When a political crisis gets bad enough that it erupts into violence, an armed and radicalized force can appear seemingly from nowhere. The creation of this force poses two equally important questions: What makes people decide to take up arms against a government? And, just as crucially, what makes people in similar circumstances decide not to?

Or, as authors Emma Ylitalo-James and Andrew Silke put it, the answer to these two questions “depends not just on developing a better understanding of terrorists, but equally on developing a fuller understanding of compatriots who share many of the same traits, characteristics and contexts, but who did not progress to involvement in terrorism.”

Their work, “How Proximity and Space Matter: Exploring Geographical & Social Contexts of Radicalization in Northern Ireland,” involved interviewing 17 former paramilitary members and 12 paramilitary sympathizers who, despite their inclinations, did not join in the violence. It’s a study of the dynamics and forces that lead some to radicalization, but not all.

By focusing on people in Northern Ireland, the researchers were able to draw on both a long history of paramilitary violence complete with cohorts of supporters who did not participate in the violence. At the same time, the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 marked a formal end to the conflict if not all the tensions, and meant that people could speak more openly of the violence as past tense.

One of the findings from the study, when talking to people who join a paramilitary force, is that they did so because the specific geography of their home encouraged it. In some cases, this was because the particular block they lived on was on the direct boundary line between a Protestant and Catholic area.

In other circumstances, the British government’s policy of homogenizing neighborhoods to mitigate conflict meant relocating families. One former member of the Ulster Freedom Fighters noted that “there were an awful lot of protestants were living in them houses but them protestants were pushed out to make way for nationalists to move in - they were saying well that will happen to us. They’ll push us out.”

As much as close proximity to a real or perceived front line drove radicalization, being even a block or two away from the front line meant thinking about the conflict differently, or at a minimum not acting as though always under imminent threat.

This was reflected, too, in the way that the physical and personal geography of life for the paramilitary members became confined to the areas they felt safe. Going out meant only going to bars and clubs vetted and frequented by the same faction, and often doing so among members of one’s own specific paramilitary unit, where trust and cohesion could offer a sense of security. This was often compounded by direct experience of loss, either friends or family, which, for many, cemented a path into seeking justice through armed violence.

For those who did not radicalize into paramilitary participation, one participant said regular contact through soccer created community beyond that focused on sectarian violence. Others pointed to distance from conflict flashpoints, overriding work and university obligations, and even already being in mixed communities.

The authors ultimately focused on geography, personal experience of violence, and social isolation as the significant factors determining if people primed for radicalization end up following through. A geography that prevents neighborhoods from becoming enclaves or front lines can reduce spaces for conflict, personal distance from the tragedy of violence can lessen proclivity to take part in it, and a community across sectarian lines (or at least one forged outside sectarian identity) can all steer people away from violent radicalization.

Nicole Cochran and Brian Harding examined Indigenous foreign policy in light of the promise by Australia's newly elected labor government to “deliver a First Nations foreign policy.” Cochran and Harding emphasized that for this to truly work, it must start from the settler-state, like Australia, crafting policy as part of a shared political community with indigenous constitutional order, noting “a state cannot have an Indigenous foreign policy unless it has established a means for constituting a shared political community with its Indigenous peoples within the territory of the state.” Australia needs to start there, or else the term is just a hollow rebranding of existing Australian policy.

Yasmine Mosimann reported on how people in Iraq are struggling with the drought, heat, and wind all exacerbated by climate change. Mosimann talked to a Yazidi refugee, who has lived in a tent city with other refugees for the better part of eight years, where the wind and grime makes life hard, but the risk of a flood sweeping everything away is a true looming catastrophe. The story, evocatively photographed, highlights how the hardships of a worsening climate fall on those least able to afford it, with delivery workers using surgical masks to keep the dust out of their mouths as they struggle to get by.

Andrew Connelly examined abortion care access in Northern Ireland three years into decriminalization. Both the reactionary forces of restricting abortion care and the life-affirming ones providing it are looking to the US Supreme Court’s looming ruling on abortion as protected by a right to privacy for precedent. “We are always going to have to be vigilant. Always. We never take the justice, the rights, the access for granted,” Naomi Connor, who works for Alliance for Choice, cautioned. “The moment you start taking it for granted is the moment that it can slip away.”

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Happy Pride!

Happy platty juubz to all the homies.

Ceci n’est pas un twete.