The Social Life of Anti-Terrorism Laws. The War on Terror and the Classifications of the "Dangerous Other"

This book addresses two developments in the conceptualisation of citizenship that arise from the 'war on terror', namely the re-culturalisation of membership in a polity and the re-moralisationof access to rights. Taking an anthropological perspective, it traces the ways in which the trans-nationalisation of the 'war on terror' has affected notions of 'the dangerous other' in different political and social contexts, asking what changes in the ideas of the state and of the nation have been promoted by the emerging culture of security, and how these changes affect practices of citizenship and societal group relations.

«The Broken Years»: War Crimes and the laws of war under the impact of the First World War

When the First World War began, the international co-operation of legal academics, which had been a characteristic of the late 19th and early 20th century came to a halt. In the context of the atrocities in Belgium as well as Serbia academics on both sides became involved in the propaganda campaigns of the belligerents on both sides. Not many of them were able to divest themselves. The presentation will claim that as a consequence the time between the First World War and the beginning of the Second can be characterized as «Broken Years» not only in regard to war veterans (Gammage 1974), but also in regard to the international academic discourse on issues of war crimes and the laws of war. This shall be substantiated by a look at academic activities in the interwar period within the International Law Association, the Institut de Droit International, the Interparliamentary Union, the Association Internationale de Droit Pénal and the Internationale Kriminalistische Vereinigung.

Large-scale land acquisitions in Peru: Land (re)-concentration, agrarian change and reactions from rural communities

More than 40 years after the agrarian reform, Peru is experiencing a renewed process of concentration of land ownership in the hands of large-scale investors, favoring the development of a sugar cane production cluster along the northern coast. The expansion of the agricultural frontier by means of large irrigation projects – originally developed to benefit medium- and small-scale farmers – is carried out today in order to be sold to large-scale investors for the production of export crops. In the region of Piura the increasing presence of large-scale biofuel investors puts substantial pressure on land and water resources, not only changing the use of and access to land for local communities, but also generating water shortages vis-à-vis the multiple water demands of local food producers. The changes in land relations and the agro-ecosystem, the altering food production regime as well as the increasing proletarization of smallholders, is driving many locals – even those which (initially) welcomed the investment – into resistance activities against the increasing control of land, water and other natural resources in the hands of agribusinesses. The aim of this presentation is to discuss the contemporary political, social and cultural dynamics of agrarian change along the northern Peruvian coast as well as the «reactions from below» emanating from campesino communities, landless laborers, brick producers, pastoralists as well as other marginalized groups. The different strategies, forms and practices of resistance with the goal of the «protection of the territory» shall be explored as well as the reasons for their rather scattered occurrence and the lack of alliances on the land issue. This input shall make a contribution to the on-going debate on individual and communal property rights and the question of what is best in terms of collective defense against land grabbing.