Uninhibited Violence: The Racial Dimension of Securitization
Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice Winter Colloquium
David Moffette
Assistant Professor
University of Ottawa, Department of Criminology
February 28, 2017
3pm-5pm
Location: RB2228 – Richcraft Hall
During the spree of racist attacks that followed the election of Trump – and that reached Ottawa – many framed the moment as a break with normal liberal politics. But what is old and new about this violence? And what is the effect of securitizing discourses in shifting how some issues are governed? Summarizing an argument developed with Shaira Vadasaria, Professor Moffette will bring a critical race analysis to existing literature on securitization to engage with these questions. The presentation will address a lacuna in securitization theory and offer a conceptual framework to account for the entanglements between the securitization of immigration and racial violence. Reflecting on the limits of the concept of securitization to account for the normality of racial violence, the presentation will address the framework of racial governmentality and suggest that securitization enables expressions of racial desires already constitutive of colonial modernity. Empirical vignettes will be used to illustrate the argument.
Part of FPA Research Month.
