Table Of ContentRoutledge New Security Studies
TRANSLATIONS OF
SECURITY
A FRAMEWORK FOR THE STUDY OF
UNWANTED FUTURES
Trine Villumsen Berling, Ulrik Pram Gad,
Karen Lund Petersen, and Ole Wæver
Translations of Security
This book scrutinises how contemporary practices of security have come to rely on
many different translations of security, risk, and danger.
Institutions of national security policies are currently undergoing radical conceptual
and organisational changes, and this book presents a novel approach for how to study
and politically address the new situation. Complex and uncertain threat environments,
such as terrorism, climate change, and the global financial crisis, have paved the way for
new forms of security governance that have profoundly transformed the ways in which
threats are handled today. Crucially, there is a decentralisation of the management of
security, which is increasingly handled by a broad set of societal actors that previously
were not considered powerful in the conduct of security affairs. This transformation of
security knowledge and management changes the meaning of traditional concepts and
practices, and calls for investigation into the many meanings of security implied when
contemporary societies manage radical dangers, risks, and threats. It is necessary to
study both what these meanings are and how they developed from the security practices
of the past. Addressing this knowledge gap, the book asks how different ideas about
threats, risk, and dangers meet in the current practices of security, broadly understood,
and with what political consequences.
This book will be of interest to students of critical security studies, anthropology,
risk studies, science and technology studies and International Relations.
Trine Villumsen Berling is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for Inter-
national Studies (DIIS).
Ulrik Pram Gad is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies (DIIS).
Karen Lund Petersen is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International
Studies (DIIS) and Professor II at Stavanger University, Norway.
Ole Wæver is a Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and is the
founder of CAST (Centre for Advanced Security Theory) and CRIC (Centre for
Resolution of International Conflicts).
Series: Routledge New Security Studies
The aim of this book series is to gather state-of-the-art theoretical reflection and
empirical research into a core set of volumes that respond vigorously and dyna-
mically to new challenges to security studies scholarship. Routledge New Security
Studies is a continuation of the PRIO New Security Studies series.
Series Editors: J. Peter Burgess, École Normale Superieur (ENS), Paris
Energy Security Logics in Europe
Threat, Risk or Emancipation?
Izabela Surwillo
Crypto-Politics
Encryption and Democratic Practices in the Digital Era
Linda Monsees
Negotiating Intractable Conflicts
Readiness Theory Revisited
Amira Schiff
Standardization and Risk Governance
A Multi-Disciplinary Approach
Edited by Odd Einar Olsen, Kirsten Juhl, Preben Lindøe and Ole Andreas Engen
Nordic Societal Security
Convergence and Divergence
Edited by Sebastian Larsson and Mark Rhinard
The Molecularisation of Security
Medical Countermeasures, Stockpiling and the Governance of Biological Threats
Christopher Long
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/
Routledge-New-Security-Studies/book-series/RNSS
Translations of Security
A Framework for the Study of
Unwanted Futures
Trine Villumsen Berling
Ulrik Pram Gad
Karen Lund Petersen and
Ole Wæver
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 Trine Villumsen Berling, Ulrik Pram Gad, Karen Lund
Petersen, and Ole Wæver
The right of Trine Villumsen Berling, Ulrik Pram Gad, Karen Lund
Petersen, and Ole Wæver to be identified as authors of this work
has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Open Access version of this book, available at
www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Berling, Trine Villumsen, author. | Gad, Ulrik Pram, author. |
Petersen, Karen Lund, author. | Wæver, Ole, 1960- author.
Title: Translations of security : a framework for the study of unwanted
futures / Trine Villumsen Berling, Ulrik Pram Gad, Karen Lund
Petersen, and Ole Wæver.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Routledge new security studies | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021015393 (print) | LCCN 2021015394 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032007090 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032007151 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003175247 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: National security‐‐Methodology. | International
relations‐‐Risk assessment. | Interdisciplinary approach to knowledge.
| Intercultural communication.
Classification: LCC UA10.5 .B47 2022 (print) | LCC UA10.5 (ebook) |
DDC 355/.03‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015393
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021015394
ISBN: 978-1-032-00709-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-00715-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-17524-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003175247
Typeset in Times New Roman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of figures vi
List of tables vii
List of briefs and boxes viii
Preface x
1 Introduction: translations of security 1
2 Theorising translation 27
3 Translations across disciplines and professions 50
4 Translations across cultures 104
5 Translations across scales 142
6 Conclusion: analysing translations of security 195
Index 212
Figures
2.1 Translations as attempts at perfection, distortion and
articulation between the ‘vanishing points’ of incarnation,
incommensurability, and emergence 37
2.2 Translations of security according to Copenhagen School
securitization theory 38
2.3 Translations of security according to the security/risk literature 39
2.4 Translations of security according to ANT-like security
studies 39
2.5 Translations of security according to Paris inspired securiti-
zation theory 40
2.6 The approach to translations of security in this book 41
6.1 Oscillation of conceptual tightness in Security Studies 208
Tables
3.1 Translation zone between functionally differentiated
expertise – disciplines and professions 62
3.2 Translation zone between expertise and non-expertise 80
4.1 Translation zones across cultures – spectrum from national to
organisational 119
4.2 Translation zone between cultures and universalisation 120
5.1 Translations across scales 160
5.2 Translation zone between scales and networks 164
6.1 Translation zones negotiating support of state and knowledge 197
6.2 Our analytical grid pointing out potential and potent
translation zones 197
6.3 Our definitions and examples of where to look and what to
look for when analysing the translation of unwanted futures 199
6.4 Example of case study notes guided by our analytical grid
and definitions of what to look for 201
Briefs and Boxes
Briefs
1.1 Translations of security 3
1.2 Analysing translations of security 17
6.1 How to carry out an empirical translations analysis? 200
Boxes
1.1 The Other State of Emergency 20
2.1 Who heard what Trump said to Putin? Only one other
American 42
3.1 Securitization in medicine. Danger replacement and
politically productive dreams of safety 55
3.2 “It is difficult to look busy while thinking”:
Translation Advice for Human Terrain Teams (HTTs) 57
3.3 Translating energy security in the United States:
What happened to climate change? 63
3.4 Translating nature, law and sovereignty in the Arctic: a
question of security? 67
3.5 Beyond control. The economic translation of security 70
3.6 Talking Curves at Montreux +5 76
3.7 Interventions into Intelligence: Some Early Observations 85
3.8 I see dead people 93
3.9 Security and the anthropology of potentiality 95
4.1 Hot Tea with Sugar and the Translation(s) of Torture 110
4.2 “In this house we’re revolutionaries, damn it!”. A visceral
translation to Cuba 114
4.3 Translations of security cascading at Thule 125
4.4 The security of cultural rights 131
5.1 “To live on the edge is not the same as to live on the margins” 150
5.2 Translating emergency in Alaska 153
5.3 Conflicting universalisms 157
5.4 Securitizing things: Recovering a lost material history of the
fear of the next war 165
Briefs and Boxes ix
5.5 Translating national threats to individual security: Muslims in
the Danish Armed Forces 169
5.6 How the single Leg Amputee Sports Club Became a Matter
of Peacebuilding 173
5.7 Translating Visual Insecurity: The case of HIV/AIDS 177
5.8 Voices of Data Doubles 182
5.9 Visual translations of (in)security 189
