Off the beaten track. Teaching critical security through London walks

Abstract

Speaker: Dr Stephan Engelkamp, King’s College London This talk discusses my experiences of leading students out of the classroom to highlight everyday political practices and structures of (in)security. Over the last years, I have developed several ‘London walks’ as practice elements of my teaching and integrated them into International Relations and Foreign Policy Analysis modules. I take students to different sites in London, for instance, the new US embassy in Nine Elms, situating this building and its surrounding space in larger processes of post-War on Terror infrastructure design, defensive architecture, surveillance, and related debates in Critical Security Studies. These walks exemplify how critical research on security and governance can be integrated into postgraduate teaching in a way that builds on the diversity of backgrounds and experiences in the classroom. The talk discusses the pedagogical rationale, and practical considerations in planning and conducting them.