Naming the city

On the Governing Forces of Narratives in the Formation of Security Dispositifs

Bibliographic Data

ID7737523
AuthorsLeón von der Burg (0009-0008-4143-9710, Universität Hamburg, corresponding author), Susanne Krasmann (0000-0002-9868-8581, Universität Hamburg)
Year2024
Volume12
Issue1
Pages33-47
Publication date2024-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Studies on Security (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2162-4887 • E-ISSN: 2162-4909
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/21624887.2023.2286770
OpenAlexW4388941702
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited49

Narratives, it is often said, help us make sense of the world. They structure reality and reduce complexity. Yet narratives, we argue, are also visionary. They open up worlds, they allow us to imagine alternative realities and render a matter urgent. In our study of counterterrorism exercises for the German police we examine the 'governing forces' of narratives: Narratives help to connect the dots and create a sense of how new forms of terrorism have entered urban life, thus making new forms of security responses seem indispensable. They also help bring the police trainees close to the realness of a threat as well as of the training situation. 'Naming the city' where terror attacks have happened works like a vehicle that transports the experience. Bringing approaches of narrative criminology into dialogue with studies of governmentality allows us to capture the forms of subjectivity that the trainings produce. Rather than a top-down endeavour of the state, security is better understood in how it is put into practice – and how the unforeseeable is meant to be embodied

Aesthetics · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Governmentality · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subjectivity · Terrorism · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Law · Philosophy

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Open DOIOpen Access