Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Ignorance, Power and Harm: Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination |
| Editors | Alana Barton, Howard Davis |
| Place of Publication | London |
| Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
| Pages | 37-59 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-3-319-97343-2 |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 1 Mar 2018 |
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Keywords
- Counterinsurgency
- Empire
- Imperialism
- Agnotology
- Ignoranc
Cite this
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Counterinsurgency, Empire and Ignorance. / Mcgovern, Mark.
Ignorance, Power and Harm: Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination. ed. / Alana Barton; Howard Davis. London : Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. p. 37-59.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
TY - CHAP
T1 - Counterinsurgency, Empire and Ignorance
AU - Mcgovern, Mark
PY - 2018/3/1
Y1 - 2018/3/1
N2 - Counterinsurgency, as the violence of empire, is directed at the subjugation and compliance of a population. At its core, this involves both the generation of knowledge about that population and the cultural production of militarised ignorance of, about and within a subject people, designed to ‘confound the native’, ‘cover the tracks’ and ‘reassure the self’. This chapter explores four aspects of the relationship between counterinsurgency and agnotology. First, links between race, imperialism and agnotology and the roots of counterinsurgency as the theory and practice of empire’s violence. Second, the ‘organised forgetting’ of imperial wars and counterinsurgency’s past crimes as means of preserving its appeal in the present. Third, the production of disinformation in the praxis of the contemporary counterinsurgent. Finally, using the example of the US military’s Human Terrain System (HTS), the role of social science itself in the cultural production of ignorance in and of counterinsurgency as part of the ‘War on Terror’.
AB - Counterinsurgency, as the violence of empire, is directed at the subjugation and compliance of a population. At its core, this involves both the generation of knowledge about that population and the cultural production of militarised ignorance of, about and within a subject people, designed to ‘confound the native’, ‘cover the tracks’ and ‘reassure the self’. This chapter explores four aspects of the relationship between counterinsurgency and agnotology. First, links between race, imperialism and agnotology and the roots of counterinsurgency as the theory and practice of empire’s violence. Second, the ‘organised forgetting’ of imperial wars and counterinsurgency’s past crimes as means of preserving its appeal in the present. Third, the production of disinformation in the praxis of the contemporary counterinsurgent. Finally, using the example of the US military’s Human Terrain System (HTS), the role of social science itself in the cultural production of ignorance in and of counterinsurgency as part of the ‘War on Terror’.
KW - Counterinsurgency
KW - Empire
KW - Imperialism
KW - Agnotology
KW - Ignoranc
M3 - Chapter
SN - 978-3-319-97343-2
SP - 37
EP - 59
BT - Ignorance, Power and Harm: Agnotology and the Criminological Imagination
A2 - Barton, Alana
A2 - Davis, Howard
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
CY - London
ER -