Spatialities of security and surveillance: Managing spaces, separations and circulations at sport mega events

Abstract

The paper explores empirically how contemporary security and surveillance practices and techniques permeate the production and management of everyday urban spaces. It does so from three interrelated perspectives, focusing on separation and access control, the management of circulations, and the internal organisation and monitoring of specific spatial enclaves. This analysis draws upon empirical insights into security governance at the European Football Championships 2008 in Switzerland and Austria (Euro 2008).The paper also considers a number of more fundamental insights with regard to the intertwined spatialities of surveillance, relating to enclosure and circulation, fixity and fluidity, external separation and internal organisation. Three key issues stand out: firstly, the complex challenges associated with the necessary balancing and reconciliation of the core requirements of mobility and security, circulation and enclosure in contemporary security governance; secondly, the “atmospheric” implications of spatially articulated security and surveillance measures; and, thirdly, the logics and impacts of surveillance with regard to the orchestrations of urban life.