Upcoming Event!

Re-imagining Security Labor A Series of Three In-Person Workshops in New York

November 7-11, 2024

This series on Re-imagining Security Labor explores the significance and global expansion of the security industry. The core aim of these workshops is to bring together conceptual discussions in the fields of security and labor to foreground and better understand their complex entanglements. We propose that viewing security as a form of labor, and viewing certain kinds of labor as a form of security, can provide new insights. This framework can elucidate the ways security regimes are produced, the mechanisms by which they are maintained, and the everyday tasks required to diffuse them widely throughout society. We are concerned with the ways that workers, consumers, and the public become complicit in maintaining these regimes, as well as the impact that security industries have on the lives of their employees and the wider society. 

Format and Attendance

Our format will be a series of 3 workshops:  November 7 at UAlbany, November 8 at CUNY, and November 11 at The New School.  We separated the locations to draw in different audiences and participants.  These are not differentiated by theme, however, so we will be carrying the overall discussion across the three venues, with amazing speakers and original talks at each one. We invite LaborTech members to attend!  The events are in-person only. If you are interested, please email Winnie (wrposter@proton.me) and she’ll add your name to the list for building access.

The Organizers

This workshop emerged from a larger project on Re-imagining Security Labour (SecLab) by four colleagues – Winifred Poster, Ed Schwarzschild, Erella Grassiani, and Tessa Diphoorn — which we started last spring as a Theme Group at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study.  We’re curious about what kinds of labor are included in security, the transnational scope of security, the hidden labor of security, how security tasks are diffused throughout what otherwise may seem non-security jobs, the race, class, gender, sexuality permutations of security labor, the labor of resisting security, and alternatives to security labor. As one can see, this includes both digital and physical kinds of labor, whether formally recognized as military, police, guarding, cybersecurity, or other kinds of work that have security components. Here’s a podcast and workshop in Amsterdam we did, as well as a piece we wrote on “Bullshit Security” (inspired by Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs)

The Partners and Sponsors

We are also grateful to our partners and sponsors who are providing space and funds to make this happen.  This includes the three venues, as well as the faculty there who have acted as our hosts. At University at Albany, State University of New York, we thank Prof. Ed Schwarzschild and the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS); Dean Robert Griffin, Vice Dean Jennifer Goodall, and the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity (CEHC); and Corinna Ripps Schaming and the University Art Museum. At City University of New York, we thank Sofya Aptekar and the School of Labor and Urban Studies. At The New School, we thank Prof. Sareeta Amrute, the Parsons School of Design, and the School of Strategic Design and Management.  Our sponsors also include Labor Tech Research Network, its members, and its book series at MIT Press on Labor and Technology (from which we have drawn several of the participants).  And last but not least, we are grateful to our colleague Erella Grassiani who has generously offered some of her research budget to help cover expenses for travel, food, and lodging for the out-of-town speakers.

Workshop 1:  University at Albany, SUNY, Thursday, November 7

10:15-10:45   A Word from Our Host, Dean Robert P. Griffin; Introduction on “Re-imagining Security Labor” with Workshop Organizers Tessa, Erella, Winnie, Ed, and Danny

10:45-11:30   Keynote by Adam Bouloukos, Former Director of UNRWA Affairs in the West Bank

1:00-2:00     Museum Tour of Art Exhibit Job Security: Voices and Views from the American Security Industry ​​​​​​​with authors Danny Goodwin and Edward Schwarzschild

2:30-3:45     Panel 1: What Does it Mean to Teach Future Security Workers? With Stephen Coulthart, Brian Nussbaum, Sam Jackson

4:00-5:15     Panel 2:  Layers of Security Labor 

Beatrice Jauregui​​​​​​​, University of Toronto, “Police Work and The Politics of Expendability in India”

Marieke de Goede, University of Amsterdam, “Reluctant Security Actors”

Barbara Sutton, Women and Gender Studies, University at Albany, SUNY, “Bulletproof Gear and Teachers as ‘Security Workers’”

5:15-5:30     Closing Remarks by Dean Robert P. Griffin

Workshop 2:  CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies, Friday, November 8

10:00-10:30 - A Word from Our Host Sofya Aptekar; An Introduction on “Re-imagining Security Labor” with Workshop Organizers Tessa, Erella, Winnie, Ed

10:30-12:00 - Panel 1: Security Labor Politics

Sofya Aptekar, School Labor and Urban Studies, CUNY, “Indebted Heroes: Debt Extraction and Military Labor in the United States”

Beatrice Jauregui​​​​​​​, University of Toronto, “Police Worker Politics, Collective Organizing, and Social Transformation: Global Comparative Perspectives”

Yutong Han, PhD Candidate, CUNY Grad School, “Security Work in the Age of Assets: The (De)Valorization of Physical Security Jobs in the United States”

1:00-2:20 - Panel 2:  Private and/or Reluctant Security Labor

Jasper Craven, Freelance Investigative Reporter​​, “The Thin Purple Line”

Marieke de Goede, University of Amsterdam, “Reluctant Security Actors”

Liz Chiarello, Associate Professor of Sociology, Saint Louis University, “Trojan Horse Technologies: Smuggling Criminal-Legal Logics into Healthcare Practice”

2:30-3:50 - Panel 3: Security Labor from a Distance, and Alternatives to Security

Shiv Issar, Nazareth College, Assistant Professor of Sociology, “Bullshit Security: Precarious Civilian Labor in India’s Surveillance Apparatus”

Ryan Ellis, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, “‘Catch-and-Kill’: How Bug Bounty Programs Undermine Security”

Stephanie Guirand, PhD in Sociology, Community Service Cares and The Black Response, “On Police Dependency”

Workshop 3:  The New School, Monday, November 11

1:00-1:30 - A Word from Our Host Sareeta Amrute

Introduction to “Re-imagining Security Labor” with Workshop Organizers Erella, Winnie, Ed (and Tessa in Absentia)

1:30-3:30 - Panel 1: Security Labor as Surveillance

Kelly Gates, Associate Professor of Communication and Science Studies, University of California, San Diego, “‘A High-Tech Company Masquerading as a Retailer’: Target as Video Surveillance Company”

Torin Monahan, Professor of Communication, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “Emancipatory Collectives: Community-based Resistance to Racialized Surveillance”

Josh Scannell, Assistant Professor in the School of Media Studies, The New School, “Weaponized Transparency”

3:45-5:45 - Panel 2: Security Labor Against Activists, and The Labor of Resisting Security

Sareeta Amrute, Associate Professor of Design and Anthropology, The New School, “Antisecurity Security”

Mariel Garcia-Montes, PhD Student in History, Anthropology, Science, and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Design, “Making the Invisible Visible: Malware Discovery as a Success of Security Labor”

Narcisse Mbunzama, Ardy Matuba Nzuzi, and Jean Jacques Mbambi Nyimi, Digital Security Group, Democratic Republic of Congo, “Digital Security for Human Rights Workers in the DRC: Reimagining Labor Amidst Conflict and Surveillance”