Archipelagos of Fear: CT technology and the securitisation of everyday life

In this chapter, I re-examine the transformation of our cities under the impression of recent terrorist attacks from a critical perspective. I argue that a ‘discourse of fear’ enables a process that turns ever more of our public spaces into ‘safe spaces’ which are essentially ‘quasi-public’ only – quasi-public in the sense that they can be accessed only by those citizens fortunate enough to have the right credentials, thus excluding or ‘othering’ all those we deem to be ‘undesirables’, however defined. I point out that this exclusion already is a common practice – and not necessarily connected to the threat of terrorism. Rather, in my view a ‘hostile architecture’ has emerged that targets everyone who does not fit in. To defend my point of view, I discuss concepts such as ‘defensible space’, ‘architecture of fear’ and ‘archipelagos of fear’ in the shape of loosely connected inner-cities citadels and gated communities in the suburbs.