Within the current climate of ‘permanent emergency’ in the post 9/11 context of the ‘war on terror’, security issues heavily weight on the successful staging of mega sport events. With two of the most globally coveted sport happenings forthcoming in 2008 – the Beijing Olympic Games and the European Football Championship in Austria and Switzerland – there is indeed a substantial need for critical enquiry into the functioning of security politics and into the wider socio-political implications of security and surveillance issues, linked with the organisation of mega sport events.

Both these sports events provide a programmatic foretaste of the unprecedented security apparatus, which will be surrounding the 2012 London Olympic Games. Although still more than four years away, repeated policy debates around the exploding security costs provide a strong flavour of the massive demonstration of strength to be expected in the UK at that moment. There is thus good reason to carefully consider what type of interests, mechanisms, practices and relationships are lying behind the security operations and strategies which assume to protect the population from dangers.

The conference engages with security & surveillance issues at mega sport events, as key moments, and as key locations, in the production and circulation of security & surveillance related practices and expertise on the local, regional and global scale. Conceptually, the conference builds upon the understanding of mega events as both the product and the producer of a broader set of developments in security politics, reaching from processes of militarisation of public safety to the increasing exemplification of the use of science-fiction security technologies, pointing out future trends in ‘intelligent’ risk-management.

It is from such a standpoint that the international conference seeks to assess the current state of research and expertise in security & surveillance issues surrounding mega sport events. Importantly, the conference aims to act as a bridge between scholarship and public policy, bringing together a wide range of scholars and analysts with practitioners, decision-makers and other stakeholders in security politics. The conference aims to be open to anyone with an interest in security & surveillance issues at mega sport events and in current developments of security politics more generally. With an interest in a large variety of disciplinary approaches, the conference wants to encourage debate around a wide range of (social, political, ethical, economic, urban etc.) issues, linked with the securitisation of mega sport events.

We are also currently looking into possible channels for publication via a journal special issue or a book project.

For further information, please contact:

f.r.klauser@durham.ac.uk

Dr Francisco Klauser
Institute of Hazard and Risk Research
Durham University
South Road
DH1 3LE Durham
Tel: 0191 334 22 58