How do we transform the world when we are ourselves inescapably part of it? If we cannot know what makes the world the way it is, or what impact our actions will have, where do we begin? Renowned politics scholar Jenny Edkins explores the imperative for change in a world filled with inequality, violence, persecution, and injustice - and the difficulties faced in bringing it about. Over the course of ten chapters Change and the politics of certainty examines our varied responses to questions such as aid in times of famine; opposition to the Iraq War; humanitarian intervention; the memorialisation of 9/11; enforced disappearance; and calls for justice after the Grenfell Tower fire. Drawing on insights from the author's life and on the work of playwrights and filmmakers, the book interrogates the ideas of thinkers including Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Eric Santner, Elaine Scarry, Carolyn Steedman and Slavoj Zizek. Tackling themes such as the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time and space, and ideas of humanity and sentience, this accessible book is essential reading for all who strive for a better world. -- .

On the 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed a tower block in West London, seventy-two people lost their lives and hundreds of others were left displaced and traumatised. The Grenfell Tower fire is the epicentre of a long history of violence enacted by government and corporations. On its second anniversary activists, artists and academics come together to respond, remember and recover the disaster. The Grenfell Tower fire illustrates Britain's symbolic order; the continued logic of colonialism, the disposability of working class lives, the marketisation of social provision and global austerity politics, and the negligence and malfeasance of multinational contractors. Exploring these topics and more, the contributors construct critical analysis from legal, cultural, media, community and government responses to the fire, asking whether, without remedy for multifaceted power and violence, we will ever really be 'after' Grenfell? With poetry by Ben Okri and Tony Walsh, and photographs by Parveen Ali, Sam Boal and Yolanthe Fawehinmi. With contributions from Phil Scraton, Daniel Renwick, Nadine El-Enany, Sarah Keenan, Gracie Mae Bradley and The Radical Housing Network.

Critical international relations is both firmly established and rapidly expanding, and this Handbook offers a wide-ranging survey of contemporary research. It affords insights into exciting developments, more challenging issues and less prominent topics, examining debates around questions of imperialism, race, gender, ethics and aesthetics, and offering both an overview of the existing state of critical international politics and an agenda-setting collection that highlights emerging areas and fosters future research. Sections cover: critique and the discipline; relations beyond humanity; art and narrative; war, religion and security; otherness and diplomacy; spaces and times; resistance; and embodiment and intimacy. An international group of expert scholars, whose contributions are commissioned for the volume, provide chapters that facilitate teaching at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate level, inspire new generations of researchers in the field and promote collaboration, cross-fertilisation and inspiration across sub-fields often treated separately, such as feminism, postcolonialism and poststructuralism. The volume sees these strands as complementary not contradictory, and emphasises their shared political goals, shared theoretical resources and complementary empirical practices. Each chapter offers specific, focused, in-depth analysis that complements and exemplifies the broader coverage, making this Routledge Handbook of Critical International Relations essential reading for all students and scholars of international relations.

In Deleuze and Guattari s work on faciality we find an assertion that "the face is a politics" and that only certain forms of political and social organisation make faces. For them the alternative to making faces is a dismantling of the face, which is also a politics. But what would dismantling the face entail, in practical terms? What sort of a politics is it? Is it already taking place? Is it a politics that is to be desired, a better politics, a progressive politics? Or does the persistent use of images of the face in protests such as those in Manhattan, or elsewhere, before and after, with its insistence on the politics of personhood that the face embodies, tell us something different?

This book examines these questions and others in a series of chapters on the politics of such diverse issues as images of faces in photographs and portraits; expressive faces, psychology and neuroscience; face recognition and face blindness; facial injury, disfigurement and face transplants. It explores the works of Suzanne Opton, Robert Lyons, Ly Daravuth, Alfredo Jaar, Antony Gormley, Mona Hatoum, Chuck Close, Francis Bacon, Paddy Hartley, Mark Gilbert and Orlan. The book opens up a vast field of further research that needs to be taken forward to begin to address the politics of the face more fully, and to elaborate the alternative forms of personhood and politics that dismantling the face opens to view. The book will be agenda-setting for scholars located in the field of international politics in particular but cognate areas as well who want to pursue the implications of face politics for the crucial questions of subjectivity, sovereignty and personhood."

In Deleuze and Guattari s work on faciality we find an assertion that "the face is a politics" and that only certain forms of political and social organisation make faces. For them the alternative to making faces is a dismantling of the face, which is also a politics. But what would dismantling the face entail, in practical terms? What sort of a politics is it? Is it already taking place? Is it a politics that is to be desired, a better politics, a progressive politics? Or does the persistent use of images of the face in protests such as those in Manhattan, or elsewhere, before and after, with its insistence on the politics of personhood that the face embodies, tell us something different?

