Pirates, stewards, and the securitisation of global circulation

This article is a contribution to the theorization of global maritime circulation as a key category of a global biopolitics of security. It seeks to advance knowledge on the ways in which liberal life is promoted and protected by exacerbating global circulation. It focuses on the security effects of a complex maritime insurance apparatus driven by global insurance in which the Joint War Committee of the Lloyd’s Market Association and the International Underwriting Association plays a pivotal role. Through the analysis of the inclusion of the Strait of Malacca in the Lloyd’ War List in 2006 under the argument of heightened piracy, it is argued that global maritime insurance performs a special security role, that of stewardship, in securing the circulation of the high seas.