For those interested in the role of networks in contemporary warfare, Chris Wilson’s recent Searching for Saddam: A five-part series on how the U.S. military used social networking to capture the Iraqi dictator in Slate is worth reading. Wilson provides an accessible account of social network analysis and the manner in which interconnections can be mapped. His account of the construction of link diagrams to identify those that were harbouring Saddam after he had been deposed from power in 2003, resonates with much that has been written about the relationship of networks and contemporary warfare.
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Posts Tagged ‘urbanisation of security’
Social networks and the war on terror
Thursday, March 4th, 2010The Chilean earthquake: urban materiality and feral cities
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010Two articles in the Guardian on the Chilean earthquake caught my eye on Monday:
- In Chile’s earthquake was horrible – but it could have been so much worse Rory Carrol points to the material differences between the Chilean earthquake and January’s much more destructive Haiti quake. The tectonic movements that Carol points to as the determinant of a quake’s strength are a reminder of the irruptive materiality of the environment. What caught my eye in this report, however, was the reference to the manner in which the urban fabric was key to the fate of the population in both cases. (more…)
Update: Urban Securitisation and Climate Change
Thursday, October 15th, 2009Crisis Forum have posted some of the resources from the workshop on climate change and violence held last week (9th October 2009). These resources include (or will include in the near future) videos of most of the presentations as well as power-point slides.
You can find the notes for my presentation at the workshop here. Please note that these are rough notes prepared for speaking at this event. They are not an academic paper. As such they do not include the usual references and acknowledgements that would be expected in an academic paper. If you want further details about the sources referred to in the notes, please contact me.
Cities Under Fire
Thursday, October 8th, 2009The Society for Curious Thought have posted a brief piece of mine entitled Cities Under Fire. You can read it here.
The piece outlines the main topic I will deal with in my next book (also entitled Cities Under Fire and due for publication by Routledge in 2011/12). Briefly these are the organised violences that are arrayed against the contemporary city: urbicide, terrorism, military operations by advanced industrial states. The piece is short and so does not expand on the characteristics of these violences or their impact on urbanity. For more detail and an early formulation of the problematic central to Cites Under Fire see my recent piece in Security Dialogue: ‘Network-Centric Violence, Critical Infrastructure and the Urbanization of Security‘ (Security Dialogue, 40:4-5, pp.399-418)
Urban insecurities
Thursday, October 8th, 2009Security Dialogue have published a very interesting special issue on urban insecurity. You can see the table of contents here.
The special issue includes my essay ‘Network-centric Violence, Critical Infrastructure and the Urbanisation of Security‘. In this piece I discuss the manner in which organised violence such as the American ‘shock and awe‘ assault on Iraq and terrorist targeting of transport infrastructure in New York, Madrid and London are exemplary of the dynamics of what I call the ‘urbanisation of security’. The urbanisation of security comprises a reciprocal dynamic in which security technologies are urbanised (i.e., oriented towards the logics of urban space) and yet at the same time urbanity is securitised (i.e., its spaces are reshaped according to logics of security technologies).
The copyright agreement I had to sign to have this article published prevents me from making the final version of the article available for free on this site (believe me, I wish I could). You can download a final draft of the essay here (pdf). If you have problems obtaining the published version email me and I will send you a pdf if appropriate.
Urban Securitisation and Climate Change
Monday, October 5th, 2009Later this week I will be going to London to a workshop hosted by the Crisis Forum as part of their ‘Climate Change and Violence‘ series. The workshop is entitled ‘Securing the State: Domestic Agendas‘ and examines what we can learn from existing security regimes about the way in which governmental authorities may respond to the violence(s) generated by climate change.
I will be talking about what we can learn from the contemporary securitisation of the urban environment. You can find my abstract as well as those of other speakers here. It promises to be a very interesting event.
Although there are many possible themes to investigate regarding climate change and security/violence, I want to explore two in particular: (more…)
Bangkok: the future of urban war
Thursday, May 20th, 2010Watching Bangkok burn1 over the last few days has been both disturbing and upsetting. The use of heavy armour against a predominantly civilian protest movement (segments of which have latterly turned to small arms and improvised weapons in its stand off with the government) has been a timely reminder of the forms of violence that could mark our urban future. In some ways it has exemplified dynamics already identified in the literature on urban warfare. The cycle of occupation, displacement and reoccupation that the army and redshirts have been engaged in looks a lot like the ‘pop-up armies and spatial chess‘ that Robert Warren detailed in 2002. (more…)
Tags: Bangkok, political violence, redshirts, urban warfare, urbanisation of security
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