Notes on "Security and Anxiety in the City", Part of Living the Global City Series at UBC
By Richard Eriksson on June 2, 2006 - 5:47pm
On May 31st, I attened a seminar on security and anxiety in the city as part of UBC's Living the Global City series. (Incidentally, I heard about it through an event listing on Urban Vancouver.) Speaking were Elvin Wyly, associate professor of geography at UBC; Stephen Graham, professor of Human Geography at Durham University; John Richardson of Pivot Legal Society and Walter McKay, a retired Vancouver police officer now working in a civilian role for the Los Angeles Police Department. I recorded the panel (not-so-great quality 91 MB MP3), and I took blurry photos and notes, which follow.
Stephen Graham started off the panel by asking the audience to consider 4 key questions about security in cities:
- whose security and security for what? He talked about the danger of fetishizing security, as other risks get downplayed (e.g. hunting terrorists over hurricane preparation) and the resulting marginalizing of security experts who talk about non-terrorist security. He mentions silent threats such as deaths caused by auto accidents, that is, hidden risks are almost denied to exist.
- how are threats portrayed and what are those portrayals justifying? He cites pre-emptive security, surveillance, profiling categories of people, and using software to root out suspicious people. (This is reminiscent of Larry Lessig's code is law argument: that while legislation and convention might say one thing, but what engineers program into software and hardware can end up as de facto law and enforcement.) Graham also talked about justification for security measures, going as far as to claim that the existence of the Western way of life is of life—in fact, the existence of the West itself justifies, in some people's minds, increased security measures.
- who profits and benefits fro portrayals? The corporate security complex—Haliburton trotted out as the single example—stands to gain.
- what are the internal contradictions? The process of building a state security aparatus by conservatives who frown upon state-building in other areas.
John Richardson spoke next, spending most of his time on the Downtown Eastside (DTES). He asked the audience to consider their relationship to the DTES and how addressing suffering as the enemy tends to be not successful, increase the problem and undermine other solutions. The DTES is heavily policed, controlling, he argued, the residents for the benefit of those outside. He talked about Project Torpedo, a Vancouver Police Department sweep of the DTES targetting drug dealers, which drove the problem to other parts of the city, allowed other drug dealers to rise up, and undermined dealing with addiction. The problem becomes self-perpetuating when resources address a problem, making that problem worse, making those fighting the problem need more resources, which tends to make them highlight how bad the problem is, and so on.
Walter McKay spoke next, speaking about the "twilight zone of legality in Skid Row", noting the creation of "the other" in trying to solve the problems of the DTES as well as in fighting terrorism. He also noted the chasm between police and society, down to the different uniforms and distinctive cars. (He even mentioned something I had noticed, that the cars for private security companies are starting to look a lot like police cars.) Police are increasingly trained as urban warriors, and though that was always true, it's more overt. He then wondered where the outrage was over NSA wiretaps. (Jan points to an answer.) We're more tolerant of aggressive activity, says McKay. He relates the story of once thinking that he should carry his gun with him off-duty on SkyTrain, but catching himself, wondering if the environment changed, or whether his mentality changed.
Questions—and commentary—from the audience followed with the panelists' reactions.
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