Governing events and life: ‘Emergency’ in UK Civil Contingencies

Emergency is now a taken-for-granted part of how 21st century life is governed, being applied by states, corporations and non-governmental organisations to a wide range of events. Despite its ubiquity, there are few reflections on emergency itself in distinction from the ‘state of emergency’. In this paper we complement and extend existing work on the legal–political geographies of the ‘state of emergency’, by arguing that distinct versions of emergency are produced in apparatuses of security. We exemplify this approach to the political geographies of security through a case study of the apparatus of organisational forms and techniques through which the UK state responds to a range of events: UK Civil Contingencies. Drawing on documentary analysis, interviews and observation, we show how events are governed in UK Civil Contingencies through a number of distinct versions of emergency that open up a specific field of action: an interval after an event occurs but before that event becomes a disaster. In relation to this interval, UK Civil Contingencies revolves around a ‘state of preparing for emergencies’ and a ‘state of responding in emergency’, whilst the ability to proclaim a ‘state of emergency’ remains in potential. In conclusion we set out the implications of our approach for future work on how events and life are governed.

► Emergency is more than a legal–political category.
► There are multiple versions of what an emergency is and does.
► UK Civil Contingencies is organised around an ‘interval’ of emergency.
► A ‘state of preparing for emergencies’ and a ‘state of responding in emergency’ co-exist.
► Research should trace how ‘versions of emergency’ are assembled.