The (new) ecology of security: Tribulations of sustainable security in an English town

• In Event: Ecologies of security 1

Abstract

Drawing on our current revisiting of an old research site, Macclesfield in Cheshire, this paper reflects on shifts in the local meanings of in/security since the mid-1990s. In revisiting the town, we discover a set of everyday troubles (littering, dog poo, the tribulations of parks and other valued public spaces) that appear to call forth established forms of environmental criminology (the ‘broken windows’ thesis; theories of ‘defensible space’ in urban design). But we have also encountered security concerns that attach themselves to new objects that are often described as environmental (pollution, flooding, and other local indicators of climate crisis). In this paper, we argue that both these ‘new’ and ‘old’ forms of environmental trouble are signs of a greening of security wherein problems such as street-drinking, litter, badly parked cars, flooding etc. matter because they are entangled with people’s sense of the liveability and sustainability of the places in which they strive to make meaningful lives. Discourse about ‘fear’ and ‘crime’ tend to be about moral boundary-drawing, defining place with reference to hostile ‘outsiders’, and defending these places from incursion. The new ecology of security shifts this orientation to protecting place in important respects. One is that concern for place is translated into practices of active caring, wherein questions of vulnerability, precarity, solidarity, resilience, and sustainability come to the fore. The second is greater consciousness of how ‘we’ (the insiders) have come become agents of our own peril - implicated in producing the security problems with which we are concerned.

Authors

• Evi Girling, Keele University

• Sergen Bacheci, University of Oxford

• Ben Bradford, University College London

• Ian Loader, University of Oxford

• Richard Sparks, University of Edinburgh