This book examines these questions and others in a series of chapters on the politics of such diverse issues as images of faces in photographs and portraits; expressive faces, psychology and neuroscience; face recognition and face blindness; facial injury, disfigurement and face transplants. It explores the works of Suzanne Opton, Robert Lyons, Ly Daravuth, Alfredo Jaar, Antony Gormley, Mona Hatoum, Chuck Close, Francis Bacon, Paddy Hartley, Mark Gilbert and Orlan. The book opens up a vast field of further research that needs to be taken forward to begin to address the politics of the face more fully, and to elaborate the alternative forms of personhood and politics that dismantling the face opens to view. The book will be agenda-setting for scholars located in the field of international politics in particular but cognate areas as well who want to pursue the implications of face politics for the crucial questions of subjectivity, sovereignty and personhood."

In recent years we have witnessed an increasing convergence of work in International Politics and Performance Studies around the troubled, and often troubling, relationship between politics and aesthetics. Whilst examination of political aesthetics, aesthetic politics, and politics of aesthetic practice has been central to research in both disciplines for some time, the emergence of a distinctive 'performative turn' in International Politics and a critical return to the centrality of politics and the concept of 'the political' in Performance Studies highlights the importance of investigating the productivity of bringing the methods and approaches of the two fields of enquiry into dialogue and mutual relation. Exploring a wide range of issues including rioting, youth-driven protests, border security practices and the significance of cultural awareness in war, this text provides an accessible and cutting edge survey of the intersection of international politics and performance examining issues surrounding the politics of appearance, image, event and place; and discusses the development and deployment of innovative critical and creative research methods, from auto-ethnography to site-specific theatre-making, from philosophical aesthetics to the aesthetic thought of new securities scenario-planning. The book's focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices-on the politics of making, spectating, and participating in a variety of modes as political actors and audiences-whilst also seeking to explicate the performative dynamics of creative and critical thinking. Structured thematically and framed by a detailed introduction and conclusion, the focus is on producing a dialogue between contributors and providing an essential reference point in this developing field. This work is essential reading for students of politics and performance and will be of great interest to students and scholars of IR, performance studies and cultural studies.

In recent years we have witnessed an increasing convergence of work in International Politics and Performance Studies around the troubled, and often troubling, relationship between politics and aesthetics. Whilst examination of political aesthetics, aesthetic politics, and politics of aesthetic practice has been central to research in both disciplines for some time, the emergence of a distinctive 'performative turn' in International Politics and a critical return to the centrality of politics and the concept of 'the political' in Performance Studies highlights the importance of investigating the productivity of bringing the methods and approaches of the two fields of enquiry into dialogue and mutual relation. Exploring a wide range of issues including rioting, youth-driven protests, border security practices and the significance of cultural awareness in war, this text provides an accessible and cutting edge survey of the intersection of international politics and performance examining issues surrounding the politics of appearance, image, event and place; and discusses the development and deployment of innovative critical and creative research methods, from auto-ethnography to site-specific theatre-making, from philosophical aesthetics to the aesthetic thought of new securities scenario-planning. The book's focus throughout is on the materiality of performance practices-on the politics of making, spectating, and participating in a variety of modes as political actors and audiences-whilst also seeking to explicate the performative dynamics of creative and critical thinking. Structured thematically and framed by a detailed introduction and conclusion, the focus is on producing a dialogue between contributors and providing an essential reference point in this developing field. This work is essential reading for students of politics and performance and will be of great interest to students and scholars of IR, performance studies and cultural studies.

A wide range of critical theorists is used in the study of international politics, and until now there has been no text that gives concise and accessible introductions to these figures. Critical Theorists and International Relations provides a wide-ranging introduction to thirty-two important theorists whose work has been influential in thinking about global politics.

Each chapter is written by an expert with a detailed knowledge of the theorist concerned, representing a range of approaches under the rubric critical, including Marxism and post-Marxism, the Frankfurt School, hermeneutics, phenomenology, postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, poststructuralism, pragmatism, scientific realism, deconstruction and psychoanalysis.

