Reconstruction Vol. 12, No. 3
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Insecure Approaches to Notions of Security / Introduction by: Susana Araújo and Susana S. Martins
Keywords: Security/Insecurity, Culture of Surveillance, Terror, City Representations, Visuality in Literature, Arts in general, Intermediality and Intertextuality, Transatlantic studies, Art and Politics
<1> “Security” and “insecurity” are words which are relentlessly alive in politics and the media. Since the 9/11 attacks, followed by the 2004 train attacks in Madrid and the London bombings in 2005, the US and, also to some extent, Europe, among other geopolitical powers, have been investing extensively in programs for national and international security. Exacerbated by the mass-media, discourses about security have circulated and propagated worldwide, igniting security policies and practices which have significant impact on our social organization, both locally and globally. However, one could argue that despite these tendencies, the meanings of security are far from clear. Indeed, while the word “security” has been naturalized in political discourses, the long-term causes, the meanings and the workings of security, remain unexamined. [1]
<2> In this sense, it is interesting, although hardly surprising, to note that a survey by the European Commission, released on the 25th November 2011, found that 34% percent of Europeans consider the financial situation rather than so-called “terrorism as the biggest threat to European security.” [2] It is crucial then to understand what is, or should be, meant by security. To “intervene” in Iraq, Afghanistan and, perhaps next, Iran? To close borders, build walls, and prevent emigration from citizens of certain countries and restrain circulation of information? Or, alternatively, to look inwards and examine the threats which the US, Europe and other geopolitical powers have also helped to generate, leading to the financial, social and political crisis we are now facing and that we may face, again, in the future? These are some of the questions which a serious approach to contemporary security will need to engage with.
<3> The word security itself carries a number of tensions, which we have attempted to highlight by adding the prefix <in> between brackets, before the word security, in the double-term “(in)security” which entitles this themed issue. This prefix <in> serves not only to clarify that this issue will address “constructions” of security as well as of “insecurity,” but also to acknowledge a more disquieting continuum between the two terms (“security/insecurity”). The wordplay here unveils, thus, a dynamic which is intrinsic to the notion of security itself, hinting at the way that certain practices and discourses of security may lead to and/or generate – paradoxically or not - new forms of insecurity.
<4> To explore this paradox in greater depth, it is important to mention, if only briefly here, some of the etymological roots of the word sēcūritās In its Latin origin, sēcūritās was used to signify “freedom from care; unconcern; composure” (Lewis et al 1890). Sēcūritās was also the name attributed to the goddess or personification which symbolized public safety and promoted stability in the Roman Empire. Securitas had, thus, a vital role in imperial propaganda, which interestingly enough was maintained and renewed in recent Imperial configurations (Araújo et al 2012). The Latin term received, however, a specific inflection with the emergence of Christian religion and theology. In Christian discourse, as Frederik M. Arends suggests, “securitas” assimilates a negative connotation when “freedom from care” starts to be understood as “carelessness” or “recklessness.” Arends gives the example of St. Augustine (354-430 A.D.), who “warns of a mortifera securitas, a ‘lethal indifference’ about the question of one’s own salvation.” As Arends also shows, “within the Church of Rome this negative meaning will lead to the interpretation of ‘securitas’ as a ‘mortal sin’ (‘akêdia’), reappearing with the German reformator Martin Luther (1483-1546); this negative meaning (‘indifference about the question of one’s salvation’) is a constant factor in Christian thought about ‘securitas.’” (Arends 2008)
<5> Shaped by religious discourse, and later by the work of influential authors such as Thomas Hobbes, for whom the state is an instrument of “security”, the modern concept of security continued to retain a markedly negative meaning. Nowadays security continues to connote a “lack” and a “deficiency” rather than a positive property, per se. Indeed, “security” is used today to signify:
(1) “freedom from danger; freedom from fear or anxiety; freedom from the prospect of being laid off;”
(2) “something given, deposited, or pledged to make certain the fulfillment of an obligation; surety;”
(3) “an instrument of investment in the form of a document” (as in a stock certificate or bond providing evidence of its ownership);
(4) “something that secures” (measures taken to guard against espionage or sabotage, crime, attack, or escape; an organization or department whose task is security). [3]
<6> Expressions such as “freedom from danger” and “measure against espionage, sabotage, etc” show the negative import of the term, which can be said to denote a tendency towards negativity at heart in contemporary political thought. In this sense, the growth of security policies in 20th and 21st C could be understood, in part, as a symptom of a wider cultural problem – the shortness of political substance and ideas, as conveyed by contemporary party politics in much of the Western World.
