From Righteousness to Far Right: An Anthropological Rethinking of Critical Security Studies

by Emma Mc Cluskey

Overview

In the wake of Europe's so-called refugee crisis in 2015 and 2016, even traditionally open countries such as Sweden and Germany adopted hostile policies on refugees, closing borders and linking refugees with terrorism and threats to national security. Once deemed taboo, uncharitable conduct towards those in need has become increasingly acceptable, and even desirable, throughout the Western world. From Righteousness to Far Right follows nineteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with a grassroots NGO in a small Swedish village, where over one hundred refugees were housed. Through an embedded, anthropological study of day-to-day life in refugee resettlement, Emma Mc Cluskey examines how increasingly antagonistic and xenophobic policies concerning refugees gained legitimacy. Arguing that existing approaches to critical security studies inadequately address the textured, contradictory, and often resistant practices of everyday life within societies, Mc Cluskey re-gears securitization theory along anthropological lines and shifts the focus of the investigation onto the quotidian realm, where much of the controversy over migration and security plays out. A provocative and original political statement on today's increasingly conservative society, From Righteousness to Far Right presents an astounding new perspective on the recent refugee crises and the acceptance and normalization of far-right and securitarian politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780773556898
Publisher:	McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date:	04/08/2019
Series:	McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History , #248
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Emma Mc Cluskey is a research associate in the Department of War Studies and a teaching fellow of international relations at King's College London.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xv

Prologue xvii

1 Introduction: Thinking Righteousness and Far Right Relationally 3

2 Construction of the Self: Sweden as Morally Exceptional 27

3 Seeing Like a Good Citizen: An Anthropology of the Governmentality of Righteousness 68

4 Limits of the Governmentality of Righteousness: Counter-conduct and Moral Panic 105

5 Anthropological Rethinking of Critical Security Studies: Reflexivity, Metis, and Solidarity 139

6 Conclusion: The Devil in the Anthropological Detail 171

Notes 187

References 197

Index 219

Editorial Reviews

"Through a compelling analysis, Mc Cluskey demonstrates how central the day-to-day practices of everyday people are to understanding the emergence of big phenomena like the global rise of the far right, moving away from a focus on ideology or high politics." E-International Relations

From the Publisher