Victims or Madmen? The Diagnostic Competition over 'Terrorist' Detainees at Guantánamo Bay

Victims or Madmen

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2283280
AutoresAlison Howell (0000-0002-4814-6872, York University, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume1
Fascículo1
Páginas29-47
Data de publicação2007-02-12
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoInternational Political Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1749-5687.2007.00003.x
OpenAlexW1841592383
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas25
Referências citadas38

This article traces the pathologization of suspected terrorists held captive at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The occurrence of several reported suicide attempts among the detainees provided “proof” for their captors that terrorists are indeed fanatical madmen. These same reports of suicide attempts, however, were contradictorily diagnosed by human rights and humanitarian organizations as evidence of psychological deterioration induced by prolonged detention. What is notable in this diagnostic competition over what, exactly, afflicts the detainees is that both advocates and resisters to the detentions pathologized the detainees by chalking up the suicide attempts to their purportedly impaired psyches. This is significant because the pathologization of the detainees is one condition of possibility for their excision from the global body politic. Authoritarian practices, such as the incarceration of the “mad” and the detention of “suspected terrorists,” are theorized as integral to global liberal governance, which divides up populations, and subjects those deemed mad, deviant, or dangerous to coercive measures in the name of order, security, and liberty. The article concludes with a consideration of the ways in which international relations (IR) could be more attentive to the operation of the “psy” disciplines in the conduct of international affairs

Authoritarianism · Body politic · Criminology · Democracy · Human rights · International relations · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Terrorism · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Law · Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law · War, Ethics, and Justification