A politics of living (in)security: the case for decentring security through ethnographic methods in Vernacular Security Studies

This article offers a methodological contribution to the vernacular turn in security research via an ethnographically-led politics of living (in)security. It argues for a decentring of security expressions that not only recognises pluralism, but also emphasises the inherently situational nature of insecurities that are, necessarily, time-, space-, and person-bound. To decentre security in this way is to reorient vernacular methods away from the seeking out of isolated experiences of security evident in much existing work. Instead, the emphasis here is on waiting: on experiencing, feeling, watching, moving and listening to participants’ encounters of (in)security. Decentring security and allowing (in)security to emerge situationally allows researchers to investigate not just what people say, but how, where and why they say something in a given context. This methodological shift, I argue, opens the possibility for a multiplicity of individuals and experiences to be included in security research even in the absence of explicit security speak. In so doing, I challenge longstanding assumptions in Vernacular Security Studies (VSS) about what the vernacular is, how it transpires, and the appropriate methodological tools for its access. This, I argue, is necessary for VSS to truly avoid speaking ‘for’ security’s subject