JGI216H1 Lecture 11: JGI216 LECTURE 11
11 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Professor David Roberts Mar. 30, 2017
JGI216 LECTURE 11
WAR AND TERROR
KEY THEMES:
1) Binary: " 'foreign' and colonized spaces vs. homes spaces
2) Securing home spaces
SECURING THE INSIDE
• Two prong approach- create security at home (policies that work to make cities more
resilient against terrorist attacks while at the same times engaging in war within site that
the terrorism occurs)
• We see this as a binary (two different types of places) The places that need to be secured
are fundamentally different than the ones being attacked- connected to the concept of
orientalism
ORIENTALISM
• Orientalism is a term that refers to the ways that the Western cultures view Eastern, or
‘Oriental’ cultures. Middle Eastern cultures are seen as ‘Other’, and are viewed as exotic,
static, placid, and un -developing, unlike the West. (Said 1978) The West comes to know
itself in opposition to the (oriental) other.
THE ORIENTALISM OF THE WAR OF TERROR
• Either pro American policy or pro terrorism (black and white)
• “The Bush administration’s language of moral absolutism is, in particular, deeply
Orientalist.
• It works by separating ‘the civilized world’ — the ‘homeland’ cities which must be
‘defended’ — from the ‘dark forces’, the ‘axis of evil’ and the ‘terrorists nests’ alleged to
dwell in, and define, Arab cities, which allegedly sustain the ‘evildoers’ who threaten the
health, prosperity and democracy of the whole of the ‘free’ world”
CITIES AS NATIONAL SECURITY SPACES
1. “The ‘domestic front’ in the ‘war on terror’
2. “Securitizing everyday spaces and systems”
3. “US cities within anti- cosmopolitan constructions of ‘homeland’” The notion that
global cities have many different cultures and diversity becomes less celebrated and
reshaped as greater risk and insecurity arise (fear that migration flows will allow for
terrorism)
4. “Everyday sites and spaces as sources of (terrorist) fear”
TERRORIST CITIES: Orientalist Constructions of Arab and Urban Places as Military Targets
1. “Vertical representations of Arab cities as collections of military targets” Reinforces
spaces as targets (places of destruction, can relate to video games)
2. “Constructing Iraqi cities as ‘terrorist nests’” Use of language that is usually
associated with animals rather than people
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