Surveillance in Public Rituals

Abstract

This article uses the second inauguration of President George W. Bush in January 2005 as a case study to show that surveillance procedures in state-sponsored public rituals themselves have a ritual form. This security meta-ritual is a practice of separation of insiders from outsiders through which the state security apparatus transforms a potentially dangerous everyday public life into a new social reality. In this newly created space of public interaction under maximum control, a safe space is created within which public ritual can take place without interruption.