Author Archives: kevinkarpiak

Announcements, Call for papers

CFP Anthropoliteia-sponsored panel at the 2014 AAA Meetings

Long-time readers of Anthropoliteia may remember that some of the first “extra-curricular” iterations of the blog were at panels at the 2009 and 2010 Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association.  In my own humble estimation, these were extremely productive conversations, and not only because they resulted in an edited volume that was published by Palgrave Macmillan last year, of which we’re all extremely proud.

In that vein, and to broaden the conversation, we’ve decided to try sponsoring a panel on anthropoliteia-related issues this year.  If the experiment is successful, it may even become an annual thing.  Please read through the following CFP and consider offering an abstract.  Also, please pass this announcement on to anyone else that may be interested.

Call for Papers: Thinking through police, producing anthropological theory

For a session to be submitted to the 2014 Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (Washington DC, December 3–7, 2014).  Dr. Kevin Karpiak (Eastern Michigan University), organizer.

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Announcements

New feature, From the Field: Dossiers & Dispatches

In addition to our new snazzy design, we’re also planning on rolling out some big substantive changes over the next few weeks here at Anthropoliteia.

The first of these is a new feature we are going to call, collectively, “From the Field“. Posts “From the Field” will be grouped loosely into two categories, “Dossiers” and “Dispatches“.  Our hope is that both types of posts will encourage a larger reflection on the anthropology of policing, crime, punishment and security… both on this blog and more broadly.    Dossiers will consist of “digested” versions of recent publications or larger research projects in a more developed state (of which, more in the near future).

Dispatches will consist of short observations from the field, with minimal or no analysis; preludes to, or the very first tentative steps into a field.  The word “dispatch” itself comes from either the Italian dispacciare or Spanish despachar, both of them meaning ‘to expedite’ (the dis-/des- expressing a reversal of the base impacciare/empachar, ‘to hinder’).  A “dispatch,” in other words, is an unhindering.

In that spirit I’m pleased to announce our first of many planned installments of this sort from Charlie Hahn.  Charlie is an anthropologist whose recent work has examined ethics, uncertainty and force in the training of police officers, as well as the confluence of community policing strategy and the atomization of surveillance capabilities. He holds a Bachelor’s of Arts in Anthropology and Comparative Literature from the University of Washington, Seattle. This spring and summer he will be sending “dispatches” from travels in the U.S. and Central America.

Enjoy…

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What's going on in Ukraine?

Some thoughts on Ukraine

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome a special guest post from Michael Bobick as part of our developing Forum What’s Going on in Ukraine?

Much of what has been fascinating in Ukraine has been how perceptions of public order have framed interpretations of this conflict. The Maidan protesters certainly wrote another chapter in the ‘how to topple a corrupt government’ handbook that is, from the Russian perspective, far more dangerous than any particular nationalist regime might be. If unrest rises in Russia and a viable protest movement emerges (think motorcycle helmets and molotovs, not signs and chants), they will look to the experience of Maidan. The escalation of the conflict was, from the Russian perspective, something that should never have had to happen. Like in Kazakhstan (google Zhanaozen ) or Uzbekistan (Andijan), autocrats tend to stomp open dissent out before it can morph into something autonomous like Maidan. These suppressions as a rule occur off the books and without further inquiry. Yet it is precisely this idea of accountability that drove Yanukovch from Ukraine (that, along with an awkward telephone call from Putin). 

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Dossiers

The Anthropology of “Robocop:” Finding New Audiences in Popular Media

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome a special guest post from Nolan Kline

Spoiler alert! This post reveals details about the new Robocop film.

As a kid, I loved the 1987 Robocop (even though I can’t recall how my parents allowed me to see it given its R rating and violent scenes).  Having grown up in the Detroit area and as a PhD candidate with research interests that all hinge on social inequality, it isn’t hard for me to understand now what I found so fascinating as a child about a film featuring a dystopian capitalist future. When I learned about the 2014 Robocop, admittedly I was excited to see it and interested in discovering whether the new film retained some of its social commentary roots. I was surprised to notice that the new film, more than the original, cut to the core of my current research interests around policing and health. The overlap with my scholarly interests led me to consider how I and other anthropologists might use popular media as a way to discuss anthropology with non-academic audiences.

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What's going on in Ukraine?

What’s going on in Ukraine?

One thing I’m a bit embarrassed by is how paltry our coverage of the events in Ukraine have been over the past few weeks.  I’m sure I’m not alone in watching from afar and being fascinated with what is happening, but I have no special expertise in the region.  Does anyone from our readership?

One thing that’s fascinated me in particular is how quickly the state of policing shifted, and what this potentially means for how we think about such things as “police,” “state,” “violence,” and “democracy.”  You know, all those classic elements of Police Studies that draw on Weber.

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Dispatches

Sade, Fourier, Loyola

Let us (if we can) imagine a society without language.  Here is a man copulating with a woman, a tergo, and using in the act a bit of wheat paste.  On this level, no perversion.  Only by the progressive addition of some nouns does the crime gradually develop, grow in volume, in consistency, and attain the highest degree of transgression.  the man is called the father of the woman he is possessing, who is described as being married; the amorous act is ignominiously termed sodomy; and the bit of bread bizarrely associated in this act becomes, under the noun host, a religious symbol whose flouting is sacrilege.  Sade excells in collecting this pile of language: for him, the sentence has this function of founding crime: the syntax, refined by centuries of culture, becomes an elegant (in the sense we use the word in mathematics, a solution is elegant) art; it collects crime with exactitude and address: “To unite incest, adultery, sodomy and sacrilege, he buggers his married daughter with a host.” pg. 156-157

“Language and Crime” from Roland Barthes’ Sade, Fourier, Loyola

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In the Journals

Michelle Stewart on the erasure of labour in the production of police experts

Our own Michelle Stewart has a fascinating article online over at M/C Journal using an ethnographic eye to attend to the labour (since it’s an Australian journal it has that extra ‘u’) that gets hidden in the production of police technologies.  Or, as she concludes:

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DragNet

“Today the world, once again, is watching South Africa’s response to 193x285q70kerry-chancepolice violence. Emerging from a violent Apartheid past, the newly branded South African Police Services was meant to be a shining example of how best to protect law and order, while ensuring a free democratic society for all. However, recent events in Ficksburg, Marikana and Cato Crest shake the foundation of this vision.”

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Kerry Chance on South African Policing

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Blotter, DragNet, In the Journals

Anthropoliteia in Anthropology news

kevinkarpiak's avatarKevin Karpiak's Blog

“Fault Lines in an Anthropology of Police, Both Public and Global” in Anthropology News

Another commentary by yours truly at Anthropology News.  AN format forbids in-text citations and footnotes, but if you’ll follow the links you’ll find a dense web of Anthropoliteia contributors’ work!

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