In Policing the Frontier , the second book in the Police/Worlds series Mirco Göpfert explores what it means to be a gendarme investigating cases, writing reports, and settling disputes in rural Niger. At the same time, he looks at the larger bureaucracy and the irresolvable tension between bureaucratic structures and procedures and peoples’ lives. The world of facts and files exists on one side, and the chaotic and messy human world exists on the other.
Throughout Policing the Frontier, Göpfert contends that bureaucracy and police work emerge in a sphere of constant and ambivalent connection and separation. Göpfert’s frontier in Niger (and beyond) is seen through ideas of space, condition, and project, packed with constraints and possibilities, riddled with ambiguities, and brutally destructive yet profoundly empowering. As he demonstrates, the tragedy of the frontier becomes as palpable as the true impossibility of police work and bureaucracy.
Tabella dei contenuti
1. A Handful of Gendarmes, Two Worlds, and the Frontier Between
2. A History of the Gendarmerie in Niger
3. A Story of a Murder, No Traces, and Nothing to Report
4. The Ear: Listening to Noise, Hearing Cases
5. The Eye: Surveillance and the Problem of ‘Seeing Things’
6. The Pen: Report Writing and Bureaucratic Aesthetics
7. Drama Work
8. Repair Work
9. Tragic Work
Postscript: On the Significance of the Frontier
Circa l’autore
Mirco Göpfert is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Goethe University, Frankfurt. He has published numerous articles and is co-editor of Police in Africa. Follow him on X @mirco_goepfert.
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