Conferences

Papers and Panels of Interest at the #AAA2016 Meeting

2016-aaa-annual-mtg-logo-4c-250x286It’s that time of year again: time for Anthropoliteia’s list of papers and panels pertaining to police, security, crime, law and punishment at the Annual Meeting s of the American Anthropological Association!

As impassioned followers of this blog know, we like to curate a list of sessions and papers of interest to our readers.  We’ve created a Google Calendar, which you can find embedded below and import into your own.  Be sure to keep an eye on @anthropoliteia’s twitter feed as well, where you’ll find coverage of the #AAA2016 hashtag with which several participants will be live-tweeting sessions ad other events.

Beyond that, we’d like to call your attention to two sessions in particular, which are direct offshoots of projects and collaborations on this blog:

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Announcements, Conferences

Anthropoliteia Sessions @ #AAA2015

Hello, Dear Reader, it is that very special time of year again: The American Anthropological Association’s Annual Meeting. This year in Denver Colorado. As impassioned followers of this blog know, we like to curate a list of sessions and papers of interest to our readers.  This year we’ve created a Google Calendar, which you can find embedded below and import into your own.  Be sure to keep an eye on @anthropoliteia’s twitter feed as well, where you’ll find coverage of the #AAA2015 hashtag with which several participants will be live-tweeting sessions ad other events.

Beyond that, we’d like to call your attention to two sessions in particular, which are direct offshoots of projects and collaborations on this blog:

Continue reading

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Announcements, Conferences

Anthropoliteia @ #AAA2014

As long time readers may know, we like to offer a run down of the sessions, papers and events at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association that may be of interest for readers of this blog.  This has been made considerably easier the last couple of years by AAA’s personal scheduler function, which allows for the creation of sharable schedules.  You can see a full* list of these papers and sessions via our shared Google Calendar, here.  If you’re also a user of Google Calendar, you can easily copy individual events to your own schedule there.

In particular, though, I’d like to highlight a few events that are either directly sponsored or otherwise associated with Anthropoliteia.net.  Perhaps the most important of these is the first ever Anthropoliteia “Tweet-Up.”  Based on the previous success of similar events hosted by Savage Minds (among others), our Editorial Board has decided to extend an invitation to anyone interested to come meet with us–along with a select group of our various Section Editors and Contributors–to discuss, imbibe, and otherwise commiserate.  You can find** us Thursday, December 4th from 6-8pm at Murphy’s Irish Pub, around the corner from the conference hotel [UPDATE: Harry’s Pub, in the Wardman Park Marriott].

Besides the tweet-up, there are a few official sessions that come out of collaborations on Anthropoliteia and the CFP we circulated earlier this year:

On Wednesday, December 3rd from 4-5:45pm in Washington Room 3 of the Marriott Wardman Park will be the panel “Thinking Through Police, Producing Anthropological Theory: police ethnography as a tool for critical thought,” organized by and featuring yours truly, along with Avram Bornstein (John Jay-CUNY), Mirco Gopfert (U Konstanz), Beatrice Jauregui (U Toronto), Matthew Wolf-Meyer (UC Santa Cruz) and Matthew Hull (U Michigan).

On Friday, December 5th from 6:30-8:15pm in the Diplomat Ballroom of the Omni Shoreham will be a roundtable on “Critical Potentialities of the Anthropology of Policing.  Accounts of Police, Power and Politics on Public Display?” organized by our own Paul Mutsaers (Tilburg U) and featuring Beatrice Jauregui (U Toronto), Eilat Maoz (U Chicago), Simanti Dasgupta (U Dayton), Daniel Silva (Unicamp), Michelle L Stewart (U Regina), and Craig William Schuetze (UC, Santa Cruz).

Finally, on Saturday, December 6th from 9-10:15am, again in the Diplomat Ballroom of the Omni Shoreham, will be the panel “Violence and Ethics in Ethnographies of Security in Latin America,” organized by Stephanie Savell (Brown U), guest editor of this summer’s Forum “Security in Brazil: World Cup 2014 and Beyond“, and featuring Erika Robb Larkins (U Oklahoma), Aldo Civico (Rutgers U), Stephanie Savell (Brown U), Kristen Drybread (University São Paulo/ NEV) and Danial M. Goldstein (Rutgers U).

We hope to see you all there!

* As always, if you notice any oversights or would like to suggest additions send an email to anthropoliteia@google.com
** If you’re not sure who to look for, I basically look like this, possibly with shaggier hair.  Also, I’ll try to be attentive to twitter–@anthropoliteia and @kevinkarpiak–especially towards the beginning

 

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Commentary & Forums, Security in Brazil: World Cup 2014 and Beyond

Rio de Janeiro’s BOPE and Police Pacification: Fear and Intimidation in Complexo da Maré

The editors of Anthropoliteia would like to welcome Nicholas Barnes with the latest entry in our developing forum, Security in Brazil: World Cup 2014 and Beyond.
Photo: Deco Cabral (published with permission of the photographer)

Photo: Deco Cabral (published with permission of the author)

The scene was impeccably staged. The Special Operations Police Battalion (commonly referred to as BOPE and famously depicted in the film Elite Squad and its sequel) had set up a temporary command center on the edge of the plaza. More than a hundred of their police, armed to the teeth, with bulletproof vests and helmets, were milling around in the sweltering heat with nothing to do after taking control of the area without a shot being fired. Sky, the television company, had set up a small table under an umbrella and was hoping to sign up residents for their cable package. A helicopter made low passes over the plaza. City sanitation workers pushed around piles of garbage, pretending to work. In the midst of all of this, BOPE police were giving rides to kids on several horses as dozens of journalists snapped photos of the delighted children. Later in the afternoon, BOPE raised their flag alongside the Brazilian national flag in the middle of the plaza. With much pomp and circumstance, Complexo da Maré, the largest group of favelas in Rio de Janeiro, had officially begun the pacification process.[1]

Located in the sprawling, industrial northern zone of the city, Complexo da Maré is a cluster of 16 favelas with a population of roughly 130,000. It is a public security concern because it is home to several non-state armed actors (two separate gang factions and a militia) and is located at the intersection of three of the major traffic arteries that connect the international airport to the rest of the city. I have been residing in Maré for the past year conducting dissertation field research. This has allowed me the opportunity to witness BOPE operations first hand and interview residents and community leaders about the tenuous and shifting public security situation. I will argue that BOPE’s pattern of abusive tactics and violence comprised an overall strategy to threaten and terrorize these communities into submission in an effort to “retake” these favela territories. And while such a strategy may have produced more effective tactical operations and short-term results, it is counter-productive to the pacification process in the long run and requires a major reassessment by the public security apparatus moving forward. Continue reading

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Announcements, Conferences

Anthropoliteia at the American Anthropological Association Meetings (2010, NOLA version)

Since people seemed to find it helpful last year, I’ve decided to try and make A@AAA an annual feature.  So here you go, my annual round-up of police, crime and security events at this year’s American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings.  As always, if you know about a session or paper that I’ve missed, let me know in the comments section and I’ll add it to the list.

Wednesday, Nov. 17th

1:15pm

2:15pm

2:30pm

9:00-9:15pm

Thursday, Nov. 18th

8:00-9:45am

10:15am-12:00pm

1:45-3:30pm

4:30pm

5:05pm

Friday, Nov. 19th

8:00am

2:30-3:00pm

2:45pm

3:45pm

4:30pm

Saturday, Nov. 20th

10:15-10:30am

1:45-3:30

Sunday, Nov. 21st

8:00-9:45am

8:15am

8:30am

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