Provincialising security: materiality and sensoriality

Abstract

Security has come to embody a self-evident and much sought-after kind of good, and has come to colonise imaginaries, debates, policies, and large swathes of what social life means in various corners of the world. Echoing postcolonial calls for decentring that which is taken for granted, my essay seeks to provincialise security in three distinct ways. Drawing on my research on the securitisation of the Roma in Italy, first, I trace the transformation of the term sicurezza from safety to security in a recent-historical perspective, showing how the notion morphed from bodily integrity to a much more blurred–though taken for granted–concept. Second, using a non-representational approach grounded in new materialism, I show that what hides beneath the ubiquitous talk of sicurezza surrounding the Roma nowadays are dimensions of materiality and sensoriality that construct insecurity in a relational and ever-shifting manner. Third, I privilege the perspective of the Roma in a decolonising move that questions their securitisation and the overall framing of Roma-related concerns as a security problem. Finally, I show the productivity of the topology framework in provincialising both security, and the western-centric theory production around it.