Rethinking Trafficking In Women

by Claudia Aradau

Overview

What should be done about trafficking in women? Rethinking Trafficking in Women argues that the question to be asked is, 'What cannot be done about trafficking in women?' Exploring the complex relationship between security, subjectivity and politics, Aradau argues that security practices reproduce a politics of unfreedom and inequality. Politics out of security, on the contrary, is formulated around universality, equality and freedom. In the situation of trafficking, the equality and universality of work disrupt the specification of difference and of particularized subjectivity upon which security practices rely. Aradau emphasizes that the reduction of politics to security limits struggles for equality and freedom and entrenches divisions and boundaries in the world.

About the Author:
Claudia Aradau is Lecturer in International Studies at The Open University, UK

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230267237
Publisher:	Palgrave-UK-USA
Publication date:	02/14/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	271 KB

About the Author

CLAUDIA ARADAU is Lecturer in International Studies at The Open University, UK. Her work explores the implications of contemporary security practices, from human trafficking and migration to the war in terror, and reflects on the possibility of politics beyond the horizon of security.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements     vii
Introduction: On the Contradictions of Trafficking in Women     1
The intersection of human trafficking and security     8
Unmaking security: a political task     9
Problematizing Trafficking in Women: In the Absence of Security     12
Governmentality and the problematization of human trafficking     17
Human trafficking as a problem of migration     21
Human trafficking as a problem of organized crime     25
Human trafficking as a problem of prostitution     29
Human trafficking as a problem of human rights abuse     33
Human trafficking and the (absent) problematization of security     36
Problematizing Security: The Presence of an Absence     40
Questioning the 'reality' of security     41
Constructing security: the real of symbolic practices     44
Discovering security: the real of imaginary (in)security     52
Experiencing (in)security: the real of the subject/abject     56
Conclusion     61
Unmaking Security: Desecuritization, Emancipation, Ethics     63
Desecuritization and alternative discourses     65
Emancipation and the democratization of security     70
Ethics and abject others     75
Dividing strategies     81
Conclusion     87
Subjects, Knowledge, Resistance     89
The security dispositif: preventive interventions     91
Governing human trafficking through risk     97
Resistance against security     104
Making risky subjects     108
Conclusion     116
The Politics of Equality     118
Politics of excess: subjects and events     120
The situation of migration, trafficking and excessive women     127
Principles of an event     131
Work and equal subjects     135
Conclusion     143
The Politics of (Ambiguous) Universality     145
Equality in history     147
The transformation of universality     151
Emancipation and transformation     158
Conclusion     164
The Politics of Freedom     166
Governing the excesses of freedom     169
Governing through freedom     174
Inseparable equality and liberty     179
Conclusion     186
Conclusion: Politics Happens     189
Notes     195
References     201
Index      220

Editorial Reviews

'Claudia Aradau is one of the most innovative thinkers in security studies today. Alternating between a provocative but highly insightful analysis of the securitising of trafficking of women and an incisive critique of recent developments in security studies, she argues that politics in the name of security is counter-productive, if not impossible. This is a wonderfully rich and topical book that firmly redefines both security studies and studies of trafficking of women as a study of political practice and the political.' - Jef Huysmans, Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Studies, Open University, UK and author of The Politics of Insecurity

'Aradau offers a complex, multifaceted account of how security policies, practices and discourses touch the bodies of women defined as trafficked [providing] a comprehensive set of practical and theoretical elements

to strategize a way out of security.'

Guillermina Seri, Radical Philosophy 150, July/August 2008

'Combining the analysis of trafficking with an engaged account of recent security debates, and building on an extensive reading of political and social theory, Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics Out of Security is an impressive as well as an ambitious book.'

Lene Hansen, Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association

Vol. 43: 2008

'Aradau's book provides some fascinating [...] material on the practices of

non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in the rescue, return and

rehabilitation of trafficked women.'

Julia O'Connell Davidson, feminist review 96: 2010

From the Publisher