<7> Although the problems arising from these tendencies have been carefully neglected by political elites, this issue has not been ignored by a significant number of artists and writers. In fact, for the last decade (and particularly within the last 5 years) writers and artists became not only increasingly aware of the paradoxical continuum between security and insecurity, but also gradually more attentive to instances of social exclusion that derived from new security policies (immigration laws, racial tension, class conflicts, gender issues and multiple instances of “othering”). Questions of (in)security - in the double and interlocking sense of the word - have been pertinently and diversely addressed by writers, graphic novelists, film-makers and performance artists, among others. Such responses have been intriguing enough to encourage and sustain the preparation of this special issue. The cultural and artistic depictions of “insecurity” presented here are, thus, emblematic of these growing concerns: while some of them explore the impact of security practices and policies on contemporary culture, others question some of the causes of insecurity disregarded by official discourses.
<8> This theme issue also attempts to convey how notions of (in)security have been perceived from a transnational perspective. If US art and cultural production continues to dominate critical attention from scholars working on security, it should be stressed that the notice given to discourses and practices of (in)security by writers and visual artists is not restricted to works based in the USA. Indeed, in what the European literary landscape is concerned, in the first five years after September 11th 2001, a large number of writers were depicting “9/11” as a “European event” (Versluys 2007). In fact, long before the attacks in London and Madrid, many authors and artists were already portraying their respective capitals as if these cities were about to disappear. This, however, was not necessarily a positive development, as many of these works often departed from an automatic identification with US experience and – rather problematically – often displaced their own social realities, customs and national behaviors with images and symbols associated with the United States (Araújo 2007). The last five years have also witnessed the emergence of a great number of works produced outside the US which engage critically with mass-media depictions of insecurity as well as with the political mobilization of fears and anxieties regarding national and international security. For obvious reasons, many of these works engage, head on, with the continuum security/insecurity described above.
<9> Alongside the transnational dynamic of many of these works, we would also like to emphasize the interdisciplinary and intermedial focus of many of the cultural art works produced in the last decade, some of which are examined here. Since 9/11 was perhaps the most broadcasted event of all times, it is not surprising that its representation by artists and intellectuals will imply, to a great extent, an understanding of the way images of this event circulated from medium to medium. The essays collected here embody that almost inescapable intermedial focus as part of their arguments, and attempt to present a wide range of disciplines and methodologies, clearly demonstrating how diverse and manifold the debates around “(in)securities” can be. The present issue expects not only to highlight the ways in which security has been addressed and questioned by different media languages, but it also hopes to be able to expand and develop the notion of security towards a critical territory that escapes the single scope of a post-9/11 surveillance culture, engaging with other, equally fruitful, analytical and thematic frames.
<10> The (In)Securities issue is introduced by the article of Jacinta Maria Matos which goes back to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four – the founding figure and his most influential novel on surveillance and social control – to analyze the literary strategies the author developed as a form of political engagement. In "George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Is this where it all began?," Jacinta Matos points out the singularity of Orwell’s work as it meaningfully considers the intertwining between the artistic and ideological spheres of influence. After explaining why the novel was regarded by Orwell as the most efficient medium to deal with the complexities of a society of control, Jacinta Matos also highlights that Orwell’s great innovation lies in the centrality he devoted to language, both in its emancipatory and repressive dimensions. At a time where the Orwellian universe of surveillance and control is all the more pervasive, Matos claims that Orwell’s groundbreaking pertinence is more than just metaphoric or thematic, but rather lies at the heart of the literary representational form.
