Politics of Catastrophe: Genealogies of the Unknown

This book argues that catastrophe is a particular way of governing future events - such as terrorism, climate change or pandemics - which we cannot predict but which may strike suddenly, without warning, and cause irreversible damage.

At a time where catastrophe increasingly functions as a signifier of our future, imaginaries of pending doom have fostered new modes of anticipatory knowledge and redeployed existing ones. Although it shares many similarities with crises, disasters, risks and other disruptive incidents, this book claims that catastrophes also bring out the very limits of knowledge and management. The politics of catastrophe is turned towards an unknown future, which must be imagined and inhabited in order to be made palpable, knowable and actionable. Politics of Catastrophe critically assesses the effects of these new practices of knowing and governing catastrophes to come and challenges the reader to think about the possibility of an alternative politics of catastrophe.

This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, risk theory, political theory and International Relations in general.

Author: Claudia Aradau, Rens Van Munster
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 04/17/2012
Pages: 167
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.00w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9780415627382

About the Author

Claudia Aradau is Lecturer in International Studies and Research Director of the Securities Programme, Centre for Citizenship, Identities and Governance at The Open University. She is the author of Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics out of Security.

Rens van Munster is Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). He is the author of Securitizing Immigration: The Politics of Risk in the EU.