The Post Brexit Security Field on the Island of Ireland
|
Project Commenced: 9/1/2022 |
Project Completion Date: 9/1/2024 |
Project Title
The Post-Brexit Security Field on the Island of Ireland: The Role of Civil Society in Everyday Security (BORDEX)
Project PI/s
Dr Matt Bowden (TU Dublin) and Dr Amanda Kramer
Awarding Bodies
Higher Education Authority
Other staff or partners involved
Dr Allely Albert
Project Overview
The project adopts a wide definition of security including various sectors’ roles in the production of safety, peace and security, incorporating both formal institutions and informal actors. The literature on plural policing and governance of security teaches us that there is a multiplicity of actors deployed to address the nexus of risks associated with specific security challenges. This includes police forces, but also other state institutions, the private sector, and civil society, as well as the partnerships between them. The research is proposed also in the context of the security networks literature which conceptualises security as taking place in ‘nodes’ or combinations of actors in assemblages, as opposed to more hierarchical, bureaucratic forms of security governance. The proposed research fills a gap in the literature by specifically focusing upon ‘informal’ actors and their role in security provision on the island of Ireland, including in relation to police-community relations, crime prevention and community safety, and peacebuilding. The collaboration will focus primarily on the realities constructed in the context of Brexit for security and peacebuilding, with particular attention to areas of tension and to the border region. The central research questions address what and who are the key formal and informal institutions; what roles they contribute to peace and security in the everyday context; what actors regard as the value of civil society in the process of building security; and the futures of security governance, including in a shared island context? Additionally, to explore the gender differentials of the security, the research asks how women and men experience and participate in security governance. The research will comprise an ethnographic immersion in four sites where security issues are critical, together with interviews and an online survey of security actors, to map out and gauge, inter alia, the value and potential of civil society.
Other information