Key features of each chapter include:

• a clear and concise biography of the relevant thinker
• an introduction to their key writings and ideas
• a summary of the ways in which these ideas have influenced and are being used in international relations scholarship
• a list of suggestions for further reading

Written in engaging and accessible prose, Critical Theorists and International Relations is a unique and invaluable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars of international relations.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound and persistent impact. A tragic loss of life, change to established patterns of life and social inequalities laid bare. It brought out the good in many and the worst in others and raised questions around what is truly important in our lives. In this book, academics, activists and artists come together to remember and to reflect on the pandemic. What lessons should we learn? And how can things be different when this is over? Sensitive to inequalities of gender, race and class, it highlights the experience of marginalised and minority groups and the unjust and uneven spread of violence, deprivation and death. It combines academic analysis with personal testimonies, poetry and images from contributors including Sue Black, Led By Donkeys, Lucy Easthope, Lara- Rose Iredale, Michael Rosen and Gary Younge. Taken together, this truly inclusive commemorative overview honours the experience of a global disaster lived up close and suggests the steps needed to ensure we do better next time.

A wide range of critical theorists is used in the study of international politics, and until now there has been no text that gives concise and accessible introductions to these figures. Critical Theorists and International Relations provides a wide-ranging introduction to thirty-two important theorists whose work has been influential in thinking about global politics.

Each chapter is written by an expert with a detailed knowledge of the theorist concerned, representing a range of approaches under the rubric critical, including Marxism and post-Marxism, the Frankfurt School, hermeneutics, phenomenology, postcolonialism, feminism, queer theory, poststructuralism, pragmatism, scientific realism, deconstruction and psychoanalysis.

Key features of each chapter include:

• a clear and concise biography of the relevant thinker
• an introduction to their key writings and ideas
• a summary of the ways in which these ideas have influenced and are being used in international relations scholarship
• a list of suggestions for further reading

Written in engaging and accessible prose, Critical Theorists and International Relations is a unique and invaluable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates and scholars of international relations.

For International Relations scholars, discussions of globalization inevitably turn to questions of sovereignty. How much control does a country have over its borders, people and economy? Where does that authority come from? Sovereign Lives explores these changes through readings of humanitarian intervention, human rights discourses, securitization, refugees, the fragmentation of identities and the practices of development.

How do we transform the world when we are ourselves inescapably part of it? If we cannot know what makes the world the way it is, or what impact our actions will have, where do we begin? Renowned politics scholar Jenny Edkins explores the imperative for change in a world filled with inequality, violence, persecution, and injustice - and the difficulties faced in bringing it about. Over the course of ten chapters Change and the politics of certainty examines our varied responses to questions such as aid in times of famine; opposition to the Iraq War; humanitarian intervention; the memorialisation of 9/11; enforced disappearance; and calls for justice after the Grenfell Tower fire. Drawing on insights from the author's life and on the work of playwrights and filmmakers, the book interrogates the ideas of thinkers including Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Eric Santner, Elaine Scarry, Carolyn Steedman and Slavoj Zizek. Tackling themes such as the fantasy of security, contemporary notions of time and space, and ideas of humanity and sentience, this accessible book is essential reading for all who strive for a better world. -- .

Critical international relations is both firmly established and rapidly expanding, and this Handbook offers a wide-ranging survey of contemporary research. It affords insights into exciting developments, more challenging issues and less prominent topics, examining debates around questions of imperialism, race, gender, ethics and aesthetics, and offering both an overview of the existing state of critical international politics and an agenda-setting collection that highlights emerging areas and fosters future research. Sections cover: critique and the discipline; relations beyond humanity; art and narrative; war, religion and security; otherness and diplomacy; spaces and times; resistance; and embodiment and intimacy. An international group of expert scholars, whose contributions are commissioned for the volume, provide chapters that facilitate teaching at advanced undergraduate and postgraduate level, inspire new generations of researchers in the field and promote collaboration, cross-fertilisation and inspiration across sub-fields often treated separately, such as feminism, postcolonialism and poststructuralism. The volume sees these strands as complementary not contradictory, and emphasises their shared political goals, shared theoretical resources and complementary empirical practices. Each chapter offers specific, focused, in-depth analysis that complements and exemplifies the broader coverage, making this Routledge Handbook of Critical International Relations essential reading for all students and scholars of international relations.

On the 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed a tower block in West London, seventy-two people lost their lives and hundreds of others were left displaced and traumatised. The Grenfell Tower fire is the epicentre of a long history of violence enacted by government and corporations. On its second anniversary activists, artists and academics come together to respond, remember and recover the disaster. The Grenfell Tower fire illustrates Britain's symbolic order; the continued logic of colonialism, the disposability of working class lives, the marketisation of social provision and global austerity politics, and the negligence and malfeasance of multinational contractors. Exploring these topics and more, the contributors construct critical analysis from legal, cultural, media, community and government responses to the fire, asking whether, without remedy for multifaceted power and violence, we will ever really be 'after' Grenfell? With poetry by Ben Okri and Tony Walsh, and photographs by Parveen Ali, Sam Boal and Yolanthe Fawehinmi. With contributions from Phil Scraton, Daniel Renwick, Nadine El-Enany, Sarah Keenan, Gracie Mae Bradley and The Radical Housing Network.

