Intentionality and the Publicness of Mind

The Private Militarized and Security Contractor as Geocorporeal Actor

“…Developing a phenomenology of the body approach using the concept of geocorporeality that conceives of the body in its undifferentiated relationship to the wider political context, has provided an original theoretical and empirical contribution to the literature on PMSCs and, more widely, to IR and Political Science. Specifically, this perspective has addressed embodied elements of the “antinomies and aporias” produced by the “ontological ‘split’ between the thinking subject and the objective world” (Michel :99). Consequently, and of considerable importance to debates on PMSC, framing the contractor as geocorporeal actor has implications for conceptions of agency that forge new and radical lines of enquiry, including challenging the truism that veterans are best suited to employment in the industry, discussed below.…”

“…Consequently, and of considerable importance to debates on PMSC, framing the contractor as geocorporeal actor has implications for conceptions of agency that forge new and radical lines of enquiry, including challenging the truism that veterans are best suited to employment in the industry, discussed below. And, proceeding from contractor's everyday, embodied experience as it is embedded within the geopolitical realm, are the wider implications of the foregoing discussion that raise questions of actor intentionality and responsibility (Jacobi :87; Michel :99).…”

“…Contractors surging with adrenaline who respond inappropriately on account of pre‐reflective disposition are not those implicitly conceived of in the ICoC as “Western subject[s] of modernity—a subject that champions abstractions over embodiment through its ability to be sovereign, self‐sufficient, and universal” (Caraccioli :99). Rather, the tendency for some to over‐react could be explained by the inability to deploy a calculus of means and ends (Michel :92) to their work, as a consequence of embodied self‐hood. Similarly, and of pertinence to those seeking explanations for random shootings by contractors, Michael J. Shapiro talks of the inarticulacy of militarized bodies “which either refuse to or are incapable of replying to the questions concerning war asked by civilians” (Armitage :7).…”

“…It can be argued that a number of contractors inhabit the world through a bodily schema they have largely failed to reclaim in a civilian sense (Walker ), and that their migration to the industry is more than a matter of the ubiquitous overly decisionist actor noted in IR theory more widely (Michel :91). For some, former experiences could have been over‐determined by the experience of combat as:

the most exciting interesting and thrilling game there is and one in which it is perfectly legitimate to look for these things… the feeling of the adrenaline flowing [in combat] is a good feeling.

…”