security

The securitization of immigration prioritizes the goal of protecting the body politic from infection by the menacing foreigner. The securitization of legal citizenship complements this process by facilitating the discursive and sometimes literal mutation of the citizen into the foreigner. Investing in mechanisms that enable the conversion or reversion of risky people to the legal status of foreigner simplifies the equation of state security with citizen security.

In 2008, 260 humanitarian aid workers were killed, kidnapped or seriously injured in violent attacks – the highest yearly toll on record. This HPG Policy Brief analyses 12 years worth of data on attacks on aid workers. The figures are examined by location, tactics, and the types of organisation and staff affected.

This paper summarises findings from a two-year study examining aid in insecure environments. Drawing on the most comprehensive global dataset to date of major reported incidents of violence against aid workers from 1997 to 2005, it provides a quantitative analysis of the changing security environment for civilian aid operations. It then examines the related trends in policy and operations over the last decade, in particular how perceptions of increased risk to aid operations have affected the development of security measures.