Dear SOC-WAR-TERROR-SECURITY Subscribers,

 

We would like to announce a new publication from New York University Press, which we hope will be of interest.

 

Spaces of Security

Ethnographies of Securityscapes, Surveillance, and Control

Mark Maguire 

Edited by Setha Low

 

http://www.combinedacademic.co.uk/spaces-of-security

 

"What is security?  It is a dominating concern in contemporary society, but its meaning is elusive. This powerful collection offers a way to understand it.   The book uses the concept of “securityscape,” the landscape of security, to examine ethnographically the spatial and temporal dimensions of security, including its infrastructure – walls and borders – and its affective and imaginary worlds. It shows brilliantly how the concern with security both excludes and includes, exacerbating existing racial, gendered, and economic inequalities."—Sally Engle Merry, New York University

 

It is difficult to imagine two contexts as different as a soccer stadium and a panic room. Yet, they both demonstrate dynamics of the interplay between security and space. This book focuses on the infrastructures of security, considering locations as varied as public entertainment venues to border walls to blast-proof bedrooms. 

 

Around the world, experts, organizations, and governments are managing societies in the name of security, while scholars and commentators are writing about surveillance, state violence, and new technologies. Yet in spite of the growing emphasis on security, few truly consider the spatial dimensions of security, and particularly how the relationship between space and security varies across cultures.  

 

This volume explores spaces of security not only by attending to how security is produced by and in spaces, but also by emphasizing the ways in which it is constructed in the contemporary landscape. The book explores diverse contexts ranging from biometrics in India to counterterrorism in East Africa to border security in Argentina. The ethnographic studies demonstrate the power of a spatial lens to highlight aspects of security that otherwise remain hidden, while also adding clarity to an elusive and dangerous way of managing the world.

 

Setha Low is Professor of Anthropology, Environmental Psychology, Geography and Women’s Studies, and Director of the Public Space Research Group at The Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of many books, including Spatializing Culture: The Ethnography of Space and Place and Behind the Gates: Life, Security and the Pursuit of Happiness in Fortress America.

 

Mark Maguire is Dean of Maynooth University Faculty of Social Sciences. His research explores counterterrorism training and operations in several European jurisdictions. He is coeditor of The Anthropology of Security and Bodies as Evidence.

 

With all best wishes,

 

Combined Academic Publishers

 

New York University Press | January 2019 | 280pp | 9781479870066 | PB | £24.99*

*Price subject to change.