Refractions is a living repository of interdisciplinary digital security research. Much of the work in this repository comes from a critical position that challenges the norms and orthodox understandings of how we "do" security in a digital society. The Critical Security Reading Group offers a space where academics and security practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and practice communities come together to challenge their understandings of security in digital societies. If you would like to join us - do get in touch!

Critical Security Reading Group

The goal of the Critical Security Reading Group (CSRG) is to bring together diverse theoretical frameworks and methodologies from different disciplines to critically examine how social, economic, and political conditions shape the powers and effects of security technology. By bringing together a range of perspectives, we hope to challenge, interrogate, and expand our understanding of how different security practice and thinking shape, and are shaped by, digital technologies.

Although the CSRG is primarily a reading group, we don’t just work with academic papers. We also work with alternative formats including graphic novels, short stories, and film.

Session Structure

Sessions run fortnightly on Tuesdays between 4pm and 5.30pm during term-time. Sessions run over Zoom with occasional sessions in hybrid mode. Proposed papers are circulated in advance of each meeting. Each session is co-supported by a proposer (someone who proposes a paper or material for discussion) and a chair (someone who helps guide the discussion).

The session starts with a short introduction from the proposer and is followed in turn by a short contribution from each participant. Contributions can include (but are not restricted to) interesting observations, a question that emerged from the contents, a passage or artefact that might be further discussed, or a theme that warrants further discussion. After each contribution, the current contributor selects the next person. There is no obligation to offer a contribution, however.

Once the contributions are complete, the proposer, with the help of the chair, facilitates a group discussion of the paper using the contributions as a start point. The paper discussion might address:

- Initial thoughts on how the paper relates to information security/cybersecurity

- Definitions/explanations of key terms in the paper

- A critical evaluation of the security frame proposed in the paper (including an evaluation of who is benefited and underserved by the security frame and why, the impacts of the enactment of the security frame, and the power interests that shape the security frame)

- Who can realise the benefit intended by the deployment of the security frame and under what economic, political, and social conditions might this benefit be realised.

Interdisciplinarity

Interdisciplinary discussions can feel challenging and intimidating and we are careful to structure the sessions so that there is a space for everyone to contribute. We are a truly interdisciplinary group, and the group is open to participation from all disciplinary backgrounds. We are keen for people to share their disciplinary perspectives and their ways of engaging with and (and often mis-!) understanding texts so that we all can learn from each other.