“From Kidnaps to Contagious Diseases”: Elite Rescue and the Strategic Expansion of the Transnational Security Consultancy Industry1

Abstract

This article focuses on the transnational security consultancy industry and its delivery of elite rescue services across the globe's most hostile regions. It charts the evolution of leading firms through successive strategic alliances, from initial collaborations with the kidnap and ransom insurance sector in Latin America to more recent ventures with international providers of emergency medical assistance. While the accumulated rescue toolkit of these guardians of global mobility is primarily targeted toward protecting those affluent travelers who venture into the global south, it is increasingly also filtering back up into the global north, most specifically into the American homeland by a process of “neo-liberal (re)turn.” Acknowledging recent cross-disciplinary discourse on the securitized containment of “deviant” travel, increased research attention is drawn to the deployment of sophisticated security solutions and their facilitation of the globetrotting elite.