Tag: Security

Re-thinking Peace and Conflict Studies in a Postcolonial World

Organised by the competence network Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict in cooperation with the Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb (MECAM), the conference Re-thinking Peace and Conflict Studies in a Postcolonial World, took place in Tunis in October 2025. The event marked the culmination of four years of collaborative research by members of the network, while also opening a space for collective reflection on the implications of the network’s contributions to the field. Over the four days in Tunis the discussions demonstrated the deep relationship between knowledge production and global hierarchies, showing that rethinking peace and conflict studies necessarily entails confronting epistemic foundations while remaining attentive to the ongoing geopolitical developments, uneven power relations and political economies that continue to shape the field.

Security. Speaking with Fanon?

The anticolonial writer and psychiatrist Fanon became famous in the 1960s for his radical criticism of colonial racism and its influence on the colonized peoples. His descriptions of how colonialism destroys people not only physically but also mentally and emotionally have inspired many political movements and theoretical concepts to this day. His work highlights the enduring nature of colonial relations and the different ways in which (in)security and its protection is perceived differently depending on the very position in society. However, Fanon’s name also remains inextricably linked with his most controversial and uncompromising stance: his commitment to the right of colonized peoples to insecure others by the use of violence in their struggle for liberation. Post/decolonial research as one of the heirs of Fanons writings challenges critical security research till today. In the following, the article uses post/decolonial research to indeed point to multiple ways in which both theoretical fields enrich the articulating and practicing of (in)security.

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