<11> A related way of sensing the political potential of form is also present in the paper by Adam Brown and Tony Chalkley, which focuses on the way insecurities have become an increasingly recurrent element in contemporary film production. Yet, in “Beautiful, Unethical, Dangerous: Screening Surveillance and Maintaining Insecurities,” the authors investigate recent directions in surveillance film, a classic sub-genre facing new challenges in our pervasive media society. Through the confronting analysis of two recent movies – Hunger Games (2012)and Wasted on the Young (2010) –, this article examines the different ways in which insecurity and surveillance have been negotiated in film constructions. Brown and Chalkley further inspect the moral ambiguity present in such surveillance stages: particularly questioning how the uses of technology are able to involve the audiences in complex dilemmas around privacy and identity, they simultaneously highlight how such films challenge the role of the spectator, who can, indifferently, become either an exterior voyeur or a participating accomplice.
<12> Despite its growing incidence nowadays, the subject of insecurity is not exclusive to recent decades and has certainly been present earlier, in myriad cultural manifestations. What Roel Griffioen proposes in his paper is an insightful analysis of architecture that demonstrates how changing paradigms of social surveillance and privacy have been exemplarily materialized in projects of urban construction and requalification. The article Bulletproof Glass. A Short History of Transparency, Public Space and Surveillance in Amsterdam Nieuw-West examines how the 1950s housing buildings of the Westelijke Tuinsteden have undergone a significant metamorphosis, also illustrating shifting conceptions of architecture which are visible in mutable ways of living. In this paper, Griffioen pinpoints how the ideals of the ‘open city’ during the 1950s, which promoted mutual inspection as a social model, have changed recently towards a technological ‘city of security’, in which houses are no longer integration mechanisms but rather seem to sharply separate individuals from their urban social space. Above all, Griffioen’s contribution provides a critical standpoint to witness not only the shifting notions of visibility, shelter, transparence or surveillance, but also to better understand the discourses surrounding urban life of particular modern and contemporary cities.
<13> The relationship of individuals with their difficult social backgrounds is also something addressed by Pedro Moura in an article that proposes to read comics as a particular locus of resistance towards the recurrent, and many times heroic, discourses on insecurity, especially as they have been formulated after 9/11. The paper “To Find Places To Draw”. Comics’ Resistance To Insecurityseeks to highlight how, after 2011, many comics have configured positive and constructive alternatives to deal with terror, instead of engaging with a rhetoric of trauma and fear. Through three distinct books – Viva la Vida!, Faire le Mur and L’Inscription – Pedro Moura analyses how these works suggest a transcultural dialogue with the Other, which is here given a personal and subjective voice in a perfect combination between the historical and individual levels of existence. Moreover, Moura underlines the role of comics as resistant medium, which is not only able to propose minor and challenging uses of major cultural practices and discourses, while, at the same time, is also a powerful territory from where difference can be reaffirmed to oppose a certain homogeneity, and even hegemony, which is ruling contemporary culture and critique.
<14> Despite all attempts to escape more persistent discussions on (in)securities, some events of the past years have, in fact, become too central to be overlooked in this debate. Nevertheless, new forms of dealing with old matters seem particularly necessary to avoid simplistic readings of such landmark circumstances. In her article Urban Security and Collapse: Fringe’s Portrayal of the American City as a Site of Terror in the 21st Century, Sophie Halliday analyzes the television series Fringe, using 9/11 as a framework to better understand urban representations in a post-disaster world. In her detailed reading of the two parallel universes which structure the series' narrative, the author investigates how fear, anxiety and insecurity in the city public space have been reconfigured, integrated and interrogated in the show, both thematically and formally. Examining the television media and the fantasy device of different worlds at war with one another, this investigation offers an important starting point to address the new ways in which we may consider and experience our present urban lives, shedding, simultaneously, a new light upon the recent American socio-political environment.
<15> The repercussion of the events of 9/11 has strongly impacted different sorts of media. In the concrete case of literature, this impact was particularly felt in the large literary production which took place in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks, giving rise to a new literary genre more commonly known as 9/11 fiction. In her paper, Ana Raquel Fernandes focuses mainly on the figure of British novelist Martin Amis to address new critical and cultural paradigms from a literary and language based perspective. In Martins Amis’ 9/11: ‘The Second Plane’, Fernandes examines the journalistic texts Amis has published in this volume as a response to 9/11, aiming at critically investigating his fictional and non-fictional texts, and also his positions towards different types of insecurity: on the one hand, the novelist associates terrorism with capitalism and globalization while, on the other hand, he is also critical of the subsequent surveillance and security cultures which, promoted by some states, enhance problematic forms of ‘othering.’ A further analysis of two short fiction stories is also developed by Ana Fernandes to demonstrate not only how the widespread rhetoric of war is strategically appropriated by Amis in his work in order to deal with traumatic experiences, but also to investigate how he uses language as the right medium to tackle the unspeakable.
