Critical Security and Anthropology from the Middle East

Abstract

This colloquy takes the Middle East region as a starting point from which to explore a contrapuntal concept of security that is subverted from its original meaning and captured from the state. The essays follow the lives of revolutionary youth, doctors, commodity traders, refugees, and spies to examine their experiences of (in)security. In doing so, the essays deploy storytelling and other ethnographic forms to think of the political economy, emotions, flows, and ethics of security from the perspective of those living-in-crisis.

Security against the State in Revolutionary Yemen

“…Anthropologists can productively contribute to conversations about securitization by bringing the concept into conversation with a diverse range of circumstances and, in doing so, gauging the extent to which the concept can be extended or pluralized. One such conversation thinks about security from below—security “subverted from its original meaning and captured from the state,” (El Dardiry and Hermez 2020, 199) as the editors of this colloquy put it. If anthropologists are to take up this challenge, however, they must first redress their preoccupation with the victims of state securitization with a focus on non‐state securitizers.…”

Decolonizing Middle East anthropology

“…Anthropology of the war on terror and other ethnographies of the region challenge that war's assertions about who deserves freedom (Li, 2019) and security (Dardiry & Hermez, 2020; Porter, 2020), and even about whose past matters, and on what terms (Emberling & Hanson, 2008). As Rubaii (2022, p. 362) asks, “What would happen to our analysis if we treated the twin towers falling not as a destruction‐taboo, but as a scene of crumbling concrete without fetish, without unconditional and unidirectional safety and sovereignty?” A broader notion of security requires attending more to the lived realities of the drone war (Lin, 2010; Tahir, 2017) and to US sanctions policies (Baker et al., 2022; Yıldız, 2021).…”

‘Weaponized volunteering’ and re-considering the volunteering-weaponization divide

“…From a focus on top–down securitization scholars have moved to study, often ethnographically, everyday acts and processes of securitization. Thus, scholars have increasingly begun to critically question concepts of security and securitization generally (Maguire et al, 2014; Diphoorn and Grassiani, 2015, 2019; Gluck and Lowe, 2017; Neocleous and Rigakos, 2011), in specific geopolitical settings (El Dardiry and Hermezm, 2020), and in relation to the body (Higate, 2012; Maguire et al, 2014), race (Machold and Charrett, 2021; Ybarra, 2019), neoliberal global economy (Diphoorn and Grassiani, 2016; Grassiani, 2017), and especially border control and irregular migration (Andreas, 2000; Ben Ze’ev and Gazit, 2018; Bigo, 2011; De Genova, 2013; Fassin, 2011; Samimian-Darash and Stalcup, 2017). Moreover, there is a growing acknowledgment regarding the normative and ethical dimensions of securitization (Floyd, 2019; Nyman and Burke, 2016; Taureck, 2006) and its influence on social relations.…”