Sociology Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2804
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Item DARK MIRROR: HETEROTOPIA, UTOPIA, AND THE EXTERMINATION CAMPS OF OPERATION REINHARD(2019) Wanenchak, Sarah; Korzeniewicz, Roberto P; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In Michel Foucault's body of work, the notion of heterotopia stands out as both particularly intriguing and particularly underdeveloped. Introduced in the introduction of The Order of Things (first published 1966) and further described in the lecture “Of Other Spaces” (1967), heterotopia has been used by scholars in a variety of fields, from social theory to architecture. Of special interest is the way Foucault describes the relationship between heterotopia and utopia, one defined by its liminal nature and the other by its unreality. This work seeks to shed new light on that relationship, by focusing on heterotopias as threshold spaces between the real social world and the perfected but unreal world to come. I approach the concept of utopia with an eye toward its eliminationist implications, and use three extermination camps established as part of the Nazi regime’s Operation Reinhard as cases through which to explore significant features of a heterotopia, how those features manifest in these cases, and what connects these spaces to the world that can be glimpsed in the mirror they create. Although I primarily use historical cases as a way to expand existing theory, I aim to build upon that expansion by pointing the way toward the development of new theoretical tools for historical-comparative analysis of spaces of both extermination and detention. Finally, I suggest that work might be done focusing on embodied identities as themselves forms of heterotopia, which introduces possibilities for additional analysis of the roles of bodies and identity in cases of certain kinds of mass violence and death.Item THE GUANTÁNAMO TRIALS: SOVEREIGNTY AND SUBJECT FORMATION IN THE WAR ON TERROR(2016) Andrist, Lester Howard; Korzeniewicz, Roberto P; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Recent political theory has explored the idea that states reconstitute sovereign power by deciding on the exception to law. By deciding on which laws to follow and how to interpret them in new ways, sovereign states not only reconstitute sovereign power but they also exercise the power to set the terms of citizenship and political exclusion. By focusing on the U.S.-led global War on Terror, I argue that this explanation of how sovereignty reconstitutes itself and how it sets the terms of citizenship focuses too narrowly on the juridical dimension. Sovereign power also reconstitutes itself in a representational dimension by attending to processes of signification and representation. The juridical dimension and the representational dimension are connected because the decision on the exception is simultaneously an effort to create exclusions, both legally and through the deployment of representations. I analyze these exceptional decisions as orchestrated security events that create discursive openings and a platform for state officials to introduce frames and narratives for understanding the unfolding events in the War on Terror. Specifically, I look at the first few years after the 9/11 attacks and analyze the legal documentation that comprise the rationale and wording of key decisions on the exception, which created the Guantánamo Bay detention camps. I also conduct a textual analysis of newspaper articles written about Guantánamo Bay during the same time period in order to catalogue the frames, narratives, and representations deployed by state officials. One major aim of this dissertation is to describe how the juridical and representational dimensions articulate with one another.