In recent times, the Blue Berets have become markers of peace and security around the globe. Yet, the iconoclastic symbol of both the Blue Beret and the Blue Helmet continue to engage the international political imagination in ways that downplay the inconsistent effects of peacekeeping missions on the security of local people. In this book, Paul Higate and Marsha Henry develop critical perspectives on UN and NATO peacekeeping, arguing that these forms of international intervention are framed by the exercise of power. Their analysis of peacekeeping, based on fieldwork conducted in Haiti, Liberia and Kosovo, suggests that peacekeeping reconfigures former conflict zones in ways that shape perceptions of security. This reconfiguration of space is enacted by peacekeeping personnel who 'perform' security through their daily professional and personal practices, sometimes with unanticipated effects. Insecure Spaces' interdisciplinary analysis sheds great light on the contradictory mix of security and insecurity that peace operations create.

An ethnographic investigation into the dynamics between space and security in countries around the world It is difficult to imagine two contexts as different as a soccer stadium and a panic room. Yet, they both demonstrate dynamics of the interplay between security and space. This book focuses on the infrastructures of security, considering locations as varied as public entertainment venues to border walls to blast-proof bedrooms. Around the world, experts, organizations, and governments are managing societies in the name of security, while scholars and commentators are writing about surveillance, state violence, and new technologies. Yet in spite of the growing emphasis on security, few truly consider the spatial dimensions of security, and particularly how the relationship between space and security varies across cultures. This volume explores spaces of security not only by attending to how security is produced by and in spaces, but also by emphasizing the ways in which it is constructed in the contemporary landscape. The book explores diverse contexts ranging from biometrics in India to counterterrorism in East Africa to border security in Argentina. The ethnographic studies demonstrate the power of a spatial lens to highlight aspects of security that otherwise remain hidden, while also adding clarity to an elusive and dangerous way of managing the world.

Public places are places where all citizens, irrespective of their race, age, religion, or class level (social or economic), cannot be excluded. It serves to improve the lifestyle experience of its inhabitants, as well as promote social connections. All citizens are responsible for it and are interested in it, and the intervention for change must be the responsibility of all without exception. As such, bottom-up urban planning is essential for urban environments and for transforming nightlife in public places in order to create more meaningful experiences and instill a greater sense of identity and community. Transforming Urban Nightlife and the Development of Smart Public Spaces analyzes the patterns of transformations of nightlife in public life. The book investigates urban nightlife transformations and the challenge of enhancing the sense of belonging in sensitive areas such as local communities and historical sites. The chapters present new insights to control the chaotic intervention related to the elements of traditional or digital technology, whether from citizens themselves or local authorities. The objective also is to document urban nightlife transformations that enhance the sense of belonging in historical sites. Important topics covered include urban-gamification, digital urban art, urban socio-ecosystems, and reimagining space in the urban nightlife. This book is ideal for urban planners, developers, social scientists, technologists, civil engineers, architects, policymakers, government officials, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in urban nightlife and nightscape and the smart technologies used for transformation.

Forging New Conventional Wisdom Beyond International Policing: Learning from Complex, Political Realities provides an innovative perspective in the field by conceptualizing international policing as part of a much broader system of peace and capacity development initiatives. Authors Bryn Hughes, Charles T. Hunt, and Jodie Curth-Bibb provide a thorough analysis of the current problems in the field, and subsequently offer a convincing argument for a new, post-Weberian approach.

Young people imagine, perceive, experience, talk about, use, and produce space in a wide variety of ways. In doing so, they acquire and produce stocks of spatial knowledge. A quite dynamic and ever-changing process by nature, young people’s production and acquisition of spatial knowledge are susceptible to many kinds of conditions—from those that shape their everyday routines to those that constitute historical turning points. Against this backdrop and drawing on a qualitative metaanalysis, the authors set out to discover what changes the spatial knowledge of young people has undergone during the past five decades. To that end, sixty published studies were sampled, analyzed, and synthesized to offer a meta-interpretation in terms of both the evolution of young people’s spatial knowledge and the refiguration of spaces. As such, this book will appeal to scholars conducting spatial research on childhood and youth as well as scholars interested in urban studies from diverse disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, geography, architecture, urban planning, and design. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. The Open Access fee was funded by Technische Universität Berlin

