{"title":"Flisfeder, M. (2021). Algorithmic Desire: Toward a New Structuralist Theory of Social Media. Northwestern University Press.","authors":"Lukas Mozdeika","doi":"10.5617/jea.9001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.9001","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130468642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The journey to understand technological and digital policing requires a re-engagement with the most basic and widely used technology – paper-based registers for preventive policing. In the name of preventive policing, people from ex-untouchable castes, indigenous populations, and immigrants (in the city) are put under surveillance and recorded in registers. In the process, they earn criminal records for petty crimes, but also for no crimes at all. The registers enable a very ‘visible’ surveillance, where the ‘suspects’ are watched, followed and asked to come for mandatory attendance at the stations. Keeping in mind the segregated nature of the urban landscapes of cities in India, this is only possible for people who belong to certain strata of society and who do not have the privilege of escaping the prying eyes of the police. Researchers have argued that this form of policing is anti-poor or anti-marginalised. However, in this article, I argue that this form of preventive policing is better understood as being anti-caste. I demonstrate how police manuals, including guidelines for police record keeping and surveillance practices, reproduce and imitate the caste based social structure of India by using legacy practices from some still operational and some defunct laws. The paper-based registers maintain an illusion of objectivity – while the police can simply claim to be obeying the manuals. However, by enabling the recording of only those able to be visibly surveilled, those arrested for petty crimes, or those unable to escape the criminal justice system because of lack of money or social support or both, the paper-based registers become a vehicle of policing caste. By marking those thus recorded as habitual offenders, these registers propagate the caste-based understanding that defines crime as an inherent/hereditary trait of the lower castes. Prediction becomes nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.
{"title":"Guilty Until Proven Guilty","authors":"Shiv Narayan","doi":"10.5617/jea.8797","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.8797","url":null,"abstract":"The journey to understand technological and digital policing requires a re-engagement with the most basic and widely used technology – paper-based registers for preventive policing. In the name of preventive policing, people from ex-untouchable castes, indigenous populations, and immigrants (in the city) are put under surveillance and recorded in registers. In the process, they earn criminal records for petty crimes, but also for no crimes at all. The registers enable a very ‘visible’ surveillance, where the ‘suspects’ are watched, followed and asked to come for mandatory attendance at the stations. Keeping in mind the segregated nature of the urban landscapes of cities in India, this is only possible for people who belong to certain strata of society and who do not have the privilege of escaping the prying eyes of the police. Researchers have argued that this form of policing is anti-poor or anti-marginalised. However, in this article, I argue that this form of preventive policing is better understood as being anti-caste. I demonstrate how police manuals, including guidelines for police record keeping and surveillance practices, reproduce and imitate the caste based social structure of India by using legacy practices from some still operational and some defunct laws. The paper-based registers maintain an illusion of objectivity – while the police can simply claim to be obeying the manuals. However, by enabling the recording of only those able to be visibly surveilled, those arrested for petty crimes, or those unable to escape the criminal justice system because of lack of money or social support or both, the paper-based registers become a vehicle of policing caste. By marking those thus recorded as habitual offenders, these registers propagate the caste-based understanding that defines crime as an inherent/hereditary trait of the lower castes. Prediction becomes nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131140103","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-13DOI: 10.4324/9780203118283-110
Václav Walach, Mark Seis, S. Vysotsky
Anarchist criminology is not a new approach to the critical study of harm, crime, and criminalization, but it has been largely overlooked and gained serious impetus only in recent years. This interview features two scholars who have been at the forefront of this development. Mark Seis co-edited the volumes Contemporary Anarchist Criminology (Nocella, Seis and Shantz 2018) and Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology (Nocella, Seis, and Shantz 2020), which bring together some of the key texts that utilize anarchist theorizing to challenge the status quo, both in society and in criminology. Stanislav Vysotsky has recently published his book American Antifa (Vysotsky 2021), where he explores, inter alia, militant antifascism as informal policing. The interview emerged somewhat unconventionally. Stanislav was interviewed first on March 22, 2021. The resulting transcript was edited and sent to Mark who was unable to join the online meeting due to technical difficulties. I received his answers on May 24. The following is a slightly shortened and edited version of the interview.
