ABSTRACT

Showing how the upswell of paranoia and growing demand for security in the post-9/11 world has paradoxically created widespread insecurity, these varied essays examine how this anxiety-laden mindset erodes spaces both architectural and personal, encroaching on all aspects of everyday life. Starting from the most literal level—barricades and barriers in front of buildings, beefed up border patrols, gated communities, "safe rooms,"—to more abstract levels—enhanced surveillance at public spaces such as airports, increasing worries about contagion, the psychological predilection for fortified space—the contributors cover the full gamut of securitized public life that is defining the zeitgeist of twenty-first century America

chapter |22 pages

Empire of the Insensate

chapter |18 pages

Planet America

Empire's New Land Grab

chapter |13 pages

Waiting in African Cities

chapter |30 pages

Border Tours

Strategies of Surveillance, Tactics of Encroachment

chapter |13 pages

The Threat from Within

Protecting the Indefensible from the Indeterminate

chapter |35 pages

Blank Slates and Disaster Zones

The State, September 11, and the Displacement of Chinatown

chapter |20 pages

Back to Zero

Mourning in America

chapter |25 pages

The New Emotions of Home

Fear, Insecurity, and Paranoia

chapter |18 pages

Staged Authenticity Today

chapter |28 pages

Architecture Emblematic

Hardened Sites and Softened Symbols

chapter |19 pages

Me and My Monkey

What's Hiding in the Security State

chapter |26 pages

Thanatotactics

chapter |25 pages

‘The Poor Man's Airforce'

A Brief History of the Car Bomb