Who are we?

Well, we are not what we used to be (undefinedsee below) because we are more and in this case more is certainly better. Since April 2010 Kendra Briken and Jenny Künkel joint us in preparing the conference undefinedUrban Security Workspaces. It will be a cold day in hell when the five of us will be in the city at the same time and find an opportunity for a photo session (Well it might happen, but ....). Meanwhile we wait for a short bio from Kendra and Jenny and publish it here once it arrives.

Image showing Kendra Briken

 

Image showinf Jenny Künkel

Who were we?

From left to right: Jens Sambale, Volker Eick, Eric Töpfer. At Eric's house. Click to enlarge it!
From left to right: Jens Sambale, Volker Eick, Eric Töpfer. At Eric's house. Click to enlarge it!

We are all political scientists trained at the undefinedOtto-Suhr-Institute (Freie Universität Berlin). We graduated a long long time ago (1993 and 1996) and went into a variety of research projects (politics of homelessness, labor-market policies, security regimes and urban surveillance) that more often than not had a comparative perspective. So the short ad hoc working definition is:

We do urban stuff!

That is the research side of things. On accounts of activism, we are not in the streets that much anymore. Some of us are still affiliated with alma mater (i.e. the undefinedJohn F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies and the undefinedZentrum Technik und Gesellschaft) but we do a lot of our work outside academia these days - and sometimes we even get paid! Not for this conference though. This conference is one in a series (actually the third). The unifying themes of these conferences are:

  • 1. An international, comparative urban perspective
  • 2. A broad funding base outside the main academic sources
  • 3. A publication a couple of month after the actual conference
  • 4. A lot of fun with our international friends
  • 5. (Self-) Exploitation
  • 6. Lack of sleep

See this undefinedwebsite for some of our publications (conferences and beyond) and this undefinedwebsite for some others.

If you wish to contact us either use the undefinedcontact form or this undefinedemail.

New at policing crowds:

Program: Urban Security Work Spaces:  Policing the Crisis – Policing in Crisis 15:21 Program: Urban Security Work Spaces: Policing the Crisis – Policing in Crisis
Please see the program for the conference in August 2010 (as of early July 2010).
Decommodification by Dispossession? (Non-)Volunteering Long-Term Unemployed on the Security Market 15:12 Decommodification by Dispossession? (Non-)Volunteering Long-Term Unemployed on the Security Market
In January 2005, the then Social Democratic-Green Government of Germany introduced the so-called Hartz Laws (Hartz IV). With this legislation, long-term unemployed were to lose their insurance-based entitlements for unemployment benefits.
Obstacles to Community Policing Implementation: A comparative perspective 14:59 Obstacles to Community Policing Implementation: A comparative perspective
Community policing has been designed in the United States after the 1960s riots to address the conflict between police and minorities in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Many countries facing similar challenges have developed community policing programs.
Urban Security Work Spaces: Policing the Crisis - Policing in Crisis 16:01 Urban Security Work Spaces: Policing the Crisis - Policing in Crisis
The 21st century is witnessing what has been called the »pluralization of policing« (Jones & Newburn, 2006; cf. Eick et al., 2007): Private security companies, at least since the early 1990s, have started to conquer public spaces and are developing some expertise in policing (Rigakos, 2002;...
The Urban Security Work Space in a Neoliberal Germany: Producing and selling security in times of crisis 15:09 The Urban Security Work Space in a Neoliberal Germany: Producing and selling security in times of crisis
Research on neoliberal welfare systems has underlined that work nowadays is framed as a gift and a duty by employers and politicians alike:   While work should by understood as a gift for those in the job market, for those without jobs work turns into a duty. Studies on labor precarization...