and archival research on the maritime campaign of the International Palestine Solidarity Movement to challenge the embargo on Gaza. I make three main arguments: first, in addressing the Mediterranean Sea as a platform for international solidarity, the Ships to Gaza inadvertently contrived a novel and largely understudied instance of popular politics at sea, which I coin ‘popular thalassopolitics’. I th…
White in the Deep Blue
Although the imperial ship has been a key location through which to theorize colonialism and the origins of racial capitalism, little research exists on the postcolonial ship as an analytical indicator for the persistence and distinctiveness of contemporary racial capitalism. This article explores a largely uncharted territory through a critical appraisal of postwar Greek-owned shipping. Greece's dominant place in global shipping offers an illumi…
Capitalism at Sea
In its will to tame the sea, its routes, and people, capitalism unleashed three intertwined forces: novel networks of circulation, refurbished regimes of violence, and new epistemic disciplines and lexicons, all twirled together into an embrace of forceful conquest and authoritative claim making on a global scale. One of the most salient features of this special section of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, “Capitalism…
Master peace
This article argues that contemporary politics of peace features masters and disciples, entangled in global hierarchies and premised on the control of moral ends and technical means. Affective moralities and effective materialities form powerful twin forces that frame debates, design interventions, and largely define “the violence problem”, to paraphrase Dubois. This intervention explores the articulations of the “violence problem” and relevant s…
Unhatching the Egg in Lebanon's 2019 Protests
This auto-ethnographic essay revisits the story of the Beirut City Center Dome, also known as the "Egg," a 1960s brutalist-modernist cinema abandoned to snipers during Lebanon's civil war, which briefly became a stage for a direct action politics in the early days of Lebanon's October 2019 uprising. One of the uprising's most ambitious aims was the ushering in of a new social contract beyond sectarian divisions. The essay tests the argument that …
On the shores of politics
In this article, I focus attention on the sea as a space for today's solidarity politics. Following the Ships to Gaza as they headed to breach the Israeli embargo of the seaside enclave, I explore the largely understudied relationship between the politics of solidarity and the materiality of the sea. I ask: What are the wider implications for politics and theory when the global solidarity movement turns to the sea to protest the occupation in Pal…
Anthropology & peacebuilding
Peacebuilding presents a formidable challenge to anthropology, because it ‘enframes’ our contemporary world in particular ways. In our introduction to the special section on peacebuilding and anthropology we highlight the changing relationship between peace, conflict, culture and academic writing and how the three articles on Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and India-Pakistan address the changing relationships. The articles do not have the intentio…
Crisis works
Sentinel matters
In this article I focus on the crisis experts in Lebanon and, in particular, on one celebrated expert response to crisis, the crisis report. I suggest looking at the report as a techno-political tool that seeks to produce and disseminate knowledge about crisis and conflicts in different parts of the world, while packaged and structured in a universal format. As a first step I analyse the particular features of this format, such as size and scale.…
Sequestration, Scholarship, Sentinel
In Lebanon, diverse sociopolitical projects have sought to mend the wounds, repair the cracks, and overhaul the loss of the devastating civil war (1975–90). Experts and technopolitics have featured centrally in almost all of them. In my anthropological research on expertise on peace and crisis in Lebanon, I explore how, in the decades after the war, an abstract ideal of peace gave way to a distinct space occupied by diverse groups of experts. I a…
The Birth of the Workshop
In this article, I examine through ethnography one of the flagship techniques of the peace expertise in the Middle East and elsewhere, the so-called conflict resolution workshop. Faced with the widely recognized fact that the workshop in conflict resolution has become the dominant means of peace NGOs and others in their attempts to address the past and the future of peace in almost every postconflict setting around the world today, the technique …
Toward an Anthropology of ‘State Failure’
The sizable amount of academic and policy-oriented literature on socio-political violence in Lebanon could be said to have rendered the country a 'prestige zone' for theorizing on the powerful image of the Leviathan, the Hobbesian idea that a secular social order is achievable only within a strong sovereign state. Building on the insights of the anthropology of the state, this article argues for the necessity of a critical assessment of contempor…
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla
