Preliminary results: RGS-IBG Annual Conference and RC-21

While fieldwork is still underway, the UK team presented preliminary results at two major international conferences this summer. At the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference 2022 in Newcastle, UK, Sam Berlin spoke in the session Spatialised responses to vulnerability and harm: exploring geographies of practice. His paper, ‘Mass violence, securitization and social difference: Everyday (in)securities after the Plymouth “incel” shooting,’ contrasted official security programmes with how diverse populations address a range of security concerns based on experiences of public violence in and around Plymouth. The team also hosted a session titled Securing and recovering urban atmospheres?, which brought together researchers working on the geography and anthropology of security in field sites from Birmingham to Lebanon and Burkina Faso. Sara Fregonese and Paul Simpson‘s paper ‘Atmospheres of (counter)terrorism: productions, governance, territories,’ set out a new research agenda for studying the affective dimensions of terror and counterterrorist securitisation. Carrie Benjamin‘s paper, ‘Everyday atmospheres of (counter)terrorism in Birmingham,’ explored the atmospheric impact of hostile vehicle mitigation in Birmingham city centre and the role of aesthetics in normalising counterterrorism for the public. Benjamin also spoke at the RC21 Conference in Athens, Greece on the panel Everyday crisis, beyond the eventful in August. The panel focused on how people cope with crisis atmospheres through everyday forms of acceptance and resistance.