Rewriting security: the (private) security industry and the gendered and racialised formations of prevention

This thesis analyses the agenda of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) and addresses the noteworthy absence of academic literature that explores the link between P/CVE and the private security industry, underlining that power manifests on a continuum between the public and private. Contributing to feminist security studies and adopting a feminist analysis which deconstructs “security” as an ontological entity, I use the terminology of a public-private continuum to problematise the binary public-private distinction by acknowledging a fluidity and connection between the sectors. Crucially, by highlighting P/CVE’s agility as both a security and development agenda, I demonstrate how P/CVE and its logic of prevention upholds, legitimises, and expands upon existing racialised and gendered power structures. Through an analysis of the context of Kenya, the thesis significantly contributes to unravelling the entanglement of security and development and highlights how security is adapting, even shapeshifting, through prevention. I argue that this adaptation is a justification and foundation for existing security strategies which further obscure racialised and gendered security strategies and practices as benign, blurring the line between what is seen “public” and what as “private”, what is made visible and what stays invisible.