Matt Bowden

Short Resume

Matt Bowden leads the Culture & Society Research Hub at Technological University Dublin, Ireland, and is a senior lecturer in sociology at the School of Social Sciences, Law & Education. His research interests include rural crime, the study of security fields along with security in the context of the Anthropocene epoch. He is co-founder of the Bristol University Press book series on Research in Rural Crime and a member of the international editorial board of the International Journal of Rural Criminology. He has also been a key contributor to the growing interest in applying the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu in security studies and in criminology more generally.

Title of the presentation

Security Fields Pre- and Post-COVID-19: Some Conceptual, Empirical and Practical Challenges

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has potentially altered how we think of governing crises, it has raised some serious challenges for security governance. Considerable thought has been given in the criminological literature on related ideas of ‘nodal security governance’, ‘plural policing’ and networked and relational systems that are said to augmnent, and in some instances replace, police bureaucratic organisations in managing complex, globally produced risks. Common across these perspectives is that security is produced by a multiplicity of actors including, but not exclusively, police organizations. In these ‘nodes’ and ‘networks’, actors share information and data as forms of capital and can convert these resoures into more powerful sources of legitimacy. This presentation puts forward a relational conceptualization of security production and how it might be captured empirically. It draws upon an empirical study of security producers in Ireland ranging from public, private and civil security actors, showing that these exist within a relational yet competitive field. The presentation considers whether actors have the mental and practical capabilities for ordering and controlling future crises given their current frameworks, capabilities and cultural tools have been formed in the pre-COVID-19 security governance paradigm.

Keywords

security governance, COVID-19, field concepts, relational methodology, governance paradigm