ABSTRACT
Traumatic events like the London bombings of 7/7 can change people’s lives in ways they could never have anticipated. People can feel disturbed and shaken up, even if they were not directly involved but have spent time feeling anxious about relatives or friends who had not immediately replied to phone calls. People can have been affected in different ways, often quite surprising to themselves. Suddenly everyday routines and taken-forgranted assumptions about their lives had been shaken and they can feel that, as they are obliged to live within new landscapes of fear, they are bereft of a language that can help them to make sense of how the world seems to have changed so utterly while, in other ways, they are still surrounded by their familiar relationships and routines of work. The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York, 11 March 2004 in Madrid and 7 July 2005 in London showed how Western capitals were no longer to be considered invulnerable but had become targets of attacks that governments could no longer hope to protect their citizens from. As there was a new landscape of urban fear, so there were global risks and terrors that could make themselves felt with devastating consequences.
