Praxis in the City: Care and (Re)Injury in Belfast and Orumiyeh

Abstract

This article builds on the geographic literature of nonviolence with the feminist literature of care ethics and positive security to explore the potential for a praxis that promotes relational urban social justice. We examine two cities—Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Orumiyeh, Iran—that have historically endured political struggles that continue to undermine the quality of urban life. We analyze vulnerability to political, environmental, and infrastructural violence in these two urban landscapes with an eye toward “just praxis” and “positive security,” as we outline the ways in which Belfast and Orumiyeh are reinjured by institutional practices that purportedly seek urban social justice. First, we argue for the importance of care praxis in the light of the entanglement of a murder investigation with the Boston College oral history program “The Belfast Project,” which recorded testimony from former and current members of paramilitary groups. Second, we examine an environmental justice movement in Orumiyeh, where activists navigate a contested political terrain shaped by state violence toward ethnic minorities and punitive economic sanctions from the international community. From this perspective, a just praxis acknowledges the ubiquity of violent conflict while it distinguishes global readings that occur from a distance to the intimate and interminable experiences of violence that take place in urban places. We argue that a more critical engagement with the relationship between care and vulnerability reveals the enormous potential of imagining geographies of existing and evolving relationalities of care rather than global assumptions from afar about vulnerable communities.

本文根据非暴力的地理文献以及照护伦理和正面安全的女权主义文献, 探讨提倡关系性城市社会正义的实践潜能。我们检视北爱尔兰的贝尔法斯特与伊朗的乌尔米耶这两座城市, 它们历史上经历了持续损害城市生活素质的政治斗争。我们在描绘贝尔法斯特和乌尔米耶被本应寻求城市社会正义的制度实践再度伤害的方式时, 分析这两座城市地景对于政治、环境和结构性暴力的脆弱性, 并关照 “正义实践” 与 “正向安全”。首先, 我们主张依照一启谋杀案调查和波士顿学院口述历史计画“贝尔法斯特计画”的纠葛中, 强调照护实践的重要性, 该计画纪录准军事团体的前任与现任成员的证词。再者, 我们检视乌尔米耶的环境正义运动, 其中行动者航行于国家针对少数族裔的暴力和国际团体的惩罚性经济制裁所形塑的争夺政治领域之中。从上述视角看来, 正义的实践认知到暴力冲突无所不在, 同时区别从远处进行的全球性阅读到在城市空间中发生的亲密且无止境的暴力经验。我们主张, 更为批判性地涉入照护与脆弱性之间的关系, 揭露出想像既有与变化中的照护关系性地理之强大潜能, 而非对于脆弱社群的远距全球预设。

Con la literatura feminista de la ética del cuidado y la seguridad positiva, este artículo contribuye a la literatura geográfica de la no violencia para explorar el potencial de una praxis que promueve la justicia social urbana relacional. Examinamos dos ciudades––Belfast, en Irlanda del Norte, y Orumiyeh, Irán––centros urbanos que a través de la historia han tenido que soportar luchas políticas que siguen afectando la calidad de la vida urbana. Analizamos la vulnerabilidad a la violencia política, ambiental e infraestructural de estos dos paisajes urbanos, con la mirada puesta en la “praxis justa” y la “seguridad positiva,” al tiempo que esbozamos las maneras como Belfast y Orumiyeh son lesionadas de nuevo por prácticas institucionales que supuestamente propenden por la justicia social urbana. Primero, discutimos sobre la importancia de la praxis del cuidado a la luz del lío mayor de una investigación de asesinato, con el programa de historia oral del Boston College titulado “El Proyecto Belfast,” que registró el testimonio de miembros pasados y actuales de grupos paramilitares. Segundo, examinamos un movimiento de justicia ambiental en Orumiyeh, donde los activistas navegan un terreno político disputado, al que han dado forma la violencia del estado contra minorías étnicas y las sanciones económicas punitivas de la comunidad internacional. Desde esta perspectiva, una praxis justa reconoce la ubicuidad del conflicto violento al tiempo que distingue las lecturas globales que se dan a distancia de las experiencias íntimas e interminables de la violencia que ocurre en los lugares urbanos. Sostenemos que un compromiso más crítico con las relaciones entre el cuidado y la vulnerabilidad revela el enorme potencial de imaginar las geografías de las relacionalidades del cuidado, existentes y en evolución, más que los supuestos globales vistos desde lejos acerca de comunidades vulnerables.

Key Words:

• care
• feminist geopolitics
• (re)injury

关键词：:

• 照护
• 女权主义地缘政治
• (再度) 伤害。

Palabras clave:

• cuidado
• geopolítica feminista
• (re)lesión

Acknowledgments

We express our sincere gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful comments made this a much stronger article. We also thank the graduate students in the Spring 2016 Critical Geopolitics seminar for their encouraging feedback. Finally, we thank Emma Velez for her meticulous copy editing and Sarah Clark Miller for her counsel vis-à-vis the philosophies of care.

Notes

1. Over the course of the project (2001–2006), hundreds of hours of testimonies were collected, totaling twenty-six interviews with former members of the IRA and twenty interviews with former Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) members. After the deaths of former IRA member Brendan Hughes (2006) and former UVF volunteer and Unionist politician David Ervine (2007), excerpts from their transcripts were detailed in the book Voices from the Grave written by Irish journalist and project administrator for the Belfast Project, Ed Moloney (2011).

2. Pursuant to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty between the United States and the United Kingdom, British authorities sought to obtain these interviews. The United Kingdom asked the U.S. Department of Justice to subpoena Boston College for all materials relating to the Hughes and Price interviews to assist British officials in a prosecution for McConville's murder.

3. The PSNI argued that they only needed the tapes with IRA paramilitaries, as they were investigating a specific murder case.

4. Gerry Adams has long denied that he was a member of the IRA and even if the tape did not offer enough evidence to prosecute him for the death of Jean McConville, it certainly could discredit his political leadership.

5. Lake Orumiyeh is designated a national park and is a protected Ramsar site and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve (see http://www.ramsar.org/about-the-ramsar-convention).

6. UN development projects in Iran, Conservation of Iranian Wetlands Project.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lorraine Dowler

LORRAINE DOWLER is an Associate Professor in the departments of Geography and Women Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include feminist geopolitics, feminist care ethics, and critical militarization studies.

A. Marie Ranjbar

A. MARIE RANJBAR is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include feminist political geography, with a concentration on human rights, environmental justice, and social movements in Iran.