Militarization matters: rhetorical resonances and market militarism

• Published in: Critical military studies Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 147 - 170
• Main Author: Leander, Anna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 02.04.2024
• Subjects: commercial security; Management; marketing; materialism; resistance
• ISSN: 2333-7486; 2333-7494
• DOI: 10.1080/23337486.2022.2081300

"Militarization is not the problem" was the title of a recent conference contribution by Mark Neocleous. Many scholars in critical security studies share its message. Researchers on their account should shun a concept that does more harm than good. They should 'forget militarization' as Alison Howell puts it. While sharing the concern that the term might direct attention away from police-violence and epistemic racism underpinning such conclusions, this article argues that the term militarization may be worth preserving in spite of this because it also does important political and analytical work that needs to be preserved if not strengthen. Recovering what Frazer and Hutchings term 'rhetorical resonance', I suggest that the term 'militarization' resonates with debates, discursive classifications and atmospheres, giving us a better grasp of contemporary, capillary, market militarism in its many morphing guises. Jettisoning militarization is to relinquish analytical openings and political attunement. I unpack this argument focusing on the resonances of militarization with market processes diffusing and deepening the grip of military concerns and de-mobilizing resistance. The resonances of militarization make managing, marketing, and materializing security into infrastructures less innocuous and hence trouble the de-mobilizing of resistance that ease them. The resonances of 'militarization' break the silence surrounding market militarism, the processes generating it and the imbrication of knowledge practices (including the academic and scholarly) with them. Militarization therefore matters even when it stands in tension with epistemic racism and police violence. Therefore, deepening the engagement with militarization, to transform it, is important analytically and politically.