The Time/Space of Preparedness

Abstract

The “next terrorist attack” has become one of the main fixtures of the collective imagination of catastrophic futures. Reflecting on a series of exercises and scenarios deployed to prepare for terrorist attacks, this article interrogates the co-constitution of temporality and spatiality in such practices. The main argument is that practices of preparedness enact a withdrawal of time, where the temporal uncertainty of the future event is displaced on the management of space. The separation of space and time implies that actions are not focused on understanding the conditions of possibility of the disruptive event but shift attention to the management of spaces and attention to behaviour that is considered out of place.