ABSTRACT

Urban security presents equally difficult challenges for both security studies and policymakers, since it crosses divides between existing disciplinary boundaries, political institutions and jurisdictions. This chapter empirically maps the field of urban security production, with a special focus on where and how to locate forms of civic engagement and participation. It presents an analysis that shows the complex and overlapping constellations of security problems, security actors, and security solutions are multi-dimensional and feature many layers. In order to conceptually clarify the multiple and blurred stakes of urban security, the chapter provides an empirically informed perspective that maps how security problems present themselves, which actors are entitled, competent, and/or willing to solve them, and how such problems are envisioned to be solved. The urban characteristics of encounter, conflict, and difference must however not be mistaken for a legitimization of social injustice. There is particular emphasis on the role of civic participation in the multiple productions of urban security.