Pathways to Agonism: Disputed Territories and Memory

Pathways to Agonism applies the concept of an ‘agonistic memory framework’ from Western Europe to regions experiencing recent or ongoing territorial conflicts. To do so, it orbits the overlooked and understudied regions of Central and Northern Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and South Asia.

The chapter explains how a theory of agonistic memory, conceptualised by Anna Cento Bull and Hans Lauge Hansen, has served as the theoretical foundation of the book. It leans on an agonistic model of democracy and dissensus developed by thinkers including Chantal Mouffe and Jacques Rancière. During this encounter, the contributors’ perception of agonism has evolved from a theoretical counterpoint to antagonism and cosmopolitanism to an evaluation of its usefulness as a tool, practice and pathway, incredibly capable of reopening symbolic spaces and providing opportunities for individuals and communities to imagine and discuss alternative, unprecedented, often multi-perspectivist ways of memorialising the past.

This introduction discusses the volume’s central concept, a ‘pathway to agonism’ which provides a flexible, praxiological approach to agonistic theory, allowing the contributors to identify and analyse how strategies devised by international organisations, artists, civil society activists, cultural practitioners, academics and other actors have resisted, questioned and diversified monolithic nationalistic narratives related to territorial disputes.

The editors frame and contextualise the chapters making up Pathways to Agonism by briefly outlining their themes. They highlight the principal threads stitched through the volume and spell out some of the key conclusion which emerge from the contributors’ analyses.