Description
Constituting approximately 25% of the “non-lethal” weapons market (Flanagan 2020), tear gas has become a popular tool for disciplining populations and enforcing political authority. While chemical weapons were banned under the Geneva Protocol and Chemical Weapons Convention, state powers continue to exploit the vague regulations surrounding domestic riot control. Despite the significant role tear gas plays in managing certain groups of people and atmospheric governance, there has not been adequate emphasis on the centrality of race and colonialism within the literature, which is vital to understanding the way tear gas has been weaponized within a contemporary context. Exploring how the state’s use of tear gas as a mechanism of control against circumscribed “othered” populations is facilitated, legitimized, and normalized, this paper draws upon a postcolonial framework. By providing a critical analysis of the ways tear gas has enabled neocolonial practices that reinforce structural power and hierarchies, a new model of organizing state-sanctioned violence is revealed. As tear gas, far from a benign technological development, has and will continue to change modes of governance through atmospheric violence, an analysis of its imperialistic employment is imperative.
