Publication

In this theory talk, Rita Abrahamsen and Michael Williams investigate everyday, commercial, and non-militarized forms of private security and introduce the notion of 'security assemblages' to describe the complex mixes of actors involved in security governance. The authors lay bare some of the profoundly political questions that accompany this phenomenon; address some important misconceptions surrounding private security; and relate the way in which private security in Africa is constructed to questions of knowledge production and power in International Relations.