(Mis)adventures in Rumsfeld space |
| |
Authors: | Matthew G Hannah |
| |
Institution: | (1) Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Llandinam Building, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, UK |
| |
Abstract: | Ewald’s recent genealogy of constructions of risk in Western societies argues that the 1980s saw an important paradigm shift
to the “precautionary principle”. Critical scholars have taken up this idea as a lens through which to interpret the Bush
administration’s ‘war on terror’. I argue that 11 September 2001 actually brought about qualitative changes to this paradigm.
Bush’s pre-emptive doctrine is driven, and perhaps even more importantly, continually justified to the US population, by what
might be called the “trans-precautionary principle”, a move from “decisionism” to “actionism”, and a new radicalization of
the way fear is produced and managed. Donald Rumsfeld’s famous typology of different articulations of knowledge and ignorance
offers an excellent analytical window onto the connections between ignorance, fear and geopolitical action in this new regime.
In the latter part of the essay, his four modes of knowledge/ignorance are arrayed, for heuristic purposes, in an abstract
spatial grid organized along dimensions of the specificity and possession of knowledge. This allows a ‘mapping’ of some of
the Bush administration’s more controversial strategies in the ‘war on terror’, as a set of different pathways through Rumsfeld
Space. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|