The vision of this book is to bring together examples of grounded geographic research carried out in Latin America regarding territorial processes. These encompass a range of histories, processes, strategies and mechanisms, with case studies from ten countries and many regions: struggles to reclaim indigenous lands, conflicts over land/resource/environmental services, competing land claims, urban territorial identities, state power strategies, commercial involvements and others. The case studies included in the book represent a wide diversity of theoretical and methodological framings currently deployed in Latin America to help interpret the patterns and processes through the conceptual lenses of territory, territoriality and territorialization. Interrogating the meanings of territory introduces multiple spatial, socio-cultural and political concepts including space, place and landscape, power, control and governance, and identity and gender.

The structuring of Urban Space is as topical as ever in this era of climate change, hyper-urbanisation, post-digital labour markets, and geo-political power shifts. Scholarship of the contemporary urban condition is dominated by studies and examples drawn from the global north. Yet, cities of the global south are distinctive from those of the global north. Socio-political conditions structure patterns and practices of urban reproduction and, in turn, Urban Space reflects conditions in the Global South. Th­e result is different space related outcomes. Th­is is the central topic of this collection. In this book, a unique collection of case study-based accounts posits both English and Spanish academic literature to interpret and reinterpret the appropriation, negotiation and reconfiguration of Urban Space in cities, from Colombia to Namibia. ­This collection will be of particular interest to urban scholars and others interested in contemporary urban change, especially those with an interest in the Global South. Readers will encounter new perspectives on the State’s enduring influence in urban land and territory reconfiguration and the contrasting wider rhetoric that affords and legitimises a key role for the private sector. Th­e case studies also illuminate opportunities and possibilities for grassroots organising to challenge prevailing city actor hierarchies. ­They also highlight the political-economic consequences of particular cases of bus rapid transport projects for spatial and social segregation. Across these and other topics, recurring themes of inequality, governance, and environment are investigated in contested urban terrains. Th­e result is a unique collection of viewpoints, with a common, critical narrative on the present and future challenges facing cities of the Global South.

Many of Bolivia's poorest and most vulnerable citizens work as vendors in the Cancha mega-market in the city of Cochabamba, where they must navigate systems of informality and illegality in order to survive. In Owners of the Sidewalk Daniel M. Goldstein examines the ways these systems correlate in the marginal spaces of the Latin American city. Collaborating with the Cancha's legal and permanent stall vendors (fijos) and its illegal and itinerant street and sidewalk vendors (ambulantes), Goldstein shows how the state's deliberate neglect and criminalization of the Cancha's poor—a practice common to neoliberal modern cities—makes the poor exploitable, governable, and consigns them to an insecure existence. Goldstein's collaborative and engaged approach to ethnographic field research also opens up critical questions about what ethical scholarship entails.

Response to financial meltdown is entangled with basic challenges to global governance. Environment, global security and ethnicity and nationalism are all global issues today. Focusing on the political and social dimensions of the crisis, contributors examine changes in relationships between the world’s richer and poorer countries, efforts to strengthen global institutions, and difficulties facing states trying to create stability for their citizens. Contributors include: William Barnes, Rogers Brubaker, Vincent Della Sala, Nils Gilman, David Held, Mary Kaldor, Adrian Pabst, Ravi Sundaram, Vadim Volkov, Michael Watts, and Kevin Young. The Deepening Crisis is the second part of a trilogy comprised of the first three books in the Possible Future series. Volume 1: Business as Usual Volume 2: The Deepening Crisis Volume 3: Aftermath The three volumes are linked by a common introduction and can be purchased individually or as a set.

The publication will reflect Lord Desai's work in diverse fields of the social sciences (economics, philosophy, political science) as well as his passionate commitment to the freedom and wellbeing of individuals, and his optimism about human progress and globalisation.