Kitija Mirončuka

Foucauldian biopolitics overall remain “bound to the notion of an integral body” (Lemke 2011, 94); however, in the modern context, the body politics do not have just one singular subject of control. The body has become fragmented and peripheral, extended to the point of objectification and domestication of nature (Macauley 2010), allowing us to believe that humans can own not just the material, physical nature but even the natural processes like fire (encaging it within furnaces, ovens and lava lamps). Nature has become another “field of difference” (Haraway 1991, 162), which somehow is “both a resource and a sacral ground” (Sauka 2023, 39). Nature, on the one hand, is owned and reproduced, and, on the other, neglected and treated like a landfill, leading to a loss of connection with the nonhuman – the more-than-human agencies that sustain life (Hird 2012). The nonhuman – more than non-human – becomes an essential aspect of sustaining humanity. However, because we try owning “nature” and exercising power over it, humans have disconnected from both nature and the selfhood.

The paper explores how boundaries affect the search for identity in the context of racism and colonialism. Colonized individuals often experience a sense of alienation and inferiority caused by the limitations imposed by colonial power structures, leading to a quest for personal identity. However, the binary division between the colonizer and colonized affects everyone involved, making searching for personal identity more complex and reinforcing systemic racism. The first section of the article examines how race, a socially constructed concept, plays a crucial role in defining the difference between oneself and others, impossing structures of othering based on Fanonian analysis. The second section discusses whether it is possible to avoid or overcome racism and racial oppression, shedding light on the inherent nature of othering, racism, and latent violence.

The author Kitija Mirončuka in her article "Human Savages: Frantz Fanon and Racism" analyses how race, a seemingly constant human trait (natural phenomenon), becomes a condition for exclusion, differentiation, and violence (i.e., abnormality). In the article, the body is portrayed as a formalizable object; the author deliberates whether the natural origin is something changeable and exceptional. Introducing the Franco-Algerian philosopher Frantz Fanon, the author focuses on biopolitical practices and forms of violence that imperceptibly incorporate new concepts of human - Algerian appearance, lifestyle, movement, and habits - savagery, animalism, abnormality, extremeness, and unacceptability. The article reviews three perspectives - body and race, body and skin colour, body and rhythm - to indicate that all these features, although common to many bodies, nevertheless, are selectively used to either normalize or discriminate a person based on appearance or cultural and ethnic affiliations.

This article explores the confluence of human knowledge (human research) with terrorism research and just war theory. After a brief overview of leading trends in both the world and Latvia that outlines the shortcomings of the conventional terrorism research – the analytical weakness and methodological negligence, in other words, overreliance on secondary materials, the structural linkage with the industries of security and counterinsurgency, and dependence on the government and military industries, epistemological principles of ‘ignorance’ and methodical ‘problem solving’. The article goes on to look at another strand of terrorism research – critical research of terrorism, which emphasizes the cultural, social and political context. Integrating the insights of critical theory, the critical terrorism research addresses the problem of terrorism in a broader sense, namely, from the viewpoint of human knowledge (human research), and emphasizes the emancipatory purpose (universality of human value), challenging the role of the state in terrorism research. Emphasizing the importance of human research and the principles of humanism, the article offers an insight into the just war theory that has traditionally focused on interstate wars, but currently is increasingly being reinterpreted to view terrorism in a meaningful way. As warfare changes, so does war, and terrorism likewise. Therefore, understanding of these forms of violence needs to be critically evaluated. Humanism as a recognition of human responsibility in the context of organized violence is simply a methodological framework that encourages researchers to consider human activities, including violent human characteristics.