Security, at least in the (post-)industrial societies of the second half of the XXème century, has become a complete obsession, especially signalled by the saturation of language with the word security. For thirty years on, indeed, the word “security” proliferated, giving rise to new expressions/concepts such as “individual security,” “human security,” “ontological security,” “societal security,” “food security,” “computing security”… that came in addition to already established ones such as “national security” or “social security”.

From the 1990s onwards, the concept of security itself became especially controversial and essentially contested. In the academic world, discussions about concepts of security contributed to the emergence and progressive empowerment (autonomisation) of a field of study now known as “security studies” to which many researchers coming from various disciplinary backgrounds converged.

With this in mind, the main objective of this course is to provide the students with a conceptual grid that could help them to understand the contemporary realities of security and to decipher the discourses on security — be they academic discourses that construct security as an object of knowledge, or discourses by “security experts” when they seek to elaborate and implement security policies by simply taking security for granted.

In this purpose, the course is divided in two sections. After the introductory class, a first set of six classes will offer students a non-exhaustive, yet rather complete overview of the different “approaches” to and theorizations of security when developed as an object of knowledge by those intending to study security. A second set of three thematic classes will focus on three major contemporary sites of materialization and transformation of ‘security’ : ‘Security, Economy, Capital’,‘Security, Border, Migration’,‘Security, Development, Climate change’.