Rethinking Trafficking in Women - by C Aradau (Paperback)

About the Book

This book argues that the reduction of politics to security limits struggles for equality and freedom and entrenches divisions and boundaries in the world.

Book Synopsis

What should be done about trafficking in women? Aradau shows that the problematization of trafficking as a security issue limits what can be done. Exploring the complex relationship between security, politics and subjectivity, this book suggests new forms of action which transcend security practices.

Review Quotes

'Claudia Aradau is one of the most innovative thinkers in security studies today. Alternating between a provocative but highly insightful analysis of the securitising of trafficking of women and an incisive critique of recent developments in security studies, she argues that politics in the name of security is counter-productive, if not impossible. This is a wonderfully rich and topical book that firmly redefines both security studies and studies of trafficking of women as a study of political practice and the political.' - Jef Huysmans, Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Studies, Open University, UK and author of The Politics of Insecurity

'Aradau offers a complex, multifaceted account of how security policies, practices and discourses touch the bodies of women defined as trafficked [providing] a comprehensive set of practical and theoretical elements

to strategize a way out of security.'

Guillermina Seri, Radical Philosophy 150, July/August 2008

'Combining the analysis of trafficking with an engaged account of recent security debates, and building on an extensive reading of political and social theory, Rethinking Trafficking in Women: Politics Out of Security is an impressive as well as an ambitious book.'

Lene Hansen, Cooperation and Conflict: Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association

Vol. 43: 2008

'Aradau's book provides some fascinating [...] material on the practices of

non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in the rescue, return and

rehabilitation of trafficked women.'

Julia O'Connell Davidson, feminist review 96: 2010

About the Author

CLAUDIA ARADAU is Lecturer in International Studies at The Open University, UK. Her work explores the implications of contemporary security practices, from human trafficking and migration to the war in terror, and reflects on the possibility of politics beyond the horizon of security.