Anti‐Security

Abstract

Anti‐Security is a political project seeking to foster critical theoretical and empirical interventions into existing security discourses. An edited book by the same title (Neocleous & Rigakos 2011) helped coalesce an emerging strand of radical scholarship under the theme in 2011. An active Anti‐Security studies group organized workshops and a recent stream at the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control in 2012. Anti‐Security is purportedly not a theory or a framework, but a discursive space where critical scholars and activists can discuss security without creating more security intelligence. According to its proponents, it is a space where security is not taken for granted, or is not seen as a positive end in itself. Anti‐Security thus offers the flexibility for anyone from any disciplinary frame interested in a materialist critique of security to contribute to the project (Manolov 2012). The main purpose of the Anti‐Security project is to stimulate a coherent and penetrating way of destabilizing the dominant security discourse, to provide an opening for resuscitating security's own inherent contradictions, and to make those transparent.