Research Methods in Critical Security Studies, 2nd Edition

22 Mapping urban security practices

Jonas Hagmann

DOI: 10.4324/9781003108016-25

Introduction

Cities attract growing attention from critical security scholars. This is not only because cities become larger and more numerous (Curtis 2016) and are prime sites of civic and asymmetric conflict (Beal, Goodfellow, and Rodgers 2013; Coaffee and Fussey 2015). It is also because urban life-worlds are rapidly colonised with powerful surveillance and control assemblages, i.e., security systems that regulate everyday life ever more intimately and diminish the city’s role as political and social counter-space (Coaffee 2004; Coward 2009). Indeed, some suggest that protecting the city is on the verge of becoming the most important global security agenda. ...