ABSTRACT
The research presented in this chapter draws on my previous engagement with securitization theory, and retains the goal of critically developing ways it can be applied to new types of investigations. After explicating the speech act fundamentals of the approach in order to apply it to broader types of political orders and functions, I have been interested to see how insights from other theories beyond speech act theory could be added to the securitization framework without distortion to its main premises. In order to do this, I have explored how pictoral text has been interwoven with security arguments, and how semiotics can be used to expand the range of methods available for students of securitization (Vuori 2010a, 2011b).
