The Critical State of Biopower : Anthropologizing a University Police Department in the United States

<p>In this age of Empire, how does biopower-an amalgam of "power over life" of the subjects and the "right of death" (the right to eliminate threats) as defined by Foucault-construct security and constitute itself as it interacts with the multitude- This paper explores that question through a historical and ethnographic analysis of a university police department in the United States-the University of Kentucky Police Department (UKPD) . Utilizing dramaturgy as a method-cum-perspective, I aim to analyze the ways in which reality (here, security as an expression of biopower) has been performatively constituted in the triad of the UKPD, the criminals/suspects, and the campus community (a form of the multitude) through various historical and ethnographic events. Toward that end, after explaining the theoretical framework, scope, and object of my study (Chapter I), I historically look at an intractable contradiction confronted by the university police department-that is, the contradiction in which they make people uncomfortable by their presence, while making people angry by their absence when they are needed (Chapter II). Specifically, I situate that contradiction within a context where the campus police departments, including the UKPD, were created and developed across the United States in response to the student movements from the 1960s to the early 1970s in general, and the Kent State shootings in 1970 in particular. Indeed, the UKPD was established in 1972 to restore and maintain the order that had been disrupted by student movements; for that reason, the presence of the UKPD would make the campus community forever uncomfortable. And yet, the University of Kentucky campus also began experiencing serious crimes after that period; therefore, their absence would also make the campus community angry. Chapter II also examines the process whereby the UKPD constituted itself as "biopower" from the mid-1980s to the 1990s in its attempt to resolve that contradiction. On the one hand, in order to cope with situations where its absence would make the campus community angry, the UKPD improved its equipment during that period and began actively exercising its right to eliminate (and kill, if necessary) those who represented a kind of sociological danger to the campus community. On the hand, in order to prevent situations where its presence would make the campus community uncomfortable, the UKPD also began exercising power over the life of the multitude by making itself present to the campus community through the practice of community policing. As such, in the triad of the police, the criminals/suspects, and the multitude, the UKPD integrated two subjectivities-one being the exercise of power over life by making itself seen in the campus, and the other being the exercise of the right to eliminate/kill by surveying the campus-so as to constitute itself as a biopower. Chapter II also details the role that the 9.11 attacks in 2001 and the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 played in reinforcing the biopower of the UKPD, whereby the bodies and consciousness of the multitude have become constituted, at the level of everyday life, as the basic target of the activities of the UKPD, the scope of which has become rapidly globalized. The question becomes thus: in that process, has the multitude become simply a passive victim of Empire, as scholars of security studies have often claimed- In order to answer that question, Chapter III ethnographically examines four cases in which I was involved as an intern of the UKPD: (1) a case of trespassing where the officers investigated a black male, with a reasonable suspicion that he might carry a weapon; (2) a session of the women's self-defense program; (3) a car chase during the Thanksgiving break; and (4) the security detail implemented around the university community after the NCAA basketball final game. The first two cases</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>