CfP for special issue on "Governing (in)security in the postcolonial world" of Security Dialogue

Call for Abstracts

Governing (in)security in the postcolonial world

Security Dialogue Special Issue, 2012

Edited by: Jana Hönke (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany), Markus-Michael Müller
(Universität Leipzig, Germany)

Much of the attention to security in the post Cold War and post 9/11 world is inseparable from social and political developments in ‘most of the world’ (Chatterjee, 2004: 8) - that is the postcolonial world outside, but also within, the ‘modern West’ - and the implications, challenges and threats these developments are imagined to represent for global security and stability by politicians and academics. As a consequence of this, security governance in these spaces today is shaped even more by external actors and knowledge than before, in direct as well as indirect ways. Sociological, anthropological, ethnographic and discourse approaches direct attention to the resulting plural security practices, evolving through the intersection and (re)articulation of multiple norms, discourses and practices, all leading up to hybrid regimes of security practices. How are these produced, what are the different logics and how do these interact and get adapted, appropriated, subverted or contested? And what roles do the ‘powers of association’, forms of non-human agency and symbolic power play in these processes?

This special issue calls for papers that offer theoretically fresh and empirically grounded perspectives on transnationalised (in)security governance in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, thereby bringing new and important perspectives to the study of security governance in ‘most of the world’. Empirically, we invite in particular papers dealing with security governance in transnationalised spaces, such as business spaces, urban areas, border regions and spaces of intervention (SSR, state building, War on Terror, counterinsurgency, aid projects), or with particular practice fields and assemblages linking global and local security practices. Methodologically and theoretically, we invite papers proposing new insights from the following strands of literature, and any combination thereof, particularly relevant to our endeavour: first, the ‘practice turn’, that is, discourse-theoretical and sociological approaches focusing on power relations, nondiscursive practices as well as on materiality and non-human agency, and, second, approaches from political anthropology, ethnography and the sociology of rule focusing on local agency and processes of translation, appropriation and resistance. Finally, we invite contributions that critically discuss discourse and practice approaches or ask to what extent ‘most of the world’ (or the Global South, the postcolony) are useful categories and if/why security practices in these parts of the world may, or may not, need particular analysis.

Deadline for submission of abstracts: 1 August.

In the event of the abstract being accepted, the deadline for submitting a full first draft (7,500-10,000 words) will be 30 October 2011.

All abstract submissions to sd@prio.no

All article submissions to: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/security-dialogue

For more details on Security Dialogue and full submission guidelines please consult our home page http://www.prio.no/sd . Further queries can be directed to sd@prio.no.