The world as police

Trafford, James (2022) The world as police. Rhizomes: Cultural Studies in Emerging Knowledge (38). ISSN 1555-9998

Creators:
Trafford, James
Description/Abstract:

This article argues that colonial modernity birthed the police as a world-shaping force that came to define both civil society and the world itself. By staging a relationship between plantation Barbados and Kant’s Enlightenment, I suggest that the transformation from European frontier to established world required subjugating violence to be everywhere made pervasive and entrenched. The ascent to humanity under colonial modernity conjoined the construction of whiteness to the subjugation and death of Black people. As such, the supposed absorption of enslavement into legal frameworks became the pre-condition for its continuation as white collective society was strengthened through and as policing Black people. Since the literal blood and sand of the colonised continue to be the grounds of white life, the question of abolition thus requires us to reach far beyond the institution of the police.

Item Type:
Article
Official URL:
http://rhizomes.net/issue38/trafford.html
Date:
2022
Identification Number:
10.20415/rhiz/038.e04
Schools:
School of Communications
Depositing User:
Dr James Trafford
Date Deposited:
20 Sep 2022 09:20
Last Modified:
20 Sep 2022 09:37
Trafford, James:
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6762-2918
URI:
https://research.uca.ac.uk/id/eprint/5846

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