(Re)creative violence

ABSTRACT This contribution builds on my current research in exploring alternative ways of understanding the phenomenon of violence, traditionally conceived of as either a destructive force or a system of injustice. By exploring my personal position navigating between the borders of different versions of Europe (the Swedish border and the walls of gated communities in Brazil) the contribution explains how, in the modern colonial world, violence adopts a (re)creative or (re)creational aspect, fundamentally tying it to a whole economy of playfulness and pleasure. This economy is neither destructive nor necessarily unjust, in the sense that it complicates the liberal duality of inclusion/exclusion, structuring the pursuance of the easy life (a mode of living that maximises convenience) in different levels of (post)colonial racialised ‘enclaves’. The reflection ends with an invitation to take the concept of (re)creative violence seriously and to rethink the specific role of death and insecurity in the making of the international order.