We start with some insights from feminism and postcolonial research in order to underscore the slipperiness of analysis of security and militarism. Feminists have long been noting and interrogating the continuum of violence (Kelly, 2012) and the (in)adequacy of the categories that distinguish between different forms of violence, thus problematizing the lines of distinction between war and peace, the public and the private, domestic and political violence, and so on. Feminist insight has shown us that for people living in war zones, war is relational and systemic, a continuum in which ‘it is not quite so easy to set aside “ordinary” aggression, force or violence as “not war”’ (Cockburn, 2010: 146). And postcolonial analysis problematizes the conventional distinction between war and other forms of violence, such as (internal) armed conflict, inviting us to critically rethink how we conceive of a host of forms of organized violence (Barkawi, 2016). War zones might not be located only in the theatre of traditional combat, but instead can be found in the seemingly safe place of our homes, our streets, our borders, and inscribed on our bodies. Sylvester (2013), for example, advocates a reinvigorated study of war through attention to its embodied and emotional experiences as a social institution. Recent work on queer approaches to international relations troubles boundary-drawing even further, exploring the ways in which ‘power, desire, pleasure and agency come together in militarization’, meaning that ‘power relations are productive and enjoyable, not merely oppressive’ (Crane-Seeber, 2016: 43–44). Furthermore, the concepts and practices of militarism and security are not only deeply gendered but also racialized, and reflect colonial imaginaries (see e.g. Chisholm, 2014; Porter, 2009; Ware, 2012). Simply put, through careful empirical and theoretical research, feminist and postcolonial literature situated within critical security studies, critical military studies and critical war studies has questioned the premises of both traditional security studies and war studies, and cautioned us not to draw too tight a boundary around the concepts of security and militarism and their possible objects of inquiry.
We start with some insights from feminism and postcolonial research in order to underscore the slipperiness of analysis of security and militarism Feminists have long been noting and interrogating the continuum of violence and the (in)adequacy of the categories that distinguish between different forms of violence, thus problematizing the lines of distinction between war and peace, the public and the private, domestic and political violence Feminist insight has shown us that for people living in war zones, war is relational and systemic, a continuum in which ‘it is not quite so easy to set aside “ordinary” aggression, force or violence as “not war”’ ). And postcolonial analysis problematizes the conventional distinction between war and other forms of violence, such as (internal) armed conflict, inviting us to critically rethink how we conceive of a host of forms of organized violence War zones might not be located only in the theatre of traditional combat, but instead can be found in the seemingly safe place of our homes, our streets, our borders, and inscribed on our bodies advocates a reinvigorated study of war through attention to its embodied and emotional experiences as a social institution. Recent work on queer approaches to international relations troubles boundary-drawing even further, exploring the ways in which ‘power, desire, pleasure and agency come together in militarization’ ). Furthermore, the concepts and practices of militarism and security are not only deeply gendered but also racialized, and reflect colonial imaginaries through careful empirical and theoretical research, feminist and postcolonial literature situated within critical security studies, critical military studies and critical war studies has questioned the premises of both traditional security studies and war studies, and cautioned us not to draw too tight a boundary around the concepts of security and militarism and their possible objects of inquiry.