Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Ochs, Juliana

Titel

Security and Suspicion: An Ethnography of Everyday Life in Israel

Erscheinungsjahr

2011

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

PAIS Index

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In Israel, gates, fences, and walls encircle public spaces while guards scrutinize, inspect, and interrogate. With a population constantly aware of the possibility of suicide bombings, Israel is defined by its culture of security. This ethnographic study of the way Israeli Jews experience security in their everyday lives investigates the relationship between perceptions of danger and the political strategies of the state. It argues that everyday security practices create exceptional states of civilian alertness that perpetuate -- rather than mitigate -- national fear and ongoing violence. In Israeli cities, customers entering gated urban cafes open their handbags for armed security guards and parents circumnavigate feared neighborhoods to deliver their children safely to school. Suspicious objects appear to be everywhere, as Israelis internalize the state's vigilance for signs of potential suicide bombers. Fear and suspicion not only permeate political rhetoric, but also condition how people see, the way they move, and the way they relate to Palestinians. In Israel everyday practices of security -- in the home, on commutes to work, or in cafes and restaurants -- are as much a part of conflict as soldiers and military checkpoints. Figures, References.