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‘Real people in real places’: conceptualizing power for emancipatory security through Tahrir

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-08-24, 13:35 authored by Ali BilgicAli Bilgic
The objective of emancipatory security theory is to examine the insecurities of individuals and social groups that stem from oppressive power processes, relations, and structures. However, the image of power in emancipatory security studies does not correspond to such a normative and analytical motivation. This renders the theory susceptible to substantial criticism on the grounds of inadequate analysis of resisting individuals as agents of security in their own localities. To address this issue, the present article conceptualizes ‘emancipatory power’. In this exercise, Hannah Arendt’s understanding of power, enriched by Judith Butler’s concept of performativity and feminist insights, will be used as the theoretical foundation to tailor collective power based on trust in a ‘moment’ of emancipation. Collective power will be illustrated by references to the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011.

History

Department

  • Politics and International Studies

Published in

Security Dialogue

Volume

46

Issue

3

Pages

272 - 290

Citation

BILGIC, A., 2015. ‘Real people in real places’: conceptualizing power for emancipatory security through Tahrir. Security Dialogue, 46 (3), pp. 272 - 290.

Publisher

SAGE © The Author

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Publication date

2015-05-29

Notes

This article was published in the journal Security Dialogue [SAGE © the author] and the definitive version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0967010615575360

ISSN

0967-0106

eISSN

1460-3640

Language

  • en

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