Mapping the Contours of ‘Everyday Security’: Time, Space and Emotion

Abstract

This article develops a conceptual framework that prompts new lines of enquiry and questions for security researchers. We advance the notion of 'everyday security' which encompasses both the lived experiences of security processes and the related practices that people engage in to govern their own safety. Our analysis proceeds from a critical appraisal of several dominant themes within current security research, and how 'everyday security' addresses key limitations therein. Everyday experiences and quotidian practices of security are then explored along three key dimensions; temporality, spatial scale and affect/emotion. We conclude by arguing that the study of everyday security provides an invaluable critical vantage-point from which to reinvigorate security studies and expose the differential impacts of both insecurity and securitisation.

Mediated Conviviality and the Urban Social Order: Reframing the Regulation of Public Space

“…Drawing selectively from distinct intellectual strands of thought, I argue that deliberate strategies are required for facilitating co-mingling and mediating interactions between loosely connected strangers for their convivial and peaceful coexistence. As such, the focus is on thinking about the everyday regulation and policing of public space (Crawford and Hutchinson, 2015) rather than a broader political-economic project. The concept of mediated conviviality put forward in this paper draws together and develops upon philosophical ideas on urban tolerance and diversity (Bannister and Kearns, 2013), ethnographic observations of public spaces (Jacobs, 1961;Worpole and Knox, 2007), theoretical models of responsive regulation (Ayres and Braithwaite, 1992) and the findings of studies on the use of procedural fairness by street-level bureaucrats when enacting authority (Tyler, 2013).…”

Persuasion architectures: Consumer spaces, affective engineering and (criminal) harm

“…Underlying this emergent modality of social control are the twin imperatives of security and commerciality (Adey, 2008). Recent work from within criminology has begun to consider the role of security in mobilising affect (Crawford and Hutchinson, 2016). However, the engineering of affect through environmental design undoubtedly reaches its apex in shopping malls, department stores, supermarkets, casinos, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and other consumer spaces.…”

Human Security: Reconciling Critical Aspirations With Political ‘Realities’

“…In contrast to much of the scholarship on security within international relations, these criminological debates give particular attention to how security is defined and administered within liberal societies at the 'everyday' level (Crawford and Hutchinson 2015;Goold, Loader and Thumala 2013). This explores the interests that are served by the practice of security, the social costs of security, the governance of security, and the agencies -such as the police -which play a role in upholding and enforcing public security.…”