Recalibrating the Spatiality of the State: The Normality of Abnormal Transgressions in the Third World
Abstract
The paper argues that the opposing ideas of order/disorder, peace/war and normality/abnormality exist within each other, making a discernible boundary between them a fallacy created by the language of law. Therefore, even when a resistance to the order is carried out, it is with the aspiration of assimilation into this phantom world community. I analyze how the concept of nation-state is reinforced through territorial identities, best portrayed through liberation struggles, thus demonstrating how these transgressions, though projected by the international order to exist separate from the order (normality) as an ‘abnormality’, is in fact facilitated through (the normality of) law.
Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Law and Boundaries conference held at Sciences-Po in June, 2015, and I thank the co-panelists of the stream, “Take a Walk on the Wild Side: Boundaries, Contradiction and Transgression”, for enabling the writing and presentation of this paper. I also would like to thank Prof. David Kennedy, Dr. Antonio Marzal Yetano, Edoardo Stoppioni and Johannes Hendrik Fahner for their thoughtful comments and discussions on earlier drafts. The errors are mine alone.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- The Role of Judges in Deciding the Future of Digital Libraries
- Recalibrating the Spatiality of the State: The Normality of Abnormal Transgressions in the Third World
- Food for the Global Market: The Neoliberal Reconstruction of Agriculture in Occupied Iraq (2003–2004) and the role of international law
- Rethinking Constitutionalism: Using Epistemology to Show the Inadequacy of the Public/Private Distinction
Articles in the same Issue
- The Role of Judges in Deciding the Future of Digital Libraries
- Recalibrating the Spatiality of the State: The Normality of Abnormal Transgressions in the Third World
- Food for the Global Market: The Neoliberal Reconstruction of Agriculture in Occupied Iraq (2003–2004) and the role of international law
- Rethinking Constitutionalism: Using Epistemology to Show the Inadequacy of the Public/Private Distinction
