Adam Hamideh

This project investigates the production and circulation of “violence knowledge” within the private tactical training industry in the Philadelphia region. Through 236 hours of participant observation and 15 interviews with instructors conducted between January 1 and December 31, 2024, the research examines how police officers, military veterans, and civilians come together in commercial firearms courses and how these interactions shape political imaginaries surrounding state violence and social order. Fieldwork revealed that private tactical training functions as a site where civilians are encouraged to view themselves as adjuncts to state institutions of violence. Trainers frequently framed protest and urban disorder as criminal threats requiring armed readiness, positioning armed civilians as contributors to the maintenance of public order. Military and law-enforcement experiences were routinely repackaged as civilian “self-defense,” normalizing military logics within domestic space. Gendered dynamics, stress-inoculation practices, and hybrid forms of knowledge circulation further illustrated how tactical training environments cultivate shared moral and political commitments across state and non-state actors. These findings shift the project’s emphasis from technical innovation to the relational processes through which alignment with state violence are produced. The dissertation will develop these insights and contribute to scholarship on militarism, state theory, and racial capitalism.