2nd Edition
Research Methods in Critical Security Studies An Introduction
This textbook surveys new and emergent methods for doing research in critical security studies, filling a gap in the literature. The second edition has been revised and updated.
This textbook is a practical guide to research design in this increasingly established field. Arguing for serious attention to questions of research design and method, the book develops accessible scholarly overviews of key methods used across critical security studies, such as ethnography, discourse analysis, materiality, and corporeal methods. It draws on prominent examples of each method’s objects of analysis, relevant data, and forms of data collection. The book’s defining feature is the collection of diverse accounts of research design from scholars working within each method, each of which is a clear and honest recounting of a specific project’s design and development. This second edition is extensively revised and expanded. Its 33 contributors reflect the sheer diversity of critical security studies today, representing various career stages, scholarly interests, and identities. This book is systematic in its approach to research design but keeps a reflexive and pluralist approach to the question of methods and how they can be used. The second edition has a new forward-looking conclusion examining future research trends and challenges for the field.
This book will be essential reading for upper-level students and researchers in the field of critical security studies, and of much interest to students in International Relations and across the social sciences.
1. Introduction
Mark B. Salter, Philippe M. Frowd & Can E. Mutlu
PART I: RESEARCH DESIGN
2. Research Design
Mark B. Salter
3. Wondering as Research Attitude
Luis Lobo-Guerrero
4. Do You Have What It Takes? Accounting for Emotional and Material Capacities
Anne-Marie D'Aoust
5. Attuning to 'Mess': Not Presuming to Know Sanctuary
Vicki Squire
6. Engaging Collaborative Writing Critically
Miguel de Larrinaga & Marc G. Doucet
7. Accessing the ‘Field' of Terrorism Studies
Lisa Stampnitzky
PART II: ETHNOGRAPHY
8. Ethnography
Philippe M. Frowd
9. Travelling with Ethnography
Wanda Vrasti
10. Reflexive Inquiry
Rahel Kunz
11. Listening to Migrant Stories: Considerations on Voice
Heather L. Johnson
12. Learning by Feeling: Emotional Intelligence and Fieldwork
Jesse Crane-Seeber
13. Doing Sensitive Research: Fieldwork Ethics and Methodologies
Megan Daigle
14. ‘China is the Safest Country in the World!’: Translation, Travel, and the Problem of Fit’
Jonna Nyman
15. Methods that Mirror Migration: Ethics and Entanglement En Route
Noelle Brigden
16. Researching Security Decisions at the Border (or Serendipity and Secret Places)
Alexandra Hall
17. ‘Dangerous' Fieldwork
Jonathan Luke Austin
PART III: PRACTICES
18. Practices
Mark B. Salter
19. The Practice of Writing
Hannah Hughes
20. Researching Anti-Deportation: Socialization as Method
Peter Nyers
21. Expertise in the Aviation Security Field
Mark B. Salter
22. Mapping Urban Security Practices
Jonas Hagmann
23. Following Turkish Border Practices
Beste İşleyen
PART IV: DISCOURSE
24. Discourse
Philippe M. Frowd, Can E. Mutlu & Mark B. Salter
25. Archives
Luis Lobo-Guerrero
26. Legislative Practices
Andrew W. Neal
27. Problems, Tools, and Creativity: A Pragmatist Approach to Emotion and Security
Eric Van Rythoven
28. Keeping Secrets: Freedom of Information Requests and Critical Security Studies
Emily Gilbert
29. Understanding Discourses of Arctic In/Security
Wilfrid Greaves
PART V: CORPOREAL
30. The Corporeal
Can E. Mutlu & Philippe M. Frowd
31. Theorizing the Body in IR
Rosemary E. Shinko
32. Reading the Maternal Body as Political Event
Tina Managhan
33. Sonic Encounters in Critical Security Studies: Reflections from Ethnographic Fieldwork in Morocco
Michelle Weitzel
34. Thinking Like a Microbe
Gitte du Plessis
PART VI: MATERIALITY
35. Materiality
Mark B. Salter & Can E. Mutlu
36. Infrastructure
Claudia Aradau
37. The F-35
Srdjan Vucetic
38. Complicating Risk, Home and the Field: Security Research in Spaces of Control
Nicole Sunday Grove
39. Unlearning Research Methods: Stories of Attunement and Failure
Debbie Lisle
40. Security Technologies and Criticality
Mathias Leese
41. Materiality and the Production of Objects
Joanna Tidy
PART VII: CONCLUSION
42. Emerging Trends
Mark B. Salter, Philippe M. Frowd & Can E. Mutlu
Biography
Mark B. Salter is Professor in the School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada. He is the author/editor of eight books, including Making Things International 1 and 2 (2015 and 2016). He is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Security Dialogue.
Can E. Mutlu is Associate Professor of Global Politics at Acadia University in Wolfville, NS, Canada. His research interests include borders, migration, technology, and security. He is the co-editor of Architectures of Security: Design, Control, Mobility (with Benjamin J. Muller).
Philippe M. Frowd is Associate Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. His research focuses on the governance of irregular migration and border control in the Sahel region of West Africa. He is the author of Security at the Borders (2018).
‘Questions of method have become increasing pertinent to the pedagogies and research practices of critical security studies. Research Methods in Critical Security Studies (2nd edition) makes a timely contribution by providing a range of answers to these questions. In doing so, RMCSS strikes a judicious balance that will appeal to seasoned researchers looking to adopt new approaches as well as students who may be embarking upon their first substantive research project in the field. While richly informed by cutting edge conceptual, methodological, and theoretical literature, the discussions are practical, precise, and plain-spoken—they cut straight to the chase in order to equip the reader with capabilities to do reflexive research in critical security studies and navigate common challenges found within and across methods. With new chapters and updated materials, the 2nd edition captures recent developments within the field while maintaining the accessibility and pragmatism that were hallmarks of the first edition. As such, the 2nd edition is an excellent teaching and research resource for everyone in the field.’
Kyle Grayson, Newcastle University, UK
'This volume shows how doing critical and reflexive research can go hand-in-hand with rigorous methodology. The book is indispensable to researchers in critical security studies broadly defined, from graduate student to project leader. It is filled with useful practical examples and fascinating case studies. I have used it in my thesis seminar for years, and it is great that we now have an updated and expanded second edition, that combines attention to state-of-the-art theory with clear advice on practical means and modes of doing research.'Marieke de Goede, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
'If ''methods'' are off-the-shelf tools that can be casually picked up and deployed, then this is not a methods book. It is instead an invitation to critical inquiry, and a rich tapestry of examples showing how attitudes of reflexivity and a healthy skepticism about received concepts and categories are in no way incompatible with clear and sustained attention to questions of research design. This is a rich feast for critical researchers to devour.'
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, American University, USA
