Description
Security praxis produces certain forms of desired citizenship. This panel critically assesses the practice of security policies around the world, and the implications for those on the other side of their gaze. Security operations and the imaginaries they generate, whether these exist in the pre-crime space (counter-radicalization programmes for instance), or whether the policies are targeted at protest groups (rubber bullets in Kashmir), allow only for limited forms of citizenry acceptable to the state. Where alternative subjectivities exist, these are striated and made governable through securitizing interventions. Protesters who are then blinded, marginalised Muslim communities who are then exposed to counter-radicalization programmes, or immigrants made vulnerable to NATO's military seaborne operations, make more malleable potential threats to govern. We find that certain forms of citizenship must be allowed to die, in order for security practices to make sense. Whether this is intentional, deliberate, capable protesters, or racialised communities (imagined to be) aggrieved at their exclusion from society, these groups are reconstructed into distinct and governable entities that can be understood and managed by the state. This panel ultimately points to the very tangible effects that the power of imagination in security politics produces.
