Returning Body: Transferring Violence Across Time and Space

Bodies that are touched by war and violence transfer war across spatial and temporal boundaries to peacebuilding and peace. It follows that post-conflict space is filled with bodies that are touched by violence. This chapter engages with witnessing existence and the narratives of war veterans and demonstrates how the corporeal and intersubjective relations of these bodies transfer the touch of violence to other bodies. Starting from Karen Barad’s new materialism, the chapter argues that corporeal matter has agency to bring distant warfare home as it becomes felt in bodies dispersed in time and space. This observation is vital for peacebuilding since the boundary between “us” and “them” becomes reconfigured when the witnessing body circulates the touch of war across time and space.