GEOGG089 Globalisation and Security

Term Two: 15 credits

Staff: Dr Alan Ingram

This module aims to develop a critical understanding of relationships between globalisation and security via an engagement with social theory and the exploration of specific case study areas.

Drawing in particular on critical accounts of governmentality and neoliberalism, the module considers how rationalities, technologies and practices of security are shifting in response to concerns about globalization. Rather than focusing primarily on security threats, it examines security itself as a significant factor in shaping how societies - and globalisation more generally - work. The module begins by developing a critical theoretical framework for thinking about globalisation and security and then examines a series of case study topics (e.g. money, human mobility, terrorism, the drugs trade, global health, urban landscapes, energy and climate change) to consider how security is conceptualised, practiced, experienced and contested across a variety of sites and spaces.

Assessment:

100% coursework – 1 x 3000 word essay

Suggested readings

Duffield M (2007) Development, Security and Unending War: Governing the World of Peoples Cambridge, Polity

Foucault M (2007) Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977-1978 Houndmills, Palgrave Macmillan

Graham S (2010) Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism London, Verso

Ingram A and Dodds K eds (2009) Spaces of Security and Insecurity: Geographies of the War on Terror Farnham, Ashgate