This article focuses on the underlying sensorial entanglements that linger in spaces and moments of encounter between state violence and its targets. It argues that in Guantánamo Bay, these entanglements become routed through the bodies of the camp’s detainees, and they rely upon a particular reading of religion as being borne by bodies in such ways as to necessitate the use of specific techniques of detention and incapacitation. This discussion is framed using the notion of “apprehension,” in its affective and material forms, wherein perception, dread, and physical encounters in the camp unfold within a framing of Muslims as ontologically and materially distinct, and as being embodied in particular ways. In these processes of apprehension, the techniques and logics of violence deployed in the war on terror become further legitimated, and work reflexively to shape the ways in which the Muslim is known, encountered, and met with violence.
