This chapter was written with Lisa Stampnitzky for the edited volume by Philippe Bourbeau. Preprint available here.
“In contrast to other disciplines, “security” has not traditionally been a central focus of sociological research. This is not to say that sociologists have not studied problems, sites, interactions, and discourses that are relevant to what has elsewhere been classified as security. But sociologists have tended not to conceptualize their work as such. Over the last 15 years, however, this inattention to security has begun to shift, and sociologists have increasingly begun to frame their work around the concept. This has included those who study the terrains of security as it is understood in other disciplines—the realms of states, warfare, and political violence. But it has also included sociologists at the core of the discipline who research its traditional concerns of economic inequality, the family, and other social institutions.”
Greggor Mattson 