1. Security and Everyday Resistance: The 'Paris School', intentionality and festival.
- Author
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Mireanu, Manuel
- Subjects
- *
SOCIAL security , *EVERYDAY life , *FRIVOLITY , *CONSTRUCTIVISM (Philosophy) - Abstract
The main argument of this paper is that the so-called 'Paris School' of security studies cannot account for practices of resistance because of the way it conceptualizes the 'everyday' as the arena of un-intentional actions. After briefly reviewing some of the main arguments of the 'Paris School', the paper engages in a discussion about oppositional agency to security practices. I suggest that resistance to security has a specificity of its own when compared to general practices of resistance. Further on, the paper traces the main theoretical 'roots' of the 'Paris School', analysing how Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Michel de Certeau and James Scott conceptualize the 'everyday', and how this is translated into a vision about agency that leaves out intentionality. Such a vision, I argue, is bound to remain incomplete, and is unable to constitute a coherent theoretical vision about resistance. As a substitute, I suggest the critique of the everyday as developed by Henri Lefebvre, with its emphasis on the transformation of everyday life and its focus on the festival. For Lefebvre, the festival is the ultimate expression of oppositional agency, since it is able to substitute for the alienation of everyday life. I contribute to this theoretical discussion by bringing two examples of such transformations of everyday life: tactical frivolity and 'temporary autonomous zones'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011