Times of Security : Ethnographies of Fear, Protest and the Future

From the study of crime in sociology or of human security in development studies, to concerns with environmental catastrophe in climate studies and trans-national terrorism in international relations, the growth of security as a matter of academic concern is deemed a sign of our times. But what is security from a cross-cultural perspective? What does it look like from the point of view, not only of those people deemed to be under threat, but also from that of those who are deemed to pose it? Focusing on the multiple and mutually imbricated notions of, and concerns with, time involved in security practices across the globe, this volume brings together a selected group of established and upcoming scholars who conduct ethnographic research in a broad ambit of securitized contexts – from the experience of Palestinian detainees in Israel or forms of popular violence in Bolivia, to efforts to normalise social relations in post-conflict Yugoslavia and ways of imagining threat in contemporary protest movements in Europe – to chart the temporalities of securitization in a multi-polar world.

In the current world disorder, security is on everyone’s lips. But what is security from a cross-cultural perspective? How is it imagined and experienced by people on the ground? Crucially, what visions of the future are at stake in people’s potentially divergent concerns with security: what, and when, is the time of security? Exploring diverse notions and experiences of time involved in security practices across the globe, this volume brings together a selection of international scholars who conduct ethnographic research in a broad ambit of securitized contexts – from the experience of Palestinian detainees in Israel or forms of popular violence in Bolivia, to efforts to normalize social relations in post-conflict Yugoslavia and ways of imagining threat in left-radical protest movements in Northern Europe. Interrogating recent debates about the role of "securitization" in contemporary politics, the book paves the way for novel forms of security analysis at the crossroads between anthropology and political science, focusing on the comparative study of the temporalities of securitization in a multi-polar world. Offering a pioneering synthesis, the book will be of interest not only to anthropologists, but also to students and scholars in political science and the growing field of Security Studies in International Relations.