By Mathias Delori and Vron Ware
In an essay entitled ‘Inventing the Enemy’, Umberto Eco wrote that, ‘Having an enemy is important not only to define our identity but also to provide us with an obstacle against which to measure our system of values and, in seeking to overcome it, to demonstrate our own worth.’ Eco was writing these words in the same geopolitical context that has shaped this collection of essays: the aftermath of the attack on the twin towers in 2001 and the unleashing of the subsequent ‘war on terror’ by George Bush Jnr and his ‘coalition of the willing’. Compiled from different disciplinary perspectives, this special section represents a commitment to interrogate deeply-rooted social, cultural and political assumptions about who ‘our’ enemies might be today and why they deserve violence.
Published:
Critical Military Studies 5 (4), 2019
DOI:
doi.org/10.1080/23337486.2019.1652460
Online available:
www.tandfonline.com
PDF:
The faces of enmity in international relations. An introduction
(765.09 KB)