Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T04:24:45.437Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Preface

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Robin Wagner-Pacifici
Affiliation:
Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

This book has had a double aim from the outset: to theorize contingency in social life and to analyze and extract the essence of real-life standoffs. By proposing the standoff as a privileged archetypal situation, the project has read contingency through the standoff and the standoff through its own contingency. Of course I am concerned with moments of danger and imminent violence for the damage they can do to lives and social systems. But I am also, and equally, concerned with ferreting out the “standoffish” aspects of everyday interactions and charting the various thresholds we all work hard to elude, thresholds that will take a conversation into the realm of the confrontation.

One of the striking aspects of researching responses to real-life standoffs is the discovery of the habitual connections made between situations and standardized categories. The books attempts to locate and theoretically press the idea of standard operating procedures as agents of the law and adversaries alike summon up their warrents, ultimatums, deadlines, electrical generators, fire engines, and so forth when an “emergency” has been declared. One category of standard agent, the “Hostage Rescue Team,” has particular theoretical resonance. As a specific group within the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this team is obviously trained to rescue hostages in situations of danger and potential violence. As will be explored, sometimes this team is sent into situations where there is no clear hostage (this was particularly true in the case of the Ruby Ridge, Idaho standoff of the Randall Weaver family).

Type
Chapter
Information
Theorizing the Standoff
Contingency in Action
, pp. xi - xii
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Preface
  • Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Theorizing the Standoff
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488887.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Preface
  • Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Theorizing the Standoff
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488887.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Preface
  • Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Theorizing the Standoff
  • Online publication: 22 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511488887.001
Available formats
×