Description
As critical approaches to security have shown, the ‘content’ of what we include in ‘security’ is contextual. Security policies are embedded in societies and the way people think about it is dependent on their different positions in society. The powers deployed and expanded in the name of security shape everyday interactions and collective exercise of citizenship. As such, security practices become disciplining forces within socio-political relations. While there is strong evidence on how official narratives of security highlight specific sources of threat (i.e. terrorism), this paper advocates focusing instead on how citizens understand, value, expect, and experience security.
In Spain, the practice of enlisting ‘society’ to security issues is crystallizing as part of the security paradigm. To raise security awareness among society, several policy initiatives have been deployed aimed at educating people into security threats. This paper brings a sociological account of lay citizen’s security culture as core to broader political cultures. Drawing on a multi-situated ethnography across Spain, we delve into everyday representations and practices of security problems and find spontaneous conceptions of security/insecurity emerging that relate to both negative security (as fear of crime/violence/war) and positive security (i.e. social security as related to social citizenship).
