Security as controversy: Reassembling security at Amsterdam Airport

Abstract

Critical approaches to security have come to define themselves against mainstream security studies by not a priori assuming what security is, but rather taking it as an ‘essentially contested concept’. Yet, as evidenced by the way in which recent ‘turns’ in the field have played out in the debate around airport security, ontological assumptions about security tend to restrict the scope of empirical analysis, with airport security being studied as, for instance, either discourse or practice. This article aims to propose an alternative methodological approach to security by studying security as controversy. Studying security as controversy means refraining from making a priori assumptions about the ontology of (in)security, instead considering it as itself at stake in – and hence the outcome of – security governance efforts. The article elaborates on this approach by drawing on core insights from actor-network theory, a conceptual and methodological toolkit that allows, as I show, a focus on how security actors perform security by enrolling, assembling and translating heterogeneous elements into stable assemblages that can be presented as definitive security solutions or threats. The article illustrates this approach through a look at the case of airport security at Amsterdam Airport in the aftermath of the 2009 Christmas terrorist attempt.

Mobilising security and logistics through an African port: A controversies approach to infrastructure

“…Furthermore, many controversies concern matters other than claims to (technical/scientific) knowledge, which remained overlooked (Wynne 2003). Controversies are a useful tool for analysing disputes beyond scientific knowledge controversies in a narrow sense (Schouten 2014;Venturini 2009). …”

“…These include, therefore, 'every bit of science and technology which is not yet stabilised, closed or "black boxed"' (Macospol 2007, 6;Venturini 2009). Borrowing from Science and Technology Studies, some work in critical security studies has begun to explore the strength of such a perspective (Schouten 2014;Walters and D'Aoust 2015).…”

Rethinking agency in International Relations: Performativity, performances, and actor-networks

“…Empirically, this perspective has been applied to issues such as international security (Aradau 2010;Schouten 2014), state failure (Schouten 2013), practices of torture (Austin 2016) and the use of concepts in the academic discipline of IR (Bueger and Bethke 2014). At the same time, Michel Callon's more recent work has sparked a wave of new research in International Political Economy on the performative role played by economic theories and models in the configuration of markets and economic agents (Braun 2016).…”

Secrecy and security in transatlantic terrorism finance tracking

“…Second, and building on the practice perspective, it important to see how secrecy controversies have lasting impact on the ways in which security programmes are structured and overseen. Specific practices of regulating information and producing accountability emerge in order to stabilise complex controversies (Schouten 2014). Examining these secrecy controversies in more detail, then, tells us something about the practical and ad hoc ways in which transatlantic security programmes are constructed, negotiated and executed more broadly.…”