ABSTRACT
Security is a promiscuous concept. It is wantonly deployed in fields as diverse as social security, health and safety, financial security, policing and community safety, national security, military security, human security, environmental security, international relations and peacekeeping. For security to keep such varied bedfellows as these, it must be not only promiscuous but also inconstant, appearing as different objects of desire in different places and at different times. Yet security wears these multiple identities so lightly it is easy to overlook the fact that it is not a single, immutable concept but many. As Valverde has observed: ‘[t]he abstract noun “security” is an umbrella term that both enables and conceals a very diverse array of governing practices, budgetary practices, political and legal practices, and social and cultural values and habits’ (Valverde 2001: 90).
