Matt Bowden

Safety, Security and the Anthropocene: Sustainable Security Fields in the 21^st Century

Abstract: Writers on Criminology and Anthropocene as the ‘human epoch’ have called for a re-imagining of the discipline along these lines, highlighting that the Anthropocene poses two sources of risk: that of climate change and that of technological change, especially that which follows artificial intelligence. The paper presents some reflections on the pandemic as a global Anthropogenic moment and some of its more localised implications for our security. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us many lessons on climate change and the interdependencies between humans and non-human species. It has ultimately raised some old questions about the basis of social solidarity between humans, but also the need for a new ethic of care between humanity and all non-human and ‘natural’ forces. Indeed, the Anthropocene, as ‘human’ epoch, potentially inverts long established ideas in the social sciences on ‘nature’ as cause, when humans are not the causal agent in ecological change. Reflecting on the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the paper reflects on the ethic of care as central form of cultural capital required to build a sustainable security field in contemporary times and sets forward a series of proposed empirical challenges for security studies and for criminology.

Dr Matt Bowden is a Senior Lecturer (Sociology), School of Social Sciences, Law and Education and former Head of Research, Faulty of Arts & Humanities TU Dublin. Dr Bowden’s research interests are in the sociology of crime and security governance with particular interest in questions of space (urban / rural). More recent work has focused on the fracturing of bureaucratic police organisations and the formation of security fields. Current funded research projects include Post-Brexit Security Field on the Island of Ireland (BORDEX). Dr Bowden is also researching on policing and security related topics on security and consumption, security fields in west Africa, rural security in Ireland, and on issues of policing culture and habitus. Matt is series editor with Alistair Harkness for Bristol University Press ‘Research in Rural Crime’ book series, and is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences at the University of New England, New South Wales, Australia. Dr Bowden is a founder member of the TU Dublin Security Research Group and a senior member of the European University of Technology’s Culture and Technology Lab (ECt+). He is former Treasurer (2012-2017) and Vice-President (2017-2018) of the Sociological Association of Ireland and is a member of the Social Sciences Committee of the Royal Irish Academy (2022-2026).

E-mail: matt.bowden@TUDublin.ie