Three Approaches to Urban Conflicts over Peace(s)

Abstract

This chapter first argues that urban conflicts over peace(s) in the postwar city should be studied through the acts, governing, and spaces underpinning them. It then theorises negotiating agency, governmentality, and relational space as concepts apt for analysing these dimensions. Negotiating agency sees acts are the result of open-ended and constantly on-going negotiations between the subject and the world in which it exists. The key to understanding acts therefore lies neither in the subject nor the world, but in the negotiation between the two underpinning the act itself. Governmentality understands governing as about structuring the field of possible acts for collectives—effectively meaning that anything making collectives choose A instead of B is considered governing. Relational space in turn builds on the notion that space is neither given nor passive to but rather both produced by and productive of society. The chapter ends with some notes on research design.