Collective Discussion: Sensing Security

The fields of International Political Sociology (IPS) and Critical Security Studies (CSS) have examined the various ways in which people and objects are interpreted and perceived as security threats. This scholarship has recently gained new momentum due to the increasing use of sensor technologies, which are changing how security is understood and practiced. This collective discussion piece brings together five scholars who share a concern with the non-neutral ways of “sensing” and “making sense” of security. The discussion advances the research agenda by examining the mediated practices of rendering security perceptible and actionable, and examining its political implications. Illustrated through empirical cases, we make three contributions to the discussion about sensing (in)security. First, we examine how sensing technologies are understood to imitate or extend human perception. Second, we consider how technological mediation simultaneously reduces and amplifies sensing and sense-making. Third, we analyze how these processes are constitutive of relations of power.