Terror as potentiality - the affective rhythms of the political
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2018
Authors
Laustsen, Carsten Bagge
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge Journals
Open Access Color
OpenAIRE Downloads
OpenAIRE Views
Abstract
The paper addresses the ways in which the cultural, the affective and the political intersect, counter and/or feed upon one another in the context of contemporary terror. Initially, building upon Machiavelli and Hobbes, we deal with the political significance of terror (and the fear it provokes), emphasizing its potentiality, which inscribes future within the present. Then we turn to an analysis of terror in the prism of securitization. Terror, in this respect, amounts to de-materialization (the enemy as spectre), de-temporalization (the erasure of the temporal difference between the present and the future), and de-territorialisation the breakdown of the distinctions between inside' and outside'. Following this, we observe how these three processes are dealt with at the subjective and objective (social) levels. Regarding the first, subjective, level we differentiate three attitudes as paranoid, panic and rational. Regarding the latter, we consider terror in terms of accident, risk and catastrophe. Then, discussing the rhythmic relations between these conceptualizations and their spatio-temporal consequences, we focus on the notion of catastrophe. We end with articulating the aporias emerging in this context
Description
Keywords
Terror, Fear, Security, War against terror, Affect
Turkish CoHE Thesis Center URL
Fields of Science
Citation
1
WoS Q
N/A
Scopus Q
Q1
Source
Volume
22
Issue
4
Start Page
412
End Page
426