<16> Finally, the article by Joahannes Voelz questions the notion of security from a reformulated, yet also literary, approach. Trying to move beyond security, understood as an almost exclusive political notion which helps legitimating the states of exception, Voelz proposes a detailed reading of Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis in order to highlight how the logic of security is ruling and shaping the imagination of present times and to the ways in which we are dealing with a future seen as uncertain. In The Future’s Epic Now: The Time of Security and Risk in Don DeLillo’s ‘Cosmopolis’, Voelz investigates DeLillo’s work as a locus in which two related, yet rather different, logics converge: the logic of risk and that of security. Although the concepts of risk and security imply different attitudes towards uncertainty – risk is able to accept and even profit from this uncertainty while security aims to change it to implement order –, Voelz demonstrates how, in Cosmopolis, these two notions have come to merge and influence each other and, at a further level, he also suggests how the crossing grammars of security and economic risk are particularly useful when dealt in post-modern and post-secular societies.
<17> We hope that the wide range of methodological frameworks here offered (from cultural and visual studies to literature and comparative studies) will present itself as a resourceful and flexible tool, to help us work towards a constructive redefinition or indeed, a positive re-construction, of the concept of “security.”
Acknowledgements
The guest-editors would like to thank the editorial and technical team of Reconstruction for their invaluable support at every stage of this issue preparation. A word of thanks goes also the many reviewers who, with incredible generosity and expediency, have been of decisive importance to the final shape of this volume and, not least, to the wonderful proof-readers who helped us revise some of the articles.
Notes
[1] Despite the manifold mobilization of the term “security” within political and, to a certain extent, also within academic circles, articles such as Amy Kaplan’s “In the Name of Security” (2009) stand out by presenting a historical and cultural etymology of the term ‘Security.’ Kaplan shows how, within the rhetoric of the Bush administration, this term breaks down boundaries between the domestic and the foreign as it enables the merging of the military, border patrol, and police. Her article – which continues to be a major reference to our work - concludes asking if “security be radically redefined in the name of change.”
[2] http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2011/11/28/europe-financial-crisis-scarier-than-terrorism: “;Europe has had a history of random terrorist acts, but today Europeans fear the financial crisis more than they fear terrorism. A survey by the European Commission released Friday (November 25) and reported by the EUObserver found that 34% percent of Europeans rank the financial situation as the biggest threat to European security, just ahead of terrorism at 33%. Other security concerns mentioned were organized crime (21%), poverty (16%) and illegal immigration (16%). Obviously more than one concern was allowed per person since the total adds to 120%.”
[3] Information derived from Merriam Webster’s dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/security
Works Cited
Araújo, Susana. “Images of Terror, Narratives of Captivity: The Visual Spectacle of 9/11 and Its Transatlantic Projections.”Symbiosis: A Journal of Anglo-American Relations. 11(2): 2007. 27-47.
Araújo, Susana. “Introdução Geral.” (In)Seguranças no Espaço Urbano. Perspetivas Culturais. Araújo et al (org). 2012. Famalicão. Edições Húmus.
Arends, J. Frederik M. “From Homer to Hobbes and Beyond — Aspects of’ security’ in the European Tradition” in Globalization and Environmental Challenges Reconceptualizing Security in the 21st Century. Hans Günter Brauch et al (org). Springer-Verlag: Berlin. 2008. (263-279), 264.
Kaplan, Amy. “In the Name of Security”. Review of International American Studies. 3. 3– 4.1. Special Issue on Terror and Security. 2009. (15-24), 24.
Lewis, Charlton T. et al. A Latin Dictionary. Founded on Andrew's Edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary. Revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short. Oxford at the Claredon Press. 1890. London: Henry Frownde, Oxford University Press.
Versluys, Kristiaan. Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. 2009. New York: Columbia University Press.
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