Circulations beyond nodes: (in)securities along the pipeline

Abstract

In this article, I draw attention to the way that critical security scholars have privileged governing nodes in their accounts of circulation and have consequently overlooked practices of security that are conducted between these nodal sites. As a result, the potential and actual mobilities of circulating entities (and their implications for security) have also been viewed within nodes. This has resulted in circulation being effectively reduced to lines between two or more points. I consequently call for security researchers to attend better to entities’ journeys. I use the case of natural gas’s movements within UK pipelines to demonstrate how such movements are productive of a variety of forms of (in)security and, in the process, highlight the role that the mobilities literature can play in bringing about a shift towards a broadened account of circulatory security.