Citation

de Larrinaga M. Geopolitics 2011; 16(2): 306-328.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14650045.2010.538873

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article shares its title with a Beatles' song in which John Lennon wove together several newspaper stories from a particular day to create "A Day in the Life". As with the idea behind Lennon's lyrics I would like to provide a tomogram of global governmentality by using a specific day's events to examine transformations in the current world (dis)order. On November 20th, 2003, several events occurred, including the bomb attack on the British Consulate and the HSBC bank headquarters in Istanbul; a presidential visit by George W. Bush to London accompanied by antiwar protests; suicide bombings in Kirkuk and Ramadi; an evacuation of staff from the White House due to a "blip" on a radar screen rather than a plane; anti-FTAA protests and clashes with police in Miami; all these events can be used as a barometer to examine global governmentality and the current predicament of the representation of global order. This analysis is framed within the broader context of a questioning of the "eventness" of the event, agency and territoriality in contemporary world politics, as well as the process and significance of dating in representing global order. In doing so it attempts to highlight the tensions between global politics understood and articulated from a sovereign optic and an understanding of global politics as a site of governmentality and transversal struggles in a world where "9-11" and the "war on terror" provide the fundamental markers of current representations of contemporary global social order. © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

Language: en

Keywords

war; terrorism; geopolitics; popular protest; territoriality