{"title":"Anarchist Criminology","authors":"Václav Walach, Mark Seis, S. Vysotsky","doi":"10.4324/9780203118283-110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203118283-110","url":null,"abstract":"Anarchist criminology is not a new approach to the critical study of harm, crime, and criminalization, but it has been largely overlooked and gained serious impetus only in recent years. This interview features two scholars who have been at the forefront of this development. Mark Seis co-edited the volumes Contemporary Anarchist Criminology (Nocella, Seis and Shantz 2018) and Classic Writings in Anarchist Criminology (Nocella, Seis, and Shantz 2020), which bring together some of the key texts that utilize anarchist theorizing to challenge the status quo, both in society and in criminology. Stanislav Vysotsky has recently published his book American Antifa (Vysotsky 2021), where he explores, inter alia, militant antifascism as informal policing. The interview emerged somewhat unconventionally. Stanislav was interviewed first on March 22, 2021. The resulting transcript was edited and sent to Mark who was unable to join the online meeting due to technical difficulties. I received his answers on May 24. The following is a slightly shortened and edited version of the interview.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125087961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
P. Hohnen, M. Ulfstjerne, Mathias Sosnowski Krabbe
The purpose of this article is twofold: first, we show how algorithms have become increasingly central to financial credit scoring; second, we draw on this to further develop the anthropological study of algorithmic governance. As such, we describe the literature on credit scoring and then discuss ethnographic examples from two regulatory and commercial contexts: the US and Denmark. From these empirical cases, we carve out main developments of algorithmic governance in credit scoring and elucidate social and cultural logics behind algorithmic governance tools. Our analytical framework builds on critical algorithm studies and anthropological studies where money and payment infrastructures are viewed as embedded in their specific cultural contexts (Bloch and Parry 1989; Maurer 2015). The comparative analysis shows how algorithmic credit scoring takes different forms hence raising different issues in the two cases. Danish banks seem to have developed a system of intensive, yet hidden credit scoring based on surveillance and harvesting of behavioural data, which, however, due to GDPR takes place in restricted silos. Credit scores are hidden to customers, and therefore there has been virtually no public debate regarding the algorithmic models behind scores. In the US, fewer legal restrictions on data trading combined with both widespread and visible credit scoring has led to the development of a credit data market and widespread use of credit scoring by ‘affiliation’ on the one hand, but also to increasing public and political critique on scoring models on the other.
本文的目的有两个:首先，我们展示了算法如何在金融信用评分中变得越来越重要;其次，我们借鉴这一点，进一步发展算法治理的人类学研究。因此，我们描述了关于信用评分的文献，然后讨论了两个监管和商业背景下的人种学例子:美国和丹麦。从这些实证案例中，我们勾勒出了信用评分中算法治理的主要发展，并阐明了算法治理工具背后的社会和文化逻辑。我们的分析框架建立在关键算法研究和人类学研究的基础上，在这些研究中，货币和支付基础设施被视为嵌入其特定的文化背景中(Bloch and Parry 1989;毛雷尔2015)。通过对比分析可以看出，算法信用评分在两种情况下采用了不同的形式，从而引发了不同的问题。丹麦的银行似乎已经开发出了一套基于监控和收集行为数据的密集但隐藏的信用评分系统，然而，由于GDPR的限制，这些系统是在受限的孤岛中进行的。信用评分对客户来说是隐藏的，因此几乎没有关于评分背后的算法模型的公开辩论。在美国，对数据交易的法律限制较少，加上广泛可见的信用评分，一方面导致了信用数据市场的发展，并通过“隶属关系”广泛使用信用评分，但另一方面也增加了对评分模型的公众和政治批评。
{"title":"Assessing Creditworthiness in the Age of Big Data","authors":"P. Hohnen, M. Ulfstjerne, Mathias Sosnowski Krabbe","doi":"10.5617/jea.8315","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.8315","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this article is twofold: first, we show how algorithms have become increasingly central to financial credit scoring; second, we draw on this to further develop the anthropological study of algorithmic governance. As such, we describe the literature on credit scoring and then discuss ethnographic examples from two regulatory and commercial contexts: the US and Denmark. From these empirical cases, we carve out main developments of algorithmic governance in credit scoring and elucidate social and cultural logics behind algorithmic governance tools. Our analytical framework builds on critical algorithm studies and anthropological studies where money and payment infrastructures are viewed as embedded in their specific cultural contexts (Bloch and Parry 1989; Maurer 2015). The comparative analysis shows how algorithmic credit scoring takes different forms hence raising different issues in the two cases. Danish banks seem to have developed a system of intensive, yet hidden credit scoring based on surveillance and harvesting of behavioural data, which, however, due to GDPR takes place in restricted silos. Credit scores are hidden to customers, and therefore there has been virtually no public debate regarding the algorithmic models behind scores. In the US, fewer legal restrictions on data trading combined with both widespread and visible credit scoring has led to the development of a credit data market and widespread use of credit scoring by ‘affiliation’ on the one hand, but also to increasing public and political critique on scoring models on the other.