The Securitization of Catastrophic Events

Abstract

Psychological knowledge has become incorporated into a range of security practices, discourses, and interventions in catastrophic events, including terrorism. By engaging the existing literature on the medicalization and psychologization of security, this article reads the enactment knowledge deployed in preparedness exercises from the perspective of psychodrama and sociodrama rather than that of psychoanalysis or psychosocial risk management. Enactment has become an important mode of knowledge for the governance of terrorism, as preparedness exercises deploy action methods, drama, enactment, and performance to prepare for unexpected, catastrophic events. Taking seriously the conceptualization of enactment, as deployed in psychodrama and sociodrama, can also challenge the securitization of catastrophic events. The article concludes that enactment, which foregrounds action rather than speech, and suggests that meaning follows action, can also offer critical insights into securitization theory.