Synopses & Reviews
In
The Security Archipelago, Paul Amar provides an alternative historical and theoretical framing of the refashioning of free-market states and the rise of humanitarian security regimes in the Global South by examining the pivotal, trendsetting cases of Brazil and Egypt. Addressing gaps in the study of neoliberalism and biopolitics, Amar describes how coercive security operations and cultural rescue campaigns confronting waves of resistance have appropriated progressive, antimarket discourses around morality, sexuality, and labor. The products of these strugglesandmdash;including powerful new police practices, religious politics, sexuality identifications, and gender normativitiesandmdash;have traveled across an archipelago, a metaphorical island chain of what the global security industry calls andquot;hot spots.andquot; Homing in on Cairo and Rio de Janeiro, Amar reveals the innovative resistances and unexpected alliances that have coalesced in new polities emerging from the Arab Spring and South America's Pink Tide. These have generated a shared modern governance model that he terms the andquot;human-security state.andquot;
Review
andquot;An extraordinary book that revolutionizes the way to think about security, undermines conventional wisdom, and offers us a wonderfully lucid study of an obscure subject-matter, including detailed inquiry into state/society relations in Egypt and Brazil. Among many contributions is the brilliant depiction of the evolving interface between state security (its visible and invisible apparatus) and people subject to its control, including a fascinating account of the sexualization of politics as an emergent dimension of both oppression and resistance. A must-read!andquot;andmdash;Richard Falk, coauthor of The Path to Zero: Dialogues on Nuclear Dangers
Review
andquot;The Security Archipelago is a singular book by a unique scholar. Paul Amar works in English, Arabic, and Portuguese, and he studies security regimes in a comparative framework encompassing the Middle East, North and South America, and Europe. Combining research that he has done in Brazil and Egypt on the emergence of new forms of security and new grammars of protest politics with the unfolding stories of an economic boom in Brazil and political change in Egypt, Amar has written an up-to-the-moment account of the 'human-security state' and its opponents.andquot;andmdash;Jack Halberstam, author of The Queer Art of Failure
Review
andldquo;Amarandrsquo;s analysis of the politics and culture of the human-security state provides an alternative and declining history of neoliberalism. . . . He pushes critical security studies forward when he questions whether decisions to disregard the Global South contribute to the fieldandrsquo;s tendency to legitimate securitization.andrdquo;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Amar traces the contradictory contours of state power, more interested in its own survival than that of its citizens. Especially for scholars of the changing global status of gender and sexuality, this is a book which expands the scope of the field.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;The Security Archipelago is based on extensive and original research in Egypt and Brazil, and traces transformations in statecraft and governance from the 1980s to the present day that reconfigured andldquo;humanity . . . through new forms of sexualized and moralized governanceandrdquo; (3).andquot;
Synopsis
Based on in-depth ethnographic research in Cairo and Rio de Janeiro, Paul Amar describes new forms of governance emerging in the Global South, partly in opposition to neoliberalism.
About the Author
Paul Amar is Associate Professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A political scientist and anthropologist, he has worked as a journalist in Egypt, a police reformer in Brazil, and a United Nations conflict resolution and economic development specialist.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction. The Archipelago of New Security-State Uprisings 1
1. Mooring a New Global Order between Cairo and Rio de Janeiro: World Summits and Human-Security Laboratories 39
2. Policing the Perversions of Globalization in Rio de Janeiro and Cairo: Emerging Parastatal Security Regimes Confront Queer Globalisms 65
3. Muhammad Atta's Urbanism: Rescuing Islam, Saving Humanity, and Securing Gender's Proper Place in Cairo 99
4. Saving the Cradle of Samba in Rio de Janeiro: Shadow-State Uprisings, Urban Infranationalisms, and the Racial Politics of Human Security 139
5. Operation Princess in Rio de Janeiro: Rescuing Sex Slaves, Challenging the Labor-Evangelical Alliance, and Defining the Sexuality Politics of an Emerging Human-Security Superpower 172
6. Feminist Insurrections and the Egyptian Revolution: Harassing Police, Recognizing Classphobias, and Everting the Logics of the Human-Security State in Tahrir Square 200
Conclusion. The End of Neoliberalism? 235
Notes 253
References 261
Index 297