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Probabilistic borderwork
Author(s) -
BOZÇALI FIRAT
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12866
Subject(s) - principle of legality , politics , agency (philosophy) , law , state (computer science) , political science , work (physics) , enforcement , law and economics , probabilistic logic , law enforcement , sociology , social science , engineering , mathematics , algorithm , mechanical engineering , statistics , computer science
How are borders made porous? In Turkey's Kurdish borderlands, smugglers are not just agents who operate under cover of night, but city‐based traders whose legal practices create a third space in between legality and illegality. Kurdish oil traders accused of smuggling work closely with lawyers to perform what I call probabilistic borderwork . This is a deliberate counterstate political strategy that uses scientific uncertainty to challenge smuggling charges, achieve nonillegality, and legally disrupt the state's border enforcement. Going beyond existing categories of law and politics, probabilistic borderwork is not a rights‐claiming political‐legal action. Rather, it is a form of techno‐legal political agency involving collaboration between otherwise disparate professional groups. [ oil , borders , law , techno‐politics , the Kurds, Turkey ]