Key Categories in the Study of Religion - Contexts and Critiques - Rebekka King
5. Paper Terrorism as Counter-Conduct
Key Categories in the Study of Religion - Contexts and Critiques - Rebekka King
Michael J. McVicar [+]
Florida State University
Michael J. McVicar is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State
University. He teaches classes on American religious history and is the author of Christian
Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism (2015)
Description
This chapter offers a brief reflective response to the other contributions in the “Citizenship and Politics” section of this book. It returns to the problem of the “sovereign citizen” movement to consider the problem of nationalism as it relates to contemporary religious identities. The chapter use the ideas of French philosopher Michel Foucault to argue that the “paper terrorism” legal techniques of sovereign citizens can be interpreted as “counter conducts” that reject nationalism in favor of a more amorphous and troubling concept of citizenship that strives to escape conventional mechanisms of state discipline.