Cover -- Half-title -- Series-title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Theorizing contingency -- The standoff as an exemplar of contingency -- The standoff as a conflict of meaning -- Narrative as a bridge of meaning -- The orientation of Structuralism and the introduction of Pragmatism -- Narrative friction -- The Pragmatic stance -- Standoffs as interpretive moments -- Contexts: time and space -- Time -- Space -- Presentation of selected empirical cases (in chronological order) -- Wounded Knee, 1973 -- MOVE, 1985 -- Ruby Ridge 1992 -- Waco, 1993 -- Freemen of Montana 1996 -- Tupac Amaru 1996-97 -- Republic of Texas 1997 -- The cultural setpoints of standoffs -- Who is an American -- The family -- Religion -- Gun ownership -- Political and territorial jurisdiction -- Conclusion -- 2 The times of standoffs -- Variations on a theme of time -- The linear, the cyclical, and the eternal -- Legal time -- Warrants: the raw, the stale, and the rotten -- Common Law versus constitutional and statutory law -- Metaphysical, spiritual, and ritual time -- Media time -- Official time: time-telling and intervals -- Deadlines, waiting, and patience -- The acts of waiting -- Beginnings, middles, and ends -- Beginnings -- Middles -- Ends -- The time-lines of history -- Genealogical dimensions of standoffs -- 3 The spaces of the standoff -- Spatial binary oppositions -- Mediations across spaces -- Codifications of space -- Literal spaces: perimeters and spatial alterations -- Symbolic spaces of the standoff - the moral, the political, and the sacred -- Space names -- Spatial narratives of America - outside space -- Flags: where the outside meets the inside -- Spatial narratives of the home, the compound, the reservation - inside space -- Prisons and jails: standoff annexes -- Movement across space.

Transit, transgression, and trespass -- Transit -- Transgression and trespass -- The door -- 4 The action of standoffs -- Configuring action narratives -- Setting off the standoff -- Standard operating procedures -- Organizational imperatives -- Standoff scenes and their equipment -- The rules of engagement -- Operational grammar -- Scenes and their agents : standoff identities -- The scene -- Gestures of the scene -- Dramatis personae, syntactically speaking -- Protagonists on both sides of the law -- Agents of the law -- Antagonists -- Hostages and "hostages" -- Minor roles -- The situational lives of texts -- Ur-texts -- From Ur-text to text-in-action -- The action of texts-in-action -- Standoff talk -- Negotiation talk -- Pace and rhythm -- Location -- Relations between tactical team and negotiators and negotiators' superiors -- Intermediaries -- The expert -- 5 Endings and improvisations -- Endings -- Deals -- Surrenders -- Violence -- Another way out: improvisation -- Withholding the categories -- Respecting and transcending the binaries -- Relational approach to time, space, and action -- Chance and necessity in a situation of uncertainty -- The aesthetic sensibility -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Preface -- Chapter 1: Theorizing contingency -- Chapter 2: The times of standoffs -- Chapter 3: The spaces of the standoff -- Chapter 4: The action of standoffs -- Chapter 5: Endings and improvisations -- Bibliography -- Index.