Citation

Aitken SC. Soc. Cult. Geogr. 2012; 13(2): 127-143.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14649365.2012.655767

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

With this essay, I take to task the relations between young men, addiction and spaces of violence with a particular focus on combat zones. Geographic theories of affect help elaborate the complex relations between young men's emotions, their addictive propensities and how that benefits the governance unities that create war machines. Deleuze's notion of the fold complicates those benefits by suggesting why some young men no longer fit the so-called normalcy of life back home and why they desire, rather, a continuous return to spaces of violence. My arguments are focused by Sebastian Junger's War (2010) and Restrepo (2010), Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2009), which present, in different ways, the potency of combat. The work focuses on difference and identity and, by so doing, suggests ways that affect can have political valence.