Vernacular Security Studies

Concepts, Cases, and Critiques

Lee Jarvis, Michael Lister, Akinyemi Oyawale

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040674789
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book covers new conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues that will progress debate on Vernacular Security Studies (VSS) and the value of studying ordinary articulations of (in)security. Bringing together established and emerging scholars, it offers a timely and much needed engagement with this explicitly critical – and increasingly prominent – framework in security research. Demonstrating its value in different geographical, thematic, and historical contexts these experts consider the impact of VSS on a range of topical issues including multi-species relations, decolonial/ postcolonial approaches to security, migration, borders, and cities. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and students engaging with 'bottom-up' approaches in critical security studies or critical International Relations.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Vernacular grammars of in/security: (Post)colonial language games of border ‘crisis’ in the Channel
• 2 Insecurity of migrant women and complex state violence: A vernacular security approach
• 3 Material measures and (im)material threats: A ‘vernacular’ exploration of security in Istanbul
• 4 Branding Vernacular (In)security in and with the City: An Appnographic Study of Snapchat in Marseille
• 5 Vernacular actors in Trieste’s migrant geographies: Towards a spatialisation of vernacular security studies
• 6 Relational security: A ‘vernacular turn’ in the Pacific
• 7 Speaking for, speaking with: Vernacular research in the Global South
• 8 Security: vernacular, more-than-human, and otherwise
• Conclusion
• Index