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122411829","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Information-driven automated systems that deliver services proactively to citizens in need are heralded as the next level of digital government. There is, however, concern that such systems make welfare services less accessible to some citizens. This study uses the case of Norway’s child benefit system to discuss the general obstacles to having welfare policies implemented by proactive digital systems. Norway’s automated child benefit system uses data from Norway’s national resident register to award this benefit to eligible parents whom the system identifies. As such, it is representative of many government systems that use registry data to perform tasks previously done by caseworkers. While the eligibility rules for child benefits are simple, and the register has sufficient data to automate most cases, many parents are not awarded the benefit automatically. This article argues that when developing automated digital services, public administrators are faced with a trilemma. Ideally, proactive automation should be (1) precise in its delivery, (2) inclusive of all citizens, and (3) still support welfare-oriented policies that are independent of the requirements of the digital system. However, limitations with each requirement prevent all three from being realized at the same time. Only two can be simultaneously realized: a public administrator must decide which of them to forego. Consequently, automated services cannot meet all the expectations of policymakers regarding the benefits of digital government. Instead, governments need to find ways of utilizing the benefits of public digitalisation without infringing on citizens’ right to be treated equally and fairly by the government.
{"title":"Can Computers Automate Welfare?","authors":"K. Larsson, Marit Haldar","doi":"10.5617/jea.8231","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.8231","url":null,"abstract":"Information-driven automated systems that deliver services proactively to citizens in need are heralded as the next level of digital government. There is, however, concern that such systems make welfare services less accessible to some citizens. This study uses the case of Norway’s child benefit system to discuss the general obstacles to having welfare policies implemented by proactive digital systems. Norway’s automated child benefit system uses data from Norway’s national resident register to award this benefit to eligible parents whom the system identifies. As such, it is representative of many government systems that use registry data to perform tasks previously done by caseworkers. While the eligibility rules for child benefits are simple, and the register has sufficient data to automate most cases, many parents are not awarded the benefit automatically. This article argues that when developing automated digital services, public administrators are faced with a trilemma. Ideally, proactive automation should be (1) precise in its delivery, (2) inclusive of all citizens, and (3) still support welfare-oriented policies that are independent of the requirements of the digital system. However, limitations with each requirement prevent all three from being realized at the same time. Only two can be simultaneously realized: a public administrator must decide which of them to forego. Consequently, automated services cannot meet all the expectations of policymakers regarding the benefits of digital government. Instead, governments need to find ways of utilizing the benefits of public digitalisation without infringing on citizens’ right to be treated equally and fairly by the government.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-06-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121756040","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: The Myth of the Crime Decline by Justin Kotzé","authors":"Anthony","doi":"10.5617/jea.8325","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.8325","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121978684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines some paradoxical intersections of fear, security, and morality on Ahamb Island in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. I take as my ethnographic vantage point a child-led Christian revival movement that developed in the wake of enduring political conflicts on Ahamb during my fieldwork in 2014. The revival began as a process of moral renewal and turned into a security measure protecting the island against sorcerers found to be responsible for many of the island society’s problems. In the article, I make comparisons between the situation on Ahamb and the recent political and cultural crisis in the UK and USA where an increasing number of people perceive their moral order to be under threat. In both contexts, new charismatic actors of governance emerge and gain a following by identifying an ‘other’ as responsible for the crisis while convincingly presenting themselves as the solution. An important reason for these actors’ appeal, I argue, is that they appear to take people’s concerns seriously in a way that established authorities do not. However, in both Vanuatu, the UK, and the USA there is a paradox in how the actors present themselves as holding the solution to people’s insecurities while at the same time shaping the context for their emergence.
