Political self-sacrifice: Agency, body and emotion in international relations, by Karin M Fierke

Abstract

Karin M Fierke Political self-sacrifice: Agency, body and emotion in international relations Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 281pp., $95.00 (paper) ISBN: 978-1107029231Since global financial crisis began in 2008, there has been a growing number of public suicides in Greece. The Arab revolutions were sparked by an explosive act of self-immolation. In Tibet, Buddhist monks self-immolate to communicate their need for freedom. Behind every act of suicide is a message, and sometimes this message is political. Karin Fierke's book illustrates how suicide and other forms of self-destructive behaviours, such as hunger strikes, are a socio-cultural phenomenon within asymmetrical political contestation (5).The book revolves around concept of political self-sacrifice. This term depicts such acts not solely as a message, but part of a complex relationship between agent who commits act, act itself, and outcome of act, all for a political end (5). Three ideas support concept of selfsacrifice. First, there is a relationship between actor and community that benefits from final act. Second, act has an objective, which is restoration of beneficiary's right to be independent (6). Third, self is sacrificed for a well-defined, demarcated social community. The concept of political self-sacrifice therefore gives new and broader meaning to individual acts of selfdestruction.Fierke's choice of methodology, process tracing through case studies, turns out to be a fruitful mode of inquiry when compared with other methodologies used in this field. Existing works primarily use two epistemological streams. One pursues an objectivist formulation using rational choice theory, which posits that suicide bombing can be understood as a strategy to expel foreign occupation. The other involves constructivist inter-subjective analysis that identifies acts of self-sacrifice as an enunciation of existential threats (23). These explanations sometimes overlook social context, constitution of act's social meaning, or act's intended beneficiaries. Fierke's work, in contrast, overcomes these weaknesses and makes a valuable contribution in process.Empirically, range of Fierke's work is astounding. She takes readers around world, as she investigates socio-cultural meaning of hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, martyrdom of an anti-Soviet Polish priest, self-immolation of Buddhist monks in Vietnam, and self-immolation and other self-destructive protest in Arab Spring. Moreover, she engages this evidence through dialogical analyses, that is, by initiating a conversation between herself and her subject. Fierke argues that despite diversity of self-sacrifice cases, the body was arguably.. .a weapon of political battle, if not technically war (238). According to Fierke, therefore, human suffering and power asymmetry are common threads of her cases. The author also shares a normative framework with her readers, reminding them of their own agency and that political self-sacrifice .. .is not an argument about what communities or individuals should or should not do, but, rather an exploration of some of dynamics surrounding different expressions of political self-sacrifice for sake of encouraging greater reflection and reflex - ivity (243). …