Xavier Guillaume is an Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands and has also taught at the Université de Genève, the University of Edinburgh and Sciences Po Paris. A citizen of Geneva, Switzerland, Xavier was born and raised in Geneva's suburbs by a working poor, divorced mother. Xavier specialises in security and international issues connected to the mundane ways by which people constitute their identities in relation to others, the state, or to other international actors.
Kyle Grayson is the Head of the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University UK and Professor of Security, Politics, and Culture. A Canadian-British dual-national, he was born and raised on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. He is the third successive generation in his family to have migrated for economic reasons. Currently, he is Co-Editor in Chief of the academic journal International Political Sociology and Vice-Chair of the British International Studies Association.

• Approaching security critically


• 1: Xavier Guillaume and Kyle Grayson: What is critique?


• 2: Xavier Guillaume and Kyle Grayson: Security


• 3: Xavier Guillaume and Kyle Grayson: Orders, power and hierarchies


• 4: Xavier Guillaume and Kyle Grayson: Political violence


• 5: Xavier Guillaume and Kyle Grayson: Critical Questions


• Key Themes in Security Studies


• 6: Cédric Moreau de Bellaing: Policing


• 7: Victoria Basham: War and socio-political orders


• 8: Christian Olsson: Terrorism and asymmetric conflicts


• Security as Identity


• 9: Melody Fonseca Santos: Identity and othering


• 10: Jennifer Hobbs and Laura McLeod: Gender and sexuality


• 11: Philippe M. Frowd: Nationalism, racism and xenophobia


• Security as Political Economy


• 12: Maria Stern: Securing development, developing security?


• 13: Sara E. Davies and Jessica Kirk: Health


• 14: Caitlin Ryan: Property, extraction and accumulation


• Security as Technology


• 15: Rocco Bellanova: Digital, (in)security and violence


• 16: Mark Lacy: Security and design


• 17: Michael Bourne: Weapon-systems


• Security as Space


• 18: Madeleine Fagan: Environment


• 19: Benjamin J. Muller: Borders and mobility


• 20: Anna Schliehe: Prisons and Camps

The only introduction to critical security studies to take a question-centred approach, with a unique emphasis on equipping students with the knowledge and skills to think, analyse, and debate using critical perspectives.