Stories of the missing offer profound insights into the tension between how political systems see us and how we see each other. The search for people who go missing as a result of war, political violence, genocide, or natural disaster reveals how forms of governance that objectify the person are challenged. Contemporary political systems treat persons instrumentally, as objects to be administered rather than as singular beings: the apparatus of government recognizes categories, not people. In contrast, relatives of the missing demand that authorities focus on a particular person: families and friends are looking for someone who to them is unique and irreplaceable.

In Missing, Jenny Edkins highlights stories from a range of circumstances that shed light on this critical tension: the aftermath of World War II, when millions in Europe were displaced; the period following the fall of the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan in 2001 and the bombings in London in 2005; searches for military personnel missing in action; the thousands of political "disappearances" in Latin America; and in more quotidian circumstances where people walk out on their families and disappear of their own volition. When someone goes missing we often find that we didn't know them as well as we thought: there is a sense in which we are "missing" even to our nearest and dearest and even when we are present, not absent. In this thought-provoking book, Edkins investigates what this more profound "missingness" might mean in political terms.

Critical approaches to International Relations are now central to both current scholarship and contemporary teaching. Indeed, in the last decade or so, serious work that embraces traditions including, among others, the postcolonial, poststructuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, deconstructive, genealogical, and interpretive, has moved decisively from the periphery to centre stage. Moreover, Critical International Relations increasingly draws on critical approaches in other disciplines, such as Human Geography, Literary Studies, Performance Studies and the visual arts, as well as Critical Historiography and Critical Legal Studies.

To help users navigate and make sense of such an enormous, growing and ever more complex corpus of scholarship, Routledge is pleased to announce this new four-volume collection edited by Jenny Edkins. "Critical International Relations" answers the need for a one-stop reference resource to enable scholars and students readily to acquaint themselves with key themes and contributions that typify the use of critical approaches to International Relations in diverse temporal and geographical locations.

Much more than a historical survey of the field, or a simple assembly of works that may be regarded as canonical, the editor has brought together an innovative compilation of materials to reflect the vibrancy and excitement of Critical International Relations. And, in addition to those relatively new to the field who will especially benefit from this enterprise, the collection will also be welcomed by established researchers from across the disciplinary spectrum who are currently engaged in critical work on topics related to International Relations.

Volume I sets the scene. The materials gathered here explore how the space for a Critical International Relations was opened by early scholars; the theoretical and philosophical resources on which the field draws; and the methods and methodology it employs. Volumes II and III, meanwhile, bring together the major works by scholars of Critical International Relations, and those from cognate disciplines. The selections exemplify the approach, demonstrate the significance and specificity of Critical International Relations, and show how its assumptions and methods translate in practice into challenging and highly policy-relevant outputs. Finally, Volume IV includes sections on questions of pedagogy, interdisciplinarity, and the responsibility of scholars in relation to the growing dominance of Critical International Relations.

The collection is supplemented with a full index, and also includes a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor. It will be appreciated by scholars, students, and researchers as a vital reference and pedagogic resource."

Stories of the missing offer profound insights into the tension between how political systems see us and how we see each other. The search for people who go missing as a result of war, political violence, genocide, or natural disaster reveals how forms of governance that objectify the person are challenged. Contemporary political systems treat persons instrumentally, as objects to be administered rather than as singular beings: the apparatus of government recognizes categories, not people. In contrast, relatives of the missing demand that authorities focus on a particular person: families and friends are looking for someone who to them is unique and irreplaceable. In Missing, Jenny Edkins highlights stories from a range of circumstances that shed light on this critical tension: the aftermath of World War II, when millions in Europe were displaced; the period following the fall of the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan in 2001 and the bombings in London in 2005; searches for military personnel missing in action; the thousands of political "disappearances" in Latin America; and in more quotidian circumstances where people walk out on their families and disappear of their own volition. When someone goes missing we often find that we didn't know them as well as we thought: there is a sense in which we are "missing" even to our nearest and dearest and even when we are present, not absent. In this thought-provoking book, Edkins investigates what this more profound "missingness" might mean in political terms.

Jenny Edkins explores how we remember traumatic events such as wars, famines, genocides and terrorism. She argues that remembrance does not have to be nationalistic but can instead challenge the political systems that produced the violence. Using examples from the World Wars, Vietnam, the Holocaust, Kosovo and September 11th, Edkins analyzes the practices of memory rituals through memorials, museums and remembrance ceremonies. This wide-ranging study embraces literature, history, politics and international relations, in an original contribution to the study of memory.