Category Archives: Features

Regular Features of Anthropolitea

Dossiers

Views of Venezuelan Protests, Pt. 3: Who is Policing the Protests? A Perspective from Venezuela’s National Bolivarian Police

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome a special guest post, the third in a series from Rebecca Hanson on recent political developments in Venezuela. 
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“It is better to think of the police as providing support to the National Guard in the protests [as opposed to the other way around].  The National Guard has more experience and more training…and they aren’t restricted [in their use of force] like us…We can’t even defend ourselves.”  –National Police officer-in-training

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Dossiers

Order by the Books: Suicide crime scene investigations in southern Mexico

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome a special guest post from Beatriz Reyes-Foster as part of our series of anthropological reports From the Field

Abstract

The complex and contested relationship between representatives of a Mexican law enforcement agency and the citizenry it claims to protect is visible in the documents it produces. Ethnographic material further deepens our understanding of the ways in which law enforcement agents and common citizens form relationships based on negotiation and distrust.

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DragNet

DragNet, March 2014

♫ Duh duh duh duh ♫  The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to introduce yet another new regular feature: DragNet.  An addition to our “Round Ups” series, DragNet will offer monthly highlights of the English-language academic blogosphere for topics related to policing, security, crime and punishment around the world.  We’re thrilled to have Kristin Castner serving as the Section Editor and lead author for the feature. ♫ Duh duh duh duh DUH ♫

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Dossiers

Thoughts on policing in Turkey – Football and beyond

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome a special guest post from Yağmur Nuhrat as part of our series of anthropological reports From the Field

Over the past summer, international audiences became aware of severe police violence during Turkey’s Gezi protests. In summer 2013, what started out as a peaceful demonstration in Istanbul to save a public park quickly led to a national uprising against the government. The resistance was marked with intense police violence in the form of tear gas, plastic bullets and pressurized water from cannons. In October 2013, Amnesty International called these actions “gross human rights violations.” Continue reading →

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Dossiers

Views of Venezuelan Protests Part II: La Desconfianza and the Venezuelan Opposition

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome a special guest post, the second in a series from Rebecca Hanson on recent political developments in Venezuela. A version of this piece originally appeared on the blog Venezuela Politics and Human Rights as “La Desconfianza: The View from Western Caracas II“
Mural from a wall in Catia © Rebecca Hanson

Mural from a wall in Catia. The literal translation is “knee on the ground” but the term originally arose from the military to refer to the position of a shooter with one knee on the ground to take a shot. Chavistas use it metaphorically to mean that they are prepared for battle or to do whatever it takes to protect the Bolivarian Revolution. © Rebecca Hanson

“It makes no sense! You go into a Chavista’s house and Chávez and Maduro’s faces are everywhere but you open their fridge and it is empty!  Empty!” This was the passionate reaction I received from an acquaintance I was chatting with yesterday when I commented that protests in Caracas have not seemed to receive support from popular sectors in the city.

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Dossiers

Policing an Occupied Legislature, Part Three: Throwing Police Under the Bus.

[Updated 2014/03/25]

Propaganda from a Taiwanese protest camp

Fig. 1. Propaganda from the protest camp regarding last night’s police action: “You go to sleep. When you awake, Taiwan is not the same”

“Police friends,” said the student with a microphone, speaking over the heads of people facing him to the riot troops massing in the street behind them, “We have a chance to make history tonight! Join with us! Show the autocratic Ma government that the people and police are united!”

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Dossiers

Views of Venezuelan Protests Part I: Where are the Poor Protestors?

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome the first in a series of special guest posts from Rebecca Hanson on recent political developments in Venezuela.   This piece originally appeared on the blog Venezuela Politics and Human Rights as “Venezuelan Protests from the View of Western Caracas“

Images of burning tires, masked youth, and clashes between citizens and state security forces have accompanied almost all news coverage of Venezuela for the past few weeks.  And these well-documented protests and the government response to them have, as blogger Francisco Toro wrote, changed the political game in Venezuela for the foreseeable future.

To fully appreciate these changes, however, we need to also appreciate the geographical limits of the opposition protests. Taking into account where protests are not occurring, and why, is important in understanding what they represent for residents who do not live in the zones where protests have erupted.

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In the Journals

In the Journals, Winter 2014

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Welcome to In the Journals, a (roughly) quarterly digest of the latest publications dealing critically with issues of crime, security, punishment, surveillance and law & order. 2014 has already seen a number of articles and whole issues grappling with these problems, the following is a selection for you to peruse at your reading leisure.

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Announcements, In the Journals

New Feature: In the Journals

The editors of Anthropoliteia are pleased to announce yet another in a planned series of new features that will be appearing here on the blog over the coming month.  We’re calling this new feature, which will be part of the “Round Ups” suite of regular features, “In the Journals” and it will  digest anthropoliteia-related articles and special issues appearing in academic journals, on a quarterly basis (for now). 

In addition I’m happy to introduce one of our new “Section Editors,” David Thompson.  David is currently a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, having earned a B.A. from the University of Sydney. His work focuses on prisons in Rio de Janeiro as institutions that subvert as much as they reinforce the established social and political order of the city; hosting different legal, political, humanitarian, evangelical, community and narcotic projects that then bleed out into the urban fabric of a city saturated with discourses on crime and justice.  We’re super happy to have him on board.

If you have any suggestions for journals we should be keeping tabs on for this feature, or if you want to call our attention to a specific issue or article, send an email to anthropoliteia@gmail.com with the words “In the Journals” in the subject header.

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Dossiers

Policing an Occupied Legislature (part 2).

(Continued from part one)

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Fig. 1 A note reading “Everyone, police, thank you for your struggle” hangs on a barbed wire barricade.

An emphasis on unity between the police and the people has emerged as a core element in the struggle by Taiwanese protestors to control representations of their movement. Where the Presidential Office has sought to describe them as a “Violent Mob,” they have successfully asserted the peaceful qualities inherent in the sympathetic bond that stretches across the barricades, uniting them with the rank and file policemen called up to contain them.

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