Trajectories of the Nobel Peace Prize

Abstract

Trajectories are defined as constructs used in geopolitical discourses at all levels – formal, practical and popular. Each trajectory consists of a particular scaling of here, a particular scaling of there, and a particular causal hypothesis about how the two are linked. Norwegian discourses about the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize provide examples of trajectories. These discourses reveal certain assumptions about the motives and outcomes framed in terms of trajectories, as well as closely associated types of emotion and affect. By employing the concept of the trajectory, geographers can better understand geopolitical discourses, their construction of scale and causality, as well as their dependency on the in-between spaces of emotion and affect.