War, peace and geography: the perilous engagement with public policy toward armed conflict

ABSTRACT

Geographers engaging with policy debates on armed conflict in the Global South are confronted with a set of difficult questions that have no satisfying answers. In this provocation, I discuss three risks that appear inherent to policy engagement in this domain: the first is contributing to reproducing rather than upending a deeply unjust and unequal world order; the second is reinforcing colonial structures and epistemologies; and the third is facilitating the weaponization of one’s research. The discomforting confrontation with these dilemmas should not deter geographers of armed conflict from contributing to public policy, because non-engagement can be equally – if not more – problematic.

KEYWORDS:

• public policy
• decolonizing research
• weaponizing research
• violence
• peace

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Judith Verweijen

Judith Verweijen is an Assistant Professor at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. She researches militarization and violence at the intersection of political geography, conflict studies and political ecology.