Making live and letting die: the biopolitics of security suspension in Brazil
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34117/bjdv11n9-048Keywords:
security suspension, biopolitics, Belo Monte dam, ethnocide, critical human security studiesAbstract
Security suspension is generally seen as an antiquated legal instrument, remnant from authoritarian times of Brazil’s last dictatorship. Critics of the Brazilian government denounce the use of security suspension and claim that it caused an ethnocide of traditional populations around the Belo Monte dam. The paper uses a Critical Human Security Studies framework to understand the security suspension mechanism, and the biopolitics of making live and letting die to analyze the Belo Monte ethnocide. The paper argues that the problem of security suspension is not caused by an outdated legislation, but rather by the securitization of energy. National security is often used to justify decisions related to a range of issues, and it operates by ‘securitizing’ them (creating concepts such as economic security, food security, energy security, etc.) The Brazilian State has securitized energy, and this has caused a regional ethnocide of traditional populations. This process is carried out through the security suspension mechanism (an instrument of biopolitics) and its regulatory technology of making live and letting die.
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