This narrative recounts the events that unfolded around the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as witnessed by an anthropologist invited onboard one of its ships. It shows a pervasive preoccupation of neocolonial states with Othering violence. This is defined as the ability to transform spaces of liberation and solidarity into spaces of deviation and imprisonment. The choice to be an outspoken participant‐observer opens up novel spaces for reflection and rese…
The Birth of the Workshop
In this article, I examine through ethnography one of the flagship techniques of the peace expertise in the Middle East and elsewhere, the so-called conflict resolution workshop. Faced with the widely recognized fact that the workshop in conflict resolution has become the dominant means of peace NGOs and others in their attempts to address the past and the future of peace in almost every postconflict setting around the world today, the technique …
On the shores of politics
In this article, I focus attention on the sea as a space for today's solidarity politics. Following the Ships to Gaza as they headed to breach the Israeli embargo of the seaside enclave, I explore the largely understudied relationship between the politics of solidarity and the materiality of the sea. I ask: What are the wider implications for politics and theory when the global solidarity movement turns to the sea to protest the occupation in Pal…
Sentinel matters
In this article I focus on the crisis experts in Lebanon and, in particular, on one celebrated expert response to crisis, the crisis report. I suggest looking at the report as a techno-political tool that seeks to produce and disseminate knowledge about crisis and conflicts in different parts of the world, while packaged and structured in a universal format. As a first step I analyse the particular features of this format, such as size and scale.…
A People’s Sea
This article draws on fieldwork, interviews, and archival research on the maritime campaign of the International Palestine Solidarity Movement to challenge the embargo on Gaza. I make three main arguments: first, in addressing the Mediterranean Sea as a platform for international solidarity, the Ships to Gaza inadvertently contrived a novel and largely understudied instance of popular politics at sea, which I coin ‘popular thalassopolitics’. I th…
Master peace
This article argues that contemporary politics of peace features masters and disciples, entangled in global hierarchies and premised on the control of moral ends and technical means. Affective moralities and effective materialities form powerful twin forces that frame debates, design interventions, and largely define “the violence problem”, to paraphrase Dubois. This intervention explores the articulations of the “violence problem” and relevant s…
Anthropology & peacebuilding
Peacebuilding presents a formidable challenge to anthropology, because it ‘enframes’ our contemporary world in particular ways. In our introduction to the special section on peacebuilding and anthropology we highlight the changing relationship between peace, conflict, culture and academic writing and how the three articles on Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and India-Pakistan address the changing relationships. The articles do not have the intentio…
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla
This narrative recounts the events that unfolded around the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as witnessed by an anthropologist invited onboard one of its ships. It shows a pervasive preoccupation of neocolonial states with Othering violence. This is defined as the ability to transform spaces of liberation and solidarity into spaces of deviation and imprisonment. The choice to be an outspoken participant‐observer opens up novel spaces for reflection and rese…
Sequestration, Scholarship, Sentinel
In Lebanon, diverse sociopolitical projects have sought to mend the wounds, repair the cracks, and overhaul the loss of the devastating civil war (1975–90). Experts and technopolitics have featured centrally in almost all of them. In my anthropological research on expertise on peace and crisis in Lebanon, I explore how, in the decades after the war, an abstract ideal of peace gave way to a distinct space occupied by diverse groups of experts. I a…
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla
This narrative recounts the events that unfolded around the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as witnessed by an anthropologist invited onboard one of its ships. It shows a pervasive preoccupation of neocolonial states with Othering violence. This is defined as the ability to transform spaces of liberation and solidarity into spaces of deviation and imprisonment. The choice to be an outspoken participant‐observer opens up novel spaces for reflection and rese…
Toward an Anthropology of ‘State Failure’
The sizable amount of academic and policy-oriented literature on socio-political violence in Lebanon could be said to have rendered the country a 'prestige zone' for theorizing on the powerful image of the Leviathan, the Hobbesian idea that a secular social order is achievable only within a strong sovereign state. Building on the insights of the anthropology of the state, this article argues for the necessity of a critical assessment of contempor…
Crisis works
Sentinel matters
