WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 58:58 — 81.0MB)
This is a repeat airing of an October 9, 2018 live interview with Micol Seigel.
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In Violence Work, Micol Seigel shows how the police put violence to work for the state; policing being the quintessential translation of state power. She highlights a number of fallacies or myths, about policing: that it is civilian and distinguishable from the military; that it is a public service rather than a private endeavor; and that it is locally based and municipally controlled. Policing is in fact the human-scale expression of the state. A key issue in all of this is the way the police serve to clear the way for the operations of the so-called free market making it clear that what we call private and what we call public are useful fictions for the operations of Empire and Capital.
GUEST
Micol Seigel is a Professor in the American Studies & History Departments at Indiana University in Bloomington, whose new book is Violence Work: State Power and the Limits of Police, published by Duke University Press.
RELATED
On Police Force (Interchange)
Book Forum on Violence Work (Society & Space)
Police Training, “Nation-Building,” and Political Repression in Postcolonial South Korea by Jeremy Kuzmarov (Asia-Pacific Journal-Japan Focus, July 1, 2012.)
Police Aid and Political Will, US Policy in El Salvador and Honduras (1962 – 1987). Washington Office on Latin America. (pdf)
MUSIC
Television Theme Songs from Police programs
“Dragnet”
“Mannix”
“Hawaii Five-0”
“The Streets of San Francisco”
“Magnum P. I.”
“Barney Miller”
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
October 2018 Executive Producer: Wes Martin
