Policing Capital: The Logic of Pacification

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

This panel - "Policing Capital: the Logic of Pacification" - critically engages the politics of police power and security in contemporary capitalist order. Ultimately, the papers situate the logic of pacification, which is understood here as animating police power, security, surveillance, and state violence, within a discussion of the intertwined nature of oppression, capitalist social relations, and state power. Therefore, the panel demonstrates the need for an "anti-security" approach (Neocleous and Rigakos 2011), understood here as a critique that stresses the violent unity of capital and state power and a rejection of the fetishism of security. In this sense, the panel is concerned with not only understanding the police power underpinning capitalist order, but also suggests ways of challenging and resisting this violent order.

Sub Unit

• Area III. Correlates of Crime and Oppression / 35. Weapons

Chair

• Christopher McMichael, University of the Witwatersrand

Individual Presentations

• Counter Moves in Anti-Security Work: alternatives to the civilian production of police transparency - Luis Fernandez, Northern Arizona University; Ben Brucato, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

• The Urban Blitz, Pacification and Contemporary Johannesburg - Christopher McMichael, University of the Witwatersrand

• Policing and Producing the Market: Second Hand Dealer Laws in Onondaga County, NY - Brendan McQuade, Binghampton University

• The Spectacular Hunt: Security, Commodity, Fetishism - Tyler Wall, Eastern Kentucky University