Het meest recente nummer van Urban Studies (november 2011) heeft als thema surveillance tijdens megasportevenementen, genre Olympische Spelen of Wereldbeker Voetbal.
One issue which has become central to the planning and implementation of sport mega events is security, particularly since the 9/11 attacks on the United States. (…) In the post-9/11 environment, rising expenditures on security demonstrate the intensification of the issue of sport and security. For example, while security spending at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics came to US$66 million, the budget for London 2012 stands at a projected US$1.7 billion.
Such expenditures are realised through the mobilisation of more security personnel, such as the 60 000 additional police officers to be drafted in for London 2012, and the implementation of high-tech security technologies.
Urban Studies gaat na welke effecten en impact de draconische veiligheidsmaatregelen hebben op de gaststeden en de gastlanden van sportieve megamanifestaties. Maar tegelijkertijd gaan de auteurs nog een stap verder.
The papers which are contained here also aim to understand and to situate contemporary mega event security as a symptomatic expression of a broader cluster of developments in contemporary security governance, which are in turn giving rise to new and profound social questions.
Urban Studies heeft het in dit kader onder meer over de militarisering en commercialisering van de openbare veiligheid en over de toename van technologische ingrepen bij veiligheidsproblemen in steden en bij andere controlemaatregelen.
Dit themanummer van Urban Studies is integraal te downloaden via Security and Surveillance at Sport Mega Events.