Please note: this is a level 2 course.
Why are people prepared to die for the notion of a ‘mother country’, a nation or a religious group? What moves people to fight their neighbours, city members or acquaintances in the name of ‘ethnicity’? In the current academic debate social identities and communities are seen as constructed: as ‘inventions’ and ‘imaginings’. Nevertheless, in times of conflict, constructions like the nation, the ethnic group, or any other putative identity can crystallize as a powerful, compelling reality.
This course introduces students to a selection of analytical approaches that explore the connection between identity and violence through an emphasis on social and spatial processes of boundary making and unmaking. The course examines the role of violent practices and violent imaginaries in the cementing of antagonistic identities, and the connections to elite machinations and predatory mythologies. It introduces students to social constructivism, spatiality, phenomenology and critical discourse analysis, and concepts such as identity, ethnicity, reification, framing, and everyday primordialism.
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