In this article I focus on the crisis experts in Lebanon and, in particular, on one celebrated expert response to crisis, the crisis report. I suggest looking at the report as a techno-political tool that seeks to produce and disseminate knowledge about crisis and conflicts in different parts of the world, while packaged and structured in a universal format. As a first step I analyse the particular features of this format, such as size and scale.…
Sequestration, Scholarship, Sentinel
In Lebanon, diverse sociopolitical projects have sought to mend the wounds, repair the cracks, and overhaul the loss of the devastating civil war (1975–90). Experts and technopolitics have featured centrally in almost all of them. In my anthropological research on expertise on peace and crisis in Lebanon, I explore how, in the decades after the war, an abstract ideal of peace gave way to a distinct space occupied by diverse groups of experts. I a…
The Birth of the Workshop
In this article, I examine through ethnography one of the flagship techniques of the peace expertise in the Middle East and elsewhere, the so-called conflict resolution workshop. Faced with the widely recognized fact that the workshop in conflict resolution has become the dominant means of peace NGOs and others in their attempts to address the past and the future of peace in almost every postconflict setting around the world today, the technique …
Anthropology & peacebuilding
Peacebuilding presents a formidable challenge to anthropology, because it ‘enframes’ our contemporary world in particular ways. In our introduction to the special section on peacebuilding and anthropology we highlight the changing relationship between peace, conflict, culture and academic writing and how the three articles on Northern Ireland, Afghanistan and India-Pakistan address the changing relationships. The articles do not have the intentio…
On the shores of politics
In this article, I focus attention on the sea as a space for today's solidarity politics. Following the Ships to Gaza as they headed to breach the Israeli embargo of the seaside enclave, I explore the largely understudied relationship between the politics of solidarity and the materiality of the sea. I ask: What are the wider implications for politics and theory when the global solidarity movement turns to the sea to protest the occupation in Pal…
Master peace
This article argues that contemporary politics of peace features masters and disciples, entangled in global hierarchies and premised on the control of moral ends and technical means. Affective moralities and effective materialities form powerful twin forces that frame debates, design interventions, and largely define “the violence problem”, to paraphrase Dubois. This intervention explores the articulations of the “violence problem” and relevant s…
Unhatching the Egg in Lebanon's 2019 Protests
This auto-ethnographic essay revisits the story of the Beirut City Center Dome, also known as the "Egg," a 1960s brutalist-modernist cinema abandoned to snipers during Lebanon's civil war, which briefly became a stage for a direct action politics in the early days of Lebanon's October 2019 uprising. One of the uprising's most ambitious aims was the ushering in of a new social contract beyond sectarian divisions. The essay tests the argument that …
Capitalism at Sea
In its will to tame the sea, its routes, and people, capitalism unleashed three intertwined forces: novel networks of circulation, refurbished regimes of violence, and new epistemic disciplines and lexicons, all twirled together into an embrace of forceful conquest and authoritative claim making on a global scale. One of the most salient features of this special section of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, “Capitalism…
A People’s Sea
This article draws on fieldwork, interviews, and archival research on the maritime campaign of the International Palestine Solidarity Movement to challenge the embargo on Gaza. I make three main arguments: first, in addressing the Mediterranean Sea as a platform for international solidarity, the Ships to Gaza inadvertently contrived a novel and largely understudied instance of popular politics at sea, which I coin ‘popular thalassopolitics’. I th…
White in the Deep Blue
Although the imperial ship has been a key location through which to theorize colonialism and the origins of racial capitalism, little research exists on the postcolonial ship as an analytical indicator for the persistence and distinctiveness of contemporary racial capitalism. This article explores a largely uncharted territory through a critical appraisal of postwar Greek-owned shipping. Greece's dominant place in global shipping offers an illumi…
Free Mediterranean
How does Palestine solidarity alter thinking from the sea? How does the anticolonial insurgency in Palestine connect to and enhance international solidarity movements and other struggles against neocolonial formations at sea? Can we think of a solidarity-induced insurgency in saltwater, and can this insurgency take us beyond a focus on dry land, its material resources, and its cosmological meanings? Drawing on years of active involvement in and r…
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Political economy (8 works) · Middle East Politics and Society (6 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (5 works) · History (4 works) · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts (4 works)