Truth’s Fool: Derek Freeman and the War over Cultural Anthropology

Historian Peter Hempenstall has undertaken a challenging task in tracing the intellectual journey of the Wellington born, Victoria University College graduate and Australian National University (ANU) anthropologist, Derek Freeman

Reviews

Reviews of Business and New Zealand Society, Women in Trade Unions: Organizing the Unorganized, Labour Law and Industrial Relations in Asia, International and Comparative Industrial Relations: A Study of Industrialised Market Economies, The Challenge of Human Resource Management Directions and Debates in New Zealand, Visions of the Future of Social Justice: Essays on the Occasion of the ILO's 75th Aniversary, Coal, Class and Community: The United Mineworkers of New Zealand, 1880-1960, Higher Productivity and a Better Place to Work - Practical Ideas (or Owners and Managers of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, OECD Societies in Transition." The Future of Wo.rk and Leisure

Introduction

This introduction prepares the intellectual and scholarly context for the substantive chapters that make up this book. It surveys the wealth of scholarship on contemporary policing systems, private security and crime prevention. Moreover, it critically evaluates the frequent claim in that literature that private security and plural policing are relatively recent developments, which have occurred against the backdrop of a secure state monopoly over policing and security provision. It explores key themes from existing historical research on private security, demonstrating its rich history, and establishing several important contexts for the book as a whole. Furthermore, it analyzes the public-private distinction in security, outlining a broad understanding of the term ‘private security’ as a relational concept, which encompasses and informs the contents of the book. Finally, it briefly outlines the structure and contents of the book itself, and the contribution each study makes

Conclusion

This conclusion reflects upon comparative insights raised by the studies in this book. The history of private security is intricate and complex, demonstrating that the past does not simply provide a settled backdrop for recent trends to securitization and the pluralization of policing. The role of private initiative in security provision has varied widely across time and place, influenced by patterns of state formation, prevailing cultural and ideological environments, and the legacies of prior historical developments. In particular, the studies in this book suggest major differences between security regimes and experiences of private security in Europe and the United States, with diverse forms of private initiative especially well integrated into the American landscape of security provision. Furthermore, the book also highlights the significance of security cultures in shaping institutions and practices of policing and protection, and how private security providers and entrepreneurs have sought to justify and legitimate their activities sensitively to the specificities of cultural context. Finally, it stresses the importance of comparative perspective and attention to complexity in future research on private security, past and present