{"title":"Paradoxes of (In)security and Moral Regeneration in Vanuatu and Beyond","authors":"T. Bratrud","doi":"10.5617/jea.7395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.7395","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines some paradoxical intersections of fear, security, and morality on Ahamb Island in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. I take as my ethnographic vantage point a child-led Christian revival movement that developed in the wake of enduring political conflicts on Ahamb during my fieldwork in 2014. The revival began as a process of moral renewal and turned into a security measure protecting the island against sorcerers found to be responsible for many of the island society’s problems. In the article, I make comparisons between the situation on Ahamb and the recent political and cultural crisis in the UK and USA where an increasing number of people perceive their moral order to be under threat. In both contexts, new charismatic actors of governance emerge and gain a following by identifying an ‘other’ as responsible for the crisis while convincingly presenting themselves as the solution. An important reason for these actors’ appeal, I argue, is that they appear to take people’s concerns seriously in a way that established authorities do not. However, in both Vanuatu, the UK, and the USA there is a paradox in how the actors present themselves as holding the solution to people’s insecurities while at the same time shaping the context for their emergence.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121213812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In between 2016 and 2017, a number of terrorist attacks took place in public spaces in cities across Europe. Consequently, numerous concrete blocks were placed in the streets of Copenhagen in order to prevent similar attacks made with vehicles towards people in the public space. For the Municipality of Copenhagen, this became the first step in a long process of dealing with the question of how to secure the city’s public spaces. Literature on security points to a worldwide increase in security measures, often legitimized by way of moral discourses of protecting democratic values and saving lives. This article provides an example of a counter movement where a public institution does not perform according to this premise. The article argues that employees at the Municipality of Copenhagen mobilize moral discourses and values associated with liberal democracy and the welfare state in order to minimize the presence of security measures in the public space. To the municipal employees the concrete blocks made Copenhagen’s public spaces express negative moral values such as hostility and fear. Therefore, they initiated what I will call an ethical work of transformation by shaping the materiality of the concrete blocks into security measures more in line with the moral values they associated with the public space and the good city. By following the ethical work of transformation done on counterterrorism measures, the article shows how moral values and materiality can be intertwined. Adding this material dimension to literature on morality and ethics, sheds new light on discussions of security and morality.
{"title":"The Good City","authors":"Stine Ilum","doi":"10.5617/jea.7359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.7359","url":null,"abstract":"In between 2016 and 2017, a number of terrorist attacks took place in public spaces in cities across Europe. Consequently, numerous concrete blocks were placed in the streets of Copenhagen in order to prevent similar attacks made with vehicles towards people in the public space. For the Municipality of Copenhagen, this became the first step in a long process of dealing with the question of how to secure the city’s public spaces. Literature on security points to a worldwide increase in security measures, often legitimized by way of moral discourses of protecting democratic values and saving lives. This article provides an example of a counter movement where a public institution does not perform according to this premise. The article argues that employees at the Municipality of Copenhagen mobilize moral discourses and values associated with liberal democracy and the welfare state in order to minimize the presence of security measures in the public space. To the municipal employees the concrete blocks made Copenhagen’s public spaces express negative moral values such as hostility and fear. Therefore, they initiated what I will call an ethical work of transformation by shaping the materiality of the concrete blocks into security measures more in line with the moral values they associated with the public space and the good city. By following the ethical work of transformation done on counterterrorism measures, the article shows how moral values and materiality can be intertwined. Adding this material dimension to literature on morality and ethics, sheds new light on discussions of security and morality.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"145 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124662780","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Covid-19 pandemic has made a commonplace of the carceral imaginary. Isolation, social distancing, quarantine have become watchwords. Physician instructions, epidemiologist advice, state orders jostle alongside memes and jokes about being under ‘lockdown’, barricaded-in and homebound across the world. An immobility regime dominates now with cancelled airline, bus and train services. Yet, the same regime has generated an extreme mobility in nations like India, particularly in cities like New Delhi....
