Telling geopolitical tales: temporality, rationality, and the ‘childish’ in the ongoing war for the Falklands-Malvinas Islands

Abstract

Anniversaries of war often present opportunities for the telling and retelling of tales about the geopolitical; tales of a nation’s sovereignty, its identity, its security, and how these are imagined and reimagined through the notion of specific conflicts, their histories, beginnings, ends, and aftermaths. By examining the case of the ongoing ‘war’ over the Falklands-Malvinas and a particular set of stories where the ‘childish’ has come to characterize relations and differences between Britain and Argentina, this article explores how the temporality of ‘the anniversary’ can enable certain claims, about the rationality of war, as a means of safeguarding sovereignty, identity, and security, to become commonsensical. The article argues that more attention should be paid to geopolitical tales of supposedly ‘adult’ and ‘childish’ characters because these constructions have the potential to normalize violence as a commonsensical act of strong, adult nations; as an integral part of their national stories that obscures the aggressive role of the state in normalizing and perpetuating violence.