Chaire Géopolitique du Risque - Conférence de Badredine Arfi

Arfi will examine the question of time in the politics of security by zooming in on the performative act of securitisation. 

Securitisation is widely understood as a kind of performativity. Several notions of Deleuze and Derrida—who once described performativity as a tautology which ‘lifts itself by its own bootstrap’—will be applied together with a number of concepts borrowed from the mathematical theory of quantum gravity to argue that one must go beyond the Newtonian framework of linear time and homogenous space. Instead, we need to think of the space-time manifold as a granular, topologically varying manifold which is fundamentally constituted of elements of voids. 
Bringing these various elements together, Arfi will draw three implications for understanding the role of time in the politics of security. First, the product of securitisation is necessarily contingent. Second, securitisation is autoimmune. Third, securitisation is not based on causation between agents and audience but rather on a general economy of affect as opposed to a restricted economy based on circular exchange of affect.