{"title":"The Long Walk","authors":"P. Nayar","doi":"10.5617/jea.7856","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.7856","url":null,"abstract":"The Covid-19 pandemic has made a commonplace of the carceral imaginary. Isolation, social distancing, quarantine have become watchwords. Physician instructions, epidemiologist advice, state orders jostle alongside memes and jokes about being under ‘lockdown’, barricaded-in and homebound across the world. An immobility regime dominates now with cancelled airline, bus and train services. Yet, the same regime has generated an extreme mobility in nations like India, particularly in cities like New Delhi....","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"123 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133003826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
After the Babri mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya was destroyed in 1992 by mobs of ‘volunteers’ mobilised by Hindu nationalist forces, a deed of license between the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board and the Uttar Pradesh state government was signed. Through this license a portion of land in the Gyan Vapi mosque premises in Banaras (Varanasi) was handed over to the state for security purposes. The Gyan Vapi mosque is less than fifty meters from the Kashi Vishvanath temple, a notable Hindu pilgrimage destination. Although at the centre of security issues for centuries, the mosque has been a target of the Hindu nationalist movement that since the 1980s has aimed at the ‘liberation’ of allegedly originally Hindu places of worship. By analysing the evolution of security discourses in local Hindi newspapers and drawing on ethnography of everyday policing at the Kashi Vishvanath-Gyan Vapi compound, this article discusses moral frictions involved in securing a contested place of worship and argues that scopes and objects of securitisation can shift. In the case I discuss, the predominately Hindu police are shown to play an ambiguous role, caught as they are between their duty to secure the disputed mosque and their likely adherence to the increasingly dominant Hindu nationalist discourse. In overcoming these moral frictions, police through their everyday activity contribute to the shift of the object of securitisation from the mosque to the more ‘acceptable’ temple.
{"title":"The Burden of Security","authors":"V. Lazzaretti","doi":"10.5617/jea.7526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5617/jea.7526","url":null,"abstract":"After the Babri mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya was destroyed in 1992 by mobs of ‘volunteers’ mobilised by Hindu nationalist forces, a deed of license between the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board and the Uttar Pradesh state government was signed. Through this license a portion of land in the Gyan Vapi mosque premises in Banaras (Varanasi) was handed over to the state for security purposes. The Gyan Vapi mosque is less than fifty meters from the Kashi Vishvanath temple, a notable Hindu pilgrimage destination. Although at the centre of security issues for centuries, the mosque has been a target of the Hindu nationalist movement that since the 1980s has aimed at the ‘liberation’ of allegedly originally Hindu places of worship. By analysing the evolution of security discourses in local Hindi newspapers and drawing on ethnography of everyday policing at the Kashi Vishvanath-Gyan Vapi compound, this article discusses moral frictions involved in securing a contested place of worship and argues that scopes and objects of securitisation can shift. In the case I discuss, the predominately Hindu police are shown to play an ambiguous role, caught as they are between their duty to secure the disputed mosque and their likely adherence to the increasingly dominant Hindu nationalist discourse. In overcoming these moral frictions, police through their everyday activity contribute to the shift of the object of securitisation from the mosque to the more ‘acceptable’ temple.","PeriodicalId":190492,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Extreme Anthropology","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128136087","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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