How to make European safe spaces: some paradoxes from the peripheries

Beskrivning

Keynote lecture at GLASE final conference. Abstract: Anyone who has lived on the wrong side of the tracks will know that security is a relative term. A security camera makes some people feel reassured, while it makes others feel threatened; some think that walls make good neighbours, whereas others think that walls create prisons on one side and exclusions on the other. Securing the borders of the European Union against spontaneous migration might make some people feel safe, while it leads to the death of others. Security, as an idea, is axiomatically value-laden, embedding within it basic premises about what is to be protected and what counts as the threat. In the context of Europe, these values have become contested terrain in recent years: differences in opinion about what counts as the most fundamental European values have grown starker and wider. Through ethnographically considering some of the crisscrossing dilemmas that appear at the peripheries of the European region, places where it is not clear which side is Europe and which is not, the paper explores the paradox of trying to generate security over a territory on behalf of an idea, Europe, whose meaning is multiple and contested.

Period	14 juni 2019
Händelsetitel	GLASE Final Conference
Typ av evenemang	Konferens
Plats	Helsinki, FinlandVisa på karta
Omfattning	Internationell