ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the main theoretical input for the book. It summarizes innovative approaches in IR, International Studies and Global Studies relevant to the study of African Peace and Security which sought to direct attention to and theorize different kinds of actors and agency, actual, everyday practices, entanglements and, though only very incipient and rudimentary, space. The chapter reflects upon the extent to which these approaches have found their way into the study of African Peace and Security, before introducing theoretical insights from Critical Geography, and a ‘spatial approach’ as a theoretically informed and theory-oriented approach to combine focusses on actors, practices and entanglements, as well as to add ‘space’ as a new empirical, analytical category. The chapter finishes by outlining how such a ‘spatial approach’ provides a new perspective on intervention practices of African regional organizations, their spatializing effects – especially regarding the construction, formatting and ordering or regional spaces – as well as relations between different actors, during conflict interventions and in the context of African peace and security dynamics more generally.
