This book brings together a select group of scholars to investigate the societal ramifications of the present-day concern with security in diverse contexts and geographies. The book claims that discourses and practices of security actually breed insecurity, rather than merely being responses to the latter. By relating the binary of security/insecurity to the binary of neoliberalism/neoconservatism, the book reveals the tensions inherent in the proliferation of individualism and the concurrent deployment of techniques of societal regulation around the globe. Chapters explore the phenomena of in ... More

This book brings together a select group of scholars to investigate the societal ramifications of the present-day concern with security in diverse contexts and geographies. The book claims that discourses and practices of security actually breed insecurity, rather than merely being responses to the latter. By relating the binary of security/insecurity to the binary of neoliberalism/neoconservatism, the book reveals the tensions inherent in the proliferation of individualism and the concurrent deployment of techniques of societal regulation around the globe. Chapters explore the phenomena of indistinction, reversal of terms, ambiguity, and confusion in security discourses. Scholars of diverse backgrounds interpret the paradoxical simultaneity of the suspension and enforcement of the law through a variety of theoretical and ethnographic approaches, and explore the formation and transformation of forms of belonging and exclusion. Ultimately, the book aims to understand one crucial question: whether securitized neoliberalism effectively spells the end of political liberalism as we know it today.