 |
 |
Security Assemblages in Urban Environments Call for Papers, AAG 2017, Boston (April 5th-8th 2017) In the past ten years, assemblage thinking has moved firmly into the mainstream social-scientific lexicon. As a heterogeneous theoretical apparatus with its origins in the thought of Deleuze & Guattari (1988) and systematised more recently by DeLanda (2006, 2015) assemblage thought also intersects with neo- materialist political ecologies (Bennett 2010), and actor-network theory (Latour 2006), and has informed critical empirical research in urban studies (Blok & Farias 2016), environmental anthropology (Li 2007), security studies (Bachmann et al. 2015) and political geography (Painter 2010). This session invites contributions developing assemblage theory in relation to urban security, and specifically to its reconfiguration through hybrid forms of public-private security governance, in which heterogeneous and entangled actors, human and non-human, blur the line between state and non-state spheres of rule. Given that assemblage emphasises emergence, multiplicity, indeterminacy and “experiments with methodological and presentational practices in order to attend to a lively world of differences” (Anderson & McFarlane 2011), the session seeks inter-disciplinary contributions that speak to the notion of security assemblages as complex and open-ended socio-material constellations, encounters and events. In particular we welcome papers that make empirically informed theoretical contributions to the analysis of urban securitization at the intersection of police, criminal groups, private security firms and their entanglements with objects, technologies and various forms of materiality. Possible topics and themes include, but are not limited to: - Politics and agency in urban assemblages - Public/Private security encounters - Affect, materiality and urban securitization - Human-Non-human security assemblages - Assemblages of citizenship in urban contexts - Bodies, technologies and objects in urban security The organisers envisage papers from this session to be developed into a special issue on security assemblages. Submission Guidelines Please email abstracts of no more than 250 words to panel organisers by 26th October, preferably together with your PIN. Panel Organisers Frank Mueller ([log in to unmask]) (University of Amsterdam) Patrick Weir ([log in to unmask] ) (University of Amsterdam) Bibliography Anderson B., McFarlane C. (2011) Assemblage and geography. Area 43: 124–127. Bachmann J., Bell C., Holmqvist C. (2015) War, Police, and Assemblages of Intervention, London and New York, Routledge Bennett, J (2006) Vibrant Matter: A political ecology of things Blok A., Farias I. (2016) Urban Cosmopolitics. Agencements, Assemblies, Atmospheres, London and New York, Routledge. DeLanda M (2006) A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London: Continuum DeLanda M. (2015) Assemblage Theory, Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press Deleuze G., Guattari F. (1988) A Thousand Plateaus Latour B. (2006) Reassembling The Social: An introduction to Actor-Network Theory Murray Li, T. (2007). Practices of assemblage and community forest management. Economy and society, 36(2), 263-293. Painter, J. (2006). Prosaic geographies of stateness. Political geography, 25(7), 752-774.