ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces and analyses field interviews with doorstaff working within Sydney’s key night-time leisure precincts. It explores the changing nature of security and the insights this provides on broader issues of urban safety, conflict, violence and a public sense of (in)security after dark. It also unpacks the complex role that masculinities and masculine performance play in the persistence of an aggressive culture in doorwork and security operating in nightlife spaces. In doing so, it explores aspects of occupational change in relation to private security as it relates to masculinity and notions of bodies, danger, force and violence, as well as the growth and regulation of the night-time economy. The wider implications of these work practices for city surveillance and regulation are also considered. Finally, it discusses the working relationship between security and police in Sydney’s night-time economy from the perspective of security staff working in nightlife settings, including analysis of the status challenges inherent to the relationship and the impact these have on efforts to cooperate, coordinate and enhance ‘policing’ in the city after dark.
