Contested topologies of UK counterterrorist surveillance: the rise and fall of Project Champion

Abstract

This article empirically analyses the provenance, application and abandonment of Project Champion, a scheme designed to encircle two Birmingham neighbourhoods with surveillance cameras. Locating analysis within the anticipatory turn in social control practices, particular emphasis is placed on how collapsing distinctions between internal and external security draw multiple new actors and agencies into the despatch of counterterrorism. The article argues that topological approaches informed by Foucauldian notions of “security” allow for a better understanding of these heterogeneous techniques and configurations of security practice. Foucauldian notions of security represent a move beyond territorial control to the management of circulations, where subjects are left in situ, but their mobilities are monitored, delineated and assessed.