Race, Affect and Security

The course explores narratives and understandings of security from a sociological perspective using affect and critical race theories. With a focus on affective dimensions of security we look at topics of surveillance, profiling, prevention, criminalisation and counterterrorism while understanding both past and present forms and roles of racialisation within narratives of threat and safety. This includes discourses of migration and the formation of minorities in different contexts such as the so-called ‘Muslim question’ in Europe. Understanding race as a social and imagined construct with real-life consequences, the module looks at discriminatory design, the notion of race as technology as well as how race is used within technologies of control. The readings will provide understandings of intersectional configurations of the question of security, including aspects of gender, dis/ability and class. Asking ‘what is it that makes us safe?’, the module further introduces academic work on imagination beyond ‘security’ including affective relationality, care as well as abolitionist research and praxis.

Learning Objectives and Outcomes

1. Students are able to demonstrate knowledge of different theorizations and understandings of ‘security’ and how these relate to each other.
2. Students are able to critically analyse racial and affective dimensions of ‘security’ and understandings of threat.
3. Students understand and are able to recognise and theorise discriminatory design, and further have a broad understanding of race as technology and race as a social construct with real-life consequences.
4. Students are familiar with intersectional approaches to sociological research and are able to apply an intersectional lens in their own research.